Hello Everyone!
A very long nap, Getting in motion, Some fickle weather, Gathering soil, Planting seeds & Doing some terrace repairs!
Alright, I wound up falling asleep late in the day and then kept sleeping until well after midnight... which resulted in me missing the time-frame that I had scheduled for writing an entry for today. Currently, it is creeping up on three in the morning and having woken up feeling 'wide awake' I brewed some espresso... and decided to at least try to peck out an entry before I start feeling sleepy again.
I am really unsure what the cause is but I keep getting 'worn out feeling' rather quickly of late... and instead of 'pushing through it' or drinking copious amounts of coffee... I have been taking naps instead. I guess that the best way to describe how I have been feeling is 'fatigued' and honestly I dunno if it is physical fatigue, mental/emotional fatigue (or some combination of both) but it assuredly keeps impacting my overall productivity each day.
Not to be fully stopped by such things, I keep forcing myself to put my boots on, put my safety glasses on my head, stuff my work gloves in my back pocket... and get outdoors before I can start overthinking things. Of course, I always find stuff to do once I am 'in motion' like that... but getting to that point (of getting outdoors) is much more of a struggle than what I am accustomed to dealing with from myself.
Admittedly, part of my inclination to stay indoors has to do with the mild feelings of privacy and seclusion that doing so provides. Having to overcome that inclination is the real tricky part in the equation... because all these months later I still internally cringe every time that a vehicle goes by... and often long for having a heck of a lot more woods between me and the rest of the human world.
Anyways, I did manage to get a good bit of stuff done throughout the day and it was actually a pretty nice day because although it was super warm outside... there was also just enough of a breeze to keep it feeling pleasant. That has not been the case for most of the days the last several weeks because I have been constantly having to wear a jacket (or a sweater) in the shade... and then immediately shed it each time that I started working in a sunny area!
Since 'getting stuff planted for the year' has been nagging at me a lot lately, I decided to focus on that for the day... and in the process I even managed to make that 'table' to put the potted plants on. Calling it a 'table' is rather misleading because (as it turns out) I went the simple route... and just laid down a few small logs on the ground, placed a few planks of wood on top of them, determined that it was 'good enough' and then moved all the flower pots that I could onto it.
That setup worked out rather well but did not quite accommodate all of the flower pots... so I wound up putting the rest of them atop the chicken coop. I was actually pretty surprised at how many plants (and black locust trees) made it through the winter in those flower pots... and did my best to make sure that those pots were placed in the sunniest areas.
As far as planting new stuff goes, I planted all the remaining tomato seeds that I had... as well as two thirds of the pumpkin (and squash) seeds that I had. I also planted some Kentucky-31 grass seeds in a few of the pots that I put atop the chicken coop... just to see if I can grow enough of it in pots to produce some more seeds.
Once I was done with all that jazz, I rummaged around in the storage tent, found my remaining flower pots and hiked downhill with them to a spot near the outdoor shower... where I found some good topsoil to harvest in the bottom of the gulch. Aside from being a much more convenient area to gather soil from (because it is only halfway down the hill) the soil itself also has much less clay and sand in it so that all worked out rather nicely.
I was so stoked at finding such good topsoil, that I wound up converting a few plastic containers into 'flower pots' and planting some pumpkins in them. I also put those containers atop the chicken coop... and hopefully they do well enough there that their vines will reach the adjacent 'trellises' created by the dog yard fence.
Obviously, I am rather pleased at having gotten so much stuff planted in one day... but I never got around to scarifying (or planting) any black locust seeds. At this point I will need to fabricate more 'flower pots' for planting the trees in... but I still have a few dozen empty 'number ten' food cans that I can convert... so I am not all that worried about it.
On a different note, once I got all the flower pots moved to the 'table' from the hugel mound terrace... I began the tedious process of trying to repair some of the damage done to the terrace by the 'ground heaving' that destroyed part of it during the winter. By and large, I just moved a bunch of the sticks around, re-positioned the stakes and generally got everything 'laying flat' again... in such a way... that it is all ready to have some real repairs made to it.
I am still unsure on how to proceed with that project, because honestly it needs to be torn out and rebuilt... but since building it I have set the carport tent up adjacent to it. So, doing deconstruction (to the terrace) that close to the tent... is not worth the risk of causing a puncture/tear in the five year old tent cover... which means I need to fix the terrace without taking it apart.
For now, it is not like the damaged section of the terrace is causing much trouble... and if anything it is helping the water to shed faster which is good for drainage purposes... but not awesome for keeping the hugel mound damp. Given that I built the hugel mound (and terracing) during the summer last year... it has not had a lot of time to start growing vegetation... which is why I am hoping to keep it damp now.
There are a number of plants that have grown in on the hugel mound during the last many months... but to call them 'sparsely placed' would be generous since there just are not that many of them. The ones that are there though, are very well established and a few of them are rather large and did surprisingly well during the winter... so I have made a mental note to try to identify (and collect seeds from) them with the hopes of getting more of them growing for ground cover purposes.
Well, I think that is about all for this entry. I hope that everyone is doing well. Ciao for now.
