Herbie is lobster red, out all day in the sunshine, poor baby, is he going to be sore tomorrow, or what ? Nope, I was wrong, he says it doesn't hurt at all, back out there in the sun today. I can't do that, would burn blisters. I tend to stay out of the midday heat, wear long sleeves when I do have to go out and a hat.
Another beautiful day on the farm. When Betsy came to pick up her milk, we walked the farm, as she really knows lots and lots about the native Michigan plants (and I just know green thingies).
Herbie is lobster red, out all day in the sunshine, poor baby, is he going to be sore tomorrow, or what ? Nope, I was wrong, he says it doesn't hurt at all, back out there in the sun today. I can't do that, would burn blisters. I tend to stay out of the midday heat, wear long sleeves when I do have to go out and a hat.
0 Comments
It's pouring outside, oh dear, the cut hay is being wet for the 3rd time. Can't rake it into piles when it is wet as it's too heavy for the equipment to handle, but if it's just left it could rot. About 300 bales down the tubes ??
Herbie asked me to please do all the running around chores before his week-end so that he could just start doing things tomorrow. Completed everything today, methinks. One trip with 9 things accomplished - how's that for multi-tasking and saving fuel. Sargeant is still not a happy chappy. He's now walking all twisted, when I'm watching. Saw him trotting down the far side of the vegetable garden this afternoon after Anni and Rosco. Marmalade is making herself far too comfortable in the garage. She's a barn kitty, tried to claw into me when I threw her out into the rain tonight. Went and checked the garden. Looks as if the one Roma tomato plant is kaput, nothing has sprouted in the vege part of the garden, the grains are coming up well. Can clearly see the corn rows, the soya beans are about an inch high, the hairy vetch looks lacey, the lentils rows are standing proud, the rye is waving in the wind. Think the chia is out, small leaves but think it's the chia and not weeds, the amaranth seems to be very light green swathes, can't make out the camelina or the quinoa. The sunflowers haven't shown their little leaves yet either. Checked the grape vines, all showing newly unfurled leaves, at least 3 of the lavenders seem to be budding flowers, the 2 new elderberries still just sticks, as are the paw paws, but the new apricot is showing little bits of green on the main stem. The cherries on one of the trees are actually ripening. There are little apples on the trees, little pears. The little green mulberries and raspberries are profuse. My flower rock garden is looking OK. Had to replant some of the little plants due to chicken scratchings, but placing rocks around them seems to help. Those damn bottle-fed lambs escaped again yesterday, and Wanda ate the visible rose leaves again. She's going to kill my roses. I reinforced the gate with planks so maybe they won't push through again. Yesterday afternoon Buttercups' twin daughter was outside as well, and it took me running around their pasture a few times before she ran into the panel and pushed her way back in. Had the give the other sheep grain to keep them in while the gate was open, so this morning they all cried for grain when they saw me. Herbie only got in around 4 am this morning, so he slept until after 1pm today and I milked Dolly. Yesterday he did it with the 2 Chads while I made breakfast with the girls. It's been a while since I haven't done at least part of the milking. Planted an unidentifiable herb last week, need to try find the sales slip t Herbie trying to teach his grandson, Chad, how to "pop" his cheek with his finger this morning after breakfast. Herbies' girls, grandson and baby daddy came to visit for Fathers' day. They arrived yesterday and left today just after Herbie had to go to work. They fed the lambs, Elizabeth thought the lambs needed some meat so she gave them a nibble on her hand, picked strawberries, played with cars in the lounge, generally just visited a little.
Taught the girls how to make Eggs Benedict this morning, as well as how to separate eggs. Probably the breakfast most in demand here on the farm, I think even better than the full South African breakfast. Yesterday we welcomed another herd-share owner, Heather DeRoo from Portland. Her friend Kevin Reid from Chicago found us on the Got Milk website, and signed up for her. He then brought her to the farm and I showed them around. It's great how many people are wanting to eat healthier, and who want to know where their food comes from, and who support their local farmer. They left with beef, chicken, salmon, eggs and milk, and had a tasting of my feta cheese. Thank you, hopefully we have a long, happy association. Heather wanted to know if we accept volunteer workers on the farm - hell yes !!! Can do with all the help we can get. Yesterday, Herbie and I planted our vegetable garden. It took all day, starting with spreading poop over the beds at around 7:15 am (yep, I was up and on the little tractor, but not as early as my early bird hubby, who got out of bed at around 5:30 am).
Here is a list, probably partial, of what we planted : Tomatoes - a whole double row of them, from Romas', to Yellow Pear, to Black Prince, all heirloom - going to be really busy at harvest time, canning, drying, freezing them. Put up an arch trellis for the roma tomatoes, and will put the tomato cage over the Kentucky beefsteak tomato plant. Peppers - sweet green, various hot ones and some Pepperdews (thank you Magda) from South Africa Herbs - Italian parsley, sweet basil, Stevia, bee balm, cilantro, catnip Various squash, including gem squash from South Africa, (Herbie loves these, also thank you Magda) Cucumbers, sweet potatoes, yukon gold potatoes, spinach, lettuce, swiss chard, red cabbage, green cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts, rabe, cauliflower, kohlrabi, bok choy, baby bok choy, asian head mustard, asian cabbage, popcorn, sweet corn, flax, mustard, beetroot, carrots, turnips, asian white radishes, eggplant, peas, green beans, 3 kinds of cowpeas including a rare one from Botswana. Also some Cape Gooseberries, yummy. We didn't plant the one everbearing strawberry nor the 2 German chamomile plants I bought. Herbie says something for me to do today. Damn, and I thought I could sit on the couch eating chocolates all day ! Found I didn't have fennel, leeks or celery, I can't remember the 4th one ! Think I may have planted all the asparagus upside down, but can't find anything to tell me which are the roots. Oh well, if I did they will need to re-orientate themselves as I'm not about to dig them up. Maybe I should have planted them all sideways :) Put the rhubarb in sideways as I didn't know which way was up on them either. Have onion seeds, but didn't pre-plant inside this year, so thinking about sticking them in the ground in the Autumn so they have a good start next year like I did with the garlic last year. The grain garden we planted last week is shoosting up - especially the rye. Can clearly see the corn rows and the soya beans are making an appearance, plus hazes of green everywhere else. Bit of an issue keeping the ducks out of it. We started putting up the 3ft chicken wire fence, but it seems our posts are too far apart to have it really taut. When we stretched it out, the wires snapped. Plan B ?? Had rain on and off through-out the day, which was hot and really really muggy, but great for planting as it was overcast. Then the thunderstorm came in after we finished - great timing, but didn't bode too well for cutting some fresh hay for the sheep and cows. The sickle mower is very frustrating for Herbie, seems to push the grasses down rather than cut them. For a 5 ft blade, it only cuts the middle foot. This makes for a lot of extra diesel running the tractor. Herbie thinks that our push weedy-wacker does a better job, but obviously it takes much longer and much more physical labour. The made a great South African breakfast, with a bit of America for Herbie with the hash browns. Sausage, fried onion, fried tomato, mushrooms, bacon, poached eggs, cheese, toast. My roses are opening. Sometimes cut roses just rot as buds, but these are actually opening and are beautiful, even if they have very faint perfume. The front rock garden is looking pretty with the impatiens, had to re-plant a couple after the chickens scratched them up, plus have a few more creeper like plants to stick in there. Need a scoop of the well composted manure there too. Have someone coming to look at my car on the week-end, so need to vacuum and wash it. Please, please, I really need to sell it. Sargeant didn't have a happy day yesterday. He is feeling very poorly, seemingly ate too much. I bought larger tins of dogfood than usual, as it worked out cheaper than the smaller cans. Usually I feed the 3 dogs out of 2 cans daily, but with the large cans, all 3 can eat out of one. Unfortunately I didn't tell Herbie this, so he fed 3 large cans to the 3 dogs yesterday, Sargeant had about 1/2 a can which resulted in him not being a very happy camper. I force fed him some bicarb yesterday, and he seems a little better today, but maybe I should force-feed him some senecot and castor oil. That should sort his system out, poor bugger. He didn't even want his treat last night ! Didn't ever think that driving the tractor would be boring, but it was today. In low gear, 2nd, just trundling around the field, first with the roto-tiller, then with the rake. Can now understand how farmers fall asleep while driving tractors. ending up with those great pictures of tractors in ditches, upside down etc etc. The lambs are voracious eaters, especially Fish. They spend the day with the other sheep and I bottle feed them through the fence. When I call them, they come running, calling maa maaa. One of the other lambs is starting to copy the calls, although I don't have any others coming for milk. Moved 11 guinea eggs down to the lower barn as there seems to be a very broody chicken down there. Maybe, they'll be fertilised and will hatch. Otherwise I'm going to have to go buy some new keets, not this year though. The asparagus and rhubarb is planted ! Expect rain tonight and tomorrow, finished planting them in the dark, with the company of Marmalade ! Was mozzie food again. Had put all the beasties to bed, the lambs, dogs, chickens, ducks and geese, was chatting to my dad as the cell reception is much better out on the farm than in the house. Heaped manure and ground around each of the 25 new starts, so need to fill in the rest of the ditches after the rain - 4 days time ?? Came in last night at 10:30 pm, picking rocks up in the grain garden until it was too dark to pick them out. Tried to make the asparagus trenches with the 1-bottomed plow, but it only dug about 2 inches, so got stuck in with the pick-axe but realised that this was going to be a full days' job, and it was far too hot yesterday in the sun, so switched to rock-collecting instead. Put the hosepipe out with the sprinkler as the sesame seeds we planted are too fragile to break through the dry earth crust, so need to be watered until they make their appearance. Also filled a new trough for the cows on the other side of the pasture, although they seem to prefer the poopy, stagnant water from the pond. My 12 beautiful long-stemmed red roses, delivered every year I've been in America ! Am I a lucky girl, or what ?? Talking to Herbie this morning I commented that they hadn't arrived this year, and he replied that they would come today. The past 9 years they've arrived in the days before, but today they arrived on time and the delivery lady said, Happy Birthday, I've been here before, yup, every year around this time ! Congratulations to us ! Yesterday, Herbie and I planted the grain section of our vegetable garden. Herbie had plowed, disc-ed and raked the field, we'd spread manure, he re-disc-ed it, we planted and then put another layer of manure over it, and then the rain came. Wonderfully gentle rain overnight. This morning I had to shout at the ducks and chickens who thought we'd put fresh seed out for them, and shot a few shots to scare them out the new grain garden. Planted amaranth, chia, green lentils, black sesame seed, millet, chickpeas, hairy vetch and camelina as well as soya beans and corn. Have no idea what some of these plants are supposed to look like, so it's going to be interesting. Herbie did the milking this morning. I was in the kitchen, saw him come out the pasture with the cow. One cat and 2 lambs following. Fish and Wanda behaved themselves during their school visit yesterday, Wanda wasn't too well again, a bit of bloat, so I was force-feeding her with the bulb syringe again, and then gave her a dose of bicarb. She's much better this morning, pushing for her share of the bottle. Need to go get the car license renewed today, and buy new tips for the plasma cutter. We got some metal piping and plate from the metal scrap place in Ovid when we picked up the farm gates we found on CL on Tuesday, so Herbie could fix the front of the tractor which keeps breaking. Some previous owner put a half pipe in place where a whole pipe should have been, and it is just not strong enough, so Herbie, with Erics' help, put another bar in place. The half round broke when he was using it yesterday to load manure, but the round bar inside held. Eric came over on Tuesday evening to pick up some eggs and beef, and helped with the tractor while I sort of watched his 2 sons, Sage and Nolan. Liz, his wife was at a class, so he was babysitting. Didn't get the asparagus and rhubarb planted yet, but Herbie put the 1-bottomed plow on the little tractor for me so I can dig the trench for them today. Then after I've done that, I need to switch it out to the 2-bottomed plow so I can do the vegetable rows. Nolan on the tractor they were working on. Mary, a herd-share owner texted and asked if her grandkids could come visit the farm when they collected their milk. Sure, if they come they can feed the lambs. 2 little girls, cousins aged about 3 and 5 arrive with their parents, aunts / uncles, granddad. I had to feed the lambs as I'd held it off for over an hour for them to arrive but Fish and Wanda weren't taking this wait-to-feed thing very well. So about 15 minutes later they arrived, but only Wanda would drink more, Fish was full and wandered off. Went into the sheep enclosure to see the other babies, and eventually found them lying under the old planter. The youngest little girl ran away from us towards the sheep, I called for her not to run and went after her, but she had already caught Princes' attention and he went for her, butted her directly in the back and knocked her flat. Tears ensued, but she was OK, bit of red on her back where he'd connected. Never had him charge before, but he is now herd-sire so need to keep an extra eye on him. I asked if anyone had it on film, as it was classic - child running, ram running, colliding, child flat on belly in the dirt, sheep steps back, I smack sheep and tell him he's bad, but nope, no-one was filming then. Steve (granddad) couldn't help laughing. It was over so quick I couldn't reach her before Prince did. Something she'll remember, although it was unfortunate that it happened.
We then went and looked at the alpacas, walked out to see the calves, with both little girls much more careful and clingy to parents. They fed the chickens, went hunting for and found, chicken duck and goose eggs, petted Marmalade, the only cat who made an appearance, laughed when I chucked Sargeant into the pond as he was muddy up to his belly. Pennycools while holding the little Bantam eggs I gave them to take home, although the youngest one said yuk when I asked her if her mum would cook it for her breakfast the next morning. She dropped her egg, so I gave her another smaller one collected previously, thank-yous' said with goodbyes. Lovely day, watered my newly planted flowers, and Herbie is out disc-ing the field. For me, it's go and finish tie-ing up the grape trellis, weed the permanent part of the vegetable garden, plant the asparagus and rhubarb that has been soaking in the tunnel for the past 3 days, weed the strawberries and plant the one everbearing strawberry that still hasn't gone into the ground. Amy is picking up Fish and Wanda on Wednesday morning for a school visit. Hope they're OK, and that the kids enjoy them. |
CategoriesArchives
March 2023
|