Second Weekend in April, 2021

Where do I start?

I guess I'll start with Friday since that was the first day of the weekend. Friday we did stuff, but I don't remember what. I know there was stuff though, and I know it got done. That evening, I took Sam to cub scouts and picked up a box of books in the trash, most of them went back in the trash, but a few were about our county and city history, so I kept those. We got supper and went to bed after that, resting up for Saturday.

Mombun napping in a warm bucket!

Saturday was a day for the books.

I didn't get many pictures because I was SUPER busy doing actual things, so lemme tell you what happened without pictures.

First, breakfast happened. Breakfast was eggs, bacon, toast, kratom, and energy drink. That's how you know good things are about to happen. For daily energy, there's nothing better than a great breakfast with minimal carbohydrates. Eggs are best. No, I don't usually start my days with caffeine, but I knew I had some serious business to attend to and it was a great help.

After breakfast, I was raring to go. Idling high and looking at the pile of things to get done. I think I started off weed whacking the food forest. That gave me a good little meditative time in the garden, where things were about to get done the most. I got to look over the space, see how things were coming along, and simultaneously make hay for the rabbits. After the weed whacker battery ran out, I started pulling weeds. Piles and piles of weeds. Enough grass and weeds that I don't think I'll need to feed the rabbits any feed on Monday. I forgot to give it to em Sunday, whoops. I weeded places that were already planted, around every significant tree, along paths, in beds, in places that'll soon be beds of corn and taters, damn near everywhere. At this point I made the connection with kratom and Thai field workers. @artemislives may understand better, but I read that kratom is used pretty widely by folks over there as a mild stimulant and pain reliever. It makes the monotony and boredom of repetitive tasks just kinda melt away, which, as I pulled all the weeds, I completely understood. Praise God for that plant, allowing me personally to better enjoy and steward His creation. I'm going to be looking into growing my own.

Oh my, my, look at all that unused space...

As I excitedly hopped from task to task, I would tell the guys in my chat what I was moving on to. I got some funny looks when I announced that I was going to be growing bean trees; a permacultural contraption that I invented. They're a hybrid peach tree. And a hybrid plum tree. And a hybrid soapberry tree. And a hybrid Apple leaf tree (there's no such thing as apple trees in texas, just apple leaf trees, because even when we have the coldest winter in 200 years, no trees in Texas grow apples. Just apple leaves). And a hybrid mulberry tree. ALL of those trees grow beans too. How do you graft beans onto all those trees, you ask? You plant pole beans at the bottom. So now, when I go for a nice, crisp, fresh apple... leaf, you can go for beans too! BEAN TREES! IDK how it'll go, but we'll find out. It's a way to stack in a space without needing that infrastructure of bean poles, or bean trellises, or bean sanctuaries, or bean dedicational spaces. At first I was perplexed where I'd plant beans, and then I ran out of beans. We'll see how it goes.

The kids helped with everything, of course, loving the idea of bean trees. We used the time to learn what varieties the various trees were. They had a grand time with it.

We also planted out a couple of our "raised" beds. The ones where I only had tomatoes before. I want to have okra growing interspersed with things this year. Okra, in addition to making bountiful fresh food, is really great for keeping away pests. We're already seeing a lot of army worms, so I'd like to head those off the best I can. Okra goes in every bed. I'm also going to trial okra as rabbit food this year. I've read that rabbits love it, and I've read that rabbits don't love it, which means the scientific consensus is try it!

In addition to okra in the center of every bed (it's a tall plant that we'll be able to reach over everything), I planted bush green beans at the edges, and cucumbers between the beans. The beans grow in erect bushes, and the cucumbers like an elevated hill to cascade down, so I'm not anticipating any issues with those two competing for space.

On the big, secluded, heavily mulched, moist, and fertile land of the south hugel, I planted winter squash. It's hard, because I'm still slightly traumatized by the last time we did winter squash, but I'm hoping that since it's away from everything that won't be such an issue. We'll see. If they look at me wrong though, they might get the axe. I'm still scared. I do think I'll make a trip to the woods soon though to plant some winter squash there. It's a good crop for that space.

After planting in the forest a lot, I moved north and planted over there. More beans along the pig fence, more summer squash along the pig fence, watermelon, okra, and more squash on the north hugel, and a couple of bean trees on the north side of the yard too.

After I was satisfied that my planting was sufficient for the day, I set out making birdhouses from the cedar fence leftovers. Initially, I thought I'd have enough for twenty birdhouses, but I made mine out of a small stack of scraps, so I bet I have enough for fifty or so. I think I'll list em locally for $10 a pop. I can probably busy out six or so an hour, they're fairly simple with the air nailer. Each one takes about five feet of picket, and I've got a total of around seventy sections about three feet each. I guess that comes out around forty houses altogether.

Birdhouses!

I want to find some bat houses to make next. I think I have the ultimate permaculture mosquito trap in mind. I'll make a small lined pond full of goldfish and some kind of food plant. That'll attract mosquitoes, which will feed the gold fish, which will feed me. Also, I'll plant datura all over. Datura is called moonflower because it blooms big white flowers at night. That'll attract nocturnal moths, that will feed my bats. Bats also like to have water around, so it'll all work together, like permaculture stuff does. Bats can eat up to a thousand mosquitoes a night and a whole bunch of moths too. There's a few months that I'm concerned about, being the sphynx moth and the plum curculio moth. Sphynx moths lay eggs that become tomato horn worms, and plum curculio moths attack stonefruits like my peaches. I reckon my whole neighborhood will benefit eventually after the bats clear out my immediate ecosystem. Mosquitoes and flies plague our area every year.

Sunday we went to church and rested. I'm still wore out from that huge Saturday. It's making me pretty grumpy at work because my back is fairly sore. Usually that's not an issue, but usually I'm not planting and pulling weeds as much as I did this weekend...

So now that it's 530 on Monday morning, I guess I can call this one a wrap. It was an exciting weekend, but there's still plenty to do. Next weekend I'm going for pigs, and I still need to get their gate made and pick up a goodly pile of pig feed. Wooh, it's making me tired already, this is gonna be great!

Love from Texas

Nate 💚