Well, I have been incredibly busy with a lot of work I really don't enjoy: primarily paperwork. Hiring a new caregiver for my parents, getting my estate planning in order, and a lot of financial stuff that I dislike with a passion of a thousand suns, but will be great for future Kyle. I can't really explain why I hate this stuff so much, but it weighs heavily on my soul. But life also continues on. I've filled the parent's woodshed. Got some backpacking in with the girlfriend. And started to winterize the ranch.
The seasons continue to march on. The first ski area opened this weekend (Mt. Rose) and the distant high peaks have a dusting of snow that just won't go away. The aspens are doing their show-off thing again, and it's incredibly beautiful up here in the mountains.
Last weekend, we spent a night at 8,000ft and I can confirm it is getting quite cold. Our sleeping pad deflated half way through the night, but we did get a beautiful sunset. It ended up being so cold we shortened our trip from 3 days to 2 and hiked the remaining 14 miles or so back to the cars to avoid another cold night.
This weekend, I spent my time at the ranch getting everything all happy for winter times. Mostly this involved walking back and forth with something in my hand all day long. We usually get around 5-10ft of standing snow on the ground. Add in water and ice weight, and that means anything that can be crushed shall be if it's not put away (about 300-400psf). While I was doing this, I kept collecting cow shit. You know, for my garlic. Which I managed to plant in October this year! I am experimenting with 30" beds this year in an area of the garden. So I took the first bed and double-dug in about 10gallons of cow shit and planted around 64 garlics — just under 2lbs of seed. I wish I had counted better.
The shitty cows destroyed another apple tree. I guess the wire cages around the trees were too upsetting, so they just bulldozed through the whole thing and snapped the tree and t-posts flat to the ground. Can't wait to get a fence next year. It will be a priority for me. Probably hired out. I don't like building fences.
For all the complaining in this post, I'm super excited for the future. Some super exciting developments are underway for me personally, and even though I am suffering in paperwork much of it is of my own procrastinating doing. I should be done by October and ready to do just about anything I want in the world come November. Plus I am really excited about my garlic. I've never had animals (other than my dog & cats), so I've always had to rely on outside sources for my organic matter. This year, I've got a huge
compost pile and about 20gals of raw manure dug into next year's garden beds. I spent the time to break up the ground, dig in organic matter, and only plant the largest cloves. Irrigation is ready for next year too. I have no idea what I would do with 64 heads of garlic, but that seems like a good problem. I celebrated with some green beans and (homegrown) garlic bread on the fire as celebration.