Ending the garden for now...Harvesting

Harvest is starting here.  I am pulling out the onions and storing them in bags. The carrots are going into plastic buckets. The blessing of the drought is that the cold weather is holding off for another week or so.  So this week I'll be pulling things in and tilling the ground and finishing up areas where the plants are done.  I decided that I am going to put up a small hoop house.  It may give me some choices on an earlier spring and a little more weather control for next year.  Anyway I need to get it up now in order to have the structure ready for Spring. The little apple trees [two years] are having a few apples.  Good eating!  Just not enough yet.  So I will spend some afternoons in the orchard, cleaning up around each tree and setting in braces and wire cages to keep them mouse and rabbit proof over the winter.   I am pretty happy to be a gardener.  These projects feel good and it is nice to see things fixed up.  Of course the trees are turning yellow and orange so I know the seasons are moving along. And I can do my fussing now when it is nice or do it later when it is 40 degrees, wet and windy.  It is so good to have choices.

Speaking of choices.... This year I have a torn rotor in my shoulder, two sprained thumbs and a torn thigh muscle.  All of these are slow healing and painful.  I could quit doing this work.  But I believe in it.  I am setting the framework/schedule to heal and strengthen myself during the gardening 'off season.'  I have to do it before I can write about it.  But I have made my decision. 

I spent a long time watching the sunrise today; from dark to day.  Incredible color... so soft and flowing in time.   These moments this morning are helping me.  I have to change my life. I don't know how yet.  Anyway the doctor and the torn shoulder have forced me to look at my life directions.  The deal for me is that I have to do 6 weeks of guided physical therapy with daily home exercise to restore my shoulder.  I can't do my farming like I thought I would even after 6weeks of therapy.  So maybe the 'soft and flowing' of the sunrise can help me today.  Maybe I can change in a soft and flowing way too. Maybe.....

So today I can do a few things.   The meat chickens were processed last week. It was sad to put them in cages but I know we could not have such good food without them.  We pick them up today-wrapped and frozen real food.  Most are sold already and I will send out some notes to other past customers to see if they want to order again.  The other good thing here is that I am not carrying buckets of water twice a day and lifting 50lb bags of feed and bales of bedding. So that daily strain wont be present in my schedule.   I start therapy and I will know a lot about what and how this will work. 

In the garden the drought is back. We had our last good rains two weeks ago.  The ground is dust again.  So  I am gathering and ending sections of the gardens.  The seasons are moving on.  It is hot now and soon the freezes will be here so I will be getting ready to have the gardens getting ready for winter and next year.  It is that time.  I bet there are a lot of one-armed gardeners and 'soft and flowing' gardeners. 

 

Catching you up...

I can't believe so much time has passed since my last writing.  And some big things have happened.  There have been some disasters and many wonderful times.

As for disasters.... I wrecked my shoulder carrying too many hay bales and I had surgery to get a bad mole removed.  I had to let a lot of projects go undone.  I couldn't do the work or adapt for a way to get things done.  I have so much respect for people that live and function with daily pain.   Next week I go to the doctor to find out about my shoulder.  It won't heal by itself.

Now the good stuff.  The sunrises have been incredible.  The last two weeks there has been ground fog and the sun comes up into a mystical landscape.  Most of the garden has survived the 'end of August' Frost.   I put a big fence around the tomatoes to keep out the cold.  Because of me a lot of beans and lettuce didnt get picked.  I sort of let it all go.   The orchard is  needing  me, some of the trees had apples and I didn't help them this month. I ate a few and they are very good. I feel like working in the garden again now. The second flock of chickens is adult and going in to be processed this week.  I took care of them every day and they are really healthy.   So I did something very right. Probably I did more right than I think I did.  But for sure the weeds are all over.  I can do something about that.  So that will make me feel better anyway.  REDOS.