Mantis
Today after work was garden day. Every day should be garden day always, but alas, I'm a shill of the industrial system.
Runny babbits, destroyers of trees
Today I meant to get the rest of the fruit trees in the forest garden mulched, but other things happened. First I fed and watered the rabbits. I always feed and water the rabbits when I get home from work and when I leave for work. I usually have help from the kids in the afternoons, but they're at Grandma's with Melissa.
I mulched a plum tree (pic somewhere in this post, I'm going to bed early and making this post hastily lol). After that I got distracted by all the things I had to do. I haven't really done much since going back to work, which is a damn shame. I feel awful over it really.
Another mantis
The native Americans have a negative connotation of the word "wilderness" to mean land that isnt interacted with properly. One old boy was paraphrased as saying "since white people came, the land has suffered. It's gone back to wilderness." Well, my forest garden has gone pretty damn wild. So today I pruned a peach tree. And an apple tree. And I started pruning a plum tree. And I polled at least half a dozen mulberry trees and chopped a bunch of black nightshade bushes and poke weeds. And I cut down a wasp nest so I can safely prune the big peach tree tomorrow. Not bad for an hour and a half in 101° afternoon sun, eh?
Pruned apple tree
I also found that I shouldn't have fed the rabbits. I polled about half a dozen mulberry trees, and rabbits love love love mulberry leaves. Each runny babbit got a pile of mulberry, horseherb, and hackberry leaves as big as a rabbit. And these are big rabbits. I'm excited to find that they like mulberry because I have an abundance of mulberry trees. Like, over a dozen. Plenty to share with other rabbit keepers too. I love the prospect of trading abundant resources like trees, seeds, and animals. The third ethic in permaculture (return of surplus) is really my favorite one. Use the natural abundance that'll be generated to either strengthen your body to your community or to build soil. It cycles back we'll to the first two ethics (earth care and people care.)
Pruned peach tree
I'm headed off to bed super early tonight. Gonna get up a half hour early tomorrow (after going to bed an hour early tonight! Yay, sleep!) to put on my supper for tomorrow. I'm gonna let another whole rabbit and some extra organs cook low and slow in the cast iron dutch oven while I'm at work. We'll see how it goes, I'm not the best chef. But I'll eat it for sure. Probably give it the 10 hours on 180° and then a bit on 350° to give it a little crisp. IDK, I'll Google it. It's bed time.
Mulched and half-pruned plum tree. Lookit the wilderness in the background!
Gnite y'all! Love from Texas
Nate💚