Mish, Even More Mashed—Support Groups and SBG

 I’m thinking of starting a support group. NOT, as you might be supposing—based on this title—for Straw Bale Gardeners, but a support group instead, for people who love to complain about the weather.

I love to complain about the weather, and—all bragging aside—I’m very good at it. Unfortunately for me, my talents will have to lie dormant this week as we are scheduled to have day, after day, after day of good weather. That’s bound to put my skills into cold turkey/withdrawal mode. Hence the need for a support group. I’m thinking we could all get together and complain about having nothing to complain about—thereby keeping our skills sharp and our muscles warm, ready for the next round of complaint-worthy weather. Now I just need to brainstorm meeting locations—grange? Umbrella factory? — figure out the best cookie baker in my bunch, and we’ll be set to go... Thursdays at 10 a.m. work for you?

Abby is helping.

Speaking of SBG—and I was, earlier, sort of—I got my straw bales over the weekend and am ready to start prepping them. Since it’s scheduled to be sunny all week I’ll have to unfurl my garden hose to water them. Last year it rained so much during my twelve-day straw-prep period that I only had to water them myself once or twice. (Please note that I have very skillfully managed a near-complaint about being saddled with a stretch of good weather. Skillz, I haz ‘em!)

If you’re thinking a SBG sounds like fun, get yourself to your nearest feed store or friendly farmer—I go to Overby’s in Randle. Good prices, and he loads it right in the vehicle for me. It would be even better service it he UNLOADED it for me—but in all fairness, I didn’t actually ask him the availability of that service. He offered to bag the bale for me, to keep the chafe out of my upholstery. Which turned out to be a service I should have taken him up on. In other related news: air compressors and lint-rollers combined, will—eventually--remove the chafe. “Eventually” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.

Ryan Gosling--get it?

If you live in Onalaska, I recommend Premium Quality Hay and Feed for straw. They are located right off of Highway 12, which is handy. Unfortunately, they also carry adorable baby goslings, and I spend way too much time trying to convince myself that that I don’t really need a baby Russian Goose named Ryan...

Once you have your straw—I’ll leave it to your own discretion when it comes to your goose needs-- just place the bales in a sunny location, sprinkle ½ cup of cheap, nitrogen rich fertilizer on them every other day for a week. Give them a good soaking each day you fertilize. Days 7-9: ¼ cup fertilize; use warm water to saturation. Day 10 is one cup per bale of a balanced, slow release fertilizer. On day 12 you can plant!

Probably best you didn’t get the goose after all, since Ryan is bound to pull up all your little seedlings...but it WOULD give you something to complain about...