Back on My Feet

I came down with the flu right after attending the Woodland Landowners' Conference and have FINALLY gotten back on my feet.  I was sick practically the entire month of April.  Ugh! Today was my first day of being able to work outside, and oh boy, am I way behind on my to-do list.  I worked all day at preparing the area for the new forest garden by moving brush and transplanting balsam trees for a privacy screen near the road.  If the weather cooperates tomorrow, I'll transplant all the bushes from the garden boxes and set them out on the knoll.  The grafted plum trees have arrived and I also have the six trees Lara and I brought back from the grafting class we took at the Landowners' Conference -- four apple (Lucious, two Northwest Greening, and Prairie Spy) and two Bartlett pear trees.  I'm still waiting for the Haralson and Chestnut Crab trees to arrive from the nursery in Neilsville.  I'm looking forward to watching that forest garden grow.  Once I get this immediate transplant work done, it's off to turn over the soil in the field and get everything there in the ground.  Hops are tough so the work on the hops yard will be done last.

Tom bought a nice trailer so now we can haul all the mink manure we can get from our neighbor, Dale.  We are trying to find a day to get to Menards to buy a storage shed, too.  Tom worked today clearing the area where we want to set up the shed.  All of the garden tools and farmers market stuff will go in the shed and we will finally be able to move around in the garage.  We also ordered the greenhouse which will come in three separate boxes on the UPS truck so we didn't have to worry about road restrictions and delayed delivery.  I can't wait to get that set up because the seedlings in the basement are growing by leaps and bounds.  The last thing I want to buy is a .22 rifle so I can shoot  the two foxes (there's a big one and a little one) that are decimating the few chickens I have left -- I'm down nine chickens since I first saw the fox. 

Cliff High's latest Shape of Things to Come report is out and available for only $10 from Halfpasthuman.  This report deals with the short term outlook and it is very interesting reading.  I personally find the SOTTC reports quite helpful and I truly believe that years from now Cliff will receive the honor he deserves for his work in pioneering the field of predictive linquistics. 

There is so much to do.  Take care and be safe!