Back to having phone and internet, after about five days without. Our road was getting re-gravelled, and in the process, some dude on a giant gravel truck knocked down our phone lines so we were phoneless for awhile. It's nice to be able to keep in touch with people again, at any rate.
Stuff here is aces .... hugely busy as per the norm. We transplanted cukes into the new field on Sunday (as per the photo above). They're planted in corn-based black plastic that keeps them warm and weed free and will be pretty much gone by July. We also pounded rebar into the ground and ran loops of PVC piping over it to make hoop houses for some extra heat and frost protection. They were initially wearing these stylish looking plastic party hat type cones as well, but it started getting too hot for them, so now they're naked. Judi and I seeded a bed of beets and one of carrots today, and we'll do parsnips tomorry. Devin and I are also hoping to get a buttload more potatoes in the ground tomorrow morning. We have a bunch of different varieties now .... there's a guy who lives about fifteen minutes down the road who is a huge potato enthusiast/nerd and a total sweetheart who gave us a good deal on some cool kinds of seed potatoes.
Devin started his part time job today. He's in at a small engine repair shop just down the road for half days four days a week. It works out perfectly in terms of distance and hours and stuff, and it looks like it'll be a really interesting place to work as well. I got EI, so I am really really stoked on the prospect of being able to spend as much time working on the farm this summer as I need to and not having to stress about money. It seems like it'll work out well doing work trades for rent as well ... we didn't do tons of paid work this month but our rent was under three hundred bucks total (!!!!).
We were starting to get pretty burnt out from all the days of trucking a million wheelbarrows of compost around and shoveling compost and raking stuff that will turn into compost and screening compost and running compost through the wood chipper to make it into smaller compost, so we took a half day off on Sunday, and will try to do this at least once a week. There's so much to do and it's really rewarding and absorbing and all that good stuff, but it's for sures important to actually, y'know, hang out and go for walks and drink beer and chill and ill a bit. We took a walk after dinner the other night and checked out the property a bit more, which was rad. The river is so low right now that we could just walk across to the island, so we snooped around there a bit, checked out the swimming hole for when it's hot enough, and tried to figure out where Chad will be able to fly-fish when he visits.
In animal news, the chicks are totes thriving and looking damn fine. The bigger ones have feet that have grown way faster than the rest of them, so they sort of have the same ridiculous proportions as puppies. They are pretty adorable. Our pigs get here in ten days or so. We were working on getting the old shed into shape as a pig house, but decided it is just too janky to use. So, we borrowed a book of plans for animal shelters and tomorrow morning will get started on building an a-frame pig hut. It'll be good to get more experience doing the more carpentry type building.
Oh, and I also finished my workbenches and built a table for the record player to live on and got yet more sweet tools. Life is pretty totally aces, all in all.
Stuff here is aces .... hugely busy as per the norm. We transplanted cukes into the new field on Sunday (as per the photo above). They're planted in corn-based black plastic that keeps them warm and weed free and will be pretty much gone by July. We also pounded rebar into the ground and ran loops of PVC piping over it to make hoop houses for some extra heat and frost protection. They were initially wearing these stylish looking plastic party hat type cones as well, but it started getting too hot for them, so now they're naked. Judi and I seeded a bed of beets and one of carrots today, and we'll do parsnips tomorry. Devin and I are also hoping to get a buttload more potatoes in the ground tomorrow morning. We have a bunch of different varieties now .... there's a guy who lives about fifteen minutes down the road who is a huge potato enthusiast/nerd and a total sweetheart who gave us a good deal on some cool kinds of seed potatoes.
Devin started his part time job today. He's in at a small engine repair shop just down the road for half days four days a week. It works out perfectly in terms of distance and hours and stuff, and it looks like it'll be a really interesting place to work as well. I got EI, so I am really really stoked on the prospect of being able to spend as much time working on the farm this summer as I need to and not having to stress about money. It seems like it'll work out well doing work trades for rent as well ... we didn't do tons of paid work this month but our rent was under three hundred bucks total (!!!!).
We were starting to get pretty burnt out from all the days of trucking a million wheelbarrows of compost around and shoveling compost and raking stuff that will turn into compost and screening compost and running compost through the wood chipper to make it into smaller compost, so we took a half day off on Sunday, and will try to do this at least once a week. There's so much to do and it's really rewarding and absorbing and all that good stuff, but it's for sures important to actually, y'know, hang out and go for walks and drink beer and chill and ill a bit. We took a walk after dinner the other night and checked out the property a bit more, which was rad. The river is so low right now that we could just walk across to the island, so we snooped around there a bit, checked out the swimming hole for when it's hot enough, and tried to figure out where Chad will be able to fly-fish when he visits.
In animal news, the chicks are totes thriving and looking damn fine. The bigger ones have feet that have grown way faster than the rest of them, so they sort of have the same ridiculous proportions as puppies. They are pretty adorable. Our pigs get here in ten days or so. We were working on getting the old shed into shape as a pig house, but decided it is just too janky to use. So, we borrowed a book of plans for animal shelters and tomorrow morning will get started on building an a-frame pig hut. It'll be good to get more experience doing the more carpentry type building.
Oh, and I also finished my workbenches and built a table for the record player to live on and got yet more sweet tools. Life is pretty totally aces, all in all.
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