Taters!

OK, so just when I had all but given up on the prospect of making anything this year in the garden, it rains! Peas and butter beans are starting to bloom again, giving me a small ray of hope that all is not completely lost. While the local weatherman predicts dry heat for the next five days, I find myself a bit more optimistic than the last post.

But it's hard to find much optimism when everything is so parched. The potato vines had died down to crumbly brown stalks, almost impossible to even find among the wheat straw. Dad and I figured we might as well dig them up to see if they had produced anything at all, and I was determined to eat anything resembling a potato, even if it was no bigger than one of the few peas we have managed to squeeze out of the patch. The first plant had one potato about the size of a quarter, and the results didn't do much to boost my confidence at all. But by the time we were three or four hills in, each turn of the fork was revealing a few nice plump red blobs, and in the end I walked away with several pounds of both Pontiac Red and Yukon Golds. Not a total loss, but certainly not what I had hoped for.

With that task completed it was time to really survey the damage. 20 rows of corn, dead. 50 paste tomato plants, withered and lifeless. Black and Calypso beans, utterly consumed by the drought. Green beans and Yellow wax beans, alive but barren. two 75' rows of Okra, hanging by a thread. Squash and cucumber, not even a trace. Mississippi cow peas and Jackson wonder butter beans- green and blooming again. Potatoes, in the bag. Bell, Jalapeno, Habanero and Chilli's, alive and producing.

I have learned first hand what it is like to totally rely on Mother Nature and I'm not satisfied with the odds, as the road to self reliance is long, hard and dusty. But I take a little comfort in knowing that I successfully planned, planted and grew an entire garden from seed. Had the rains come it would have yielded enough to make a huge dent in our food consumption. That much I am confident of, so next year irrigation is top priority. A lot of hours have ticked away since march when I started sprouting seeds indoors and in the end, knowledge from lessons learned has come at a cost. But that knowledge and experience is something the drought cannot take away, in fact, it only makes me more determined and confident.

Sawmill

One of the deciding factors when we were searching for land was that it must contain a sustainable forest. At first, this primarily meant firewood, but the more I thought about it I soon came to consider a broader scope. As long as I can remember, I have loved woodworking. My first real job was an apprentice cabinet maker under the master wood smith George Jones, in Statham, Georgia. Thanks to him and his partner Donald, I learned most of what I know today about working wood.

I religiously save my gig money from playing in the band to fund projects. These projects usually have something to do with becoming more self reliant, learning a new skill or helping someone in need. I do occasionally invest in more music gear, but for the most part I'm focusing on savings and the future of the farm. When we purchased the farm, the old barn was one of the characteristics that we fell in love with. Unfortunately, it is actually in bad shape and needs rebuilding. Looking at the structure, I began to think that it wouldn't be that difficult to restore or rather, rebuild to the original specs. It was then that I started thinking about building a sawmill. After a lot of research, I found a band saw mill that would do the job and started saving. While this one was my second choice, (my first choice has no dealers within 2 days drive) after careful consideration I feel it is still a good entry level machine and will do everything I need.

The earnings from last night's show completed the financial requirements, and a few weekends from now I'll be heading down to pick it up. This opens up all kinds of possibilities for buildings, barns, fences and a host of other things for which wood is a necessity. I'm hoping even a rustic cabin is not out of the question.

I think my biggest challenge is going to be how to get the logs down from the mountain, and while I have some solid theoretical concepts, it is a skill I still have to put into practice. The first log will be a huge fallen oak, about 20 inches in diameter, which is blocking the access road to the mountain top. It will be a massive undertaking for my novice self, but I will prevail- one way or the other. I must, for the entire future of this plan hinges on my success, and I don't take failure all that well.

I usually can only find the sanity to undertake daunting tasks by envisioning the finished outcome. My vision here is of old master George, who on seeing my hand built cabin, those beautiful wood cabinets and all that has been created out of wood, gives me a little smile and nod of approval. In a way, I will have become a master, and I think that was his intention all along.

Dog Days

Some lessons are only learned the hard way. In spite of my optimism during the spring months, my garden is now dormant at best. The dog days of summer, the Georgia heat and sporadic rain have decided to crash my party. Just when the garden was entering into the crucial flowering stage, the rains stopped. Day after blistering day the heat sucked any remaining moisture from the ground, resulting in a hard, dusty death trap.

On a positive note, weeding has become easier, as even they are not growing. We have had a little rain over the last couple of days, but I am afraid it is too little, too late. Sometimes I feel like more sweat has fallen on that ground than rain, but unfortunately that doesn't produce crops. I doubt we will harvest much of anything this year, and that saddens me because all of the work that I have put into it. If we had actually had to live off land, we would not survive like this.

So, what did I learn from this experience?
Assuming the rains had come, my rows would have been too close together to comfortably work the garden. I planted close to squeeze in more, but I should have left more space to move around. With my tractor and a larger area, I should be able to use the cultivators and make weeding a little easier. It would have been much easier to hill my potato rows with a pair of disks too.

Second, I think the biggest lesson is one dad pretty much already knew- the garden needs irrigation. The last few years Mother Nature has not smiled on that dusty patch of soil, and I am of the conclusion that irrigation in some form is an absolute necessity should one have to rely on the home garden for survival in the temperate Georgia climate.

Back home the tomatoes, cabbage, chard, carrots, onions and salads are thriving. My radishes and spinach didn't fair well, however. Just too hot I suppose. In retrospect, I should have planted them much earlier than I did.

Up on the farm, the tractor is working out great. She has developed an oil leak around the PTO shaft and I'll have to fix that, but I'm finally getting to know her quirks and kinks. I learned that when mowing on the mountain side I have to wedge my knee against the gear shift or it may slip into neutral, resulting in a 90 mile per hour joy ride down the mountain straight for the river. She doesn't like the ignition key on my heavy keyring, as demonstrated by switching to the off position at just the wrong moment when I was towing Linda's car up the steep driveway, once again resulting in a 90 mile per hour joy ride, this time straight towards her car. Only Linda's quick reaction saved me from an embarrassing call to the insurance office and no telling how many days in the dog house.

I bought a 16 foot trailer with the intention of being able to transport the tractor down to dads to work the garden, but I doubt I will attempt to work it next year. The farm offers so much more potential with it's ability to irrigate from the river. The problem is that we can't be there often enough to work a high maintenance garden. I may have to start off with very low maintenance crops that don't require daily monitoring and harvesting. I'm thinking potatoes, peanuts, corn etc.

My band has become quite successful, playing 12 to 14 shows a month from Maine to Florida, leaving few weekends to spend on the farm. I'm torn between doing what I have always wanted to do and doing what I know eventually needs to be done. I only hope the shit doesn't hit the fan anytime soon finding us unprepared to survive on our own. Then again, maybe it already has and we just haven't been splattered yet. It's hard to tell sometimes.