This is his defense every time he comes home with another machine or gadget.  He was innocently walking through the aisles of the hardware store, under strict orders to just be looking this month as we have a budget to stick to. When suddenly this box jumped into his shopping cart.  He put it back on the shelf but every time he turned his back, there it was again, back in his cart.  He got talking with the lady behind him in the check out line and didn’t notice what he was paying for.  And suddenly he is home and stuck with whatever he just bought.
Now he has to come up with a solid justification so I don’t start to cry.

The air compressor, well he needs that for our shiitakes.  Yeah, right.  He has wanted one since we were at the family reunion 3 years ago and he  stood in the driveway watching one being used to re-fill a flat tire.  But his story is that this compressor will make it easier to clean the mushrooms.  And I am forced admit that he has a point.  The dirt and bugs can be troublesome.  The gills tend to hold them tightly.  Washing them off is a big no-no and using a brush can be time consuming too.    Of course he could not use a run of the mill compressor.  It has to be oil free so he can stay on the good side of the organic people.

I haven’t told you yet about his soil sifter purchase.  Having spent days and days tilling and picking up rocks last year before we planted our garlic at THF, Ron decided he needed to find a better way.  Huge plans for expansion next year.  Good God, that means this fall.  Anyway he spent a good deal of the winter searching on line for a rock sifter. Personally I would love a rock sifter, as long as it not only removes the rocks from the ground but takes them right across the creek and dumps them in the most needed spot. Maybe if I rigged a conveyor belt to it? God help me, Ron is rubbing off on me.
Making a long story short, he found the right contraption. After waiting to see if he could find a deal, he finally ordered in late Feb. Then the fun started. There was this delay and that delay. And it would be no speed delivery due to the weight. I was getting annoyed because our credit card had already been hit and I really did not want to pay the bill without having sifter on site.
Finally middle of April and we came home to a huge box sitting by front door. Still not sure just how Jo got that thing into the house.  The two of them spent several hours putting it together and getting it running.  Of course, it did not go smoothly, but they figured it out.  Now we just need to get it off my front porch and out to the garlic patch and see what it can do.

And of course he had to buy a water pump.  That was the final piece to his water tank purchase.

We discovered pretty quickly that we were just not physically up to the job of hauling the needed water for not only our fruit trees but for soaking the mushroom logs. While we would have built some serious muscles in the process, I believe it would have done all of us in before we saw the benefit. The right tool for the job can make it all better. Expect for my budget of course.  With the pump and hose system we could now fill the water tank in minutes.  All we have to do now if figure out exactly where we are going to draw the water from our little year round spring.  There are a couple of already made pools but they are not really deep enough.   I foresee more digging and rock shifting in my future.  My man really does not know how turn his brain off.  The ideas keep pouring out, one after another.  My job as is to reign him in as best I can.  It is a fine line between keeping him sane and me not crazy.