A New Garden Spot

Yesterday, while it was still "cool" Emery tilled our new garden spot. I sat on the sidelines watching him hard at work, thankful for every little breeze that blew. It was interesting to me to experience a kind of hopeful excitement, usually reserved for new home owners or young couples just starting out. After the tilling was done, preparing for the fall garden next month, we sat together under the red oak tree and planned what we were going to do with this part of our land. How we were going to change this or that and how the now empty barn will hold our wood for the winter and how we need to plant another two fig trees over there by the south fence line and on and on. You see, a couple weeks ago I sold my goats. It has been a difficult struggle for me to decide to not have milking animals any longer. But the truth is, I have done it for so many years that I was looking forward to having more time to backpack and hike with Emery without the hardship of dealing with animals that needed milking every 12 hours. There are days I wake up now feeling a bit lost without having to milk the goats but there is still plenty for me to do around here.

I am looking forward to fall planting this year since the summer has been so hot, anything to do with fall time means cooler weather and I am so ready for the heat of summer to end.

There is something extra special in planning new things in old spaces. Its like a bit of a revival, complete with a bunch of enthusiasm for something you already have. Its a month before we can plant and the garden needs to be tilled one more time, maybe next week. No, not next week because that is my birthday and even I don't want to spend my birthday in the garden all day.

We picked figs yesterday, on a race of sorts to get to them before the fig beetles do. I saw a couple of the shinning green bugs munching a fig, so grabbed up the corners of my long skirt and started filling it with as many figs as I could. They now sit shrinking up in the dehydrator, becoming perfect snacks for hiking.

Black Walnuts and Pecans are growing in size on the trees daily and acorns are getting larger too. Small signs that summer and all this horrid heat is coming to an end in a month or so and I am happy about that.