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Rototilling
7:15 a.m. - 2010-05-31


Every year the spouse likes to get out there and dig up the garden with shovel and pickax, but as time goes by, and the garden gets bigger, the job is becoming too much to finish in time for the planting. This year he decided to rent a rototiller. Actually, he should have rented a man with the tiller to do the work. When I came home from Jason's, he had at least gotten it started and tilled a little, but the machine kept conking out every 15 minutes or so, and he had to restart it. This gets old in a hurry. At lunch time I found him sitting on the back steps looking like death warmed over, really, he looked so tired I had to laugh, all droopy, hot and sweaty. He took about an hour break and went back to work, and managed to get the job mostly done, but then he looked down at the tiller and one set of tines was gone, and looking back, he could see them stuck in the dirt yards behind him. He decided to return the tiller, and the man at the shop said that if they have to take the tines off for some reason, they are nearly impossible to remove, but then, perversely, will fall off by themselves when you don't want them to. Anyway, my garden is now tilled and I can plant it. I am starting new sets of seeds every other day or so, to hurry up the late start we had this year.

I am almost finished with another top for Abby, using a crocheted band I made a few weeks ago, and crocheting a small trim around the neckline. I am using Melissa's Viking Husqvarna machine, and it is a mite touchy in the bobbin department but at least it works. I am also gradually getting my stuff back from the storage unit, though it is now in the living room and needs to be sorted out and thinned out. I am becoming more ruthless about the stuff, and even the patterns are not safe from culling.

Melissa's last day of work was Friday, so she is now among the unemployed. I hope she finds something soon, but one never knows. At least her house is paid for already so she doesn't have to worry about a giant mortgage payment like so many people do nowadays.

I was driving home from Jason's the other day towards the post office, when I passed Evan's street. There was a sign on the corner announcing a street-wide yard sale, so I turned in to check it out. I saw Debbie as I drove past their house, so I waved and she asked me to pull over and pick up the Seal-a-Meal. They have upgraded their machine with a new one from Costco, and they are giving me the old one which apparently works fine. So that is a new thing I'll have to figure out how to use. Anyhow, Evan was looking fine after the surgery, chipper and getting around, but not wearing his sling as he should be, but that's a man for you. At least he was carefully not using that arm. Anyhow, I got a tour of the garden which is looking wonderful, and admired all the things they have built with scrounged materials. The newest thing is a lovely trellis with 4x4 posts holding up decorative wrought iron panels about 4 ft wide. Evan told me that the panels are a fence a neighbor took down and gave to them. They cut grooves in the tops of the 4x4s and laid the fence panel ends in them, and presto, a trellis. They are going to grow grapes up the trellises.

Today Ward is going to rake the fertilizer into the tilled soil, and then I can plant the onion starts, and replant my multiplier onions. We had a rainstorm this week so the ground is great for weeding between the bricks, so I should go get started.

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