Katrina Hargis ILC - Summer

NOTE: My self-Eval is located in my reports tab.

This week was a lot more than just writing a self eval. I updated reports and I thought about my future as a farmer. I put together CSA’s. I planted the fall garden. I weeded. I cried. Then, I just went a little numb.

Last week, I prepped the garden for the fall garden. This week, I planted it. Onions, greens, leeks, spinach, and all sorts of brassicas. I can’t believe how much we did. The pests ate some of my starts, so I did need to replant those this week. which was the last chance that I had to. Carrots planted, turnips, and so many other things. It was almost like a second spring. We will weed a ton in september and early October, but shouldn’t need to do too much after that. Once it starts raining and getting colder at night, we will cover the rows.

I harvested all of our bulbed onions and have set them out to cure! I stopped watering the tomatoes, though the rain seems to be doing that for me…. I am not ready to give up on the tomatoes though, and I may try covering them a little in these temperatures.

I packed 3 CSA this week, and sold 4 dozen eggs. I did in fact take this week off work so that I could pack in 30 hours into this last little bit. I think between all the things, I was typing or outside way over 30 hours in 4 days. I’m back to work tomorrow, so I am finishing things up tonight.

I’m ready to be done. I’m ready to relax a little bit. We’ll see how that goes though. My husband is going back to work, and it looks like I’ll be taking over SAH parenting and starting our 4 year old in homeschooling. Let’s see what this fall brings.

I’ve enjoyed writing these posts for the last 10 weeks, and it has definitely brought me some joy. I think I may start a blog for my farm after all of this. We’ll see though.

Thanks for coming along with me on this journey!

After spending an insane amount of time this week clearing out spring grown crops, and prepping beds for autumn planting, it’s strange to see how barren the garden has gotten. There have been decisions made to keep or pull certain plants, there is constant note taking on varieties, and decisions to make about next year

Some of our decisions this week:

Celery – Yes, it’s so amazing and smells delightful. It’s gorgeous and not too difficult to grow. It is susceptible to the weeds though, and will need to be grown in weed barrier.

Alcosa Cabbage- An excellent savoy variety that matures quickly and stays small. It doesn’t need as much space, and we can grow more of it. Not as susceptible to the pests. I like this one.

Turnips- Need to be grown in the raised beds

Raised beds – Need more of them

Basil – Spacing we gave them was a little excessive, can plant closer together!

Broccoli – Not growing Romanesco again…. It doesn’t grow as well here. We will also plant it a little earlier.

Weeds – We will be covering most pathways and all the in ground beds with landscape fabric/weed barrier. There will be some areas that won’t have it, for things that get planted very close. The main pathway will also not have landscape fabric.

Corn – Actually worth the effort maybe. I got to taste our first ears this week and they were delicious!

One of the small gardens, where we have had issues with things growing will get cover cropped for the winter, and next spring will be a small garden space for my kids, and probably a small stand of corn and beans. William would really like to grow “A pumpkin, OH AND A watermelon!” So I think a 3-sisters attempt over there might be perfect!

I wrote up some notes and a couple papers while it was hot, and finished book 3. I’ll write that paper next week, along with my Summer Eval.

While things are looking like they’re winding down, we still have tomatoes ripening, peppers growing, and summer squash FINALLY taking over! I harvested all the onion bulbs, and they are sitting out drying. We processed cabbage, and some carrots and beets. I’ve got all the planting to do next week, too! Maybe I’ll need to take the week off work…. It’s going to definitely be another hugely busy week.

Planting, eval, report on the meat bird progress, report on the compost heater progress, and a report on one of the books, all on top of getting plants in! See you Friday.

This week has been filled with hot temperatures and sunburns, so most of the week has been spent finishing books and writing papers. By the time it was cool enough to go outside, it was about to get dark. I didn’t get a lot of time out there, but there was still upkeep to be done, sprinklers to be moved, and things to be harvested.

I typically walk the garden daily, to try and get myself in tune and figure out what needs doing desperately. Monday, I noticed that something has been munching on my plant starts. Whether is is the cats, rodents, or birds, I don’t know, but I had to set up a system in order to cover them and protect them. I will have to replant some of them to be sure we get a harvest!

I finished both Braiding Sweetgrass and Market Farming Success this week. I found that it took about half the time to finish Market Farming Success as it took to read Braiding Sweetgrass. I think this has a lot to do with not really wanting the book to end, versus reading specifically for educational purposes. I have tons of notes written down, and they will be typed up and added to my reports section this next week.

It’s hard to believe that it is headed into Week 9, and that I’ve done so much this quarter. This week I have built most of the compost heater, there is still the matter of filling it but that needs to wait until it’s not boiling inside the greenhouse. I won’t get an analysis done this quarter because it won’t be in use. It will be something I keep an eye on through fall and winter though.

We pulled the rest of the cabbage and processed it for the freezer, also in preparation for the fall and winter starts to go in. We will direct seed a bit in week 9! We planted the last of the zucchini and cucumber starts, and while I don’t expect much of a harvest, I wasn’t going to waste the starts! I have pulled the weed fabric out, and now I need to mow and prepare the soil before I lay it down for the winter veggies. The goal is keeping the soil a little warmer through those frigid months.

Due to the heat this week, I spent much more time than normal filling and cleaning water troughs and chicken waterers. I dumped and refilled each day so that they had fresh cold water through all this heat. I did not lose a single animal, and no one showed signs of too much heat stress! I did wind up with wicked sunburns on my arms and shoulders, but I had to keep everyone alive.

I harvested for 2 CSA boxes this week, and will have 3 next week. Tonight (Sunday) I helped prepare a dinner for 15+ people, and with the exception of the meat, it was all farm grown! I am so thrilled to be able to put on a dinner like that.

During my reading of Braiding Sweetgrass, I became interested in where it grows, what exactly it was used for (in more depth), and if it grew in the West. While doing this research, I came across a wildflower called Fireweed. I’ve seen it on trail rides around the JBLM range areas, and had never known what it was called. I was listening to different pieces of information about it, and learned that they use the fluffy seeds as firestarter, the leaves for tea (great for indigestion), and the early shoots are eaten raw and cooked. It never ceases to amaze me what all the native plants can be used for. I collected some seeds in hopes that I can grow some in my native plant area! I’ll definitely be doing more research into it though.

I want to stray a little away from my typical daily journal entry style writing this week. Normally, I appreciate the concise way of laying out my weekly tasks, but this week I think I need a little leeway on it, from myself of course.

Recognizing an Issue

Through the coldest months, I spent my time meticulously planning the location and planting date of every plant that was going to go into the ground. We started the first seeds in January and February inside. Ever since the ground thawed enough to plant the hardiest of crops under a cold frame, back in early March, I have spent my days watering, tending, and worrying about my plants. When prepwork started, I was so sure of this year. We’d had an amazing excess of vegetables last year, enough that I was confident in my ability to offer a CSA, and sell the excess.

I remember last year, worrying that the plants that we’d gotten in a little late wouldn’t do their thing. I remember watching the garden grow, and feeling a sense of relief as things started to thrive. I remember the pride I felt when I pulled my first cucumber off the vine, and in having so many summer squash and tomatoes in the freezer.

It’s the middle of August almost, and the main thing that I feel is disappointment this year. Sure, we have cabbage in the freezer, the peppers are putting on fruit, and my tomatoes are 8-9 ft tall and growing an amazing crop, but the good does not outweigh the bad this year. I’ve gotten less than 10 summer quash off of 8 plants, the cucumbers are only 3 ft tall, and we’ve lost all of our storage crops. We expanded the garden this spring, and we planted a huge later crop of corn, but our weird cold weather recently has caused it to tassel early, effectively rendering it unusable. I read all the information on living mulch, and using clover to crowd out the weeds, what we didn’t expect was for it to crowd out 60+ vines of winter squash. My readings and research failed me this year, and now I have 2 huge plots that have a crop that I’m not going to be able to store or feed my family with, and many other plants failing.

I didn’t expect this, I wasn’t ready for this. I spend as much time in the garden and with my farm animals as I do at work. I really don’t know how to handle it. So I’m going to try and look at the good, even when I am so overwhelmed by the bad.

There is hope for our winter garden, which is luckily started and growing well. I have updated the maps and I’m ready to plan for next year. My chickens are giving me 14-17 eggs a day. My sheep can eat the failed crops.

I will cling to that this next week while I figure out a new plan.

It’s not all about me

I was sitting in the garden early this week trying to find the most pressing projects, and a wasp came and crawled on my leg. My immediate instinct was to panic and get up and move away. I didn’t listen though, and I watched as this wasp tried to straighten her wing out on my leg. She stayed long enough to get it straightened out enough to fly off my leg and back into the garden. If I’d gotten up and flung it away, it probably wouldn’t have been able to get its wing straightened out. I watched her fly over to the volunteer cosmos growing in the pathway, and settle there. I put my hand down to get up, and more buzzing near my hand. I moved my hand and found a bumble bee resting on a clover flower. I moved a clover leaf to look at it, and I watched as this bee put a single one of its arms up and wave me away, it was taking a much needed nap on a flower. I left it alone, and got up finally and looked around.

While I may just see bolting vegetables, and more work to be done before I can replant things, the bees are collecting pollen to make food for their brood. That’s all I’m trying to do, isn’t it? Feed my family. It really gave me a new view on the flowering mess. It is actually helping someone to let these plants stay for a little while longer. I don’t need to be rushing to get new things in. It’s not all about ME.

Finding Potatoes

In early may, I planted two 30′ rows of potatoes. Shortly after, the Bachelor Buttons popped up, then the cosmos. These had been planted intentionally last year, but were unexpected volunteers this year. I liked to look at them, and they were in the pathways, so I didn’t see a need to pull them out. Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when I realized I couldn’t see the potato plants anymore, and I really wasn’t even sure if they were still growing. So, Thursday this week I decided to find the potatoes. It took HOURS of careful pulling of weeds, and mowing the pathways to find the potatoes. They’re not happy, but they also haven’t flowered yet. I’m hoping that I can still get a decent crop out of them before frost.

Deciding What is Worth it.

Jess and I sat in the garden on Sunday morning, and both of us were in our feelings for different reasons. We had weeded the basil, and discussed the fall garden, pulled some bad cabbage for the poultry, and fed weeds to the sheep, until they started to come out with nightshade plants with immature berries. The rest went into the long compost pile, which will sit for an extended period of time to ensure bad things aren’t growing in it. We have a smaller pile which will sit until spring, which has bedding and manure in it.

We had waded through the winter squash to see how much was savable after everything, and as it turns out, not much. The corn we’d planted for grinding wasn’t growing well, and we are both so upset. She asked me if I wanted her to pull out the bolting broccoli so it didn’t add more later, but I was able to quietly smile, shake my head, and explain that it was a thing on the list whether we did it now, or after it finished flowering, and that I’d decided that feeding the bees made me happier than throwing the plants into the compost. I could still feed it to the poultry and sheep after the flowers are gone. I’m not 100% sure the sentiment was understood, but we left them for a little longer.

We talked about the fall garden, as well as the plan for next year’s garden. We talked about if I was going to scale back for just my family, or if I was going to offer a CSA again next year. After a lot of thought, I’m going to keep it up, and keep trying. I can’t let one bad season deter me from trying again. The big garden in worth it, weeding is NOT worth it and I will be doing a lot more intervention with weeds. I will not use chemicals, but I will be putting loads of landscape fabric down. Corn is NOT worth it. Winter squash IS worth it, and I will do more to ensure it grows better next year. Being away from the farm and my kids is not worth it anymore. My husband is looking for a full time job, and I will go back to being home instead. I know it’s going to be a transition, but I will graduate next spring, then it will be easier.

After a lot of poor things happening, I have to say, it wasn’t all bad. I got to pick up yarn from my sheep I’d had made, and I got the first few raspberries out of my new patch. I made new maps for spring next year, saw bees galore, and I got to ride my horse 3 days this week!

My daily chores at this point just with keeping the garden happy and harvested enough, and animals watered, fed, and eggs collected is taking well over 2 hours every day. I welcome the routine, except when I’ve been up too late and I wake up already late for my morning work. Thankfully, the animals are forgiving, as long as you don’t completely forget to feed them. The garden is less forgiving, and I’m seeing it in my sauce tomatoes with blossom end rot in a single plant, in the basil which is stunted because of the pigweeds overwhelming presence, and in the edamame and swiss chard with the weeds overwhelming them. An animal is going to LOUDLY remind you to feed them. The garden is going to silently disappear into a thick mat of weeds if you don’t pay close enough attention. I wonder sometimes what the garden would say if it could yell at me what it needs. “Calcium!” the tomatoes would be screaming all night long. “Pay attention!” the celery would yell, as I almost step directly into the bed, unable to see it under all the weeds. I know it would have a lot to say, but I hope some of it is good.

Monday

Monday was an abnormal start to the week. My husband succumbed to the illness that took each child down for a day, and he was no different. I wound up working the whole day for us, which isn’t so bad, except for the fact that I get nothing done on the farm. Luckily, many hours of work, meant many hours of time to figure garden issues out in my head, and many hours to listen to books. Braiding Sweetgrass continued to be my favorite, and I find myself listening to parts twice because it is just that powerful of a book. (Will insert quotes once I find my hard copy). It has made me think a lot of how much I take from the land, but also how much I give back in regards to the crop rotations, no chemicals, using living mulch, and natural fertilizers. One of the parts that I listened to spoke of the garden loving you back, and if that could be a thing. I have thought a lot about this, and I love how it was mentioned that the garden is a part of mother earth, and that means she loves you as well. I swear I can be more coherent, but this book is just insane and it makes me feel so many things!

Tuesday

Today I harvested a bunch of cabbage to make room for a bunch of the fall and winter crops. They have been turned into freezer meals, specifically a delicious cabbage casserole. The rest of them will be harvested next week and will be shredded, blanched, and frozen to be added to meals later in the winter.

The barrels for the compost heater in the greenhouse were ordered today, as well as some of the tubing and piping I will need. A greenhouse clean out is needed before we can get it all put together.

Wednesday

Today was the day to scout out veggies for the CSA this week. I did my weekly garden walk, and decided to include a lot of different things. During my walk, I revisited the “poblano” peppers to see if they’d done anything, but in fact they still looked nothing like poblano peppers. I took a few photos and posted to a facebook group that I am in to get some answers. Turns out they are a Shishito pepper. Not exactly the large spicy pepper my husband was hoping for, but much more suited to most palates.

The rest of the day was work and reading! Hopefully I’ll have something to show for it soon!

Thursday

CSA day #1 – I packed a beautiful CSA box today! The first of the tomatoes and the last of the kohlrabi went in this week. The basil is in full production, and I have been able to harvest a nice size bag for everyone each week.

I started the Onions and Lettuce for the fall/winter garden this evening. I’m hoping it’s not too late, but I’m not giving up!

Friday

This morning I harvested some peppers and cherry tomatoes for tomorrow’s CSA, since I knew that area would be getting watered tonight, and I didn’t want to deal with the moisture first thing in the morning. I got a pint of each, and brought them inside to hide them from my husband. If he’d been able to find them there probably wouldn’t have been a CSA.

After feeding everyone, harvesting, and a measly amount of weeding, it was time to go to work. Once I had finished at the barn, I pulled out to go put some gas in my MIL’s truck to head out to my daughters dentist appointment. Well, I noticed a plume of smoke as I drove out of the driveway, and I started to get a little worried. Sure enough, as I drive by, it’s a rather large fire just across and the road a bit. Traffic on the freeway is stopped in both directions, and I knew that there was no way to get my daughter to her appointment on time. As I drive, I get a call from my neighbor and she tells me she’s keeping an eye on the fire because it took over 20 minutes to get a fire truck to it, and it spread from a brush fire into the mobile park across from it, and if it hit the trees, the fire department said they were going to start evacuating the street.

Plan change, so fuel up the truck so I can hook to a horse trailer if I need to start evacuating horses. Called my husband and told him to find enough gas in gas cans and put it in my truck so it could hook and get at least to a gas station, and to prepare to let the sheep and poultry loose in case we didn’t have enough time to evac more than just the horses. Texted my best friend Jess and told her that if I called without a text first, I needed her to get to the barn ASAP. She loaded up and headed our way pretty quickly anyway, because 20 minutes away was definitely too far. Texted my SIL (barn owner) who was at a horse show that it was not yet an emergency, but I wanted her to know. Everyone was prepared.

Once all the calls were made and texts sent, I went to get home, and they had shut my road down. I couldn’t get home. A police officer waved me away and told me to turn around. I told him I needed to get through, that my kids and horses were a block away and I needed to get there. All I got in response was “We’re going to worry about evacuating everyone in a few minutes”

Panic.

I called Jess and told her she’d need to take the other way around, and I sat there watching the fire get bigger. I finally had enough and turned around and went the long way home.

Luckily, by the time I got home they had the fire contained. It took 25 units on site to get it controlled. Older news kept coming up, and no one was sure if it was contained or if it has spread more. So we sent someone down and they spoke to the fire department on scene and we all breathed a sigh of relief as we got the news that there was no more live fire, but they were staying around to deal with hot spots.

The rest of my evening included a lot of research on how to make sure my animals were able to be identified as mine, and the best practices for letting them loose. I decided that there is a lot of things that I need to get, and I need to write out and post an official evacuation plan for my farm, in case I can’t be there.

Saturday

CSA day 2! This one wasn’t much different than Thursdays, except it included zucchini. Our other CSA member has their own plants and apparently they are going WILD right now!

I also collected and sold 9 of my ducks today. These ducks were dropped off ot me a few months ago for a “week” while the fence got fixed, and then I was ignored for most of the messages that I sent inquiring if she still wanted them. My male to female ratio was incredibly off because of them, and everyone looked so beat up. So… I sold them.

After work, I got home and planted most of the plants for our fall garden. I realized once I looked over everything and only the greens and maybe some of the roots actually needed to be succession planted for the winter. I planted and labeled 6 flats for the winter! Garden time brought to you by: Gummy Bears!

Sunday

I woke up feeling the need to be out of the house and away from everything, but instead I went into the garden and I collected a large bag of basil. It was later turned into a pesto made with manchego and walnuts! There will always be more basil through the summer, so into the freezer most of it went, with just a bit kept out for dinner in the next few days.

I went to Jess’s to drop off some stuff, and get some plant starts, and when I got there she had made me breakfast we sat out on her front porch eating together. It was just the right thing that I needed in that moment. We’ve both had a lot of sickness with ourselves and our kids lately, so we haven’t seen much of each other.

I didn’t want to, but eventually I headed off to work. After work, I had another exciting excursion, where I got to go BUY ducks.

I keep Muscovy ducks. The only duck in North America NOT related to the Mallard. They are more muscularly set, and have a red meat! They also come in a lot of desirable colors and patterns. I’d sold the ducks yesterday so that I could get some in the colors and patterns that I want to breed for. I picked up 2 chocolate hens to add to my 1 blue, 1 silver, and 1 chocolate hen that I kept along with my silver drake (male duck). My goal with these birds is to produce a color called buff, which is a combination of the silver gene and the chocolate gene. I did a lot of research and have a few generations to go!

Next week’s to do list is daunting, and I really hope I can get it all done!

This has been a reading and Instagram posts heavy week. I had a pretty productive time early this week, but starting Thursday it was spent with each of my children getting sick, and an afternoon in urgent care with my youngest. I really don’t have a ton to write about this week, but we’ll try and get some good storytelling in!

Monday

I went out to the garden this evening and noticed a few of our Dragon Tongue beans looked ready to harvest, I pulled a few off the bush for my mother in law so that she could cook them up and try them. This was a variety that had been grown at the farm on campus when I interned there with POF, and I thought that they looked incredible! Come to find out, they also taste incredible. Once I pulled the first few, I dug a little deeper to find MANY beans ready on the bushes. Yikes. The pole beans were also quite full of beans, and would need harvesting soon. This whole journey has been a lot more than I was actually expecting.

I worked on my plan for the week during the evening, not that I’d actually be able to stick to it.

Tuesday

I knew I needed to get beans harvested so that I could keep the plants producing. so I spent a few hours with Braiding Sweetgrass playing in my ear, while I harvested Dragon Tongue, Carminat, and Emerite beans. The harvest filled 2 produce bags (think grocery store produce bags) full to the brim with beans. Luckily they store pretty well in a fridge! I did some heavy weeding around the summer squash, because I think the weeds around them was keeping them from getting properly pollinated. I also tried to weed the beans, but during our vacation, the beans decided to climb the weeds, so I can’t actually pull the weeds without pulling some beans out too, which I don’t want!

Wednesday

Braiding Sweetgrass has been quite eye opening for me in regards to the land, and even some of the history included in it. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy a book so much, especially one that I chose for my ILC. I have it playing as often as possible, and I have been sitting with a notebook taking down some of the most important parts of it, in my opinion. One of the big things that I learned this week was about a gift economy vs a purchase economy. I love the idea that a gift economy creates a lasting relationship, whereas if we purchase something, there is not, and how with a gift market, you think about how much you take, and I think that is incredibly powerful just in the thought of my land itself. There’s so much to think about.

I did some reading from a chapter sent to me for my mid quarter eval, and boy do I wish I wasn’t dealing with so much this week. My creativity is gone, and I am really struggling with this one.

Thursday

Chaos – Day 1

I started the day by hauling my besties horse to the stallion to get bred. One of my favorite parts of my job is being able to haul the horses to their appointments and such.

When we got back, I spent some time cleaning out the quail cages, moving the meat birds into a new space, scrubbing and filling all the waters, and collecting my new quail egg cartons from the mailbox. I am getting 3-4 quail eggs a day at this point, so I’m able to sell about one 18 pack every week or two. I’m currently collecting a few dozen to hatch though, so that I can get more eggs!

I got to go for a ride on my horse, and then worked for a little while before I came home to chaos. My daughter was groaning and crying on my bed, and my poor husband looked so overwhelmed. She had quite the fever when we checked. We got her comfortable with some medicine, and she was able to sleep it off.

Friday

Chaos – Day 2

I was able to go to work for a little while in the morning, but when I got home, my youngest also had a fever, and was in a similar state to his sister from the day before. She’s totally fine by now. Well, along with the fever on my youngest, came a rash. We headed to urgent care, and spent the afternoon there, only to have more questions than answers. We got him comfortable when we got home, and he slept most of the day. He wanted us next to him the whole time, so I spent the afternoon reading next to him.

Saturday

5am came really quickly, and William was feeling better. The fever was gone, and so was most of his rash. He was still pretty tired, so he spent a lot of time resting.

Due to the chaos of yesterday, today wound up being CSA day, and I harvested for a few hours. This weeks box included beets, carrots, green onions, kale, swiss chard, both types of beans, summer squash, basil, cabbage, and eggs. Both got delivered to the barn, where they would pick them up!

That evening, I was weeding some of the peppers, and I saw the first of our cherry tomatoes are ripe! The Sun Gold tomatoes are my favorite.

Sunday

Chaos – Day 3

Whatever this virus is, it hit my oldest this morning. He woke up with a splitting headache and a fever. We have spent the day keeping him comfortable, and during the many hours he spent napping I spent out in the peppers. I had to free the poor plants, you couldn’t even tell that most of them are there!

Now that this is done, I’ll go for a walk in the garden to plan the next week, and I’ll try and finish my eval. I’m fried, and I could honestly just use an early bedtime, but of course that’s not happening.

This has been one of the busiest weeks of the summer for me. My youngest turned 4 today (Sunday), and it’s been a lot of running around and narrowly avoiding heat exhaustion every day. It was also a week of getting back into my work/school/life routine that I’ve been missing and dreading getting back to both at the same time.

Daily tasks: Check the sprinklers and gardens, feed the sheep and collect eggs

3x/week: Harvest and then scrub the animal waters – algae grows fast in the heat

1x/week: CSA

Monday:

Monday is one of the days where my husband, Duncan, and I work all day at his sisters horse farm. He starts at 9 with cleaning stalls, and once he comes home, I’m over switching horses into different turnout areas, and then feeding and prepping their Monday special mash. He comes and switches out with me at 3, when he cleans all the stalls again, feeds mash, and moves horses around again. He then heads over to another barn and cleans and feeds two other horses that we take care of. We swap off on who has our kids during these times, so getting much done is a touch of a challenge. It’s after 6 before we’re both back on the property.

Some of the things that I can do with a toddler following me around include weeding, and taking care of the poultry. We did both of these things together. I pulled the march sown snow peas out, they’d fallen over and had become unmanageable. William got to decide if we fed them to the sheep or the chickens and ducks, and he resolutely chose to feed them to the chickens/ducks. They were SO excited for the treat. We weeded some in the lettuce bed, so that we could put some more in before we need to turn it over for winter legumes next month! We follow a pretty simple crop rotation plan, so that we don’t use all the soils nutrients.

Once we had both parents in the same place, I moved out to the tomatoes. They’ve grown over a foot since we left for Yellowstone, and they need quite a bit of love. The weeds got out of control while we were gone. I worked on the weeds until I started to get eaten big time by the massive clouds of mosquitoes that seem to be an issue this year. Too many issues!!!

Tuesday

Today I got the email letting me know that my meat birds had shipped, at 4pm… I wasn’t sure if they would be here Wednesday like normal, or if we’d have to wait until Thursday. I scrubbed chicken waterers, and filled the duck pools. I have a CSA to pack this week, so I did my rounds to see what I was going to harvest this week, as well as just take in the overall status of my plants. I got my list together, and noticed that some of the radishes were finally looking like they were ready to harvest.

While harvesting some of our carrots, I noticed that the beets are being attacked by leaf miners, which means I need to put in the research on a better way to deal with them. Google brought me to a couple websites that recommend Lacewings as a good predator, second to a parasitoid wasp that can be found in Washington. I have decided to order a bunch of lacewings to start, because they are easier to find. Luckily the beets are all almost mature, so it shouldn’t affect my ability to harvest the root, but the greens are all getting thrown out.

I checked on the chickens progress while I collected eggs, and much to my surprise, they had finished most of the peas!!

Wednesday

Much to my surprise, I woke up to a phone call from the post office telling me that my chicks had arrived! I quickly ran and plugged in their heat plate, we don’t use heat lamps due to a near fire a few years ago, and off I went to the post office. I walked in and told the employee who called me up “I’m here to pick up a chirping box!” Everyone got a good laugh, and after checking my ID, he went to grab my box. The other employees who came up front asked me a few questions:

Is it true that they ship them with a gel?: Yes, It’s kind of like a thick jello, and it’s packed full of the nutrients to get them to me alive.

How many chickens do you have?: 25, I think! (Once I’d gotten home and counted it’s actually over 30 now, oops!).

How many did you order?: 10 this time.

They let me go on my way after that, but I enjoyed the fact that people were interested! It’s warm enough for the chicks to not need to start their lives in my house, which my husband hates, so they are in the barn next to the quail. The quail had a feeder that I needed, so I went on the hunt for one of the larger feeders, and found it rather quickly. I was getting things swapped out when I noted that all the quail roos were fighting due to there not being enough space for them all, one was even bleeding. I moved all the boys out of the cage, and into what will become the meat birds tractor once they are feathered out. The quail Roos will go to auction before I need the space.

I know it’s getting too close for comfort to winter planting, so I pulled out the seed box, territorial catalog, notebook, laptop, and a very large bag of gummy bears and sat outside in my chair to get the basics of our winter garden ACTUALLY written out and finished. I knew this was going to be a multi step process.

Thursday

While there isn’t a ton to write about, I am so proud of today. I pulled SO many weeds, and finished training my tomatoes (for this week). I weeded the tomatoes and the summer squash, and started to work on the beans. The beans however, decided to use the weeds as climbing posts, so while I can get a few out, there is so many more that are covered in beans! I should get my first harvest of beans this week.

Friday

CSA day! I love this day of the week. Today I got to pack so many new things. This CSA included Eggs, Beets, Pears, Zucchini, Yellow summer squash, Green onions, Kale, Swiss chard, Carrots, Chinese pink celery, Basil, Parsley, Savoy cabbage, and Green beans (filet type).

When I was picking the pears, I noticed a few that had been eaten in a rather strange way. I couldn’t figure out what pest it was. Later in the evening I was sitting in my truck after parking it, and I looked over at the tree and a finch was sitting on the branch just pecking at the fruits! That’s an issue for next year. I can’t do much about it now!

I also scrubbed the chicken and duck waters today. It was a wonderful day to have water spraying everywhere. Our egg production is up, and the girls that hatched in February are laying rather well, so I have added a layer supplement to their feed so that they can get the proper nutrients, since we feed an “all flock” so that I can keep the ducks and chickens all together.

I’ve started reading/listening to Braiding Sweetgrass, and I can’t wait to share everything I’ve learned from it!

Saturday

A few weeks ago we planted basil, and some of it didn’t take well. I still had a bunch leftover, so I filled in the holes with a bunch of Lettuce Leaf basil. It’s my favorite variety to look at, so it wasn’t too sad for me. The flowers are also starting to bloom, and the bees are loving it. I have had to start watching my step! I harvested some bee balm, calendula, bachelor buttons, and buckwheat flowers, and put together a cute little arrangement for my sister in law’s partner. She really enjoys flowers, and I’ve got so many!

The afternoon and evening was filled with a pool party for my youngest, who turns 4 on Sunday. For the first hour it was just my kids, and my husband was in the pool with them, so I got the planting schedule finished for the winter vegetables. I’m going to look at it again next week just to make sure I didn’t miss anything, but I think that the number of successions should keep us eating from the garden all winter.

Sunday

William is 4! I very happily woke him up at 1am (when he was born) with kisses, and then snuggled my little miracle child.

We had plans to go to the zoo with my family in the morning, but it kept getting pushed back, until we weren’t meeting until noon. This meant that I got to get some chores that were nagging at me, done. I sold a dozen eggs, and cleaned out the chicken coops. the small one is easy, and takes less than 30 minutes, but the big one is quite the job. I have to shovel out all of the shavings off the floor, and then pull the nest boxes out of the coop, dump them, and spray out the mats I line them with. I didn’t spray out the entire coop, because there were chickens very impatiently waiting for me to leave. I then had to lug the steel nest boxes back into the coop, and get all the old bedding onto the large compost pile. I soaked bedding pellets until they fluffed up into nice soft bedding, and dumped them onto the floor of the coop.

I didn’t use shavings for the floor this time, because I only had enough for the nest boxes, and the bedding pellets actually make for a good fluffy floor. I used the shavings in the nest boxes and put some of the eggs already laid that day back into the boxes to encourage laying in more than the 3 (of 10) favored ones.

I didn’t lock the coop fast enough, and Petal, my daughters sheep, busted through the small opening into the chicken yard. I had to call my husband, who then had to go through the main gate into the bird yard and chase her back through the small hole and into the pasture.

When we left for Yellowstone, I left a list for my SIL and friend that said:

**LOCK COOP WHEN INSIDE: Sheep will get in and it WILL be a Sh*tShow!**

Look at me not following my own advice.

I changed out of my now grubby clothes, and off we went to the zoo. William says his favorite animal was the seals, but they don’t have those, so I’m not sure if he means the Sea Lions or if he thought the Walruses were seals.

After a full afternoon of spoiling, we got home and he settled down to play with all his new toys. I scrubbed sheep and poultry waters before I fed the sheep their grain for the night, and collected eggs. I got 10 chicken eggs and 2 duck eggs after collecting at 10pm last night!

It’s now after 10pm, and I’m surprised I’ve been writing for so many hours. It flew by. Maybe I’ll start writing every day and adding on. We’ll see.

Preview of next week

Weeding, Harvesting, Reading, Animal care, Taking birds to auction, and building pt 1 of the compost heater!

We spent an amazing week in Yellowstone National Park with family and friends. We got to see Grizzly Bears, Bison, Antelope, and Elk almost every day that we were there. I enjoyed a great deal of time with my camera out, and I used my plant identification app more often than I have in a very long time. A stomach bug plagued me on our way out, and then my daughter halfway through, and my oldest and my husband on the way home. Luckily it was quick, and we didn’t have to miss out on too much in park time.

We got home on Wednesday afternoon, and I had so much I already had to do.

I got to feed my sheep for the first time in a week, and I sat with them for a little while before I collected eggs. Some of my pullets finally started laying, and the blue of their eggs is so brilliant!!

I then did my walkthrough of the gardens, and noticed that one of my sprinklers had been broken, and had missed watering my strawberries for long enough for them to wilt very badly. I ran to Home Depot and got a new sprinkler, only to step on and break another one probably five minutes after getting home. I was not going to home depot again, so instead I looked at the piece I had broken and realized that I could design and 3D print the piece I needed. It took a couple hours of my time, but I didn’t have to spend $30+ on a second sprinkler that night.

Thursday

More catch up, and another long day! The sheep had run out of round bale while I was gone, and desperately needed a new one. It is a bit of a drive to the feed store that sells round bales, and I tend to do this drive for work a few times a month, and at least once for myself, so it’s something I’m pretty used to.

Instead of putting it in the same space that I usually do, we rolled it into the middle of the pasture. I’m hoping that by doing this, they’ll move a bunch of the seeds around the pasture, and when it rains, we’ll get some new grass growing. I took a hog panel and wrapped it around the bale so that they didn’t make a horrible mess right away with it though.

While I was gone, the weeds in the paths had gotten incredibly overgrown, so I went through and mowed them. It made such a difference, and It made everything look a little more doable. I still have a lot of weeding ahead of me, but at least my pathways aren’t knee high with weeds anymore! I harvested some of the overgrown and overripe peas and I fed them to my flocks. They absolutely appreciated them! I scrubbed and filled the sheep, chicken, and quail waters and filled poultry feeders. Getting back into the swing of things is exhausting, but I’m figuring it out!

I spent the evening, after the kids went to bed and before it got dark, shovelling out old manure and peed on round bale from the sheep pens. There’s still lots to clean up, but it’s getting there.

Friday

The quail are almost 7 weeks old, which means they are nearly, or are sexually mature. This means that I got to vent-sex them. Once quail reach maturity, the males secrete a foamy substance from a gland in their cloaca, easily checked with a simple press above the gland. I wound up with only FOUR females out of 16 birds. They will either be sold or added to my list of things to process for the freezer! I’m now on the hunt for some females.

I spent the hot part of the day reading one of the books on my list, and mentally taking notes. Now that it’s Sunday and I’m writing this, I definitely wish I’d actually taken notes, because now I can’t remember half of what I’d meant to write down. Mom brain doesn’t stop when they’re not babies anymore.

In my reading, I realized that it is time to be planting for our fall and winter garden, and went through my seedbox to see what I’ve got that is winter hardy. I think we will try brussel sprouts, cabbage, carrots, beets, kale, and a few other things this winter. I’ll be working on the official plan in the coming week.

Saturday/Sunday

Saturday I spent the day running errands for work. I work for a horse boarding and training facility, and go to pick up a very large feed order once a week. I did get to spend the middle of the day on my horse with my best friend though, and I’m really glad I did, because the rest of the day was garbage. My horse trailers jack broke, which got it stuck on my friends truck, and then MY truck decided to stall out at a busy intersection on a small highway. It continued to drive rough, so my husband and I parked it at a friends house, and had his mom come and get us and the round bales on our truck. It was almost dark before I got home for the night, but I spent some time pruning and training my tomatoes. They grew a foot at least while I was gone!

Sunday was another busy weeding day, but also a work day. I scrubbed and filled waters, collected eggs, and even got a couple dozen sold!

Daily tasks this week included feeding sheep and collecting eggs. Every other day I filled waters, and a couple times I would scrub the waters. I am sunburned, dehydrated, and exhausted. More water, sunscreen, and a hat are in the books for next week!!

For those interested in following my farm’s instagram: https://www.instagram.com/applewood.acres/

Have you ever had to prep 8 sections of gardens, 8 sheep, 1 goose, and a ton of chickens so that they don’t die while you’re on vacation? I hadn’t until this week, and I don’t think I’ll leave ever again! We are headed on a 9 day road trip through Yellowstone on 7/5, and I swear I spent every waking minute of the last 9 days prepping in some way to go away. I didn’t even pack myself and my kids clothes until the night before we leave. Oops!

Daily farm tasks include ensuring the soil is not dry in the areas that should have been watered early, feeding sheep, collecting eggs, checking the water levels, and checking the chicken feeder level.

Monday

Today the timers for the gardens watering systems showed up. We’d been debating for a long time on if it was a good time to install drip irrigation, but unfortunately, when priced out, it was glaringly more expensive than we could afford to do this summer. Instead, I got 8 hoses and 8 sprinklers and got them onto 2 separate 4-zone timers. This was a multi-day process due to needing gooseneck nozzles, and hose savers, as well as needing to get 6 more hoses! For the last 2 years I’ve been dragging around the same 2 sprinklers and hoses around the gardens in order to get them watered. This has been a HUGE time saver for me.

I work all morning on Monday’s, and then my husband works all afternoon. I have our 3 year old, William, with me all afternoon, and he really wants to help with everything. Today he watched me pushing buttons on the timers, as well as letting him push some buttons. They’re bluetooth timers, so the buttons just open and close the valves manually. Excellent toddler play time. I spent some time deciding where I was putting the sprinklers, and dreading telling my husband that his hose for the greenhouse had to get moved to a spigot just a little out of his way, though let’s be real, it was WAY out of the way.

William and I spent the rest of the afternoon weeding in the pathways, which has been an awful job lately.

Tuesday

Shopping time! We went to 3 different hardware stores to get all the pieces that I needed for the timer system today, and then when I went to put everything together, one piece was broken after William threw it into the car and it rolled out. I was almost there!

Today we got a huge portion of the sheep shelters dug out. I deep bed in the winter, since there isn’t a ton of space inside the barn for them, and it works pretty well. It’s just a pain to dig out every summer. This took so many hours, and I could hardly move by the end of the day, but you can see the rubber mats in the sheep pen again!

Wednesday

CSA day! I packed 2 CSA boxes today. Included were beets, kohlrabi, kale, swiss chard, green onions, snow peas, cabbage, and 1 dozen eggs.

Today we went and bought feed from our local feed mill, XCEL, in Tacoma. I have often bought their feed and find that the birds enjoy it, and do really well on it. I have not purchased sheep feed from there before, so it will be an experiment. I bought 10 bags each of poultry feed and sheep feed, and unloaded it into the barn.

I then took pictures of all my ducks, and decided who I was going to sell, or possibly butcher, because a foster situation turned into a situation where they have been abandoned with me. I have always had 3-5 Muscovy ducks, but 14 has my feed bill much higher than I want it! I decided on a few to keep, and the rest will head to auction or to the freezer when I get back from vacation.

I also, FINALLY got the hoses and timers setup completed today. The schedule was still a little wonky, because I need each timer to run on opposite days, and it wasn’t easy to get it set at the same time, but tomorrow I should be able to finalize the schedule (this was wishful thinking. It would take 3 more days).

Thursday

On May 29th, I hatched out 16 coturnix quail. At 4.5 weeks old, they are already mostly feathered, and ready to move to their outside enclosure. I have always read that quail need less than 2′ of vertical space, or 6’+ of vertical space. I didn’t have time before my trip to build their aviary, so I took an old set of 4 rabbit cages and took the dividers out. I covered the floor with straw, and zip tied all but 1 door closed. the enclosure is inside my barn, so they they stay safe. I moved them outside, and boy is it nice to not have my house smell of poultry anymore! They may even start laying while I’m on vacation, as they will be 6.5 weeks old before I get back, and quail start to lay around 6-8 weeks.

Since I built the chicken run, I have been using baling twine to lock the gate into the yard. I ordered rabbit cage locks for the door on the new quail enclosure, and discovered that they work really well for the gate on the chicken run as well!

Thursday’s are water scrubbing day, so all the waters got scrubbed out and refilled.

Friday

I had to work today, but in the evening I wrote out all the instructions for the two people holding down the fort for me while I’m gone. We even got a backup caregiver just in case one of the other two can’t make it!

I’m not sure where else you have to write these instructions, but I definitely chuckled a bit.

Saturday

Basil day! I’ve been putting off planting our entire flat of basil, but I got it done today. It took a few hours, but I planted 130 or more basil plants into the ground. The varieties are Genovese, Purple Petra, Lettuce Leaf, Cardinal, and Tulsi (or Holy Basil).

I meant to also get the lettuce in, but it didn’t happen. Hopefully it’ll hold on until I get back! It’s still really small, so it should.

I cleaned up a bit outside, and cleaned up the new mess that the sheep had made with their round bale.

Sunday/Monday

I took the kids and my husband to the Olympia Farmers Market this morning, and we got quite a few cool things, and the kids got spoiled! I did a little market research, and got a better idea of how much I need to be charging for things.

Monday was a work day again, and we got ourselves stuck in the garden weeding. It’s starting to feel all too real that we’re leaving in 2 days, and I’m so incredibly stressed.

Tuesday- Buttoning it up

Today I got to teach everyone how to do the chores that I do, as well as get things cleaned up. I scrubbed all the waterers again so that it wasn’t as much of an emergency for my friend who is taking care of them while I’m gone.

I cleaned out the chicken coop, and the quail cage.

Since I am going to be gone on our normal CSA day this week, they came and picked up early. This week included Zucchini, Mushrooms, Garlic Scapes, Carrots, Green Onions, Beets, Turnips, Kale, Cabbage, Cilantro, Dill, Parsley, and Raspberries! It was a beautiful box.

We leave tomorrow, and I’ll be running around all morning until we leave.