Early May

Completely unfocused and uninformative post follows—with pictures!

Over the weekend, we went to Nature's Harmony Farm, near Elberton, Georgia, for a lengthy guided tour of their operations, which are apparently modeled on the Polyface Farms in Virginia. Mostly we just walked around pointing, tuning in to and out of the more detailed explanations of crop rotation, natural fertilization, and breeding. I suppose this kind of thing should be much more fascinating to me than it is, and I have to admit that I might have rolled my eyes when I heard the phrase "coated in diesel fuel." (To be fair, it was used in reference to the farmers' certainly wise decision to forego strictly organic baby turkey feed in favor of a locally produced feed.)

The bug immediately took to the chickens, and had to be coaxed out of the henhouse after about twenty minutes. I'm again considering building a chicken tractor and getting some for ourselves.

We did a lot of laundry in preparation for a visit from Grandma. I had to string up a line in the backyard to accommodate some of the larger items.

The herb garden over the weekend was invaded by vegetable plants, god help me. An heirloom-tomato-growing friend, a colleague of Mr. Chalmers, sent five plants home with him for me, along with various baggies of stuff like bone meal, blood meal, green sand, and more for fertlizing. I just hope I don't kill them off right away.

Here's part of the herb garden in the front yard, though I guess you can't see much right now. At the bottom (under crossed sticks, to keep trampling dogs and the bug away) is sorrel. In the middle are a couple of pepper plants (serrano and Anaheim) and a Japanese eggplant—why not? A bunch of random herbs, and the tomatoes are in the back. The bug has helped with this project every step of the way, although there are few things she enjoys more than digging up the seedlings we've just put in the ground.

Yesterday I dug some seedlings of English dogwood (or mock orange) from the brush at the side of the yard and put them in the front yard. And I took, from the woods in back, some shrubs I don't know the name of—I've seen them everywhere, and I love how they look, especially when the leaves turn bright red in fall. Will take a picture soon so I can ask you all for an ID. They really are in just about every yard around here, but I don't know how to look up the name.

This morning I fixed up the teepee and made it more sturdy by actually sewing the cloth to the poles, and cutting off the extra cloth at the bottom. The bug went right in and took a two-hour nap; I brought my computer out to the porch and got some work done.

She's inside, napping on her sleeping bag. Her birthday-present slide, still much used, thank you very much, has as far as I know not negatively affected home prices in the area. I think the decline of the American lawn is much exaggerated, and that Tom Vanderbilt is a snob. (The mystery plant is in the top right corner, but I'll take a clearer picture.)