Starting the Tarps - April 8, 2024 @goldenoakfarm

Granola - big batch crop April 2024.jpg

On Monday my son’s friend was to arrive about 10AM to help with the tarps in the Small garden. I was up at 5AM and got the kitchen cleaned up, chores done then made a double batch of the granola. This time it browned. I’m chalking it up to using a glass dish the first time and a stainless steel one the second time.

Once I’d had breakfast I got laundry started and got a shower. Then I sat down until he arrived at 9:45AM.

Small garden - before crop April 2024.jpg

First we had to get all the wood weights off and into the truck. Then we got the truck unloaded and out of the way.

Small garden - 1-3 cleaned out crop April 2024.jpg

We dragged each tarp over the bank and dumped the load of leaves. Before we moved each one, we gathered most of the leaves under the tarps as we could on put them on the tarps.

My son arrived about noon and he started pressure washing the tarps. But the o ring in the pressure hose had deteriorated so we ended up just using a garden sprayer.

Tarps drying crop April 2024.jpg

Then we hung each one on the clothes line to dry. While he was washing, I was cleaning out the missed leaves, grass, and “cordwood” from the garden. I got it about ⅓ done.

Last area raked crop April 2024.jpg

My son’s friend got the rest of the backyard raked and even sorted out the sticks for kindling.

We didn’t do all the tarps, there are still 3 to do on Tuesday and I have to finish cleaning out the garden.

In case you were wondering, I put the tarps down to catch the white oak acorns in the fall. If the acorns hit the ground, they germinate almost immediately. Pulling out 12” taproots in the spring isn’t fun, and there are hundreds or thousands of them.

Normally I get the tarps off in early December, but the weather and no help prevented that.

I was exhausted and asleep on the couch when the eclipse happened.
I also need to make at least 2 more meals on Tuesday, for lunch and supper. Plus all the tarps need to be taken down and folded and put away as it’s to rain on Wednesday. And I have to finish the laundry.

So another wicked busy day on Tuesday.

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Great work! Your fatigue must have been good fatigue ^^

What a great idea to keep the acorns at bay. That is a huge job but I am sure you are happy to have that done and out of the way. We are spreading mulch all week and boy oh boy can I feel it in my back.

Wow
You had a lot of work at the garden
You must be really tired
Kudos!

Lots of work in the garden in spring! I would use your idea of preventing seeds from germinating this rainy season! We have a nice tree which produced so many fruits last year. I didn’t realise that those fruit could germinate very fast. So we had to dig all the small plants with roots! Very tiring.

The fruits were edible but they didn’t taste very nice so the squirrels also ignored them.

So glad you had several people helping with all the hard work. My next project is to repair the roof on the east side, some birds made a nest inside last year.

Work is your second nature so I'm not surprised at how far you can go.
Looking forward to the granola😋

It came out better than expected, and I have it for breakfast many mornings. :))