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There being only so many hours in a day, I’m scaling back our plans for the new fruit trees and the garden. I’d hoped to get  all the trees I wanted put in and do a really big (1/3 acre) garden, but there’s no way I can get all that done in the next few weeks, so I compromised. I’m putting in two pecan trees and four apple trees, while doing a much smaller garden (if any).The pecan trees are an admittedly speculative investment, but they don’t kill off the plants around them like walnut trees, so I can put them in less perfect locations space wise.

I don’t like admitting that there’s something I can’t do, but I should be planting the garden Memorial Day weekend and that simply is not going to happen. RLI as they say in cyberspace. Real Life Intrudes. Maybe this will give me more time to do some needed prep – take down some of the old trees, bury the well power line so that said old trees don’t come down on top of it, etc. We have plenty of land, but only about 5 acres of cleared land. That means that I need to use that land as efficiently as possible. I can’t have rogue, unproductive trees blocking sunlight for fruit trees or a garden. It also means that there’s only so many places I can put trees or gardens before I have to start clearing more land – a daunting task.

Still, the chicks/poults/ducklings are due in tomorrow at the post office and our new bull, Thor, arrived over the weekend. Thor is unrelated to Sean, our lovable Rent-A-Bull, but from the same farm. He’s pretty young, but should produce some very nice beef cattle. His confirmation is excellent, and he’s going to be a pretty beefy dude. Cath’s family is coming up for the long weekend, so maybe I can put her brother to work helping to put in a new fence for the poultry yard. There’s a long way to go, and it will take longer than I thought to get there, but we’ll keep plugging away.

Broody and all in black, she could be a Goth. Rather, she’s one of our Java hens. And broody here means, sitting on a clutch of eggs, not contemplating the utter futility of modern dystopia while listening to Trent Reznor. Unfortunately, I have no idea how many eggs she’s sitting on. I know that 3 of them are fake. Hopefully, there’s a couple real ones in there because the automatic egg turner failed in our incubator and these are the only non-mail order chicks I’m liable to get for awhile.

That’s the good news. That and soccer ends this weekend. I love soccer and its great for the kids, but between that and baseball and work I’m running myself ragged before I even get a chance to do any farm work. The last batch of farm equipment arrives Saturday if I can get down to TSC. Then, I can spend all day Sunday “playing” as Cath thinks of it.

There is a ton of work to do in any household. Add in a home rehab and a land rehab and it gets pretty busy. This week we’ve been loafing a bit. Unconsciously, I think, we are taking a big, deep breath before the run of summer activity which starts next week. Max and I have been listening to Robert A. Heinlein’s “Have Spacesuit, Will Travel on audio. Cath has been watching Sex in the City (late night, after the kids are asleep). As crazy as it is, we launch back into it for real starting this weekend.

Lots of stuff going on in slow motion. Chicks arrive May 23. Fruit trees (hopefully) arrive the following week. Lots of construction going on. I’m staining like mad to get the “Kansas” room done before the weather turns from good to great. There’s a small pile of fence posts and cattle fence as we get ready to fence off the area behind the barn. There’s also lots of debate about the cost of disc harrows and rotary cutters, but the argument that without them, the tractor is pretty useless garage ornament seems to have carried the day. I will pay for this later in some form of spousal hell, I’m sure.

There’s also the concurrent soccer and baseball seasons. And Cub Scouts. And everything else. At some point, I’ll get around to the reason I came out here – to play gentleman farmer and spend time with my family. In the meantime, other things are in the driver’s seat. Right now I’m at paying work, and its after 9PM.  Feh. I need a bloody time machine.

On top of all this the site is being inundated with spam posts. None of them are getting on the site, but the volume of traffic in my email is going to be a problem. Right now I’m checking every post to make sure I don’t miss anything legitimate, but please bear with me if you’re a first time poster.

That said, our new bull will be arriving this weekend or so. Thor. You can’t beat that. I mean, our lovable “Rentabull” Sean, is a great guy, but Thor has a better name and (from the looks of things) a better set of genes. Sean is has excellent lines, but Thor looks like a packing plant with fur. We’ll also be weaning Thorndale at that time. He gets a ride down the street to the Fieldstone Farm to give mom a break. We’ll see how that goes.

In the meantime, I’m clearing out a stand of young maples that was blocking in one of our apple trees. After felling about 8 of the small maples, I could finally see the crown of the apple tree. Covered in left over vines (another problem), it looks so dilapidated that I may have to whack the whole apple tree anyway. Its in bad shape. We’ll see though. I hate to give up on it after swing around a 12 lb. chainsaw all afternoon with a shoulder that just got MRI’d. Note to self: stretch a bit more before tossing around 75lb stumps. Clean bill of health aside, a torn rotator cuff would have really put a damper on things for the rest of the summer.

Keep that in mind you future Urban to Rural He-men: your address might say rural He-man, but your body might still say mushy suburbanite.