Weekend at the Farm September 9 - 10, 2017

We arrived on Saturday afternoon after attending Henry's 3rd birthday party.  Time flies.  The weather was so beautiful.  It was a pleasure to be outside working.

• I sowed 2 packages of green beans in the Vegetable Garden.  I feel like I'm cutting it pretty close to the first freeze, but hopefully I'll get some beans.
• I laid down 3 truck loads of mulch in the Daffodil Border from the mulch pile that Bluebonnet Electric gave me from their tree cutting this summer.  It's crap mulch for anything but my Daffodil Border, but it's perfect for that - and free.  I have almost completely finished mulching that very big area.  
• I am currently very focused on persuading Bert that we need a boxer-322d mini-skid-steer.  It's perfect - it has a small footprint with a front end loader.  It will change my world for activities such as laying down decomposed granite and for moving mulch.  You stand on it while driving and drive it like a scooter.  $14, 500 and worth every penny as far as I'm concerned.  I first saw one when we were having the Orchard built.  Lucas Stroech had one.  I never forgot about it.  I could have had had the whole Daffodil Border mulched in a few hours if I had my Boxer.
• I spent the rest of the day in the Star Garden.  I cut away Four O'Clocks leaning into the paths.  I trimmed the Almond Verbena so that you could walk on either side of it without branches brushing against you.  I weeded everywhere.  I raked all the paths - every one - and there are a lot of them.  I shifted some sprinklers and watered a little bit.  I pulled up Hojo Santo.  I sprayed herbicide.  I cut away Mellow Yellow Hibiscus leaning over.  I cut back spent Rudbeckia Maxima stems.  I trimmed away at the Moonflower vine on the pointed arbor so that it was clear to walk through.  I deadheaded roses.  I pulled up morning glory vines that were crawling over my roses.  The weather was so beautiful that I never got tired.
• About three o'clock my grassland bales were delivered.  I ordered (at the advice of my neighbor) 2 round bales of hay from a man named James Shulenberg.  He has fields of native grasses that he mows and sells to people.   The hay will rot and make my grassland soil healthy, but the hay also contains seeds of the native grasses that will (hopefully) germinate on my land and help me develop my grassland.   So I'm very excited about it.