painted black

The PVC hoops let off a gas which can deteriorate the plastic covering on the hoop house. The solution is to seal the PVC with a layer of paint. We noticed when the plastic would rip it would break apart directly over a PVC support. I remember reading about this but I did not think it would affect the plastic so quickly. We will compare the longevity of the same plastic next spring.

first egg

I had a nice surprise when I fed the chickens this morning. The chicks we bought this summer have finally laid their first egg. It is normal for young hens to lay eggs with thin shells or no shells at all. The first eggs are often times small or misshapen.
We have built up a small clientele for our eggs but with the coyote problem earlier and the shorter days, the 2 year old hens have been producing a lot less. These new layers will help us fill more orders. I think of my excitement this morning, that must have been a fraction of the surprise that hen must have experienced.

Chicken stew

We have only two roosters now. The hens are a little bit happier as there is one less rooster harassing them. There is a zero tolerance policy here at Caruso's Hillside Farm and I am just waiting to build up a file with enough evidence to fire another Barred Rock Rooster.

an almost finished shed

We have been working on the shed since last spring and now, with a fresh coat of paint, we can finally say that it is almost finished. As with everything else, there are wishes for a window and a porch, but for now, save painting the trim, it is finished. We gathered two different green paints for free and mixed and stirred until this third green shade emerged. On Sunday we divided plants from our friends' well-landscaped yard and planted in front of our shed. Now it looks a little like a cottage rather than a shed.

more blackberries

I took my tractor to the shop and had the steering and tire toe-in adjusted, welded a few cracks on the fender moved the front wheels in closer and freed up the brake pedals (both pedals were seized to the shaft so I could not brake only the left or only the right tire). The Kubota drives much easier and the tin rattling from the fender is repaired and then I damaged the fender again while backing into a heavy thicket of blackberry vines.
I decided that since the soil dried out temporarily I would try to mow more blackberries. The patch that I was about to tackle was even more difficult because somewhere in that thorny mess a woven wire fence was tangled by vines. I carefully lifted the loader high above head, drove into the berries as to not poke a rigid cane through the radiator and then lowered the bucket onto the thorns and pulled them down and back as I went in reverse. This pushed the blackberries low to the ground so that I could then back over them with the brush cutter mounted to the back of the tractor. I repeated this process until I could see the fence through the debris on both sides of the fence line.
I then attached a chain to the front of the bucket and lifted the old bent and rusted T-posts out of the muck by attaching the other end of the chain to the post and lifting the loader straight up above the fence line. It worked perfectly and with all of the posts removed I safely pushed the fence with the tractor until I was dragging enough wire on either side of the machine that my tires were about to get tangled. I put it in reverse and repeat the procedure fifty feet down the line.
Now with that cross fence removed and the brush mowed I will be able to acess the bottom of the field wherever it is the driest. I will constantly be mapping where the field becomes the wettest and where it dries out the quickest. This will determine where future crops, animals and structures go.

not so flooded

Everyone who is not a neighbor has been asking and worried about our new house on the floodplain this past week. Our house was far from the flooding, and our land, although a bit soggy, was untouched by the rising river. Unfortunately, the fields to the north of us offer a distant waterfront view, but the most we have to show is a puddle from a spring right where we were thinking about building a barn. That rules out that location. Now that we have all of the blackberries out of the way, we will be able to see how wet the fields get this winter.

Fall clean up

The consistent fall rain is inspiration to clean up for the winter. We took down the garden fence and cleaned up the beds. There are still rows of leeks, carrots and greens in addition to the peppers in the hoop house. We will take those houses down too, when the peppers are finished. Planning has begun for placement of the garden next year now that we have a better idea of necessary space as well as plans for more permanent structures. In the meantime, we are trying to use as much of the surplus produce as possible. We compost vines and other materials and supplement the chickens' diet with ripe vegetables. In this picture my mom and dad are freezing a few of the many now frozen peppers. All of this clean up is now done quickly in the precious daylight, because the early nights and dark mornings cut down on outdoor work time. Those projects that can't be done by headlamp (and there aren't many) are saved for the weekend...or brought inside. I never thought my living room would be used as a workspace in which to build a pvc-chicken wire door frame. I don't have a picture of this project because it was as big as the living room itself.

tomato clean-up

The plastic on the hoop house blew apart weeks ago and now the heavy rains have started. It is the first of November and we still have not had a hard frost, but the tomatoes are falling prey to the wet conditions which are causing late blight and anthracnose. The sweet peppers are holding on in the other hoop house but some are starting to loose quality; turning soft or developing tough skin. The material that I am picking up will go into the compost and I will cover the bare ground with peas and rye. I am looking foward to removing all of the plastic from the landscape. I will put the hoop houses further away from the house and a bit more out of sight next spring.