Kendo 2

Get a couple of 6' 1x2 cedar stakes and paint the top 4 feet of them fence purple. Stake them in your front yard where they are clearly visible from the street. If anyone comes in your yard after that (other than US Postal Service or law enforcement with a warrant) they are criminally trespassing and you can call the cops on them. Another option is crushing up a box of mothballs until they'er a fine powder. Sprinkle that generously on the sidewalk and the edge of your yard. That will make your property a no-go zone for any animal with a sense of smell. Dogs won't even stop to sniff. Gotta redo it every once in a while though because the gas off the mothballs will lose it's potency after a while. I mix it with water and spray my fence line to keep out the wild life. Deer, coyotes and bobcats stay the fuck out. Skunks and raccoons don't like it much either. I ain't try'n to have Ellie Mae's varmints overrun me.

Time to start being concerned.

Uhm...no. She germinated the seeds and then brought them to me to plant, water and tend for 120 days. She's ain't growing shit; I AM.

Yesterday I built 6 raised bed 3'x6' boxes and had enough scrap to make one 3'x3'. Got them lined with broken down cardboard boxes and filled today. I moved an actual ton of topsoil and mushroom compost using nothing but a shovel and a wheelbarrow today. My neighbor has a front-end loader but the ground is too wet so it had to be done by hand. Planted everything that needed it, including my sister's special request for pinto beans. She sprouted them herself and made a trip out to see me so I couldn't tell her no. I guess my fancy Cinderella pumpkins are going in the ground since she hijacked one of my planter boxes. I already figured out a way to plant the pumpkins; get medium sized cardboard boxes, fold in the tops and bottoms, space them in rows, fill them with dirt and compost and direct plant the seeds. The boxes will stay together long enough for the plants to get well rooted and when they rot away the pumpkin will have formed it's own hill. That's the theory anyway. After the harvest just till everything under; plants, rotted boxes and all.

Supposedly there are six cases of COVID-19 in my rinky-dink little country town of 4000 people. No one I've talked to knows who these people are. My sister is one of the queen bees in these parts and no one she talks to knows who the cases are. My closest neighbor is the Fire Chief for the whole county and HE doesn't know who they are. The local news paper said there are six cases, but who are they? Nobody fucking knows. There is an HEB grocery store and a small Walmart in town. They are doing that '10 people at a time and you have to wear PPE' bullshit. BUT if you go to Brookshire's (the original grocer established in 1942), the local hardware store (est. 1950) or the feed store (one of the first businesses in the county) they ARE NOT limiting customers. The new Tractor Supply store on the interstate isn't limiting customers either. I hate Walmart for the standard reasons and I hate HEB for their 'Texas Grown' bullshit when everything they package with their label is Heco en Fucking Mexico. Oh, and Walmart has banned the sale of garden supplies since they're not essential. The food isles are bare but vegetable seeds, fertilizer and hoes are not 'essential'. There is definitely some dubious shit going on with the corona virus response.

There is something seriously dubious about corona virus. I'm starting to question the narrative. Can't put my finger on it but more is going on than meets the eye.

Got a surprise for my garden today. One of my sister's friends dropped off two lemongrass plants. She grows them as an ornamental plant in flower beds? Whuddever; I have lemongrass now. And my 'Cinderella carriage' pumpkin seeds came in the mail! EDIT: I just realized how lame I sound. Fuckit, I'm not gonna go hungry when the covid chaos starts.

I wouldn't use a faulty jack because one day it will fail.

Looked at lumber to build 6 planter boxes. Those fools at the lumber yard have lost their fucking minds if they think I'm going to pay $.79 a board foot for #3 cedar planks. My 'fuck you' work around is buying 6' 1x6 cedar fence pickets. They're $2.79 a piece. That limits my planter boxes to 3'x6' but that's okay; I know how to companion plant and trellis. All this means the boxes will cost me about $17 each; saving me over $10. Started a compost pile today but I'm going to have to fast track it. Easy to do; 1 can of Coke, 1 can of beer and 1 cup of household ammonia mixed together and cut with 20 gallons of water. Soak the pile with that shit and let it rest a week. Turn it and toss in 1 pint of worms from the bait store. Ready-to-use compost in 6 weeks.

Talked to some locals today and no one is growing heirloom crops. Everyone is planting the same F1 and F2 hybrids they always do. I swore I wasn't going to grow potatoes and now I am. Same for melons and squash. I couldn't find seed tatters but I know an old black dude who has the same potato crop in rotation since I moved here 15 years ago. He gave me 20 starters in exchange for 10 Cherokee tomatoes when mine fruit up in a couple of months. Watermelons...not a real fan since there's so much waste but I was able to find and heirloom variety of Sugar Baby bush that makes a 10 to 12 lb fruit. That's enough melon for two or three helpings. Squash...I refuse to grow yellow crook neck or fucking zucchini, plus those are crops that the people I talked to are growing. I don't like butternut or acorn types either so I ordered some organic heirloom Rouge Vif D’Etampes pumpkin seeds. They aren't jack o'lantern pumpkins, they're a super heavy French peasant food variety. Herbs...went to the feed store and bought sets for rosemary, oregano, thyme, mint, and cilantro. Also bought two Avery Island Tabasco pepper plants so I can save the seed and ferment my own mash. This little 'I'm gonna grow a kitchen garden' project is turning into a WW2 Victory Garden.

Piddled in the garden today. The ginger, hyssop, peppermint and Siberian tomatoes are no-shows, but the others all sprouted, Can't find lemon grass anywhere so I'll have to order it. I need neutralized fish bone for the tomatoes and cucumbers anyway, and I can't find that either.

Because of my tax bracket I'm only gonna get like $400 from the coronavirus stimulus package. Where's MY $1200? My taxes pay for shit like this and I'm the one getting fucked. At least they can't fuck with my agriculture deductions.

Started my kitchen garden today. All the seeds are heirloom; Cherokee Purple and Siberian tomatoes, Ozark Beauty strawberries, Amish cucumbers, hyssop. and peppermint. No squash or melons because everybody grows those and I can trade for them. Tomorrow I'll be doing ginger, garlic and spring onions. On the hunt for some lemon grass next. Also baked a loaf of rustic wholewheat bread. I only do that like once a month.

These people are assholes.

President Trump has invoked the Korean War era Defense Production Act to battle COVID-19.