Shovel-breaking work & other related rambling

School has a way of preventing me from doing important things that I want to get done...Such as blogging, gardening, READING, WRITING, getting out into the woods, and working. It seems that teachers want me to be in school all day long considering all of the homework I have been assigned this year. By the time I am finished with homework, all daylight has drained away, and, considering most of my life is usually spent outdoors, this seriously limits my leisurely lifestyle, and often leads to my going slightly crazy (as is evident by that last sentence.)

I have been determined this spring break to be as productive as possible and get much of the things done that I have wanted to do for a couple of months now. Many of these things are enjoyable to me, and just knowing the fact that I am getting things done is very pleasing.

Tuesday, after having a delicious breakfast at Huddle House, my mom and I drove the whole length of our county to get to my uncle's/(soon to be) my property. I have been wanting to get some topsoil to load up in 5-gallon "grow bags" in which I will be planting datil pepper plants. We chugged on down through the "Potato Capital of Florida" and pulled up to my uncle's/my 1.25 acres.

I commenced shoveling, and ended up with about 600-800 pounds of wet, mucky, fertile topsoil out of the ditch. Even though this amount is only about half of what I will need to plant all my peppers, I was satisfied with the days' work. Unfortunately, our old shovel fell victim to the heavy dirt, and will bury itself behind the house tomorrow. It has served our household well, and will be sorely missed.

Involuntary Shovelslaughter.

On our way home, we passed through the tiny hamlet of Molasses Junction. If you have ever seen the movie Moving McAllister, you have seen parts of Molasses Junction. Here's one star's account of the town, during an interview with Parade Magazine:

Mila Kunis: I saw some really odd places. We were shooting in spots like Delta, Utah, that no one has ever heard of that were awesome to visit. These little towns are like characters all in their own. We went to Molasses Junction, Fla., It’s right outside of St. Augustine.
Parade: That’s a real name?
MK: Yeah, Molasses Junction, Fla., They were the nicest group of people I’ve ever met. This town maybe had a population of 75. It had one building that was the post office, a restaurant, a grocery store, a convenience store, a pharmacy and a gas station. And it was hunting season. They were like, “We will treat you guys to a dinner.” And we were like, “You realize we’re 150 people.” And they were like, “No problem.”

Molasses Junction Country Store's wall is adorned with newspaper clippings and photographs documenting the shooting of the film, and a picture of the owner, Dave Doan, with Mila Kunis. It is an extremely charming and friendly place, with its old-style southern food and feed/farm store-like feel. I entered the tiny building, my favorite store in the county, to get "lunch" for mom and myself. I picked up a coke and peanuts for my mom (remember this), a sweet tea for myself, and two bags of these:

A bag of Bulls-Hit Ranch's Datil Flavor Bulls Chips getting back to its "roots." For more on these, you can visit Florida Cracker's blog post about them.

I also talked to Dave about selling something in his store this summer.

I got home and unloaded all of the soil into the yard. Hopefully, by sundown tomorrow, I will have 49 transplanted Datil pepper plants.

Why so many? That's for the next post.