April 18, 2009
74, cloudy, slight drizzle

Things are moving along around here. After last weeks' tilling up of sod, we let it rest a few days in order to let the exposed grass roots dry out and (hopefully!) die. Today we rented a tiller again in order to go over it all one last time. Now that the root layer of the sod is broken up and beginning to decompose, we can go through and reach deeper. This worked pretty well in most spots, however we did discover a fairly wide swath in our future veggie patch that contained a trove of treasures. Birkleigh has now opened up her own museum from the artifacts we have dug up. Her display includes two forks and a spoon, can lids, pot shards, and other flotsam. We also unearthed half a mile of chain and wire, all previous dog anchors. This place used to be a dog farm. Well, not quite so nice a place as a dog farm, really. it was a place dogs lived on chains, under cars and an old bus. I was actually here once, in a professional capacity.

But that was then, this is the hereafter. Our little piece of the world is now only occupied by very happy and very well trained dogs that choose to ignore their good training on a regular basis. Because we are so gentle and generous, we only laugh merrily at their adorable antics such as jumping up on old people and excavating out all the bulbs I planted 6 months ago just as they are about to bloom.

Back to the garden! We have pried out long lengths of chain, pieces of glass, two basketball sized boulders, enough wire to start a Radio Shack franchise, and the remnants of an old fire pit. It brings up a mixture of surprise, adventure, mystery, and a re-working of our garden layout. Probably not a good idea to put the potatoes where there seems to be an old brickyard 6 inches below the surface, etc., etc. Maybe we should put them closer to the compost pile this year, and put the corn over there. Potatoes can be grown in containers, but we are wanting to grow a whole lot of potatoes. We'd never have enough containers.

Anywho. This was the third tiller we've used in a week, and I can't say I liked any one of them enough to say I'd buy one. After the Italian job, we used a Snapper. That was easy to maneuver and the controls didn't wear one's hands out, but it didn't have the weight to power through thick grass roots without lurching forward. The one today was enormous. Not in the width of the tines, they were maybe 24 inches wide, but it was built heavy It had a huge front end. While the extra weight did help hold the tines in the ground when it came to churning through those sod roots, it made for a very exhausting excursion around the beds. It was tooo heavy to want to have as a member of the Prairie Fire Farm stable.

At the end of the day, the beds were as tilled as they were gonna get, we loaded the tiller back up onto the trailer for the return to town tomorrow. That's a good feeling. The rain is going to start tonight. The next two days, in fact, it's going to rain. I wish we could get at least one more sunny day to rake the beds smooth and get some more planting done.

We did manage to get a raspberry patch started up near the hay field. Took some before and after shots.




Spring is really quite underway. The grass is greening up very nicely, the birds are singing their little heads off, the first flowers are blooming, the buds are just beginning to swell on the apple trees. We've had a few very nice warm and sunny days, and then we slide back down into chilly cold days. Looking forward to going through our first Spring here on the farm!