Kelleys Dairy Starts Gardening 3-1-08
The day started off warmer than what it has been and I had decided that today was the day I was going to plant some radishes, lettuce and onions. Just as soon as I finished morning chores I got the tiller out and tried to start it. I pulled on the rope five or six times and took a break, pulled a couple of more times and the rope broke. Dern, there went my plans. Disgusted I just left it sitting there and headed on to the house for breakfast and to check the online news. I mean after all things aren't open at 7:15 a. m. After breakfast I called Ed (He had once took a school on small engine repair) for advice. He said he would be right over. and advised me that we would have to remove the pull rope assembly. I met him in the garden and then while he oversaw I took it off. He looked at it and told me to take it to Tri-County Small Engine Repair and they would put a new rope on it in just a few minutes. So off I took, I had not wanted to go to Mtn Grove because I had already been five times this week and I like to limit my trips to once or twice a week. Sure enough it took but a few minutes for Bill to get a new rope on the device. I got a quart of oil and a new spark plug while I was there. Got back home and went straight to garden and got it reinstalled - changed the spark plug and BOOM it started on the first pull of the rope. The garden was much too wet to do much with so I just broke the surface open with two shallow passes and since I had the motor warmed up I drained and changed the oil. About 11:00 a.m. by now so headed to the house for a break. I had talked to Jacob on Friday evening and he was expecting me around noon to bring a ladder and help him get his Christmas lights down from the house so Glinda and I headed over there. When we had gotten that chore complete Glinda and I stayed and visited a while before heading home and back to the garden. I fired up the tiller again after letting the sun dry out what I had opened up and started tilling again. Went over the ground three times and laid out the ground for the onions. Glinda started planting them and then three of my grandchildren ("Flo", "M", and "Flossie") came out to give a hand. The photo and video below are the three of them planting onions with some Brown Swiss steers in the background. While they were doing that I planted the radishes and lettuce.
March 1 and they are in the dirt barefooted.
Cheerily
IJK