Asparagus Spears

I saw these today and told Anna that it was "blog worthy". She promptly took a picture and now we have record of our first asparagus. It is so tempting to pick one to eat but I know my self control will pay dividends in the years to come with abundant spears.

farm fun

Yep, amidst the hard work, we still have fun! A friend recently shared our blog with a coworker and their comment was, "It seems like they just drive their tractor around a lot." It brought back memories of the days this time last year before the tractor and implements were a part of our everyday work. I wasn't sold on it at first either. Why start up the tractor, move it, use fuel, just to move something a few feet? Now I understand. Moving manure and straw, as in this picture, for instance, although still a chore, is a lot more efficient and quick with the bucket of the tractor and a wagon to fill. We still do a lot of things by hand, and the tractor is not almighty, but combined with rototillers and mowers, we are much more time-efficient this year and can accomplish more.

Chicks at 2.5 weeks

Updates on the chicks have been requested, so here it is. The ones we hatched are 3 weeks old now, (this picture was taken at 2 1/2 weeks) growing feathers, and establishing their pecking order. They graduated from the box in the living room to their own coop outside with a heat lamp. We ended up with 21 chicks from the 40 eggs we incubated, a result we were pleased with. We estimate that maybe 10 of them could be hens and the rest roosters, (we didn't even try to pretend we could sex them) so we supplemented the flock with 9 more Barred Rock chicks of similar age from the feed store. After introducing them slowly, they are now all together in the coop. The ones we hatched are a mix of Barred Rock and Rhode Island Red, and only two of them are yellow color, the rest are black. They are comical to watch when they get used to our presence. They square off beak to beak in some sort of show of toughness and then one decides they've had enough and wanders off. That is what they seem to do all day, wander, explore, jump and scratch, and every once in a while, they get a burst of energy and fly up as high as they can, seemingly just for the fun of it. They all seem healthy and content (can a chicken be happy?) at this point. Just wait until they get to see the outside world and scratch in some real dirt. Let the contented clucking sounds begin!

Reflections In a Hoophouse

April 19th 2009

Anna stabilizing the end wall

As Anna and I were laying out the hoophouse we were trying to remember when we built them last year. Anna thought it was earlier in the season and I of course thought differently. It turns out she was right. (I would use an exclamation point at the end of the last statement but she usually is right about these things.)

Once Jan and Chris helped us start to assemble the hoophouses we started to reflect on the past year and how much further down the hill we have progressed. The assembly went smoothly and we will turn the chickens out to graze down the cover crop and weeds inside the structure.

As soon as we went inside I looked through dated pictures from last season and we were reminiscing over the past projects, the difference in the landscape and timing of the blossoms on the trees. It looks like we are a week behind last year as far as growing degree days and the calendar year. Comparing events like the blooming of flowers and stages of buds and blossoms on a lilac tree are good measures of growing degree days. When I compile enough information over the years, I will use this tool to determine when to expect certain pests to be a problem and to time plantings.

April 18th 2008

Snow on the hoophouse

More Berries

As I was researching the idea of farming in Snohomish I would contact people in the industry to gather information and one of those contacts offered me some good advice on marketing. He told me to take advantage of the farmers market and bring sugar.

With that in mind we planted more sugar in the form of blueberries, strawberries, kiwi and figs.

Anna Planting blueberries


Dad and Anna mulching blueberries

The blueberries and strawberries are proven performers in this region and people are familiar with them. Hardy kiwi is a little different from the fuzzy kiwi grown in warmer climates and the figs are a little experimental also. It may be a little more difficult to grow and market the last two fruits but I am excited about the idea of offering these less traditional fruits.

Chris and Jan are always willing to help and it requires a substantial amount of work to plant these berries. With a few Saturdays of hard labor we were able to plant the raspberries and the rest of the "sugar."

Trenching Made Easy

The rest of the asparagus showed up on our doorstep today. I was told it was being shipped soon so this past weekend I prepared the rest of the beds. It was about 150 more feet of trenching so our kind neighbor let me borrow his small backhoe. What a difference in speed and depth compared to digging the first row with a shovel.

Don't let the smile on my face fool you. This work is not fun at all.

String would get in the way while using the tractor so we used lime to mark the row. I tried to stay as straight as possible across the hillside and the trenches came out deeper and wider than the first, hand dug bed. I was able to load the bottom of the larger trench with partially decomposed straw and manure. The asparagus should appreciate the effort of the first bed and the size of the second two beds.

Chicks!

We have new babies today! The borrowed Styrofoam incubator really can hatch chicks. We did not place much faith in it, but knew that if it worked, the chicks would start appearing tomorrow. Imagine our surprise upon coming home from work to the sound of little peeping. It took me a second to register that it was the sound of chicks in our living room. We rushed over to the incubator and saw two chicks stumbling about and other eggs in various stages of holes poked through the shell. A couple had a hole with a beak just hanging out. We quickly discovered that we were not prepared for this at all. After the first instinct to grab the camera, we ran around in circles until we got our heads on straight. We scurried to find a box for the newborns and the heating lamp and supplies from the last flock we raised. Last summer we started with day-old chicks and successfully raised all 25 of them to pullets, but this was a different story, coming straight out of the shell. We moved the three new ones to the box but then read that they should stay in the incubator for at least 12 hours until they are dry and fluffy and that we should move them all at once instead of one at a time. So, back into the incubator they went. So far we have 6 that have made their grand entrance into the world, 5 of which are dark with a white spot on their head and 1 that is lighter brown in color. We have two roosters, one Barred Rock and one Rhode Island Red, and hens of each also, so we were not sure how the chicks would turn out. Tomorrow we will move them out of the incubator to a brooder, show them how to drink water, and feed them. But for now, we go to bed to the sounds of chirping and hope for more successes.

Waiting

We have been here exactly a year now. For those who saw the land when we first moved, it is agreed that the amount of work put into it is admirable. (Especially for doing this in our spare time). Sometimes we pause and look back at what it looked like at this time of year last year and recall the projects, hard work and emotions put into it. Of course, there is still much to be done, and since it's all part of a bigger vision, some things seem as if they don't happen fast enough. There is a certain science to the waiting involved with growing things, including patience as well as foresight - one thing can't happen until another is completed. There is still a certain amount of experimenting as well; so I have also learned that it is possible to wait and wait and then see nothing happen. The latest experiment in which this could be the case is the incubator of eggs sitting in our living room. The anticipation of waiting 21 days is exciting, yet dimmed by the possibility of none of them working. Still, we check on them every day...if nothing else, we can say we once had chicks trying to hatch in our living room!