November 23rd (Sun.)
Today I ploughed ahead (pardon the pun) with preparing the olive grove. I hit a small snag, the cut grass I
had laid on top of the field after initially ploughing the field last week had rotted down little and did nothing but foul up the tithes of the rotivator. I was left with little choice but to rake them all up and put them off the field once more.
Just plain inexperience there. I’m doing so much stuff that’s new to me and having to think, research or just imagine what’s got to or going to happen next week, next month or even this time next year. A bit of straw on the field sets me back half hour or so but I’m worried of a big blunder that may set me back months or a year. I brood over decisions long and hard.
Well, straw racked up I set the rotivator to plough as deep as it can, the axle of the plough buried in the soil with the rotivator’s headlamp pointing at the sky almost. This was to be about the last time the field was ploughed and so it was essential to go as deep as I could. Problem was with the rotivator in it’s easy rider style position I found the engine would suddenly splutter and miss. I guessed the reason was because the fuel tank feeds from the front of the tank fuel was at times not feeding down. Keeping the tank well topped up and pushing the rotivator up to a level position a little when it spluttered solved it. I grew quite attached to this, the farm workhorse, today, watching how it toiled to do my bidding, get the job done and not conk out. We bonded !
Come lunch the field was deep ploughed and ridiculously soft and yeilding when walking over which Eldan also discovered as he played at moonwalking over it.

After lunch,and after doing pH tests on the soil and calculating how much I needed (Oh, how I hate maths !) I went off to the home centre to pick up the lime. Eldan volunteered to join me and lasted until the bridge, 4 minutes down the road before dropping off to blissful slumber which lasted until our return. Yasumi had requested he buys a present for her and so before sleep over took him we did talk about what to buy her. The conversation went like this:

Me: What shall we buy mummy then ?
El: Mmmm…how about something Bob ? (by which he means Bob the Builder, his idol)
Me: Does Mummy like Bob ?
El: Yes…she said so.
Me: Really! I think you like Bob.
El: ….It’s ok. She likes it.

Ah..the gift of giving. Since Eldan in his slumber was unable to buy the gift he wanted..I mean he wanted to buy her, in the same spirit of unconditional giving I bought something I wanted anyway to give to her….a rose bush.

Eldan woke up on our arrrival home and remembering the present conversation blurted with his waking breath.

El: I want to give present to mummy.
Then on seeing the thorny, flowerless rose plant
El: (Hands on hips pose) What’s this ?
Me: A rose bush.
El: It’s not good.

He gave it all the same and she was chuffed , even though the bush, in it’s winter state, was little more than 2 thorny branches lopped off at a foot of growth.
I’m yet to decide where to place it, it’s a classic flaming red cultivar called ‘Timeless’, ‘because you are’ I swooned at my wife as we gave it to her with a cheesy grin prompting her to gurn.

Against the cottage wall with a white rose beside it is favourite at the moment. White and red like the Queen of heart’s roses in Alice.

I decided to get that lime ploughed in that evening even if it meant working in the dark because rain was forecast tomorrow and the soil would be claggy and heavy, totally wrong to accept the powdery lime.
I broadcast the lime by hand, 60kg, until the field looked like it had a fine snow on it.

Then on with the plough which was easy now the soil was so airated, the rotivator moved through it more like a ship on a milky brown ocean.
And so the field was set up to start it’s new life. The calcium carbonate will break down into the soil, making it more alkaline, welcoming to the olives and also the clover that I’ll broadcast in spring. A good days work with promise for the future.