As we seek for things to do indoors while we wait for the wet ground to dry a little, Phil cleaned part of the little greenhouse for me. He set up one of the four grow mats (probably all I'll get this year, unless he does another reshuffling of tools and random equipment), and I have the poor, neglected, cold seedlings started almost a month (hardly sprouted), and the tray of stinging nettle that had been in the shower (trying to get warmth from the puppies, but not sprouted at all) now resting in warm bliss.
Now, let the planting begin!
I am currently soaking elderberry, black cherry, medlar, and coffee seeds for a day. Tomorrow I'll plant them out into flats, and see if they grow. (The medlar is a tree more common in Europe. Permaculturists over there mention it regularly. Apparently, the fruit is quite sweet once it rots; not hard to see why it's not more popular in the States.)
While he was cleaning, Phil also sorted and hung his tools. Looks good!
He sawed another section of tree, but that might be all he can do easily without a tractor: rolling a log is not hard, but sliding a log is difficult, especially on water-soaked ground.
I was making dinner and thought I should check on Babe the heifer. I hadn't seen her since Saturday. What a difference! One of her teats was almost smooth, rather than wrinkly and small: impending labor. Her backend was, I suppose, more flabby. At one point, she appeared to be about to poop, but nothing came out: early pushing? And, most telling, the tendon around her tail was softened (I compared it with her half-sister's tail, which felt like a rock: very startling).
I admit to hoping for a palindrome birthdate for the little calf, but when I just went to check on Babe, she was simply lying with her legs tucked under her, in exactly the same position Phil had seen her earlier in the evening. She's a heifer, which means slow labor. (My first birth took 25 hours, start to finish; my last took right about two.)
Truthfully, other than the coolness of a palindrome date, tomorrow morning would be a much better time to birth. It's supposed to hit the upper 30s tonight, whereas tomorrow should be in the 60s. If I was a little calf, I know what weather I'd prefer for my first glimpse of the world!
In other news, I have started, with some reluctance, to read Growing Great Garlic. A few pages of homestead continuing ed at night puts me to sleep quickly. But the first chapter captivated me so much, I wished I could stay up all night.
For example: is garlic a food, a spice, or an herb? Hmm ... it's just garlic.
It grows in the fall, when plants are supposed to be dead. And it never actually dies. it rests (not "dormant," but "resting"). Somehow they are fertile, but never fertilized.
And did you know that stalk is white and underground? That the cloves are actually swollen leaves? That technically the cloves are bulbs within a bulb, but they aren't called bulbs, and no one knows why they are called cloves?
I love learning stuff like this!
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