Planning and execution

Today had two major parts.

In the morning I had a long interview with Deacon Tom.  We were trying to integrate my "mission" with established ministries.

Retirement is inevitably a time of change.  You can approach it like a martial art where you guide and direct the momentum of that change to bring about the desired end.  Or you can passively let your time get filled up with fluff and other people's obligations and then be surprised that you are stressed and unfullfilled.

I present a puzzle for Deacon Tom.  I am still sour on people from working.  It is not that the place that I worked was awful, it is just that I ran into a set of circumstances that left me pretty twisted up.  I am unwinding but not all that fast.

Four and a half possibilities surfaced.

1. Snow shoveling ministry.  Ice and snow is hard on little, old ladies.
2. Sitting with people with dementia.  It is incredibly painful for family members to regularly visit patients with Alzheimer's or dementia.  It is a blessing to have a non-family member provide human contact with patients and it is much less painful for non-family members.
3. Establishing an orchard behind the church parking lot.  This orchard is already started but is overgrown. It needs TLC until the trees can fend for themselves.  This will be integrated with the food distribution program.
4. Rough out what a ministry for recent retirees might look like, whether voluntary or involuntary retirees.
5. A series of "walk ons" just to get a sense of the pace and the community in the existing ministries.

 Time will tell.

The afternoon was filled with activities that are more typical of what I have been posting.

Mrs ERJ asked me to clear off the apron in front of the garage so the kids can play basket ball.  I have been lazy and let my projects "park" there.

So I installed one of the Barn Owl/bee hives on a pole.

Yup, it is beyond ugly.  It still needs a stove pipe raccoon guard and about 2 inches of wood shavings in the bottom of the box.  But then it should be good to go.

The spinach seeds came today.  That was lightening fast shipping and I am very impressed.  Seed pictured here with an antler shed I found today under the Rosa rugosa as I pulled fencing around the new garden plot.

I had a dilemma regarding the planting of this seed.  The normal sequence is for me to till the dirt which makes the surface very open and rough.  The seed tends to percolate into the lows around the dirt clods.  Then the rain partially melts the clods which covers up many (enough) of the seeds.  I had already tilled, seeded and then it rained.

I opted to drag a pick-axe to open up some dirt for the spinach seeds.  The drag marks are between 3 and 4 feet apart.

We will see how this works.  Seeds were dribbled into the rows and then walked in.

I also put in the last end post and thought I would take a few pictures to give a feel for how I did it.  I am likely to get some feedback because I "plunged" the tip of a chainsaw into the post to make the vertical cuts and that is generally considered bad practice.

T cut to accept end of T post.  I made an effort to angle the horizontal cut upward.

T post inserted into end post.  That Black Locust endpost is quite photogenic, isn't it.

Bottom end of T post lifted up to middle of hole.  These holes are great places to dispose of pieces of wire, bent nails and odds-and-ends of fencing

Boulders can heave out of the ground due to frost.  I think the phenomena is related to the shape of the sides.  I believe that making the sides vertical or with negative draft angle greatly reduces the heaving effects of frost.

I also made a few walks around the property with my loppers and the tin snips.  This summer has been incredible for the amount and regularity of the rain.  I am seeing two to three times as much growth as usual.  I was using the loppers to keep things orderly and to favor some recent grafts that were being bullied about by suckers from the understock.