It has been nearly a month since I posted anything other than comments. I've been exceptionally tired, and my brain has been preoccupied with family situations, including two pregnant daughters who aren't speaking to each other, and an alcoholic husband whose binge drinking sprees are entirely unpredictable. Plus my own health issues, which I am currently addressing with the help of a naturopath. Conventional western medicine has had at least 15 years to sort me out, without success.
Taking all of that into consideration, I waffled on whether or not to plant a garden. Will I be too busy with grandbabies to keep up with the weeding, watering, harvesting, and preservation? Will I even have the energy to do what needs to be done? With the predictions of high food prices, is this a really bad year to not have a garden?
Finally, I decided to go for it. Tuesday I hired two boys, ages almost-12 and already-14, to help with some preparations in the garden, such as positioning landscape cloth around the edges, digging up the biggest clumps of grass, and hauling the last of the old compost to the garden. Yesterday my husband and I drove his 1990 pickup to @generikat's place to get a fresh load of compost. The moo-ing creators of much of said compost stood around and supervised the process, while the Corgi tried to bite my husband's shovel (it's her hobby, I understand), and one of the cats sat primly off to the side, observing all.
Back home again, my husband gradually transferred the compost to the bucket on his tractor and spread it all out on the garden. Today he found the energy to run the tiller so now it looks ready to begin planting.
Meanwhile, I started a few seeds and set up my tiny greenhouse, where I hope they will stay warm enough to sprout. We rather abruptly experienced a high of 82 degrees today, but high temps are supposed to plummet back to the 50s and 60s for the foreseeable future. It seems a bit late to be starting seeds, but then again, we've seen frost in July, so maybe it's not that late after all. Potatoes can certainly be planted; @generikat already has hers in the ground. (And shared some seed potatoes with me! Thank you!)
And so another gardening season begins, full of hopes and dreams that include both rain and sunshine, few raiding insects, fewer ground squirrels, deer remaining on the outside of the fence, and a well-timed arrival of babies.
Furthermore, I just heard a rumble of thunder. Perhaps we will get some much-needed rain!
.........Well, it was about two-minute shower.