In article ,
songbird wrote:

lovely weather lately, sunshine, mid 60s-70s most of the
time.

the rain finally went away and things have dried out enough
that i can get back to the drainage project. it is much easier
to redig than dig the first time. what took me about ten days
to reach before i've already passed in one day.

the challenge this time around is that there is standing
water in a part of the trench and that makes for slippery
and sticky clay digging, pretty much have to scrape the
shovel clean with a trowel i keep handy for the task every
few shovels full. i'd hoped i had the slope set right for
drainage just by eyeballing it the first time around and
was just about to run the level string and check it when we
had the heavy rains that put the pause on. after the heavy
rain with much of it slumped i wasn't up to digging again
until i recovered from illness and the weather dried out
enough. i had plenty of other things to keep me busy...

a few more days and i should be back to where i was and
perhaps can get the tubes down and it partially filled back in
so that if more rains do come again it won't be such a mess.

that is the joy of doing things in stages by hand. we don't
have an easy way to get any equipment back there and by far, in
terms of health for my back, the exercise of digging is much
better for me. especially when i can take breaks and watch the
dragon flies or have fun observing a crayfish try to get the
burrow emptied of debris that i've knocked in... amazing
creatures that live so far down in the clay, they follow the
water table as it goes up and down and when they surface in the
winter/spring months the raccoons try to catch them out...

before heading out to dig yesterday i was able to pick
another round of dry beans from the plants that have finished
up pods lately. those will be drying further inside (as i've
found out the chipmunks and mice will raid the box tops once
i stack them in the garage. after picking dry beans i enjoyed
some nice cherry tomatoes from the vine. they are still going
strong with no hard frosts (the golden variety we have planted)
but in contrast the sweet 100s gave up weeks ago.

i'm still finding plenty of new varieties/crosses in the
dry bean shelling. very interesting this year compared to all
of the previous seasons.

the few gardens i managed to get taken care of for the fall
are up and sprouted and look nice with some green cover. i'm
so not used to grasses, it looks strange, crying out for a
haircut.

that's about it for news on the gardens, in recent readings
i've continued the Biosphere 2 theme and have enjoyed the
various perspectives from the different authors. i have been
reading them in order of publication date the most recent
was _Dreaming the Biosphe the Theatre of All Possibilities_
by Rebecca Reider.

oh, yes, we've finished the canning for the season. plenty
of tomatoes stocked up again and some apple sauce and pickled
beets.

whatchu been upto?


songbird

The garden was so-so this year. An early promise of heat fizzled out,
and the garden responded accordingly. I'm still picking tomatoes, and
cucumbers, but the peppers never really got the heat that they needed.

Work-wise, the grape harvest was the quickest I've ever experienced. We
in the lab stayed on a 5 day schedule with 1 to 2 hours of overtime/day,
but the cellar crew got hammered with no days off for 2 weeks, and
regularly running 12 hour+ days. Even the cellar master said he didn't
want to play anymore, but he immediately recanted, fearful, I'm sure,
that the statement may find its way to judgmental ears.

Ah, the joys of agriculture.
--
Palestinian Child Detained
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzSzH38jYcg

Remember Rachel Corrie
http://www.rachelcorrie.org/

Welcome to the New America.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg