Spring in the Details...and Dirt

Spring, of course, means different things to different people. I like to think of spring as represented by the bright yellow crocus pictured in a previous post. Bright, cheery, hopeful.

Troy, however, has had to think of spring in quite different terms. I don't think there's a lawn implement that he hasn't had to change the oil, etc on. The lawn tractor/mower wouldn't start. The log splitter needed a new hose. Gas cans need to be checked, cleaned, filled. Our barbeque is out of propane. These are the things that have been filling his days...instead of drywall.

This project [shop/house] is big enough that we can't just put the rest of our lives on hold and get it done. But this means the project only takes longer. That's just how it is: as I've said before, it has become a way of life as opposed to just something we're doing for a little while. Now, the idea is not that this is a way of life forever, but it sure is right now.

One of the things Troy is unwilling to put on hold is gardening. Whenever he talks about it, I jump immediately to the thought that he's so busy already, how can he add this too? But it's what he wants to be doing and he doesn't want to keep putting it off. (Plus good gardens don't just happen one day when you've got the time; you've got to build them up over years.) I've finally been able to put it in these terms and am no longer so surprised when he does something like this:

instead of drywall.

These are pics of our west "lawn" after Troy tilled it (with the little push rotor tiller!). There is not a blade of grass left. Not that there was much grass there anyway. Troy has been planning all winter for a garden, and apparently, this is just the beginning. I also suspect this means I'm going to be doing more canning than I ever wanted.

As for crops, he is focused on ones that will keep long and grow in shoddy soil (which is what we're starting with). Potatoes, chili peppers, beets (good for greens and storage), tomatoes (2 kinds: good fresh and good stored), carrots (an old Dutch variety), muskmelon, cabbage (also Dutch), popcorn (butter flavoured), kohlrabi, snap beans, sunflowers just because they're pretty and tall, and cover crops (clover, hairy vetch, rye).

Troy had mentioned to me a couple days ago that he had done all this tilling. But it's dark when I leave, it's dark when I get home, and I had not taken the time to go out and look at it. Imagine my surprise when this evening, I run by the upstairs window glancing outside and see this field! I felt like Dorothy in reverse; like the house had been picked up and dropped in the middle of Kansas.

There's no place like home.

-christina