My Weeping Hose Made Me Weep

Yesterday was a busy day with Paulownia trees seedlings coming, installing weeper hoses and attempting to get everything done.
I was cleaning the duck pen and temp duck house, Dom was connecting all the hoses together.

I was exhausted yesterday.

I must say that it was actually a thrilling experience to get up and turn on the weepers! It meant that I could weed, start to work on burying the hoses and tend to the ducklings.

Everything was going great until I stretched the wrong way while burying the lines and pulled my back out. My back was in so much pain I kept dosing off while Simmi was watching Shrek today.

After putting her in for a nap, I went to lay down myself, which didn’t help much. My weeping hoses made me weep today as I laid there in pain. I’m hoping tomorrow to get the last bit of weeper lines buried.

I also have been waking up at night worried about our mulberry trees. I find it particularly disturbing that I could sleep through bombs going off, drama in the family, my husband’s alarm going off at the ungodly hour of 3:00am but nothing will jolt me from a sleep faster than worrying about plants and trees.

What the hell is wrong with me? LOL I’m just so worried about these trees. I went through the same thing for each tree and plant that has been planted. Sometimes my sleep is so disturbed I just lay there because impulse would send me right outside to check on them…thank god it is really dark in the middle of the night and my flash light doesn’t have batteries!

Here are a few photos I took this afternoon in an effort to free myself from the guilt of not doing more today due to my back hurting…okay its not work but its something right?

Three days after being planted, the mulberry trees have gone into shock. Not surprising with a lot of its root system missing and bark missing from a good portion of the trunk. This is the tree that has been keeping me up at night.

The smaller mulberry tree is having the same shock issues. I’m glad the bark on this tree is in tact.

 

In the foreground is our pomegranate which made a glorious coming back and is now starting to flower again. In the beginning I had a love hate relationship with this pomm.

It went into shock, dropped leaves, had me up at night worried it wouldn’t make it, and I thought it was because I was watering it too much that it was dying. Turns out I wasn’t watering it enough! It has new growth, flowers coming and is a vibrant green again. I kept saying to myself, “I’m gonna do it my way, and if I kill it, I kill it!” The reason I was saying that was because everything I read online about pomegranates said NOT to water or fertilize. I’ve done both…every other day it gets watered, and I also fertilize it with duck water poop. Does it look dead to you?

Ugly Betty we love you darling! The way you look after the little ones is amazing. You have the patience of a saint my dear. I don’t know if I could handle two little chicks chasing after me all day, pecking at my eyes, knocking over my food, stealing my sleep, and charging me like a bull.

You are a great single mother at the ripe age of five weeks old! Even though you are really ugly right now, we’d love you just the same if you stayed this way. Fortunately you will grow to be a beautiful black sex link, and you will once again be called Betty Complex….here is what you will look like when you get older:

You will be queen of the courtyard! You and your two illegitimate chicks will enjoy the courtyard even though you’ll have to duck and weave around the likes of Simone. Yes she throws little pieces of paper at you, but its only because she loves to see you run and scurry. As I said before, you have the patience of a saint. Dare I say even more patience than most humans.

On another note (I know I’m all over the place today with my writing), the tall fescue forage seed, white clover and yellow clover finally all arrived.

I’ll be treating the grass and clover seeds with the following, which I copy and pasted from the website Fungi Perfecti…even though they didn’t pay me for this plug, I’m giving it. I rarely give links, but I believe whole heartedly in these products:

MycoGrow™ For Lawns
MycoGrow™ For Lawns contains spores of 4 different species of endomycorrhizal fungi, plus additional beneficial organisms for control of lawn-disease-related pathogens. Recommended application rate for lawns is 1.5–2 pounds per 1000 square feet. Can be applied during lawn installation or aeration. Sold in one pound increments.
Note: this product cannot be shipped to Hawaii.

This is also from Paul Stamets site (He’s one of my hero’s!)

The term mycorrhizal comes from the Greek words mykes, meaning fungus, and rhiza, meaning root. Mycorrhizal fungi are fungi that have developed a symbiotic (mutually beneficial) relationship with the root systems of living plants, from garden vegetables all the way up to the trees of the Old Growth forests. Networks of mycorrhizal filaments envelop the seedling’s root structure, supporting the plant’s own ability to utilize water and nutrients in the soil. This relationship encourages healthy, vigorous growth—naturally.

Local Puget Sound organic farmer John Moss performed an experiment with his crop of onions, treating one bed with MycoGrow™ to see how it would compare to his other beds. The results were impressive!

Fungi Perfecti’s MycoGrow™ products are designed for everyone from the home gardener/landscaper to the professional forestry manager, promoting faster growth, speeding transplant recovery and reducing the need for fertilizers and other additives. A number of different formulations are available, for all methods of plant cultivation.

(Please note: the mushroom species in our MycoGrow™ mycorrhizal fungus products have been selected for their speed of growth and maximum potential benefit to plants; they are neither gourmet nor medicinal mushrooms. While these species are not toxic or dangerous in any way, they are nonetheless not intended for human consumption.)

Our MycoGrow™ products contain mushroom species that are approved for use throughout the continental United States and Canada. However, our customers in Hawaii should be aware that they are not permitted in the state of Hawaii. We encourage all international customers to check their countries’ import regulations prior to ordering.