One Sign

 

See that tree? That’s a plum tree. It’s pretty. See behind it? That’s a full woodshed. Far as I’m concerned, it’s even prettier.

You might remember the area I talked about clearing a while back. Well, I finished. And we planted it to all sorts to goodness, primarily chestnuts, juneberries, mulberries, pears and the ever-important dynamic accumulators. All these trees should be producing by the time I’m too old to harvest any of them.

New laundry line. This might offend my dad, who bought us one of those cool pulley contraption lines for a holiday gift. But we needed a new line right now, and this was quicker. He’ll get over it.

The wild edibles are starting to come on. The boys came home from a ramble with the haul pictured above: Wood nettles, Pheasant Back mushrooms, fiddleheads. I found the season’s first morel the other day, but I ate it before Penny could take a pic, so you’ll just have to believe me.

This area was dense woods only a year ago. Cleared it with the chainsaw and pigs and seeded with pasture mix. Those are paw paws in the tubes along the back and a sweet cherry tree in the front right. Pigs do good work but do me a favor and don’t use them to clear garden space, ok? If you want to know why, email me.

I’ve been cranking on reframing the end walls of our first greenhouse, which is coming on a dozen years old. Penny’s doing the reskinning. It’s taking a while, ’cause we’d used up our stash of lumber, so I’ve been milling lumber as needed.

These are the tomatoes that really need to get in the greenhouse that’s not quite finished being reframed and reskinned. They look pretty decent, eh?

Ah, the quack shack, for the ducklings that are soon to arrive. This is Penny’s project in full, though I am milling the lumber. One of the things I really appreciate about Penny is that she’s real good with tools and not afraid to dive into just about any project.

These are peas that have just been mulched. See the hog panel trellis to the left? Hog panels are the greatest things since, well, hogs.Pain in the ass to transport, but incredibly versatile. I almost wrote “wicked versatile” but someone who’s not from around here told me that in other place, folks pick on people who say “wicked.” Well, phooey.

This is Web. She’s a pet. She’s been around for something like five years and brings us a lot of pleasure. Except when she’s eating brassicas, as she was doing about three seconds before this photo was taken.

I should have a pic of the compost piles. I’m making some wicked  really nice compost piles with the deep pack bedding. I hope I always live in a place where I can smell composting cow shit. It’s one sign that the world hasn’t totally gone to hell.