Here comes the Fall

(Portentious title, no?)Some of you know that I started my own business.  There's good news and bad news.

Good News:  I'm able to work from home.
Bad News:  I'm too busy to do any of the fun work I wanted to do while I was home.

Good News:  Business is a hit
Bad News:  I'm constantly traveling, so I'm never at home to work from home.

I'm trying to build a patio.  Well, I'm not trying, I'm actually DOING.  I had Yoda come over and he said (Yoda voice),  "Try?!  Try not.  DO or do not.  There is no try."

So I'm building a patio.  I started out the way my Aunt Gertie would have started out. Grabbed some rocks and started putting em on the ground.

Oh I have all kinds of detractors (including some voices inside my own head), but I'm plowing forward.  The soil where I want to put the stone has been compacted hard from the construction around the house, so I'm only adding a layer of gravel and a big fucking flat rock on top and filling in the seams with some dirt and more rock.   It's slower going than you would expect because I'm using rocks from th farm that are all varying levels of thickness and some of them, I don't mind telling you, are heavier than Aunt Salome's ass, so you have to do a lot of struggling and maneuvering to make them fit.   Then I have a dog up my backside, bugging me to throw a ball every 15 seconds...throw in an urge to jerk off every 2 hours and you have one long drawn out process.

But this is about gay farming, so let's get out those pitchforks and get to work.

On today's docket (after I finish my MnFn' obligation to my 'business'), we're going...that's right WE are going...over to the fresh manure pile.  Oh. Yes. We. Are.  And you know what we're going to do over there?  We're going to load the ATV wagon full of that fresh shit and haul it down to the potato row.  And that's not all.  After that, we're going to hitch up the brush hog and mow through two big patches of weeds to clear the way for a sunflower garden, a corn patch and more general garden space.  If we're lucky, we'll take a second to get lost in the tall, dry goldenrod, make out and play with each other's cocks ;)

It's been two years since we've planted our current potato row and the soil there needs a break. I'm afraid we've accumulated disease in that area, friendly to the spud-men, and we're going to try leafy greens there next spring which is WHY we are going to create the new potato garden.  And it's going to be big. Cause daddy likes his taters.  Oh. Yes. He. Does.  You know what kind?  I like the red kind that have the red all the way through the potato.  Ever have those?  You can get them from Irish Eyes...the best potato catalogue company around.  You can also get those Kennebecs which are so delicious.  This year I planted the all blue kind which sort of tastes like you're eating some native American I-just-dug-this-crap-up-in-the-woods-cause-my-corn-failed tuber.  Not good.  I also planted a 'German Butterball' variety that I'll skip next year as well.  Not awful...just poor producer and no big deal on the dinner plate.

Anyway where was I...Oh yes, we're putting together a potato patch.  The soil in the area where we'll be working is fairly easy to dig, so the plan is, mow it, dig it and manure it.  By next spring, we should have ourselves some nice composed rows to put our potatoes in.

As for the corn-slash-sunflower-slash-whatever garden patch we're going to put in.  I'd like to try a variation on that 'Lasagna Garden' technique everybody always talks about.   I have a whole bunch of c ardboard in the barn that I plan to lay down in rows over the freshly mowed site and then cover them up with cow shit.  "Are you going to till the soil before you do that, Farmer Gay?" I hear someone asking in the back.  The answer is no, I'm not.  And the expanded answer is, I don't feel like it.  We're talking sunflowers and corn...they'll figure it out.  If I dig through the cardboard when planting the seeds ( or setting out the plants), the soil beneath should be suitable to new'ly forming roots of the starting plants.  That's the theory anyway and I'm sticking to it.

Now mind you, we still need to finish this patio (get rocks, get shale, set the stones, throw the ball for the dog), get wood for the upcoming winter (drive the ATV up the hill, cut  the logs, load the logs, split the logs, stack the logs) cut the grass again before winter, clean up around the orchard, mow the asparagus and cover it with fresh compost.  So you queens have a lot of work to do.  So pack up those pink waders and high tail it over here so you can help me out.

And so this is the Gay Farmer signing off for now.  Wishing you a sturdy Spade with a long, stiff handle.