A Brief Work Excursion AND Planting More Protein

I was out of pocket for a few days.  Russ, our oldest son, looked after the animals, fed them, gathered eggs and everything else that needs to be done around the homestead.  Tricia and I journeyed out to Baton Rouge for a couple of days for a work conference.  The Company put us up in a hotel that overlooked the Mississippi River.  We watched tug boats push long lines of barges stacked back to back up and down the river.

I attended meetings, but there was some fun intermixed and good eating, of course.  One adventure was a bus trip to TopGolf.  Let me be clear - I am not a golfer.  Back in the 80's, I went golfing for the first time in my life.  I teed off and the ball sliced or hooked or whatever you call it.  I knew that you needed to holler something, so I yelled, "Fore!"  A gentleman on the next green got out of his golf cart, looked my way and yelled, "What?"  Just at that time, my golf ball hit him square in the forehead.  A lump immediately grew on his head like in the cartoons.  He was very angry.  I realized that golf was a sport that required a lot of practice AND that I was dangerous at this thing.  Someone could get seriously injured.  I have not been on a golf course since then.

TopGolf is different.  It is more like bowling than golf.  A ball comes out, you hit it and you get points if you land the ball in lit up circles.  There is some sort of computer tracking of the ball.  It reads your score on a computer screen.  Food is served and everyone has a nice time.  Here is Tricia teeing off.

There are hundreds of bays and hundreds of people playing.  We were on the third floor.  The smile on my face shows my relief in that I didn't hit anyone with an errant ball.

While a golf club is a strange implement in our hands, a garden hoe and rake is not.  Last week once the rains came through, I got busy and planted two more 45 foot rows of Ozark Razorback Peas and Blackeyed Peas.  With threats of food shortages and inflation, I figured we'd get some more protein planted.  Rice and Peas with a little smoked tasso for flavor is a nutritious, quick, hearty, tasty meal.  

This planting was an experiment of sorts.  I was checking the germination in some OLD seed I had saved many years ago.  Both of the containers of saved seed were labeled with the name of the seed (Ozark Razorback and Blackeye - both Southern cowpeas).  They were also labelled with the year I saved them.  2012!!!  You read that right.  I saved them ten years ago.  Counting on diminished germination, I planted them one inch apart rather than the normal four inch spacing.  Look what happened:

The germination on the decade-old seed was pretty doggone good!  There are a few gaps, but they'll fill in.  Not too shabby.  Once the peas were up three inches or so, I pulled the mulch around the plants to discourage weed growth and preserve soil moisture.

We're still picking purple hull peas, ozark razorback peas, and blackeyed peas from the current garden.  When those play out, these will be ready for harvest.  It will soon be time to start planting the fall crop.  I'm looking forward to that!