Planting Season

The rain started just after I raked smooth a hundred pounds of gypsum across the South-Forty.  With the rain, the gypsum will have worked into the soil and broken the clay from bonding. It will make digging up the soil easier and by the time I get the compost on, will be ready for the rotor-till. Next week I'll have the plants from the nursery.

Some I have started from seed, Swiss chard, Cilantro, and Oak lettuce but the rest I'll get at the nursery and some seeds as well, like the Sun flowers.  I may try some native pumpkin seeds that I still have and see how they do. Nothing like them, as far as how they look. They take up a hell of a lot of space but there huge round squash leaves and golden squash flowers, the size of a dinner plate, make the garden look like a lily pond.

Have to get new fish. I think the cold killed the others. I'm not sure if I want goldfish or guppies. The guppies had babies but when it turned real cold, by that I mean in the high thirties here, they vanished. Still, they were small and ate the mosquito larvae like crazy.

The grape harbor will be up in a week or two, Redwood, and the grapes will arrive by next week as well. It will take two years though before we'll get any grapes. My hope is that Wally will be able to enjoy them in two years. Right now he can appreciate the garden, I just hope it's that way in two years when the grapes come in.

I had a real surprise today, Wally went with me to the nursery and when I ordered the compost and gypsum, he knew, without me telling him, to open the glove compartment in order to push the button for the trunk to open so they could load the order. He was like a kid, and when I gave him the okay, he beamed and pushed the button and then watched the trunk spring open. The Fat Ass Cadillac is his car and though it sucks gas like a hog sucks slop, we'll keep it as long as we can. Anything that he can still connect with is kept and it's all okay.

That little act of opening the trunk, made my day.