Planting Time

The young farmer lad got my fields planted late Tuesday afternoon/early evening before the rain came in, which means we should be seeing the little monocots poking through the ground in a week or so and then later this summer he'll be back to harvest the yellow dent corn so that we can all have grocery products laden with high fructose corn syrup. Maybe corn bread or tortillas - I'd feel better about that. I'm not all that comfortable with the modern state of agriculture but if less than two percent of the population is feeding the remainder of us, it's going to require large farms and chemical inputs. 

I was able to get most of the remainder of my garden planted before the rain came in as well. Other than planting some strawberries, the garden's about the same as the last few years. I did harvest some asparagus this year. They say you should let the asparagus go a couple of years before picking any. This being year three, it was time. I also picked some rhubarb and made a couple of loaves of rhubarb bread. Tasty stuff, that. I should be able to devote more time to the garden than I have the last couple of years with, hopefully, a resultant increase in yield. Not that I need the vegetables - there's a couple of grocery stores close by and a farmer's market in the summer. Working the garden is more to nourish my soul than my body but I firmly believe everyone should have a direct connection to the land they live on and the food they eat, regardless of how small that connection may be.

Only a couple more days of school left. I finished up my last turning exercise in the CNC class and I'm scheduled to take the NIMS test shortly. I've got some paperwork to complete and one session of the MIG class I've been teaching yet, but the semester's about done. I've then got a month off and I'm looking forward to some vacation time. I talked to Cuzzin Ricky the other day about hitting a few spots while I'm off and now that he's retired, he's all for it. Should be able to hit a few places we've both been meaning to take in but for whatever reason, just never got around to. Hopefully this will be the summer for filling in those blanks.