Playing in the Dirt

I might just be the luckiest girl in Colfax County..... I have been putting in really long hours at the office, and it turned out that by Tuesday, October 26th, I had already fulfilled a full month of hours. So I spent most of Thursday - Sunday with my husband. This after a week of spending only 13 hours with him from Sunday - Saturday was welcome by me!

I had been pestering Thomas to help me get a patch of earth turned over for our garden patch. He and Pop have been messing with the tractor and getting it ready, but here I had a few days to work at home, and I was ready! Friday morning we went to see Pop and the tractor. After many adjustments they decided it was ready. Pop drove the tractor over and started plowing. He plowed and plowed and plowed. With every pass the soil relented more and more. It was mostly a grassy-ish patch, but there is no telling when it may have actually been cultivated before. While Pop plowed, I cultivated and cleaned up a little patch with irises and baby evergreens. I broke up a bunch of bark from our firewood pile and made a lovely mulch around them (and a lovely mess of splinters in my hands).

A glimpse of my work and the wood piles in the background.

Pop called it a day after working so hard, and next up I took his tiller up and down the edge of garden closest to the house...where I hoped to plant garlic over the weekend.

Saturday we felt exhausted and had a day of rest. Pop didn't. He worked some more on the tractor and took off the front attachment, liberating the Ford from a lot of extra weight and making it easier to maneuver.

Sunday afternoon the fun began again! Thomas went to get the tractor with the attachment that helps make rows. We changed our plans slightly, but the effect was right.

That's my husband out riding around on the Ford.

And that's ME!!! Thomas taught me how to drive tractor!

This view looks north. An irrigation ditch runs north along the left/west side of the "patch," and another runs east along the far/northern edge. It is 125 feet by 30 feet.

After our tractor work was finished, I set about to planting garlic....roughly 300 cloves! There are several varieties. Some will be for pickling next fall, some will be for eating, and some will be seed to plant next year! I am pretty excited...