No news, full barrels, planting plans

Sometimes no new is not good news. I suppose you could call me impatient but I have not heard anything from the Licensing group yet. It has been three weeks now but I should not be too concerned. I interviewed people for the Training Coordinator position in early December and only this week heard through the grapevine that a training supervisor has now been selected – but not officially announced. That selection is critical to the coordinator position I am looking to fill. The candidates I interviewed are really not enjoying the suspense.


Today is chocked full of meetings and we have an additional twenty or so people in the area for a major meeting on a safety initiative we started over three years ago. Meanwhile, our boss is off site in meetings with his peers and their bosses to set goals for the year. We will get most of our goals from the outcomes of that meeting. So I am not the only one who is anxious for some news – any news.

Mama and Grandpa went yesterday and bought enough feed to get us through the month. I am not sure why the urgency or push to get that done, but it makes very little difference to me if we spend the $400 in one day or over the process of two weeks. It costs the same to buy. It does save time and gas if the errands are run in one day rather than making three or four trips. So now our feed barrels are full to overflowing.

Grandpa and I bought two large round bales of good hay to put out for the calves that are on the pasture full time. We had thought about leaving the one we put in their pasture open so the calves could get to it from all sides. That idea turned out to be a bad one. The young steers burrowed their heads into the bale up to their shoulders and began shredding it almost instantly. We had to rig up a fence around it to limit their access in order to ensure they ate the hay rather than using it for bedding.

Additionally, Grandpa wanted to introduce the donkeys to the calves but that idea too, proved an error in judgment. The donkeys were interested in the fresh hay but seemed terrified of the calves. While the calves were at the hay, they stood back but once the calves filled up and went away to rest the donkeys moved in for the kill. They were worse about dismantling the bale than the calves. We had to separate them back out in order to protect our investment for the calves.

Mama and Grandpa are going to set out onions today. They too were bought yesterday. Before anything was out I wanted to know the dimensions of the garden so I got my big measuring roll and when out last night to check it out. It measured sixty by one hundred feet for the garden portion of the fenced in patch. We have decided to use the upper forty by sixty foot section for a fruit orchard.

That will give us room for about fifteen trees depending on the selections we make. We decided to move the fruit trees into the fenced area of the garden plot because the horses destroyed all but four of the fifteen or so trees we tried to get started last year. We found out too late that short trees make good belly scratchers for the horses so they bent over and otherwise trampled or broke off the entire orchard.

I am still planning on planting pecan trees in a grove with the hope of having twenty five trees. I am glad we learned before we bought any that they are not landscape or garden friendly. They need to be planted away from other trees and shrubs because they secrete a poison around their roots that will kill most other plants. They would not have worked out near the fruit trees or the garden.

The last thing we need is another way to kill our fruit trees.