Spring Planting

This morning I found Larry doing what he loves more then anything else in the world, tinkering with some piece of new equipment. Well not new, he purchased a host of equipment to use with his 1949 Ford 8N Tractor. It's not a Parade Ready 60 year old tractor. It is though nice looking, has had the transmission rebuilt, the motor cleaned, and now runs like a top. Even I love driving it with the rack on the back for me to haul protein tubs, grain and hay. I can't wait to be turned loose to mow with it. The equipment Larry bought was to garden with. He fenced in a one acre plot near one of the stock tanks to use as for a food plot to attract deer or for a garden. The first garden is going in. It is black land near the tank and will take a good five or six years to amend the soil to get it where we want it to be. We've spent most of our marriage gardening in raised beds. He sent me off to the feed store for seed. They had just one variety of sweet corn and I just had to have Silver Queen so off I went to Walmart. I was disappointed not to find any Roma Tomatoes for me to make Tomato Sauce (rather a Vegetable Sauce) that I love to freeze and use throughout the year. My family is so spoiled they grump when we run out.

The soil so needs amending. I've been begging him to get the blade from our Angleton home up here, pull the manure and hay out of the pens. From there I load it into the mule and carry it up to the garden to compost beside it. I love building a compost pile. During the winter Larry plants a mix of browse for the deer. Then turn it under in the early early spring to be used as a green manure crop. Then I'll come in a month later with rabbit manure from the rabbit barn and the compost and he'll turn it under. I think in another four or five years our one acre garden will be a joy to work in the soil.

It's all part of the wonderful cycle of living on a ranch. The seasons, spring is always a time to find renewal.

May each of you find your true blessings this Easter!

Kim