Plans Change

We need warm sunshine badly as the plants are frost bit and turning yellow. The squash here still in pots looks particularly bad and even the sage looks a bit peaked. Hopefully, this weekend I'll be able to get the squash area rototilled and done. I've given up and decided that I'm just not going to get nearly as much planted as I'd like and what makes it makes it. No babying things year.
Our plan for the summer have dramatically changed. No expanding increase of projects except preparing the garden for enlargement so we can plant more than ever next summer.

Everything else is a scale down. We want to clean up the yard and go through all our belongings. Some of the projects planned for this summer will just be preparation work like the garden where we'll get things set up to do it next summer. That is if all goes well. One of those is the temporary window frames out of the new fire hall. I still plan to put hinges on them. Hopefully paint them and stack them for use next summer. The raspberries and asparagus will get moved and an addition on the garden put into buckwheat.

That means we've been prioritizing what is the most important things that will benefit us the most and we've decided in our self-sufficient plans the garden needs to take a huge priority. The livestock will come in second with the laying hens and goats being a priority.

The meat animals will have to come in third and since we'd usually have pigs and a calf next year that plan will have to be re-evaluated for need and time allowance when next spring arrives.

I've my eye on a greenhouse frame that isn't in use and probably won't be. I'm planning on asking how much they want for it and how soon they'd need paid. Our rebar framed greenhouse has been used many years but we haven't put a cover on it the past four years. It can be a pain since the sides are low and it isn't wide enough. But with the summers growing colder again were going to need it for warm weather crops and to extend the season on others.

This weekend hopefully after we say goodbye to the old does, I'll get to work on another good sized section of garden we've fence. It needs tilled under, manured, and buckwheat planted to prepare it for next summer. Whacking the weeds down and tilling will be all I hope to accomplish right now.

Sheds need painted, pens cleaned, and fences fixed. The chicken coop run has a hole in it that's being blocked by wood and its rotting around the bottom. It won't last one more year. That was put off from last summer but has moved up the ladder on priorities.

If we've learned anything this spring it's that you can plan all you want but life has a way of changing those plans to wishes necessitating a whole new blueprint.

One of those plans for this spring was to build the new small chicken coop and though we have part of the materials, the time just wasn't available. Because of the lack of it we lost a number of little chickens when we had to put them in with the hens. The decision wasn't hard to make between taking care of emotionally damaged and relocated grand children or build a small chicken coop and run. That doesn't mean the consequences have been easy to take. So next year we'll scale back and we plan on just raising new laying hens. The rootsers of course we'll butcher but we're not raising chickens to eat. That means filling the incubator only once, not twice. Then we'll see where were at. The decision was further cemented when we discovered that our walls on the basement are starting to tilt in a little. Improper construction 29 years ago has taken its tole so that will be fixed and along with that the drainage problem around the house. That means lots of dirt work to elevate the ground around the house and rock brought in to replace the lawn all around the basement.
When we're done we want less lawn, more garden. So though I'm thrilled that the garden is finally starting to peak through the ground, I'm also singing Caesura serra what ever will be will be, the future's not I to see, caesura serra, what will be will be.