On Sunday morning I had planned to get out to the Small garden by 6:30AM. It’s been so cold at night lately I’ve had all the shades pulled against it. I try to pull them up after 7AM when the sun is well up.
But what I hadn’t realized is that it’s now still full dark at 6:30AM… So I never got out there until 7:15AM.
But that allowed me to get my post up before I went out.
The oak tree had dropped enough branches to nearly fill a sled during the night. So I cleaned up the parts I’d already done before starting the remainder.
I got the final third cleaned out by 8AM and went and got the truck and loaded it with the too big pieces of wood I’ve saved for holding things in place.
I went inside and Tom had texted he’d not be here until after 9AM, so I sat down to rest a while. He arrived just before 9:30AM and he backed the truck down to the garden.
Then we emptied the garden shed and got the cold frame covers in the back.
We found the birdhouses.
The mess we made
And got out all the tarp totes and took them to the garden.
I had snacked on the raspberries early before the yellow jackets came out.
We dragged over a lot of hay bales and mulched the low areas quickly. It wasn’t a great mulching job, just enough to keep the weeds down until spring. I’d be moving it all then anyways to amend.
I had a new big tarp and we put that down first then used the remaining large tarps, filling in with the pieces of tarp I had left. There were just 2 small areas not covered. We didn’t use all the wood so we had to unload the truck back into the woodshed.
We put the garden shed back together but Tom didn’t have time left to start on the birdhouses. So they went back in on top of the tarp tote as he’d do them in a couple weeks.
I have to lay out where the garlic will be planted if and when it ever arrives. It will have to be in the Big garden. I’m hoping it can go by the driveway, as that is already cleaned out.
But soon I will be cleaning out this garden. The tomatoes are past it now and the mesclun bed mostly gone to seed. Oddly enough the basil is still going strong even though we’ve had nights in the 30’s.
Our co-op was having a flash sale on boneless chicken breasts so I asked my brother to pick up 30 lbs for the year. I got the job of vacuum sealing them for the freezer. These obviously came from frankenbirds, as each breast is well over a pound. A 10 lb bag only gave us 8 breasts… But they came from a reputable local farm so it’s the best I can do if I can’t raise my own.
I’d spent the afternoon mostly dozing through ‘All the President’s Men’ so I turned on the commentary and started watching it again in the evening. I was in bed shortly after 8PM.
On Monday I have appointments, laundry, calling the Attorney General and Better Business Bureau about Sunrun, planting the 2 mums (I hope), and the contractor comes to work on the front porch mid afternoon.
So another busy day…