I ran through the briars...

This weekend found Dann & I becoming intimately acquainted with the raspberry/blackberry patch by our house as we looked to reclaim the live branches from the dead so we could actually harvest some berries this year.  I don't think the patch has been touched anytime in the last 20 years. And while Linoel Richie's "Stuck on You" might be a more appropriate song, I kept singing a song from my childhood as I dove in to the briar patch hoping to come out  unscathed with fistfuls of dead branches - join me if you will in reminiscing a tune sung by Johnny Horton - "They ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles and the ran through the bushes were the rabbit couldn't go.  They ran so fast that the hounds couldn't catch 'em. On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico...." Click here to catch it on You Tube: Battle of New Orleans (did they really have music videos back then?).  These are the songs you learn as a child of a US History teacher.

I have no idea if we will get any berries this summer as a result of the haircut I am giving the bushes and we are only about 1/3 of the way through the patch. And yes, i am well aware this is not the time of year to be taking such drastic measures on a berry bush, but it is the time we have so it is what we are doing. We did uncover 3 golf balls so Dann is happy.  We'll keep you posted of any berry harvesting from this project.

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On to the Main Event on Patches' Acre - The Ladies spent the afternoon and most of the evening Saturday out of the tractor - oh were they happy.  The beds in the back and side of the house have now been completely turned over and fertilized by them and they are working their way towards our front beds.  They will be blocked from one of the front beds as I finally started some outdoor seeds this weekend  planting 2 different leaf lettuces, 2 different spinach varieties, a radish variety and red mustard greens - with dreams of mustard green pesto dancing in my head.  YUM!  I'm so ready for some fresh greens!  Dann also removed the sides of the tractor so they have daylight and wind and rain of course.  For now we plan to move them 2 times a day onto fresh pasture as the grass is so young and they are so eager to eat it and scratch for worms and grubs.