A Day in the Life

"Maybe a person's time would be as well spent raising food as raising money to buy food. "-- Frank A. Clark

Up before the sun again. Went out into the garden and yard for a little communing with nature and was greeted by a big beautiful full moon just above the Western horizon. Also to meet me were a couple roosters down the street and some robins – one with a very large worm.

The wind is a bit cool for the what the thermometer says is 70 degrees. Feels nice after the high heat of the afternoons. You know it’s going to hot when its 70 degrees at 5:30 AM.

Filled the bird feeders, poured fresh water into the bird baths and then was off to care for some plants. After attaching the liquid plant food sprayer to the garden hose I fed all the containers and hanging baskets as well as the earth-bound annuals.

There’s a low-hanging branch of the dogwood tree in the front yard that has been bothersome when I mow so I pruned that off. Also, while I had the pruning shears in hand I took off the suckers from around the apple tree. Next up is the plum and cherry trees. The Cherry Tree. I have to pause a bit whenever I think of this ole girl. Something has a hold on it and it isn’t pleasant. Each year, more and more of its once stately branches are staying bare through summer’s heat. In the past we have gotten many, many pounds of sweet juicy fruit from this old lady. Enough so that we freely share it with the birds. But something evil has moved in and this year we haven’t gotten one cherry from her. It’s too sad to contemplate her future but I fear it is going to be needed soon.

Along the same line – that being pests – I set out six small containers of beer for a little slug suicide party. Only two of the containers caught anything for a total of six slugs. Not a very good catch especially since I know there there are a lot more than that out there. So, the party will be extended through tonight.

Pulled all the veggie containers out from under their protective row covers to catch some early morning sunlight, the best time of day for them. They being well-fed and well-watered should recover nicely from the harvest we took yesterday for our salads.

That’s it for this morning from the Utah Valley. Hope everyone’s day is pleasurable and at least productive in some way.