Thursday Thirteen

 Thursday Thirteen:  Things that make my dog happy.

1.  His two meal-times each day.  It's supposed to be 4:30 morning and evening.  Lately I've been sleeping until after 5 A.M., though.  Thank goodness he doesn't wake me up when I oversleep.

2.  Barking to alert us there's a dog coming to kill us, or to tell me my Amazon order has arrived.  He also goes crazy when he sees Cliff coming to the house from the shop; apparently he thinks my husband can't always be trusted.

3.  Jumping on all the laps of visitors who would rather not have a dog on their lap.

4.  Going bye-bye in the car.

5.  Eating the cat food when I forget to put it up.

6.  Walking with me in the pasture and woods.

7.  Peeing on mole-hills.

8.  Nosing around the rotten trash that falls out of the burn barrel.

9.  Attacking Klouse, the Doodle dog next door, when he comes to visit, snarling and growling like he's going to kill him.  Klouse is not bothered at all by this behavior.  

10.  Children.  He loves children.  Unfortunately, some of them don't care for him jumping up on them.  His favorite kid is Cora, the eight-year-old we used to babysit.  Even if we haven't see her for three months, when I know she is coming and say, "Cora's coming," he'll stay at the window and watch until she shows up.  When she arrives, he sticks to her like glue.

11.  Smelling other dogs' poop.  I'm pretty sure all dogs do that.

12.  Playing with Blue, the cat.  They chase one another and have a great time.  In fact, sometimes Blue taunts him from another room to get him to attack, or surprises him by sneaking up behind him and jumping on his back.  

13.  Food.  Unfortunately, he swallows everything whole.  I pay a fortune for his dog food and treats, but he never really tastes it because he doesn't chew it.

13.  Me.

Today I planted carrots, peas, radishes, beets, lettuce, and cabbage seeds.  It's very dry and windy, so I watered the rows with watering cans after I planted them.  I've done a lot of tilling, too.  Cliff took some pictures.

Turning at the end of a row is the hardest part of tilling, but it isn't all that hard.

This is Mama Kitty's favorite resting place.  This tractor is housed in the garage at the end of our trailer house.  Cliff sometimes leaves the garage doors open just for her.

I love the smell of plowed dirt

Yesterday Cliff hooked our 1930's plow up to the tractor and plowed my garden.  First, though, we responded to a Craigslist ad that read, "Gardeners, landscapers!  Horse manure compost FREE!  Very aged.  Will load."

So we took the red pickup and got what I thought was a lot of compost, although it turned out to be about half as much as I needed.  That's OK, next year we'll put some on the other half of the garden... if I'm still gardening then.  Cliff offered to go back and get more, but honestly, shoveling that stuff out of the pickup wore me out!

I didn't have to shovel all the compost out; Cliff had it on a board, and pulled the board out onto the ground with the tractor where he could scoop it up with the bucket on the tractor.

This morning I asked Cliff to get the tiller ready for me, and next thing I knew, he was testing it in the garden, so I went out and took over that job.  I love running the tiller.  I just hold on and keep it going the right direction, and it slowly pulls itself from one side of the garden to the other.  That's Klouse's tale you see in the corner.

You can tell where I tilled.  There are a few big hunks, mostly because some of the compost was still frozen in big pieces.  It'll smooth out before you know it.  I should have cut my shadow out of this picture, but I'm lazy.  That tiller on the other side of the garden stays outside all summer, with that tub over its "innards" when it isn't in use.

The old plow is likely 90 years old.  Cliff had a decent plow, but decided he was too old to plant any crops and sold it.  Then I started whining that I really like my garden plowed before I till it, so he got a reasonably cheap, very old one.  It isn't ideal, but it works well enough to shut up my whining every year.  By the way, genuine farmers striving to make money from their crops don't even use plows any more because they contribute to soil erosion.  

There's the old plow.  It doesn't work right, but it does the job.  Gabe is such a showoff, isn't he?

I hope to get the seeds I'm lacking tomorrow and perhaps get some of them into the soil.  There are lots of seeds that can be put out as soon as the soil can be worked.  One year I had peas up to about five inches tall when we got some snow; it didn't hurt those plants one bit.  Carrots, radishes, cabbage seeds, lettuce:  Cold weather just doesn't seem to hurt them.  

I think Gabe and I will go for a walk next.  I'm loving this weather!