Yesterday we had the farrier here. Our rule... we don't ride our horses the day of and the day after farrier work is done. Their toes can be tender after trimming, and as the saying goes, "No foot, No Horse" we love our horses.Today started out partly cloudy, mostly sunny, with temperatures in the 40's, heading for the 50's. Since we are not riding horses today, it appears be a great day for getting some work done around the ranch.
With a couple cups of coffee under our belts, Kittee went out to morning feed the herd as I prepared our ranch breakfast of cheesy grits, eggs, and hot biscuits.
After breakfast we bring down a ton of hay from the loft for this next week's feedings. The sun was shining bright, and the breeze was blowing
gently across our 1 acre garden area this morning, as we finished working with the hay. I have been watching the garden soil for the past few days of beautiful spring-like sunshine, thinking if it dried out just a little more I could get in there and till the rows in early prep for spring planting.(I shall digress here a bit... as last year we did not have a garden, just a weed bed. --Last year the end of February, I was getting ready to start working the garden, when I got a call from Kittee saying that she needed my help in her Pendleton office. Her secretary had just giving notice and was leaving town... today!-- So, until the 1st of June I spent my days sitting in PDT)
Anyway, I have been biting at the bit to start gardening as we have been having beautiful sunshiny days, mid-day temperatures in the 50's for about a week now. Days are getting longer, as it not getting dark until after 5:30 pm. Today's weather forecast was for cooling temperatures, turning cloudy, with rain in the afternoon, snow by morning.
Hummm Early afternoon, the clouds begin to move across the sky and the breeze started getting cooler. I came in, looked at the Internet - NWS weather radar in PDT and it shows the wet weather heading our way from the northwest.It was time to make my move... to see if the soil was dry enough to till. Yep, it was :-)
It has been over a year since I last tilled our garden area, I found a fair amount of trash along with some new green sprouts of Walla Walla Sweet Onions coming up, and a few perennial herbs that had survived last summer heat and dry.
The soil looked good; loose, rich and black after today's tilling. This will be our 5th season of gardening this plot of ground and during that time we have mulched and composted the rows very well. This year it should come into a prime natural garden. We have used no petrochemicals on our garden or crops since we have been here. We will not have a garlic crop this year, but hope to get back to garlic with a next September's planting.
Today I was able to till about 2200 row feet of garden.
Gee, that feels good, looks good, but by nightfall the 3 hours of tilling had my hands sore and aching.Not to fear, Kittee had a nice fire going, I grabbed a couple of aspirin, a Black Butte Porter brew, and a shot of Canadian BV. Mmmm, now that relieves the aches and pain.
We sit back and enjoyed the home fire burning and PHC.org on the stereo. After PHC we had a hot bowl of soup, a hot shower, and a Saturday night video. That's life at the ranch... feels good.
With the garden tilled I am now looking forward to spreading the horses' barn manure, moving the asparagus, and grapes plants, and putting in Rusty's stallion keep as soon as the weather breaks. Yep, it is still January and tomorrow's weather forecast is for snow. YUCK! I am ready for April sun showers now.
a day in the life at McKuster Ranch - Dale
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