PREPPING FOR THE SUMMER !

I drove my first fence post of the year this morning. It was not a new experience. But the lines for the posts have been established and we will get to fencing here directly. The first fence will be an electric deal with a solar charger. We have a charger that works well and it will go on the fence. This will enable the garden to resist cows coming for a nice organic snack in the middle of the day. My .308 will do any further deterance. I lived with those cows eating my beans and corn and whatever last year and I held my peace in an admirable manner. NO MORE! I realize that I must bear the spectrum of life, but then again the spectrum has to bear me.

Right now I am putting on some decent footgear and waiting for my friend Walter. He's 73 years old and I have enlisted his aid in driving these posts. We will not go too hard and we will only be putting posts in every 20 feet so it won't be a horrible chore. The plan is to put more posts in later on and string Barbed wire for a real cow stopper. The corner post have to be bought before the Barbed wire can be pulled. We'll get them.

Although the frost date has not come we can go ahead and plant our potato onions. You just plant them once and they bear forever. At least that is what the advertising says! But Indiana Summer generally means corn and beans and tomatoes. It is hot and humind and that is what those crops seem to love. Critters won't bother your tomato plants very much. They are of the nightshade family and critters know not to eat that stuff.

I must get going to the garden. I now have on a pair of boots I never remembered I owned. They are Vasque boots and came highly reccomended. Seems like I paid a damn fortune for them but they were going to take too much time for break-in so I parked them and wore something else. Glad I don't have to buy them now!

Gotta go. More later!

Back from the garden. Not a great amount achieved but we got a little something. And something is better than nothing. Some people planted seed today. They said it would take days for the plants to germinate and that was their cushion for planting before the frost date. Sounds okay to me! But I ain't gonna do it.

The garden goes forward. My friends and my computer say I can go aheadn and plant so maybe I will. I have beans and corn to get in. I am thinking seriously of getting regular hybrid seed to boost my prodcution in the garden. It won't be as good as the organic stuff but it will sure give me more food this Winter. I am a firm believer in non-hybrid seed and the ability to save seed from year to year. I am not too popular with the boys at Monsanto but they ain't too popular around here either so I reckon we are even. But I really feel to try and get as much food in as possible. And I am after the basics. Beans and corn and tomatoes. The woman will grow the peppers and other stuff. She's good about that.

Some more people are joining me in my viewpoint that the world is gonna go to hell pretty quick. Oil closed today above $120 a barrel. Gold and Silver went up and the dollar dropped. Does this sound good for fuel and fertilzer prices? Well, if you are an arab king and have a hundred thousand oil wells pumping 24 X 7 you might be feeling powerful right now. But, you can get your ass bombed to smithereens too, by hungry nations who need fuel at a lower price. Nothing is secure anymore. Not even arab oil money.

So grow those preps! Get whatever you can in the ground and start storing your crop. Use any kind of seed that will produce something edible and storable. I really feel this in my bones. And now other people who wouldn't talk ahout it last year are coming to the same conclusions I have been having. Last year it was NO WAY. This year it's NO WAY OUT OF IT! The forecast is for $7 a gallon gasoline by the end of the Summer. But someone has to pay for all those loans and all that funny money the fedgov has been printing. It will be us nobodies who will pay the price, of course.

I have not heard of the expected rainfall for the rest of the Spring and Summer. Too much or too little is hurtful. We are putting in bigger water pipes to our garden. Bigger diameter equals more pressure. If the drought comes we want to go on and get our crop. The Spring is very big and can easily support a venture like this. It's God's own water. Drink it. Water your garden. Whatever. It's free. Run a 4" line to the garden which is 18' or 19' of fall and neck it down to a 1" hose line wherever you want to have a watering station... It will work like a charm.

Until tomorrow, stay alive.

Michael

mboone@rtccom.net