Livin' on a Prairie

I had a migraine that kept me from going to work this morning, but as it turned out, that was fortuitous. The headache was well under control and down to a dull roar by 11, then throwing a nasty hissy-fit around 11:30, just before we got a large delivery of trees and plants. This time, it was the rest of our seed potatoes, 25 strawberry plants, 2 magnolia trees, 24 evergreens for a windbreak, and [most of] our super fruit tree (8 of 9) collection.

Well, M wanted to get started right away, but we couldn't realistically plant all of them, especially with my head roaring at me. So we did our research (ah, don't we always?) and got my headache under control with the meds, the sunglasses, and some lunch, and away we went to get mulch and weed-blocker cloth and all the other planting things we needed. [Including a gorilla wagon, which is awesome. It has four wheels and has a dumping basket. We can carry up to 600 pounds in it and dump up to 300. It took an hour and a half to put together, but after 5 minutes of not having to lug around a bag of wet peat moss, it was totally worth it.]

M tilled a big stretch of 100 feet for the strawberries after we agreed where to plant everything. At 6:30, we started mixing peat moss into the soil, and at 8:30 we were done. Tomorrow, the trees...

* Stringham high: Trees, trees, trees! Straaaaaaaaaaaawwberries!
* Stringham low: What's there to be sad about on a day that was sunny and in the 50s?
* Stringham super-high: We took a break after working the soil and laying the weed-blocking cloth and laid down on the grass, staring at the sky. In that moment, ah, the contentment! I spent my morning and early afternoon freelancing (in the semi-darkness) and the afternoon working to plant our food. I spent the whole day with my husband, working on our little "mini-farm/soon-to-be orchard," and lying next to him in the sun. Only a couple of kids and a dog running around could have made me feel more delighted. [The title links to an article about mini farms. What we are doing is not absent of power tools, nor is it focused on making ure to be pesticide free, but it is very close to this.]