Chard, Lettuce and Stones

Overcast today, temperature was stuck in the windy 50Fs.

Here's the picture of the beehives I took yesterday. Multi-story towers full of bees.

Last Fall I was stuck in charge of running the different farmer's markets we went to 3-4 times a week. Fridays were always in this town square way off in nowhere-ville-- standing around most of the day, I got to know an old beekeeper who sold a few tables over from me. He was in his early eighties and all he did was bees, bees bees. Packed his honey in big old smucker's jam jars. Anyway, he had been traveling throughout the Mid-west for most of the summer visiting the big industrial hives in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Learned 2 lessons from the old man:
1. Specific "type" honey-- like berry, sage or buckwheat--is mostly a BS concept. Everything (whatever they might say) is for the most part that undefined "wildflower" type. It's a great marketing racket, but unless the hive is in the center of miles worth of dedicated berry, sage, buckwheat, etc fields, there is no way to draw a type distinction. Bees take from everything around them, residential gardens, forests, other farms, you name it.
2. Hive die off rates are an inexplicable and terrifyingly reality. (editorial aside: inexplicable my ass, I looked into the matter and France faced the same bee epidemic in the late 80s into the 90s. Same symptoms, same results.  Some chemical element had been introduced into the herbicide and pesticide mix their companies were selling. Chemicals leeched into the plants, from plant to pollen to bees. People were outraged, the chemical was eventually banned and-- would you guess? The bees returned and the mass hive die offs ended.)

I've been keeping a curious eye on our bees this season.

Started off today planting out 2 trays or about 588 plants worth of loose leaf lettuce.

I never had noticed, but most lettuce seeds are wrapped in pellets on account of their tiny size-- making handling and planting much easier. We aren't in the practice of saving our seeds for the most part-- there are exceptions like broom corn. The boss explained that with his land and water source taken care of, his biggest expense is in hired man-power- and without the proper seed machinery, saving seeds is very labor intensive. It comes down to: pay a couple hundred bucks for seeds 100% ready to go, or pay a couple thousand bucks for a work crew to dry, separate and then store them.  (Once we get into the full summer swing we have 1-2 dedicated picking crews, 1-2 people watching over the store and farm kitchen, then the general labor crew of myself, Bah, the foreman and the foreman's friend (but he doesn't start until June)) So to save time, and thereby money, the boss gets his seeds from his friend, a crazy man in Maine named Johnny. He sells nothing but organic and heirloom seeds-- and since all our seeds come from him, nothing we pull out is of the genetically modified variety.

We are not an organic farm, despite our seed choice- so none of our produce can be labeled as such. The politics of this stuff is interesting-- it doesn't matter if you spray only a little bit (and I'm not saying it should), the lines are just very absolute. We spray a bit in Spring, we are not organic.

I've tried to ease back a bit, as it often feels like I'm interrogating the boss with all my questions... so, a while back I asked him-- "We face all these pests and weeds, organic farms face the same problems-- how do they make it work?" The answer is complicated, but/and I'm very curious to know more specifics--  exactly what does one smallish but successful organic farm do start to finish. Some of the answer I received is tied up in the high price wholesalers/farmer's markets/big stores ask for organic produce. A higher percentage of a given crop is lost to pests/fungus/molds/(weeds?) etc-- so the price difference offsets a bit of the labor/time invested in a smaller harvest. Some of the slack due to no herbicide is made up for in manual labor, more frequent hand weeding-- and more wages needed paying. So far this is all price related, but some pests, even on organic farms are dealt with through spray-- there are apparently some organic based, nontoxic pesticides available (used in particular to battle white flies).

These are just some ways-- ones the boss pulled out when I put him on the spot. I'm inclined to believe some are actually used. As he emphasized, everyone does it their own way whether organic or not.

"It takes many ways to keep the world fed." -- The Boss

Hehe, a slight digression. I've been thinking about these particulars the past few days out in the field. A buddy, who is working a perma-culture farm in central america, had me puzzling over the question of toxins and their use in our sprays.

When I realize I'm rationalizing, am I still making rationalizations? Am I rationalizing the way we do things on this farm? Yeah, but I'm done on the subject for now--it would take a lot more blabbering.

Right, so I planted the lettuce. Headed up to the hilltop fields with Bah and the foreman-- more rocking, heavy rocking. This was the boulder field, and it will never end--already I see more rocks poking through places we've already picked over. We slugged it out, and filled many front loaders until lunch.

Early afternoon, Bah and I transplanted a good 1,500 swiss chard into the lower fields. The foreman laid out a half dozen or so rows of string beans. With the way plants are looking in the main greenhouse, I think there will be lots of transplanting in the next week.

We finished up surprisingly fast. We started laying more irrigation pipe, lots of it. We hitched up a wagon to the new tractor and piled the pipe (both 3in and 2in) high. Four more lines are going off the main artery in the lower fields now-- covering the beans, chard and some rows of sweet corn (I'm forgetting something, there has to be more planted there). It was a terrible exercise in impatience and aluminum grinding on pavement, dirt and stone. The wagon wasn't big enough (by a long shot) for the lengths of pipe, so Bah and I took turns either laying across the pipes to weigh them down or scrambling behind the wagon trying to lift up the dragging ends.

Afterward, the foreman and I connected up 2 of the pipe lines and started replacing a few of the damaged water guns and gaskets. Lots more to do tomorrow.


I've started germinating a tray of my own seeds at home. Planted a variety of grapes that are native to this area (saved these seeds from the grapes growing around the field edges, used to eat 'em like crazy during breaks last year). There have been some mistakes, as my choice of soil has much to be desired. I figure once/if these guys pop up and grow strong, I will plant them around the house. This variety can be a bit invasive, wrapping vines around everything in reach, but well worth having grapes at my fingertips while lounging on the porch-- like a roman senator. Once there is something to report I'll post pictures of the project. Also, I keep the camera handy these days so more farm photos coming.

See ya tomorrow.

Rise and Wash

Clear skies and high winds.

Started out today in the lower fields clearing more rocks. Not much to it, just opening the way for the harrow to come through. These fields have great soil, regardless of the rocks-- the Boss's family raised dairy cows on this land for generations, so (literally) centuries of manure has thickened up beautifully, deep dark dirt. Fortunately, the stones in these fields tend to be a lot smaller and easier on the back. The foreman got right to work, he brought the harrow through then planted more rows of sweet corn.

Bah and I kept chugging rolling stones. The two of us have become the defacto manual labor crew, while the boss and foreman roll about busy in the tractors. The Boss has been spreading a good deal of compost and fertilizer across the lower fields- the foreman has been wed to the seeder day in and out.

The fertilizer spreader is good for tightly packed fields, but the berry rows require a more personal touch-- spreading the stuff by hand around the plant base out to where the roots extend, keeping it away from the walking rows where there be weeds. Bah and I spread fertilizer over the emaciated raspberry field, then the gooseberries, blackberries and black-raspberry rows.

At lunch, I rambled off to the greek joint in town for some pizza.

In the afternoon, I met Bah and we headed to the blueberry rows to prune out the dead branches sapping from the bushes. Last summer was dry and harsh on these blueberries- a row right next to the day neutral strawberries was particularly hard hit. Looking over them with the boss, he conjectured that perhaps there was a gravel deposit beneath this side of the field-- as it always has a problem with water retention. We hacked the row down to its living sticks and picked through the rest of the berry rows ( they fared much better). If the weather keeps wet and sunny, we could have a big blueberry harvest in July-- the bushes are loaded top to bottom with red buds and flowers.

A correctional aside-- I am not particularly gifted at estimating acreage (one is equal to somewhere between a tennis court and a mile, right?). Inquiring with the Boss, he gave me the following break down:
The total property is somewhere around a hundred and sixty acres. Forty acres are cleared for veggie planting, store and barn. Twenty acres are grazing for the cow herd, and the remaining hundred is all forest. As it stands, we aren't in the habit of clearing any more for use. Everything agrable and flat enough, is already in use. The boss said he even planned to tear up a few of the far off berry fields by the cow pasture, simply because we have too much. When harvest comes we don't have enough hands to pick everything fast enough- a few rows nearly rotted on the vine last season. So it goes.

This acreage came back to haunt me, as I spent the rest of the day mowing down the grass fields around the top side of the boss's house. Three hours spent not pruning berries-- oh well there is tomorrow.

Today has me back in the writing swing, tomorrow will be a beefy-er reconting-- especially after my little field trip today. After lunch I hiked out to the beehives and snapped a few pictures. Last time I checked them out, if you remember, was on a cold March day while minding a nearby bonfire. Back then I could walk right up and around the twenty hives without hearing or seeing a single bee. A lot has changed since then. The bees are back up to full production. I didn't push my luck, stayed a good twenty feet off, but the air around every opening was covered thick with worker bees doing their thing. Tomorrow, I'll just run down and snap a picture of the calf too-- and see how much she's grown by the season's end.

More coming.

Bok Choi

Whew, a bit strung out after this week-- really need the weekend breather. Next week I'll return to full day format, but for now here's the day lite.

Finished heavy weeding final raspberry row by the blueberry bushes. Bah and I hacked away at it all morning. No more snakes coming around now.

After lunch Bah and I took the big 288 plant trays of bok choi out to the lower fields (between the spinach/ kale and last year strawberries) for transplanting. Planted 800+ of one variety and 300+ of another. Slow work out in a hot sun.

Just before the day's end the Boss drove over and we shifted one of the irrigation lanes over a bit. Got everything connected up and started the first real watering run of the year. Bok choi will do pretty well with some water-- everything else looked a bit dry too. One of the pipes got plugged up with crap, had to disconnect and flush mid-watering. All fixed- all looking good.

Check yesterday's post for farm pictures if you missed 'em!

PICTURE DAY- Photos then Day

I actually followed through and snapped a bunch of photos around the farm:

The farm store is the gray building there in the middle. Took this photo back a bit from the steep hill-edge so the perspective is a bit bizarre. I'm standing by a row of gooseberries in the fore-ground center-- you can see the end of a raspberry row off on the right. The far edge of the barn's second story is there on the right. The white blob-mound to the left are a couple palates worth of fertilizer we had delivered yesterday afternoon. The hill top behind the store is where the peach orchard is located.

Here's the view from directly behind the farm store. In the summer we roll up a bunch of wagons to the concrete pavilion and load them up with produce for CSA members. There's the main greenhouse and the old tractor on the left. Behind the greenhouse is a sharp dip in the hill leading to a horse field and the big pond. Maybe you can make it out through the fuzzy, but the dirt road on the right leads through the trees up to the orchard and hilltop fields.

Here's the view from the greenhouse door. You can see the irrigation pipes and folded covers back against the wall we use for frost protection. Far left row are the cherry and plum tomatoes; next row to its right are the peppers (all varieties); then come the bok choi, cauliflower, broccoli and swiss chard in the next row; rows to the right side are a hodge podge of trial tomato varieties, tons of eggplant varieties and a horde of basil plants. In the foreground on the right is the stupid miracle grow attachment I watered the lawn with yesterday in the pouring rain.

Here's another angle on the farm store's rear and the main greenhouse. The bare dirt is made up into a big garden each year so folks walking around have something to look at. Last year we planted a bunch of super sized pumpkins, for the kids.

Standing in the same place as the last photo, just turn right and here's the pond! Through the fuzz you can see the water pump and irrigation pipes-- and my 40ft pipe half sunk into the water (the keg is sorta bobbing along out in the pond middle). The hutch on the other shore is for the horses- we'll get to them, but first:

My beloved pipe. You can see the pump up on the blocks, just like I said. The tractor backs right up against it and spins her into life. There's the keg afloat- clear as day. Of course. Only the fully painted end of the pipe is out of the water- it figures. All the same, what a gorgeous pipe.

Ran up the road to the hill top, here's a shot of what you see. There's the store and greenhouse, to their right are still unplanted fields, but across the street we have fields with stuff happening- get to that later. Through the trees on the left you can kinda see the barn. This is right at the edge of the orchard, where we planted the 40 new trees earlier this year.

Row of 5 year old Peach trees, look at all those buds! As you might guess these guys have not been picked over yet. The orchard is at a hard slope to photograph fully/ still pretty young, so it's not very impressive.

This is a peach tree, not even a year old-- almost just a stick in the ground. Two rows of these guys go across the hill. The plants are just starting to root in and get comfortable.

This is one of the 5 year trees I plucked, now its next to naked. How embarrassing.

Just a few steps down the hill I found the horses grazing in this side paddock. These are the two tannish long haired mares. You can see the barn and greenhouse there through the trees.

Abutting the orchard is this field of raspberries. Bah and I finished weeding these the other day. I miss-spoke in an earlier post-- you don't cut down raspberries every year but ever other, 2nd year growth produces the berries. So these fellows will have to wait until next season. If you look hard you can see more unplanted fields behind the trees there in the back.

Panorama time(left) , these are the hill top fields. When my buddy came up to work a week back in early spring we spent some quality time lighting fires in the pouring rain around here.

Panorama time (center), these are 5 rows of the strawberries we planted last fall. Bah did a good job adjusting the hay. They're getting pretty bulky with all this sun/rain. Unconnected irrigation pipe is just lying in the sun-- the foreman and I connected it all later after I took the picture. (Angry clouds coming in from the west)

Panorama time (right), there are the strawberries again for reference. Last year the fields in the other hill top photos were planted with fall tomatoes, potatoes and tons of sweet and grain corns. The fields in this picture had more corn, eggplants galore, some winter squash and pumpkins. Far, far down there is a dip to the hill-- along the tree line though are more berry fields.

Walking to that far, far side down the dip-- turned to the right here is the raspberry field I weeded the other day.

Follow the raspberry row and you're back toward the start. Here's a good shot of the main farmhouse where the Boss's brother lives and the barn. If you have hawk eyes (or zoom in) you can see the two white mares against the stone wall to the left. Years ago the town chopped the farm in half, building that main road down the middle. On the left side of the road are the cow pastures, forest, more berry fields and the beehives -- sorry, no pictures of all that today.

Up close and personal with a row of blackberry bushes.

Across from the farm store are... more fields! (another road sort of double cuts the farm again)

Here on the left in the last picture are the 3000 plastic wrapped day neutral strawberries we planted a few weeks ago. You can see the irrigation line coming off the artery leading to the drip lines. Bah and I laid out a more serious line of water guns that cover the whole area later today. Up on the slight hill are row upon row of blueberry bushes, gooseberries, currants, raspberries, herbs (sage and thyme) and what used to be garlic rows.

Next to the strawberries you can see the 12 rows of snap peas, faba beans, spinach and kale coming out in tidy green rows.

These are the 5 double rows of strawberries in the lower fields-- right next to the spinach and kale rows. This was the scene of many tense afternoons between the boss and foreman. (Kudos again to Bah's excellent hay placement)

All the way down the field, we have another couple rows of raspberries in full production growth. The tall-high-school-guy and I pruned back these rows (with some serious time from Bah too). On the left are empty rows-- we planted cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower there last year. but if you turn around...

It's the boss's house. When he built the house it was one of the first modern residential green-underground houses in the country. Behind the tree, if you look close, is the secondary greenhouse-- where all the big tomatoes are getting ready for the field under the boss's close watch. Again, if you look close, underneath the house's top four windows is a little white structure. That's the boss's house-attached-greenhouse where we started the tomatoes germinating in March. It's perfect for winter growing as the southern dip of the sun sends light right through and into the building-- cutting down on heating costs and kicking off plant growth.

So that's the farm! Now

A brief history of today (very brief):
Finished plucking blossoms in the orchard. Connected up the hill top irrigation. Laid down new irrigation in lower fields with Bah (then connected in with the foreman). Weeded raspberry rows on other side of blueberry bushes with Bah-- Bah found a snake and let it go free. He found it again and bashed its head in with a hoe. Wind picked up in great gusts, almost knocking us over-- it started to hail. Is there a snake god?

And that's all for today folks.

Peaches and Weeds

Cloudy cum rainy.

Skies looked awfully bleak this morning on the ride in. Popped over to some of the lower fields for a check up before anyone arrived. The day neutral strawberries have hiked out of the plastic wrap and are looking quite legitimate. The 12 rows of snap peas are bulking up-- solid green rails across the field. Spinach and kale are inching out, the faba beans are creeping along- last year's strawberries are nearly bushes now. Futzing around I staked out some good photo locations for when I get around to remembering a camera.

Met the Boss by the main greenhouse and grabbed up a trench shovel-- out for a bit of berry weeding. He gave me a lift over to a far-out-there raspberry field-- it was in rough shape. Weeds had shot up all along the walking paths and into the berry rows.
(A little berry-aside: All our berries are growing along nicely at this point- Blueberries and Blackberries are trimmed/pruned taking out the weak flimsy growths and leaving the strong branches/canes. This way plant energy isn't wasted in superficial growth-- rather it's used to bear lots of berries. Raspberries are a bit different: all their rows have been mowed back to the nubbins, leaving maybe 2 inches of stick above the dirt. The roots remain and grow thick and pop out new canes each year. I could go on and on with the Boss's imparted knowledge of berries and berry mating rituals but I'll leave it for now.)

A little herbicide at this point in the season usually checks most weeds from becoming monsters, but 2 types in particular are resistant and need a shovel's edge to kill 'em dead. Goldenrod weeds grow in tight clusters, up about a foot, long fat grass like leaves with a slight jag to their edge. The roots grow thickly matted and you have to dig around them before pulling one cluster out. I had to beat them with a shovel to get all the soil loosened out- then flip them upside down on the dirt (otherwise these hardy guys have a habit of snaking their way back into soil and survival). Cockelburough is a demon carrot. Their leaves grow enormous, stealing valuable sunlight away from the berries- the roots are nasty. Even a small looking cockelburough weed can have an enormous root. They typically have just one meaty 3in thick root shooting deep down. I usually aim real low where I anticipate the root to go and kick the shovel edge through-- this way the roots are deeply severed from the plant (for good measure on big ones, I stomp my shovel straight down through the root chopping it into forths-- try to live now weed haha). It takes a more delicate and deliberate touch extracting these guys from a berry row without damaging the good plants.

All in all it took me until 11am to clear the 13 rows, then I marched over to join  Bah at another raspberry field at the hill top abutting the peach orchard. On the way up the path a big crane flew overhead, going from south to north. Second one I've seen this season. Up top there weren't as many rows, but they're much longer in length. It was much the same going-- hunting out the goldenrod and cockelburough, taking the odd shovel swing at stray dandelions. Poison ivy was creeping in from the field's edge-- I keep a healthy distance and left it for Bah. The light sprinkling turned into full on rain, so we hefted off for an early lunch leaving a few unfinished rows.

Came back from lunch for a little fertilizer/chemistry lesson. The Boss had picked up a Miracle Grow watering nozzle-- one with a chamber for fertilizer to mix with the water before spraying out. The Boss took a read over the labeling and stressed the importance of always checking the contents' percentages. This mix had 26% nitrogen, 8% phosphorous and 16% potash-- much too much stuff for watering the greenhouse sprouts. Maybe its common knowledge, but the Boss prefers using a 10-10-10 mix on the little plants (10% nitrogetn, 10% phosphorous, 10% potash). He wanted to use the nozzle though-- so I waded through the rain watering the grass with the nozzle until its prepackaged fertilizer was spent.

Met Bah back at the hill top and we finished out the remaining weeds. The rain had died down again, but the clouds headed our way looked terrible. We met up with the foreman in the peach orchard. He was busy pruning down all the peach trees and de-budding the young ones. We use an open-center plan for our trees- so their growth is checked at a little over head height, clipping all the center-ward growing branches. This forces the tree to grow out and wide, making the harvests of the future a lot easier. Most of the orchard isn't ready yet, but the rows of 5 year old trees are big enough to grow out maybe 1-2 dozen peaches per tree. Each blossom can become a peach, and trouble is- there were hundreds of blossoms lining the length of every branch. So Bah and I got to plucking and budding-- leaving only the flowers on heavy branches strong enough to hold a full grown peach without bending (had to space the blossoms carefully too, no closer than extended thumb-to-pinky no matter how big the branch).

Pulling flowers isn't exactly grueling labor-- but if Bah, the man of steel, has a kryptonite it is rain. As we went from tree to tree-- he checked the sky every other second, telling me each time that the next tree was his last. It had started to drizzle heavily- but something finally set him off. Mid-tree Bah bolted off, shouting back Goodbye, Home, Going Home. I kept going along, and ten minutes later (probably right when Bah made it to his car) the sky opened up and the real rain came. It was only 3pm, but the foreman said I could leave-- no way. We kept budding through the orchard as it came down. During one rough clouds worth we hid at the woods edge for soggy cigarettes.

The foreman is a pretty closed guy, and trying to talk about bullshit only gets you long pauses then more silence. On the other hand, once you getting him talking about plants he'll tell everything from genus to growing season. We puffed away, checking over my peach budding handiwork- he praised it as sufficient (which, coming from him is really something)- he then explained the finer details of open-center pruning and his plans for further developing the orchard. In good spirits, he called it a day and we ran down the hill to meet up with the boss.

Any hopes of getting dry were quickly shelved. Tomorrow the boss has some business with the Farmer's Bureau so we had to get everything set for his absence. The foreman will be laying down 12 long rows of sweet corn (if its dry enough) so we had to get the seeder functional. We slogged the new tractor over to the yard and hooked up the seeder-- driving it up to the barn. It used to be a double seeder, so that you could lay down a row of corn in one pass- but the boss took a tight turn last year and left half the machine sitting in a tree. Now it takes two passes per row. Sopping wet, but out of the rain-- we test ran the seeder. Last year the first crop of corn was too tightly packed, making for small ears of corn-- this year we're going to try 1 seed per foot to start things off.

I'm going to nerd out for a moment on the inner workings of this seeder, skip this paragraph if it isn't your thing. The seeder doesn't (surprisingly to me) need to be hooked into the tractors Power shaft. Start to finish- the seed is loaded into the bucket, channeled by a plate of steel with an opening sliced at the bottom, the seed pushes down against a steel rotating wheel with notches to catch one seed at a time. The caught seed is carried by the spinning wheel (dropping free the inevitable extra seeds on the way) to the top of the rotation, where it falls through a hole - tumbling along a shoot it is then dropped down the middle. Immediately in front of where the seed is dropped are two rotating steel harrowing wheels, they're angled to dig a trench for the seed to be dropped into.  Behind where the seed drops, one (there should be two, one is missing) hooked flat steel plates push the dirt from along the sides covering over the seed. All the mechanics of the rotating seed catcher are powered by a tire rolling at the seeder's end- its rotating drives a sprocket and chain which lead to another sprocket and the seeder wheel. The spacing of the catch plate and size of the sprockets determine how quickly or slowly the seed is dropped as the tire rolls along.


We could not get this thing working correctly. Firstly, the seeder needed to be calibrated to drop the seeds 1 per foot. This was done by measuring the circumference of  the seeder's tire, changing the size of the inner plates and  outer chain and sprocket ratio, and then spinning the mechanism really fast until what-seems-like-a-good-enough-number of seeds fell out. Satisfied, we quickly realized some of the plates were rubbing together in the bad sort of way which would cause stripped screws and seized seeders. We salvaged the parts from the treed-half of the seeder and tried again. We greased everything up, only to find we'd ruined a good 100 seeds by getting them choked and clustered in engine grease. Still, the plates kept tightening wrong as the seeder went along.

So we called it a day.


Tomorrow might be picture day. Once this is all posted I'll go rummaging around to find the camera. Don't know how many pictures I'll get, as I don't want to be obtrusive/obnoxious. We'll see!
Onward tomorrow!

Surprises

Another sunny day.

I got to the farm early and painted up the front loader welds-- to my mild disappointment it seems the Boss took the toilet matter into his own hand. Can't say I wasn't looking forward to busting up some porcelain. Today was our first real dump day, so I dragged 6 trash cans full of junk that'd piled up over late winter/spring. Behind the farm store we had left a mound of shredded plastic field covers- I stuffed 'em by the armload into the Chevy van. Picked up the shattered porcelain piece by piece-- as you might guess it was a bit slow this morning.
By the time the Boss came around, I'd packed up everything and he was good to dump.

Bit of a surprise this morning, I hadn't noticed immediately but a new calf was born last night. Not an expected birth by any account. We didn't get our current bull until late fall-- he's still pretty young at that. He replaced the former bull sold last August-- who was even younger. Everyone figured the little guy was just too young to get the job done, seems not ( joke was: its like trying to get a 14yr old to impregnate an Oprah book club).
Checked out the calf from the fence, but I haven't gone in for a closer look yet.

Transplanted a big tray's worth of another eggplant variety for the rest of the morning-- really hope people want to buy it, we certainly are growing enough. We've adjusted the watering schedule a bit for the chocolate tomato plants- the foreman thought they'd been over saturated, essentially suffocating the roots from getting any air. So far it seems he was right- they've perked up considerably. Everything else is pushing along faster and faster, bok choi planting time has to be near- the Boss is consulting Bah on exactly how big they need to be before field planting.

The Boss was busy putting the finishing touches and testing out the boom-sprayer. It has a 200 gallon water/herbicide reservoir, then two 20ft steel arms lined with piping and nozzles that swing in and out. We filled up the tank to maybe 160 gallons of water then mixed in two bags of herbicide. It must mix all together in the tank- as that's all the prep it took- maybe the PTO from the tractor also churns the reservoir or something.

After lunch I was tied into grounds keeping. Brought the Boss's lawn mower over and got to work cutting down the grass and weeds surrounding the farm store. The Boss's brother and in-law have been digging out gardens all around the barn and store, so things are looking right out of a picture book.

Another little surprise. The Boss's father sold off a bit of land down the road maybe 4 decades ago (a practice the Boss ended, we're into the buying game now) and a tight series of housing developments were sunk in. There are a lot of families living there, and in the summer folks come walk around with strollers pretty regularly. I'm sure it nice, but these people...
While taking down the tall grass with the push mower, I must have ran over a year old diaper-- as one shredded out of the mulcher and peppered all over me. Deeelightful.

Finishing up, I took up the gas trimmer and cut down already-foot-long grass on the steep hills leading to the horses. I might have talked around them in the past- but yes, we have four horses-- two white mares, then two tannish long haired mares (stallions are more trouble than they're worth apparently). No idea what kind of horses they are specifically. They belong to a woman who boards in the main farmhouse with the Boss's brother and family. She works up the road as a researcher at the veterinary/livestock medicine university. She hooks them up to stagecoaches for summertime parades and commissioned events- the pay covers their upkeep so it all works out. The horses tend to mind their own business, idly wandering around grazing in the four fields by the barn.

Anyway- there are lots of hills and I was trimming away the rest of the day.

After I signed off my hours-- I ran over and gave the Boss's brother a hand scoping up the last of the winter debris cluttering up the yard around the farm store. We chatted about the new calf-- he of all people, minding the herd everyday, was especially surprised by the birth. Its hard to tell when these fat beef cows get pregnant, unless you're a doctor --and  i don't think they take the whole herd in for yearly check-ups, so its mostly left to wait and see. The Brother is pretty jazzed to see the farm looking so good this year-- having me around through the kick off this year really freed up the Boss and Foreman to get major tractor work accomplished. We're sitting golden as we waltz into the growing season.

The Brother has two smaller open air tractors he uses mostly for picking up hay bales and drilling holes with his auger-- though he also has a serious bit of machinery: enclosed cab, front loader, bucket and expendable support legs. We loaded up his tractor until I was just pitching handfuls of gravel and dirt to the loader. He gave his favorite little expression "You're doing good work"-- meaning "stop playing in the dirt kid and go home."


I might try to get in early sometime this week and snap a few pictures of the farm. I was talking to a friend and it would be good to see a few before and after photos as the fields progress through the season.

Take it easy everybody.

Rocking in May

Back from the city, back to the farm.

Skies were clear this morning and the air heated up quick. I was early today (for once), the Boss gave me a bit of a shrug. There was a frost warning last night, so everything in the main greenhouse was covered up tight. I rolled up the cloths and checked in on the little guys--

all the peppers are looking hearty and they've tossed out their second pair of leaves. The plum tomatoes look pretty good too, growing straight, four strong leaves getting bigger-- there's a lot of talk and concern over the "chocolate cherry" tomato variety, maybe the frost cloth weighed too heavy on them or something didn't click right-- they're thin looking and a dozen or so have curled over dead (not a good survival rate as we only planter 80-90 of them). The swiss chard and broccoli I thinned out last week are chugging along, just over the weekend they've shot up and thickened out. The 16- 20 trays of bok choi- eighty plants to a tray- have erupted, the boss is planning to put them in the field (weather permitting) later this week. The cauliflower is coming along, and a few of the eggplants we planted last week have already poked through the soil.
 Outside, the rainy nights/ warm sunny days have kicked everything into growing overdrive-- green trees, flowers, weeds-- it actually feels like May.

I didn't get a chance to check out the lower fields today, I forgot to mention  it but the Foreman sunk in two rows of beets last week over by the beans, peas and strawberries.

The Boss was in great spirits, he plans on opening up the farm store mid-May, so only a few weeks to go. I moved all the remaining crap out of the store, swept up and vacuumed-- then spent some quality time putting down a fresh coat of paint on the concrete floor. My time in the art studio paid off somewhat, at least I know what to do with a roller and a can of paint. I finished up the store with time to spare before lunch.

Over the weekend the Boss had taken a bunch of odds and ends over to his buddy's shop for a bit of welding. We have several different types/generations of irrigation pipes, so he sawed usable connectors off of damaged pipes and had them joined to make little cross-pipe-type-connectors. I spent the rest of the morning smoothing out the sharp edges of the welds with a grinder, buzzed off a bit of the outer corrosion and slapped a coat of anti-corrosive paint on all of 'em.

The Boss's buddy also welded a few not-so-minor reinforcements to the new tractor's bucket- ten iron plates now run front to back along the sides and the underneath-- with how the rest of the day went, it was a pretty timely fix.

After lunch, I rode with the Foreman up to the hilltop fields. We headed over to the far side by a stone wall where we planted potatoes and some of the fall tomatoes last year. Up there things still look very bleak, only 5 rows of strawberries have been planted so far with maybe 35 bare dirt acres surrounding them (I think a round of sweet corn is going to be planted in the next few weeks).

It was time to rock. Bah came over with a seven foot iron rod (2in thick) and we started shimmying boulders from the field. The Foreman brought up the new tractor with the reinforced front loader and we cut 20ft rows through the field top to bottom. We filled the loader 2-3 times a row. It was hard work and the boulders seemed to only get bigger. Bah would lever his bar beneath a boulder buried in 3-4ft of dirt and heave, as the Foreman and I would lift, push and dig it free. Then we'd kick the tractor into gear and scoop it up-- much easier said than done. Bah giggled his head off each time- "600lbs, easy", "at least 800lbs." After the "that one is 1000lbs, careful" Bah stopped giggling and ended his weight tally. We picked up any stone bigger than a baseball- which meant every stone.

Collapsing on a dirt pile between loads, we chatted away-- Bah questioned me about everything from "did I go to college" to "what do you do over winter" to "hows your girlfriend." We peed in the woods. Drank all our water-- Bah should be too old for this kind of work, but this man is tough as dirt.

5 hours of slogging stones and the Foreman finally called it a day. Bah and I walked back through the peach orchard. The trees have flowered and the blooms almost weigh down the branches. Bah inspected the 40 new trees we planted maybe a month ago- buds have started growing and a handful even started to open their pink flowers.

Back at the yard the Boss had attached the boom-sprayer to the old tractor and was giving its tubing and nozzles an overhaul. Later this week we're bound to get some of the heavy rains that have worked their way across the country- the Boss wants to get some weeds sprayed down so the water will help the herbicide seep in.

The floor was still drying in the store, so I closed her up and tidied up around outside. 2 jobs I have to remember for tomorrow morning--
1. Paint the back of the plate welds (new ring attachment oo boy!) on the reinforced front loader with anti-corrosive.
2. Take up the mallet and smash the old toilet to bits so it can go to the dump

Long day calls for tall beers, catch ya tomorrow.