Warm and dry here in Central Missouri over the past week. Frost is out and the ground is starting to settle up.
Very productive weekend here. Plumber guy made it out on Friday. 5.5hrs and $700 later I’ve got a new freeze-proof hydrant out in the yard. There’s quite a sore on the ground that will need to be tilled up, smoothed out, and reseeded. I’ll make a pass over it with the roto-tiller after work today. If it’s dry enough to work it won’t take long to finish. If it’s not dry enough it will wait for another day.
Spent a few hours with the chainsaw on Saturday cutting up deadfall, one japanese silk tree from the house yard, two callery pears from the hayfield fenceline, and several standing dead trees from around the perimeter. Hauled the scraps from that work off to the sippy hole.
After that I got the little Kubota tractor out and used it to clean up the winter’s deposit of horse poo from the run-in shed and dumped it on the compost heap.
After the last snowstorm some half-wit ran a county plow truck down our road at a high rate of speed and tossed umpteen tons of newly-laid gravel into the road ditch in front of my property. I got Nanner out and pulled as much gravel as I was able out of the ditch and back onto the road but it’s still a stupid mess.
While I had the tractor out I added some gravel to a couple soft spots in cart path that Mrs. Augie has built around the property.
It felt good to get outdoors and accomplish something worthwhile after sitting on my biscuits all winter long. All of the PT that I did over the past 14 months paid off - I don’t feel like I’ve been run over by a dump truck. In fact, I’m not sore at all, which is pretty amazing to me.
You got a LOT accomplished! And I HATE IT when you’ve worked hard on fresh gravel and some DOOFUS screws it up for ya! Grrrr!
We’re tapping Maple Trees now for sap, but it’s slow coming. We think the drought conditions this fall have something to do with it. Rain is predicted this week, so hopefully that will get the sap flowing.
I am starting peppers, kale, spinach and lettuces this week. In another week or so, I should be able to do some seeding in flats in the greenhouse. When temps stay above freezing at night, that’s my signal to get hoppin’! :)
(Seedlings will need cover overnight, but sunny days this time of year mean 80 degrees in the greenhouse, so I have to open it up a bit, too!)
I’m still wondering when we’ll get the remaining 40 inches of SNOW that is our average? The Robins aren’t here yet; they usually bring the last snowfalls with them. ;)