Exercise and Seedings

I think Shawn placed the new garden behind the barn to help get my sorry ass back into shape.  The new water line he pulled through the barn and out the back is a great help, but I still move the hose 5 times to cover the garden!!  If we go bigger next year, we may have to look into an actual irrigation system, not just a 100' hose and a lawn sprinkler.

The onions are going to end up replaced, very little is coming up, BUT, the cabbage, carrots, chard, chicory, and radishes are popping up through the soil!  Soon, weeding will be easier, because the plants will look like plants, not yet another weed popping up in the garden.

'scuse me, I gotta trudge back out and move the hose.  The peppers need water.

Dreaming

Sometimes the worst is the not knowing.  No matter how bad I want this re-start for my family, when you are renting and living pretty close to the bone, dreams of even a small scale homestead can just seem to far away to grasp.

I have read just about all I can read.  I have scoured the internet for information.  I ask questions of those with experience.  My daughter joined 4-H, and takes riding lessons, and while she is doing her thing, I am peppering the families with farms with questions.

We have built an awesome coop.  Because my ex-husband doesn't pay his child support, times are tight, and I am afraid that getting chickens for it will take longer than I hoped.  But on the bright side, my dreaming companion Shawn, had a vision of scrap lumber, and at the very least, we have an amazing coop, awaiting occupants.

 The garden is in, thanks to a borrowed tractor.  The soil is in great shape, it is behind the barn, where for several years, the field was used as cow pasture.  The weeds are a pain in the butt to say the least, though.  It was pasture grass, and that is pretty hardy stuff.  Despite being plowed under 5 times, it is making a come back!