paean

Saturday was a working day with employees here working. It was hot hot hot and sunny. There was a breeze but it only helped so much.

We got half of the required blueberries pulled. Those blueberries are the wrong variety that the nursery sent us and they are mixed into a block that is called the "early riskies". Those are early producing blueberries that taste good. The wrong plants are not early, they are mid to late season and they are mediocre taste. So we got ahold of the nursery and let them know and they are sending replacements this week. But the 4 year old plants need to be pulled out. I put one worker on the tractor (Kubota 7040 orchard tractor. It's tiny but mighty) and I was on the ground. I used a tire strap loop, wrapped around the base of the plant and had him pull the tractor forward, around half of the time, it tightened up and caught on the middle of the bush and pulled it out. I figured out it helped to jam a shovel into the ground a couple of times to loosen the plant up. If it still slipped, I would tighten the strap as tight as possible and cinch it with fencing wire that I had in the back of my truck. that got almost all of the plants. There were a few that still slipped, so those got more shovel stabbing of roots. So one row is down, around 25 plants.

The other employee was doing the thankless job of pulling the dead johnsongrass out of the spartan blueberry rows, so we can get sprays and woodchips down better, so after lunch I switched her to pruning blackberries. We're pretty sure only one variety of blackberries survived the winter, they aren't winter hardy to our temperatures generally, so we lose half of the crop pretty regularly. The problem is that they're the thornless varieties, much less hardy than thorned ones. But I don't know that people will want to pick the thorned ones. Something to work on. There's training the thornless ones onto a folding trellis and stuff, not sure we have the capacity to get it done. I swapped the guy working with me to pulling more johnsongrass and I went and starting moving woodchips.

We are mulching all of the raspberries with woodchips this year, changing it up from straw since the chips are easier. I got the raspberries on this side of the road all mulched this week and now I need to do the spartan blueberries and the raspberries across the road. I got a couple loads dumped that afternoon and then stopped to send the employees off at 4pm, quick chat about schedules for the week and checked the radar. Big storm blob approached, so I wanted to get one more load done. Ran over with the tractor, got it loaded, the sky started sprinking as I headed across the road. Got the load dumped, no problem. As I headed back to the house, I could see the mountains in the distance start to disappear. That's generally bad if you want to stay dry. I crossed the road, parked the tractor, closed my truck bed cover and sprinted to the house because the skies opened up. It was a half hour thunderstorm complete with the power going out briefly.

Everything was soggy after that, so I gave up on working and showered and got ready for the support group. It was decent. Small group and at the beginning the facilitator had made a comment about how the group had been quite large in it's first session in January, but gotten smaller since then, and around halfway through, someone came in late and then I understood why. The person who came in was one of those people who have something to say about everything else other people are talking about and also it was all about her. The facilitator did her best, but I get why a lot of people would have bailed. It was a decent chat though and I'm glad I went. I also got to see the downtown, which I haven't been down there in ages. It looked like there were some decent restaurants and stuff in the area, so I'll have to go and explore.

Yesterday was a lazy day. Dad and I chatted about schedules and plans and since everything was still wet, we couldn't do a ton of stuff. Oh terrible. I got my contribution to easter dinner baked (blueberry fruit bars) and then started working on the rototiller. It's a Howard, which is pretty indestructible which is good because we have a lot of rocks. We take the center tines off to renovate the strawberries and when I want to use it to prep a field, I need to put tines back on. It's a pain. But I like the rototiller for smaller plots. The potatoes still haven't arrived which is baffling, the shipping notice says they haven't given it to USPS yet. So it's somewhere. I'll get the rototilling done today and plant some peas.

Dad and I did a quick scouting and then headed up to the family party. It was a little quieter than some years, but it was a nice time. My cousin made some roasted lamb that was incredible. Lots of mashed potatoes. Yum. I caught up with family and then wandered out to the porch in my socks to watch the volleyball game. After 20 minutes or so, my uncle called me out and said if I was laughing, I should put my mouth where my money is. So I hopped down in my socks and we played valleyball until it got dark. Incredible fun. Ate some more dessert and then headed home and right to bed.

I ran for groceries this morning and also got a library card! Now I've got yogurt on the stove and then rototilling and crafting on the agenda for the rest of the day. Plus laundry.