The doctor took the cast off of my leg, put me into one of those boot things, and then told me not to use it. Funny thing this. . . I have been walking around for a few weeks now, the thought of me giving all of that up is pretty small, but I appreciate the sentiment. The fact is that I really got hurt when the tree fell. The broken bones and tree anxiety took a whole lot more out of me that I realized or was willing to admit. Moving around takes about four times the effort since there is no leverage in my legs and lifting anything more than about twenty pounds fairly stops me moving around. I can still move if my hands are pretty empty and I can stand up straight for a few hours at a time. But otherwise I am pretty useless for work. It isn't that I can go running around, pulling heavy weights and roto-tilling new fields. But I can do some stuff.
We were having a real big problem with rodents. Mice, rats, rabbits, squirrels, moles, and gophers have all taken quite a toll on the gardens. Last year it was about moles and gophers. These didn't eat too much, but they tore the ground up a lot. During the Winter, after trying every bait, trap, and every bit of internet advice we could find, we finally heard about using road flares. So any new opening is now opened up immediately and a fifteen minute flare put into the tunnel. The gophers all moved, some of them not too far away so they stage come backs every once in a while. The moles have given up for the most part. The mice and rats are an ongoing puzzle, but the rabbits and squirrels have given us a real problem.
The squirrels started off early in the Spring by invading the Greenhouse (before it was destroyed by the tree). The ate a great many of the seeds planting for sprouting, ate the heads off of a bunch of the sprouts, and when the plants started going into the ground the came soon after and destroyed the lot. They ate all of the early lettuces and all of the cantaloupe sprouts. They also started emtying the chicken feeder, an expensive thing to allow to continue. We started making screen protectors and looking for other solutions.
The rabbits live next door and usually eat their new flowers, but occasionally they came by and weren't nearly the problem the squirrels have been. But since the Greenhouse has been torn down they have been coming over to take advantage of the many varieties of rabbit bait we have planted. They aren't nearly as big a problem as the squirrels, but they eat a lot more and take bigger bites.
We thought about snares and traps, but the farming forums online told us the only solution would be some sort of gun. Eventually we decided to do the dirty deed and bought a .22 caliber rifle with a scope. Since then we have been taking the critters out and hating it. The fact is that the little varmints just keep on coming. The rabbits are pretty hard to get, they are quick but not impossible. The squirrels are more numerous and a bit slower moving, so their numbers will eventually start falling.
The rows in the Market Garden is mostly filled with plants under some sort of wire protection, but so much that these furry critters stay out of it. We have three of four opportunities to take a squirrel out most days, the rabbits not nearly so much. Some days we don't see any.
The Gardens started producing food this past few weeks and things are looking pretty good. We now have onions, potatoes, tomatoes, strawberries, and lettuces to eat. Last night's supper was mostly grown here an it was delicious. The plants are growing faster than the rodents can eat them and soon we will have produce worthy of selling.
Since I can't work much it falls to me to do the hunting, but gardening is out. I have spent some time driving the tractor and moving stuff around. I have also spent some time using the field burner to try and help out with weeds. And I can sit for a few hours and look for opportunities to do some stuff and it gives me something to do which isn't surfing YouTube or playing some game when I find something. But it will sure be nice to be able to get back to work. We are planning our next moves, waiting for permits to come through, and thinking about our Second Annual Summer Supper. None of this is nothing, so I'll have to be content.
I've had quite a bit of time to think about things while laying around for nearly eight weeks. It took a few weeks to stop feeling useless, and few more to stop trying to force myself back to work. But since there isn't much anyone can do to knit bones it seems more right to think that there isn't much I can do about it either. So I spend about half my days laying around, the other half I get to do what little I can. The new boot will give me a bit more flexibility in doing some things, but time is the only thing that will fix what has been broken. But things are going pretty well on the Farm and it looks good for the near future. Ann and her crew have done an amazing job of keep up on things too, so once I do get back to work we will be right back on top of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment