Uuurrggh...
Those mornings when the entire pot of espresso has no effect whatsoever. Sssooooooo sleeeeeeepyyyy...
I raked up about ten tarp-loads of leaves yesterday afternoon, some of them very heavy from weeks of rain and snow. There are four oak trees in my garden, that is about 90% slope. And I guess oaks only fruit every other year because I really don't remember last year having the same Egyptian Plague-level of acorns. Acornpocalypse. I must have raked up 60 pounds of the things, and yesterday spent quite a bit of time pulling up the little mini oak trees where tiny forests of them had taken root at the base of the rose bushes.
Today's job is to get the last of the leaves up and start digging in the composted leaves from last year into an area I've started turning into a veg bed. I've composted two buckets of soil from kitchen scraps too, so it will be really good soil.
After that my big ambition is to take the billhook I got for Christmas and build a wattle fence for my bed. There's so much hazel around here they won't even notice me cutting rods. Should have done it in January before the sap started running, but ... oh well...
I love this guy's accent. Sounds like home to me.
My mother told me once that her uncle Bill was a hurdle maker. Can't let the family trade die out.
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Just so you know, Hilary, we in Massachusetts had scads of acorns fall this year as well.
ReplyDeleteMust be a cyclical thing - or a message?
JD
So the thing to do with Acorns, I'm told, is bury them in a river bank for a few months, let the bitterer tannins leech out, and then boil them, and then mill them into acorn flour or some such.
ReplyDeleteIf you haven't a squirel-proof river-bank handy, the key thing is water cycling more than the burying.
They're a favourite food of pigs and goats. I just have to get a bigger bit of land and I think I'll look into keeping a goat or two. Maybe learn to make goat cheese and yogurt.
ReplyDeleteDreams...