It's been a haggard week-- Monday started in the back of the boss's house. His water heater died, so we cut the pipes free, dragged the rusty tub outside and went hunting for a new one. The boss and I make a motley crew, our dirty slouch versus the pristine order of retail, sauntering about in public had an acutely surreal quality. I drove him around to a few box stores before we found a price he could agreed with-- we stopped for a fine time at the dump-- and then returned to the farm in order to meet the plumber. The pipe-man was a secret architect-geek and was fascinated by the boss's house. I left to harrow, while they debated green building and eventually installed the heater.
The weekend frosts passed, all blueberry and strawberry buds survived, but the pepper seedlings in the greenhouse didn't fair as well. A third of the trays caught a killing freeze-- I culled out the lifeless and consolidated the living into order. There was a big empty chunk left over-- a matter for Tuesday. The weather was pretty calm Monday afternoon, so we phoned in a fire permit and burned (burn season is now officially over). I had my own small fire on a hill overlooking the cow pasture. Popped the radio, smoked a few and dozed the day away.
Tuesday was rain. A shower turned into a day long down pour. I hid away in the greenhouse and seeded up a storm: 5 more trays of swiss chard (400 plants) , 6 trays of mixed lettuce (1500 plants) and 3 more basil (750 plants)-- these filled the pepper gaps. But there was a lot of day remaining, so I dry seeded a slew of broccoli to preempt the completion of the cold frame: 4 trays of 75 day (450 plants), 6 trays of 76 day (500ish plants), now I lost track of my tray numbers-- 2000 plants of 86 day, 3000 plants of 88 day and 3000 plants of 96 day. A little under 9000 broccoli plants-- god damn what a mess of work is ahead.
Then there was today.
Cloudy all day through-- temperature in the mid 50Fs.
I headed over to the berry fields with the tractor and four 4x4 wood beams-- last week we augured deep holes through the black-raspberry field, so it was finally time to sink in the head-posts for a new trellis system. After pounding everything down and tamping home the dirt I headed back to meet the delivery man. 5,000 lbs worth of fertilizers was delivered and laid out on palates-- signed all the paper work and rung up the boss for the check.
Once everything was straightened out, I hitched up the spreader and got the boss fertilizing the blueberries. These bushes thrive in tough soil-- acidic pH and low nutrients-- so we loaded up 500lbs of 7-7-7 (potassium, nitrogen and phosphorus). While the boss was off I put on shoulder length haz-mat gloves, grabbed a grub hoe and headed to the black raspberries to tear up 50ft x 3ft worth of thick poison ivy. It was my personal hell-- despite the gloves, I look forward to many new rashes. In between hoeing and refilling the spreader, I cleaned up the mess of spilled soil I left in the greenhouse during my seeding marathon (filled a trash bag).
It took a few hours for the boss to cover all the tractor-accessible areas of the three blueberry fields. In the last minutes before lunch we measured/staked out the cold-frame. We then worked long into lunchtime, chaining/hauling telephone poles into position, but it was all finally done/ready for hammers and nail.
Newport was back after lunch, and boy, time off did him no favors. Bill collectors had been hounding him and inaction had led him to the door of insanity. So it was a cold reunion. We gathered up buckets and cups, then hitched a ride with the boss to the far-off blueberry fields along the cow pasture. The terrain gets pretty shaky in these less-kept fields, but we hand fertilized 1lb per bush. It took around 700lb worth to finish the two fields.
We hiked back to the farm and loaded up the tractor with 500lbs worth of 9-19-9 (i think that was it, all the damn numbers run together now) and headed up to the peach orchard. The boss was out carpet fertilizing all the fields marked for early sweet corn, using that same 9-19-whatever it was. All the 1-3 year saplings got a light 1/2 lb sprinkle around the base, the older trees received the full lb. Aim is important with all hand fertilizing-- the granules themselves are pretty caustic (due to the concentration), so you never want to hit the plant. A few stray beads here and there can burn the root bulbs and cause some long term damage. So we sprinkle everything wide and loose over where the roots reach. That way, once it rains, everything will be diluted and seep downward where it's needed.
It wasn't long before the orchard was done, so Newport and I headed down to start bringing together the cold-frame. I took out the grind-wheel wand sawed off the old iron-telephone-ladder-pegs, while Newport hammered on the end-boards. The iron pegs were no joke-- sparks exploded and it took a solid minute of sawing per nail to hack 'em off. Newport started loosing up and tried to light dead grass on fire off my sparks. That was a bad choice. He caught a hunk of orange-hot steel filament to the eyeball. Through some miracle he managed to pluck it out before his eyelids dragged it all over the place-- which would have been very bad. He handed me the chunk and said-- feel it, rub it between your fingers (I did). Goddamn it! That was in my eye! He kept his distance as I finished off the pegs.
Next we measured everything up, took out the circular saw and built a middle partition. I could try to explain this construction project, but it's a tragic combination of genius/half-assed supplies/impatience. I'll take some pictures tomorrow morning so you can see how things develop. But anyway, we built the middle partition and then sawed up a series of notched posts-- we'll rest old irrigation pipes along the grooves to form a little tee-pee roof over the monstrosity. The end of the day was long passed when I looked over the whole thing-- we really should have leveled the ground more before building.
We met the boss-- I got my orders for tomorrow, and Newport left with a direly needed check.
Rain ahead, rain behind, this sunny sort of notion just crossed my mind.
Take it easy.
Because I can:
No comments:
Post a Comment