Monday night's dinner was rogan josh, using Penzey's spice blend and
the recipe from the label. I boned out a couple of bargain lamb
shanks for the meat and made a stock from the leg bones. The dogs
loved the bones when they were done simmering. I loved the rogan
josh.

The community garden we're creating is just about done. Last Tuesday
and Wednesday three of us manhandled a gas-powered trencher through
the "black gumbo" soil we have around here to lay in PVC irrigation
pipe. The top 6-10 inches of the soil has been amended and tilled,
but anything below that is heavy black clay. Incidentally, that
heavy, sticky clay is one of the reasons the old west cattle drives
went through Fort Worth and not Dallas: it's a mess to walk through
when it's wet. Clumps up on your feet. You get taller walking over
it. Over in Fort Worth, the soil is sandy loam. Good for cattle
drives and better for the sorry-assed trencher we rented, too. It's
chain blade was no match for the gumbo. At one point, we hitched it
to the bumper winch of a one-ton GMC pickup to haul it through the
unyielding gumbo, but mostly, we pushed, pulled and cussed it down the
line.

I've never worked so hard in all my years. Tuesday night I almost
died. I worked a bit smarter Wednesday but came home too beat to cook
again.

Also on Wednesday we had some helpers in the form of convicts from the
county lockup to help out, courtesy of the county commissioner for our
precinct. The convicts were very polite and happy to be outside in
the sunshine, as you might imagine. They did some heavy lifting for
us with the 2 x 12 raised bed frames, and they dug some smaller
trenches where the power machine wasn't an appropriate tool -- not to
say I consider it an appropriate tool for any of the job. They
brought a few county-owned shovels for the job and collected them at
the end of their shift.

They also took my shovel. When I told the commissioner that the
convicts stole my shovel, he said "What do expect? They ARE
convicts."

We went out to eat that night, as we had on Tuesday.

Thursday, I acted as a gopher for the guys who'd done irrigation jobs
like this before. (My work gloves were the newest out there, and that
signifies) Well, I dug a few ditches, too. The convicts apparently
lost interest towards the end of the day.

Friday, I toasted coriander seeds and black pepper corns, ground them
up and rubbed the grind onto a bargain corned beef I'd picked up after
St. Patrick's Day. I smoked the spiced beef for about four hours and
got a sort of cheater's pastrami out of it. That evening I took a few
slices to the bar to meet my friends. They liked my pastrami-like
substance. D and I had rubenesque sandwiches for dinner that night.

Also Friday, I shoveled a few yards of amended soil into some of the
raised beds, but that probably wasn't necessary because of the big
work party on Saturday.

The big work party involved volunteer workers from college
fraternities, the football team, area churches, the junior master
gardeners, and the garden association. We also had an ag professor
with a small tractor and a county guy with a big front-end loader.
Together we got the raised beds filled with amended soil and spread
130 cubic yards of mulch around them.

Lunch was something called "taco soup" a volunteer cooked at the city
park. It was surprisingly good, but then I was really hungry.

While the shoveling and mulching were going on at the garden D and
another woman set up a table at city park to sign up gardeners.
Business was light, but a number of people adopted plots for people
who can't afford the fee. Dinner was Mexican food one county north of
here at sweet little place called Jalapeno's. Excellent sopes.

As of this afternoon about 15 people have signed gardener contracts.
Almost all are going to work it organically, which surprises me a
little. We have a little over half the garden yet to let, but it
looks like we've filled a need.

Dinner tonight will be another round of rubenesque sandwiches. Then
maybe I'll watch some TV.

I'm not getting those bags of composted cotton bur out of the car,
though.
--

modom