We hope that everyone enjoyed a wonderful holiday weekend with family & friends (and that the food hangover wasn’t too bad for y’all)! At the farm we awoke to quite a deluge, good strong winds, and some pea-sized hail – no damage, so not a bad thing overall. The day gave way to sun and warmth and made for a beautiful sunset.
Around the farmstead…
It’s been one of those weeks, so far, that everyone likes to have a little fun with. Let’s just recap Mark’s day on Monday shall we?
Started off normal enough; wake up, have a cup of coffee, feed/water the birds.
Hmmm – see that one of the ducks seems to be acting odd, notice that somehow he’s got himself wrapped up in a string, enter duck house (cue birds freaking out), wings smacking upside the head, free that drake from string. Well, most of it anyway and he takes off at full run to join the flock. Now, if you’ve ever seen Indian Runners in action, you might know that they are very skittish (not exactly the cuddly teddy-bear types). So, let’s take a half-hour to wrangle a single bird from the moving swarm of bowling pins. Finally separate the bird, gently remove remaining piece of string, success. Okay, time to get on about other business.
Next up, get the tractor to do a little cultivating but first – let’s do the Fire Ant Dance!
Have a new gate laying on the ground by the barn (for an upcoming cross-fence project) that needs moved to back out the tractor. Upright gate and lean against the barn. Notice, a moment too late, that some ants have made a little mound under where the gate lay. As gate goes upright, the reign (or in this case – rain) of terror comes down about head and shoulders… We’re sure that many of you may be familiar with dance, but in case you’re lucky enough to have never done/seen it, it basically goes like this; jump around kinda awkwardly, beat yourself with gloves/hands frenetically, strip off items of clothing and continue on with steps 1 & 2 until you’re done freaking out. Oh yeah – and if you’re practiced at this dance you likely incorporate a few expletives into the groove. 😉
Ahhh, finally a few hours of things going well – a little weed abatement, planting some cucumber/squash, a little ag raking around the property where some tree branches came down in the weekend storm. Last quick pass with the ag rake over by the house and, umm that feels strange, what the, left front tire – sinking. All stop. Gear change. Transmission to Low. Shift to reverse. Reduce RPM. Lock Diff. Ease of the clutch…
No joy. The left side of the little Ford just dug right in. Right up to the axle and mother earth swallowed that left front tire up whole.
Last pass of the day indeed. Well, a few hours of fooling around in the muck, a little ag lime, some creative ‘bridge’ building (a few more expletives) and the little Ford was returned to service. Just kinda how it goes sometimes out here and makes the stuff we get to laugh at ourselves for later on. 🙂
CSA Details…
Well we’re just about to get to it! Deliveries start next week and we’re excited! The crates are in the barn at the ready, the early veggies are looking good, ice is stacking up, and we’re finally looking at good consistent soil temperatures.
We’ll be spending a little time during the next evening or two getting out some additional info to each of your respective community pick-up locations so be on the lookout for that. Also, if any of you are interested in eggs, bread or coffee – please let us know via the add-on order form (on the website under the CSA Info section) as soon as you can so we can get those together for ya.
We’ve had a lot of interest from new folks for this season and have many new confirmed members. Yeah!
Important –
We’ll be finalizing the logistics for deliveries this weekend (how many coolers to pack, how many crates for each location, etc. etc.) so for any of you out there that may have expressed interest but not confirmed your membership, please send us an email to let us know whether you’re still interested in participating. We certainly don’t want to head out to a community pick-up without enough on-board for everyone!
Please know that there’s no pressure… We are very aware that circumstances change, there are many other good farmers to work with, and all sorts of other life stuff that may change someone’s level of interest.
Short and sweet with details, this is the time where we can stop talking and start doing. 🙂
Looking forward to seeing all of you next week!!
Stoked!
m&c
ROFL! More stories like this, please. 🙂