yeah, i used "ergo"

Wow! Do I have quite a bit of ground to cover...yep, ground.

It is getting late here as today was an extended one due to our CRAFT visit (which I'll get into). Ergo... my post will be slightly "list"y. Forgive my shortcut, but sleep beckons...

Friday:

was rainy/cool.
I plowed 8-9 rows in D (prep for beans, beets, lettuce, carrots, herbs, etc). Didn't plow far enough toward the garlic as I was concerned about hitting it with the disc on the plow. Will get the unplowed strip with the rototiller.
Planted summer squash in field B with ever-helpful volunteer.



E and volunteer "potted on" some seedlings in the greenhouse while I cleaned out the farm van. A task that is a bit more involved than you may assume.
Went to W1 with volunteer to harvest some greens for lunch and the weekend.
Post lunch had various rainy day projects including replacing the two friction disks inside of the two-plate slip clutch on our rototiller. Still waiting to see if it works "as good as new."
Last thing was to manure (2-4-2) the strawberry patch by hand... making sure I got good and smelly right before my (showerless) train ride into the city for the weekend.

Weekend:

Was awesome.
Saw my brother's band play. Great stuff.
Really dug into brainstorming/laying out plans for my (our, actually) future farm.
Drank good organic wine. Etc...

Today:

The weather was absolutely strange. Clear, then stormy and unseasonably cold.
We began in the greehouse seeding lettuce, melons. Journeyed to W field to weed onions and carrots. Check out the pics of the crazy growing veggies... mmmmm.
Went to our Monday CRAFT meeting. Interesting visit. In some ways their structure/process is very similar to ours and in some ways, completely different. The opportunity(ies) to see other farms in action is so priceless. We are really very fortunate to have such a helpful informative program.

....This post will now be dedicated to pictures from today. Btw, I figured out how to take extremely close & in-focus pictures yesterday. Abused this option countless times today.































Dig

weather..or not

Guess what I ate this morning? You guessed it, OATMEAL.
Loves me some oatmeal.

Speaking of food that I love, I got a care package from mom and sister this week.
Sourdough pretzels, fruit/nut mixes, seeds, etc. GOOD STUFF!
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!

So...
E had the chicken coop opened and the bunnies fed by 6:30 so I hit the greenhouse to see what I could see.

Cloudy, damp, cool morning? Little to no transpiration in the seedlings overnight? Need only spot-water a few things, but definitely a prime keep-the-greenhouse-closed day.

Morning meeting was rather abbreviated as we knew we had the chance of late morning/afternoon rain. Peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, leeks, scallions, lettuce, basil and parsley (phew...) were all up for transplantation today.

By 8am I had 19 beds (13 in Solar U and 6 in Solar L) marked for planting.



Peppers (Ace, Red Knight, Cayenne, Antohi, Jalapeno, a couple others..) went in first. Eggplant next and tomatoes third. All by hand.







Note to self: Tomatoes @ 18"/single row.. and they need to be planted rather deep (to first leaves). Also, very frost sensitive. As are peppers and eggplants.
In fact, we almost canceled our transplanting well into the first row as D got a call from his neighbor alerting him of a possible frost tonight. Don't think it's gonna happen, but we did lay out reemay (new fabric is so easy to work with) to be sure of their safety. Plus flea beetles just LOOOVE eggplants.





After the Solar fields were done we headed down to field Y with "the transplanter" to get lettuce in the ground. After some adjustments and a few stops and starts, we had a great looking bed of greens. Leeks, scallions, parsley and basil (smelled sooo great; never noticed the hint of licorice in it) were all done by hand.
Y is a bit of beast to hand plant into as it is quite rocky and the dead rye that was tilled under last week was still partially on the surface. No worries. We, and our hands, survived.

Not much more to the workday after that.
This was the actual point when we laid out the reemay on the fields for frost and pest protection. ...During which time we had this hanging overhead.



Surprisingly no rain. Just a bit ominous... beautifully so.

Post workday saw me consolidating and rearranging the greenhouse. So strange to see it only half full again. I hung the tarp partition as we only have to heat half the space tonight. Saving fuel/money...

Another wonderful salad + boiled potatoes and celeriac for dinner. Mmmm.

Looking forward to sharing all the fantastic foods we're tending to. Soon enough...

Dig

hurtz donut...

Yesterday I ate 4 glazed donuts.
Not the freshly-made-every-morning-mom'n'pop-non-processed ingredients-type donuts.
No. The ones in a box I see stacked and sold by the register at pharmacies. That being said... they tasted AWESOME, hence four eaten. And I want to thank D for the thoughtful mid morning treat (yes, I'd probably eat more if given).
However, as I've spent the past few years treating my body fairly well on a day-to-day basis, I can truly tell when I put a questionable food(s) in it. Slow to the draw this morning. A bit lethargic for the first couple hours. Partially hydrogenated oils and processed sugars... in large volumes.

Eggs, toast and coffee (and Emergen-C) for breakfast.

We debated our plan of attack at the morning meeting as there is quite a bit of time/weather sensitive work to be done in the next few days. Soil prep, transplanting overdue seedlings, WEEDING!...
We passed on the weeding as the weather was sizing up to give us a much better transplanting day. Reason being that tomorrow shows rain. If we transplanted today the soil would be drier and workable and the plants would get water soon after being grounded. Plus, while weeds grow crazy fast and are harder to remove further on, they can be pulled in dry AND wet weather. So transplanting it was/is. Transplanting would wait until Tuesday's mowing was complete though.

Straight to the tractor to mow the rest of the W fields. A rather frustrating mowing experience as I slammed a few hidden bedrocks, couldn't get into a groove with the delicate maneuvering in tight spaces and, for the life of me, could not keep the tractor from lurching regardless of how slow I let out the clutch and what combination of low gears I used. I did finish, albeit a little later than I wanted.

The lead up to lunch saw two beds of celeriac hand-transplanted and one bed of cabbage cultivated.

Lunch was more greens from W1 (arugula, pak-choi, lettuce), chic peas, sunflower seeds, quinoa and sauerkraut (homemade by E) all thrown together in one delicious salad. Take that, 4 donuts!

Afternoon began by finishing our de-rocking of field F. E took over the mowing reigns as I hopped aboard the John Deere to rototill the rest of F's plowed sod.
Unfortunately, about 1 1/2 beds in, due to the mammoth power of the Deere and the not-so-mammoth size of the rototiller compared to what it was trying to chop, its 2-plate slip clutch (yep, the one D and I serviced and I devoted most of a posting to) had a pretty hard core burnout. It does not seem to have seized, but best to put it to rest until tomorrow when we can take a closer look. Dang Belleville Spring!!

As tilling was no longer a viable option, I switched to the riding mower to finish off a few places outside of W fields' fencing that I missed earlier.

The day seemed done as soon as it began.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed for light rain tomorrow. Still have not rectified the rain gear situation. Perhaps I can blame that one on the donuts too...

Two more things:

1. I realized at the end of the day that I had taken no pictures. I promise it won't happen again.
2. No further progress on the car as I spent my free time reading the manual... preparing to troubleshoot.

Another gorgeous day here on the farm. Seem to have a lot of them...

Dig

veni vidi vi-mowed

This may be my easiest post yet/ever.

Today... I mowed. Rows of rye (to prep soil) and lawn grass.

Here are most of the pictures from my day of mowing.





















Mow-hawks!! Ahh ha ha ha ha!!!





That's correct. I like mowing.

A few more things:

The salad from last night



Summer squash update. Biiiiig!



Finally. We have lights and an engine that turns over. Just doesn't "start" yet. Must spend some time in the manual tonight.



DIY...

DIG...

frames

“The most important thing in art is the frame. For painting: literally; for other arts: figuratively - because, without this humble appliance, you can't know where The Art stops and The Real World begins. You have to put a "box" around it because otherwise, what is that [deleted] on the wall?” -Frank Zappa

This quote came to mind quite a few times this morning.
Farming: The Art
Field F, The soil/rows/lines/rocks: The Art
All plants that will grow there: The Art
The actual construction of the fence: The Art

We finished "the frame" this morning.

And so, we have a new "work." A perpetually unfinished piece, mind you. Always in transition. ...but whose "event space/canvas" has now been defined.

We are quite happy with the results.













Can you spot where the trench was dug? Hopefully not...



After putting away all of our fencing supplies and commenting time and again on how dang chilly it was/is today (It is May 12th right??), we grabbed some garbage bags and played clean up crew along the road leading to and away from the farm. Appearance is half the battle you know...

Lunch was a quick grazing through some culinary odds and ends.
We had a 70 mile trek to the farm we were visiting for our CRAFT meeting/tour looming.

The farm/tour was great. Soil health was the topic. Very informative. Great questions asked. All readily answered and explored. Many thoughts for me to chew on as I mull over the possibilities of finding land to farm in the near future. Exciting stuff...



A bit of grocery shopping at a nearby farm on the way back. Upon return we had dinner... but not just any dinner. Tonight's main course was a salad (my first real salad in over a month) made of greens from our own W1 field. Good gravy, how tender and flavorful. Really. Really. ummm... Really.

-My weekend was wonderful, by the way. Pizza, Unreal farmscapes, Diner food (for the first time in over a month, easily), ...and this...





Diesel. Dig.

It rained today. All day. We spent the latter half of the day in it... and
I still love a rainy day. Happy to know that.

Chilly/wet morning = hot oatmeal & coffee. Does is have to get any better than that? I'd say no.

Plans changed slightly with the presence of rain.
There are plenty of flats of bok choi, lettuce and parsley that need to be transplanted now-ish, but they'll have to wait til Monday.
Morning check on the greenhouse showed solid growth all around, but tomatoes are looking a little less green than usual. Not exactly sure why. Perhaps it has not been hot/dry enough for them to truly "take hold." They are not big fans of the weather as it has been.





What they do have is an amazing earthy smell that I'm sure most everybody has experienced at some point. I could hang out in the greenhouse all day and smell them. That particular smell triggers EARLY childhood (some of the first ones I can actually recall) memories of our family garden. Good memories. The ones that didn't include me sitting on a hill of fire ants. ...I think that was me...

On and on.

Our day focused on two major projects:

1 - Clean the chicken coop, top to bottom (making the hens and chicks oh so happy).
2 - Finish as much of the fence around field F as possible.

I could go into fine detail about the steps involved with each project, but, alas I am not feeling too verbose.

Pics and captions it is... heck, I'm a visual learner anyway.

There is no "before" picture for the coop, but rest assured that (while conditions always remain on the clean side of unclean) it needed some cleanin. Donned gloves and breathing mask and hit it...

Post clean with happy hens-













I suppose these guys are happy too...



Lunch was quick. PBJ style.

After lunch was done it was time to "fence!"

We finished all 3 triple post corners with crossbeams and diagonal high tension support wire.
This is one. The other two look pretty similar.



With those done and the three of us getting antsy to run wire through, we pressed on.
Basically, we pushed back about 200 ft of fencing at the top of fields B thru E to include all of F.



This morning the wire was running right down that line (above pic). And now it's taking a sharp left turn at the left of the (same) pic, then a sharp right after about 50 ft to continue down the length of field F (below).



At the end of F it takes one more sharp right and meets again with field E where it originated. D REALLY knows what he's doing. Dig this process.

So, pretty well soaked and reaching quittin time, we packed it all up and made our way to the office. Congratulated each other on lots of hard work and called it a week.

One more thing: Tomorrow holds the possibility of a "set of wheels" for me. How excited am I? Yep. Pretty much.

Dig