Plans change and a hose needed repair

It is rarely a bad idea to have the lead photo in a blog-post be a picture of a happy dog.

Overall notes

Due to Mrs ERJ's mission-of-mercy, I had to stick close to home yesterday. The nature of the mission changed several times through the morning as the other party panicked. Unable to do the things I had planned, I found other things to do.

Early in the morning, Quicksilver and I made a trip to the greenhouse. It was closed.

Then we went to the playground next to Old Athletic field and she played for about 40 minutes. 

Then we went to the ice cream store. It was closed.

Then we went to Quality Dairy and bought a bowl with a single scoop of chocolate ice cream and two spoons. We walked down to the river to eat it. Oddly enough, she didn't let me hold the bowl but I got my share anyway. 

I planted 100' of rutabagas yesterday and (with Quicksilver's help) 30' of Blue Lake pole beans. Shortly after we got the seeds into the ground we picked up about a half inch of rain.

About that help in the garden...

Quicksilver insisted on helping me in the garden yesterday. She was not taking "No" for an answer.

I was planting green beans. Quicksilver considers herself a professional bean planter. She had planted beans into Dixie cups in her play-date group.

Her spacing was good even though she doesn't know the difference between inches and moon-pies (a metric unit, to be sure). However, in spite of my instructions to NOT push the bean seeds down into the soil, she was sure that she knew better.

Her fingers got all gooey with mud so I hosed off her hands before we went into the house and then we washed them off with soap-and-water once inside.

Normally, I am not paranoid about mud, but I had used water from the duck's swimming pool to flood the trench where I planned to plant beans. I had not anticipated Quicksilver kicking off her sandals and stuffing her feet into her "farm boots" and chasing me outside.

In spite of my frustration about her not following instructions, I am very proud of her.  She is a "do it" kind of kid and she really wants to work.

Progress-to-date

There are two plots of ground that I am gardening in Eaton Rapids. Both of them are about 4000 square-feet. One is fenced in. The other, called the potato patch, is not.

The potato patch is the most planted. I am figuring about 1100' of row. To date, 650' of potatoes are planted. 50' of onions. 100' of rutabagas. The remaining 300' will be planted to assorted vegetables like beets and sweet peppers. By my calculations, that puts the potato patch at about 70% planted.

I think it is worth mentioning that I ran the main travel aisle-way right up the middle of the length of the garden. Vegetables that produce multiple pickings or earliest crops (like sweet peppers and beets to be eaten through the summer) are staged in rows next to the aisle-way while late potatoes that get harvested all in one "go" are in rows that are farther away from the aisle-way.

The fenced-in garden is much less planted. So far it has 24' of tomatoes, 24' of broccoli and 30' of beans planted in it with 100' of cabbage planned. It also happens to be where the ducks are patrolling. Their primary mission is to eat snails and slugs. Their secondary mission is to lay eggs. 

I may end up planting half of the fenced-in garden to buckwheat or red clover. 

Mrs ERJ's mission-of-mercy escalated. She was gone until five. No trips to Caledonia for me...at least not yesterday. She has appointments in both the morning and this afternoon, so Caledonia is unlikely for today.

Equipment maintenance

There are two kinds of equipment on a working farm. Broken equipment and equipment that is about to break. You better get good at fixing/maintaining things if you don't want to find yourself dead-in-the-water.

This hose had an encounter with a frustrated raccoon.

The hose was severed about 5' from the end so I decided to not splice it but to simple move the end.

I removed the old end for re-use (not the first time this hose has been repaired) and cut the damaged area flush with a pair of by-pass pruning snips.

 

Then I soaked the cut end in very hot water to soften the vinyl.

Then, before pressing the barb of the female end into the hose, I slipped the screw-collar over the hose and goobered some liquid soap inside of the hose  abd smeared it around with my pinky-finger. I did the same with the exterior of the barb of the female end.

 

The last step is to slide the screw-collar up over the end of the hose where the barbed-end is pressed in and to tighten the screws.

Zeus approved the repair