All Work and Some Play

John Denver said "Life on the farm is kinda laid back." Maybe if we were farming full time instead of working full time and farming part time I wouldn't disagree with that statement so fervently.

It is the first weekend of summer and the first in many weeks that doesn't include rain. Jeremy and I got up ready to get chores done. The sheeps' stall under the pole barn hasn't been mucked out for many months. We usually try to do it every couple of months; but the cool, wet spring made the prospect of pitchforking drenched straw very unappealing. So it waited, until today.

Now there is roughly 8 inches of a lovely mixture of straw, sheep poo, sheep pee and water from rain-soak wool, was matted down. Time to warm up the tractor.

The tractor was left here by the previous owners. When we *inherited* it, it didn't run and the lifter for the bucket was broken. Fortunately we have a number of friends who know a bit about mechanics. It took more than a year, but the tractor runs and the bucket lifts. All we had to do today was charge the battery and re-inflate the front tires and she was ready to go.

For two and a half hours the process went like this:
- Jeremy took a few scrapes with the tractor
- We pitched until the bucket was full
- Jeremy drove the straw/poo/pee to the compost bin
- Dump
- Start over

After the first hour my biceps were sore. Then my shoulders started to ache. By the end everything was numb. Now I'm heavily medicated with ibuprofen to prevent the pending pain.

Funny thing is that it all feels wonderful. We spend most of our time in front of the computer at work or on the phone or in meetings. We rarely get to use our bodies for what they were made for. So while I am tired and sore, I am also feeling energized and satisfied.

Here are some pictures that illustrate the undertaking.
Pole barn pre-mucking and after all the straw/poo/pee was removed




Compost bin before and after

Potatoes

Got the potatoes in the ground today. Yukon Gold.

Oh course I wait until Jeremy got back from his business trip so that he could dig the trenches. While he took care of that - two trenches, two feet wide, one foot deep and about 15 feet long - I did the hard work of cutting the potatoes into forths, leaving one eye for each quarter. The directions say to space each "seed" 12-24 inches apart, but I decided to put them about 8 inches apart. Then I covered them in about 2 inches of soil.

There were incredible worms in the soil. Every shovel full had at least 4 visible - some huge. This is a great success. Originally the garden was a horse paddock. It was full of rocks, compacted and in serious need of some organic matter. Over the past 3 years, we've add compost, sheep poop, chicken poop and this last year pig poop. (Note: The USDA does not recommend pig poop for the garden unless it has been hot composted but we're taking out chances with regular composting.) We till at least 3 times a year - at the end of the season, early in the spring before peas and potatoes go in and about a week before the majority of planting. Now the soil is loose, dark and full of worms - great! We also rotate the crops - no crop in the same place two years in a row - which has helped.

To rocks are an ongoing battle. Everytime I think we have removed the largest (softball size usually) some more appear. It's like they come up from underneath. We just toss into the creek bed, which runs right along the garden. 30 years from now, if we are still here and I hope we will be, we'll still be tossing rocks into the creek.

Potatoes are in and now we just wait. When the green shoots are up a couple of inches I'll add more soil and keep up the process until mounded high. Hopefully we'll get a great crop this year.

Last year was awful. I'm not sure why. We have done potatoes for 4 years and the first couple resulted in bushels of potatoes. (How much is a bushel exactly?) We kept them in the garage in paper bags and they lasted until Feb-March. But for whatever reason last year we had about 10 potatoes - gone by October. This year is going to be good though - I can feel it!

ROUS's

An unfortunate part of living in the country is rats. (I know there are rats in the city, but I never saw or hear them when we lived in town.) I'm not squeemish about much - mice are fine, I can pick up a snake or frog, spiders (if out side and not in my house) are great, cockroaches do bug me fortunatly we don't have those here. But rats! I really don't like rats. Disease ridden, beady little eyes, nasty worm tail, jagged teeth - yuck! (The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up while I type this.)

Jeremy just came up from feeding the animals and said "It's lucky I fed them today, not you. You won't believe what I just dealt with." My first thought was poop - 50% of the 'you won't believe this ...' are about pig, sheep or chicken poop. Not this time. He continued, "I was grabbing the chicken scratch. Between the container and the large gate door." (We keep feed in large garbage cans and against the gate to the pig pen.) "Was the biggest rat I've seen here. It was about 10 inches long, not counting the tail and it was fat - like half the size of Rosa." (Rosa is our fat cat - see picture.) "It was dead, so I got the shovel to get rid of it. I'd guess it weighed about 7 lbs." That is just disgusting! So glad I didn't do the afternoon feeding today!!

The other rat story is less icky. Eric and Lola had a dog named Cassy. She was old and she considered our yard her's. She was sweet, so it was fine that she hung out with us. One day I was out in the yard. I had just moved some compost on to the garden so the fencing across the compost bin was open (see picture to right of compost bin after it was emptied this spring.) Rats love the compost and I'm OK with that since it is far from the house and I usually don't see or here the rats. Anyway, I turned around and Cassy was head first in the compost, up to her shoulders, trying to get the rats. Her tail was wagging. Cassy, being old, was deaf so I had to walk up to her to get her attention. She backed out and turned towards me - she was actually smiling through the rotten food, hay and poop. She was covered in stink and goo, tail still wagging away. I had to take her up to Lola. I felt so bad "here's you dog, she needs a bath"