PLANTING

On Tuesday four podmates prepared the raised bed in front of the third house and planted sweet potato slips there.

Daniel displays one of the “slips” with puppy Shadow, bottom right, watching.

Come on, Marita, Evaan, Daniel, and Aya, SMILE for the camera! (Evan, BTW, is here only for one month, about to take off for legendary Findhorn, in Scotland, to take a Permaculture Design Certificate course!)

I prepared a tiny bed and sowed spinach. Joseph, our go-to guy to remove any emerging poison ivy — he’s only mildly allergic — was hard at work. Thank you, Joseph!

Friday morning work party, more planting, this time peppers. Marita and I focused on removing vines, especially kudzu, which is trying to take hold here under the giant maple tree.

Meanwhile, the many sudden drenching thunderstorms have us wondering whether we really do need to take the seedlings in and out of the greenhouse over and over again. Did we do this in prior years? Don’t think so, or only rarely. Are there more sudden, strong storms this spring? 

YURT PREP

The yurt is to arrive June 1, from campingyurts.com. A long-held dream of mine (I lived in a 20-foot yurt in the Tetons for twelve years before coming to Indiana), the yurt will be a sleeping place for visitors, woofers, and so on. We decided on a 12-foot diameter yurt with 10-foot high ceiling, mold resistant marine canvas, and another cover over that in case of heavy rain. Other features too, like the number of windows, type of door, etc.

We will put the yurt on a platform, and set the platform at the northeast corner of the Overhill house back yard. We’ve had to remove or reduce several garden beds to do it, but it seemed like the most logical place. Even before the platform is built, the corner wall — an awkward, hard to repurpose remnant from the long strange, even fascinating, shadow-dancing story: the Cob Oven Saga — which has been standing about four feet out from that corner for years, has to be moved back. That will take a number of people to accomplish. But even before that can happen, we knew we’d have to eliminate what remains of a tree (plus a bird house, unfortunately), since both are obstructing any effort to move the corner wall back . . .

In any case, this whole project is my idea, and so I’m the one that has to make it happen. I asked neighbor Devin at our Community Dinner nearly two weeks ago, if he could cut down the tree. He agreed, in exchange for “two-hearted ale, glass bottled.” Okay!

That weekend rolled around. Nope. Several days ago I sent a pleading email reminder, and he responded, saying yes he would do it sometime this weekend. So yesterday (Saturday) morning I went to Big Red Liquor to get him not one six-pack, but two . . . And, when I got home — divine timing! — Devin was just arriving, with his electric saw. The tree turned out to be not so easy to cut down, but he got ‘er done, and luckily the bird house was not in use this year.

THANK YOU, DEVIN!

I’m thinking that when I send out the announcement to the Green Acres Dinner List Tuesday for this week’s 7 p.m. Thursday Community Dinner, I’ll include a request that anyone who is physically able, would you please come 30 minutes early and help us move that damn corner wall back four feet? It will take the coordinated effort of about six people. 

I’m going to sweeten the request by telling anyone who agrees to help that he or she can spend a night in the new yurt, once it’s up, likely by the end of June.