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!