A full day of snow, probably about a foot in all. It started overnight, this pic is early afternoon, over 12 hours in. The winds were pretty high, guess it qualifies as a blizzard, but overall, not bad! The main concern is snow load on the greenhouse and the Milkhouse roof, but the wind has kept the snow moving, and there’s no big build-up so far. For storms in general, the worst non-disaster situation is the power going out (especially in the winter when there are seedlings in the electricity-heated Milkhouse). Outages aren’t a big problem here, but when it goes and it’s cold, things can get miserable. Here on the farm, this storm seems like no problem!
Month: December 2007
Snowbanks
A brilliant sunshiny day after our 24 hours of snow. There are deep drifts everywhere, and the snowplow’s been by, leaving 3′ snowbanks along the roads. The farm is on the edge of a village of 300. Here’s a view down one of the two intersections. I’m on my way to pick up the mail from the bank of mail boxes in the convenience store/post office. It IS convenient, a pleasant three-minute stroll down the country lane (well, two-lane secondary road). And open till 9:30 most nights, too!
Barnyard at night
Here’s what I see coming out from the Milkhouse at night, as I head to the house. Facing is the goat barn, with the big old barn out of frame to the right, the farmhouse off to the left behind the rail fence, and the curve turning into the on-farm lane that meets the road. (I borrowed a tripod to check out photos by available light. It’s cool, way more picture possibilities. I’ve been using it for a couple of weeks, avoiding the annoying flash.) The light from the street light-type lamp pools brightly right below and fades across the yard. (Without that lamp, it would be pretty near pitch black around here unless the moon was out.) The scene seems sometimes picturesque, sometimes a little ominous, that desolate, deserted parking lot look…but it’s only the Farm. As far as anyone remembers, the lamp fixture was rented 20 years ago from the provincial hydro company, they still come around every few years in a huge truck with a cherry picker to change the bulb, or tube or whatever it is up there. I could call and find out the details, but at the moment, they’re not important…
Local toast
My local toast: this morning’s breakfast slice of whole wheat from local baker Barb, along with a tall glass of supermarket-orange-juice-not-from-concentrate-with-pulp, and all-from-the-store orange pekoe tea with cream and sugar. The toast is spread with industrial peanut butter (smooth!), Gloria-Jean’s Sundae in a Jar (strawberries, raspberries, sugar, pectin, from the farmers’ market…mmmm!), and expensive transfat-free margarine. Altogether not so local, and nothing from this farm, but the bread is delicious…
Some things I’m compelled to plan, like changes to the market garden. But when it comes to eating local, there is NO WAY I’m going to sit around with lists and notes, calculating food miles, looking up arcane food processing ingredients, interrogating local producers and the like. “Planning” my diet and, uh, FOOD STRATEGY to be Local would reduce the pleasure of eating to a chore, and that’s not fun! My personal preference for local food seems to be emerging as a natural extension of tiny farming and eating what I grow, which is cool. My instinctive approach to local food is…laid-back, figure it out as I go. Let’s see what happens!
First day of winter
Winter: today, it’s official… Every day I head out to the field to take a look, even if it’s only for a few minutes. I check the greenhouse, and…look around. There’s not much to see. The snow is now about 3′ (91cm) high on the sides of the hoophouse. I don’t bother clearing it off, it seems to do fine. It may not be obvious from the pics, but the side walls are double layers of plastic, inflated by electric fan with about six inches of air between (electricity for the fan is run out from the drive shed). You can see the hose for the fan on the inside, right near the curved rib (the fan and hose are on the left of this shot). This keeps the sides rigid enough to stop the snow from pushing in. And the trees are bare… And the days are now getting longer! :)
Puddles on ice
Yesterday, it hovered a little above freezing, today, it rocketed up to nearly 50°F (10°C) and started to rain pretty good. There are puddles on paths where the snow was packed and icy (here, the reflection is Bob’s shed), patches of ground showing through in spots, and the overall snow level is dropping. It’s supposed to freeze up again tomorrow, but today’s 15-day weather forecast says there’ll be a string of warm days in early January that would melt things right down. Two winters in one? That’d shake up the trees and everything else living in the field. Wouldn’t be a surprise…!
Brussels sprouts for Christmas?
Got the idea this morning to get something REALLY FRESH onto the Christmas dinner menu. A fat local turkey, plus squash, potatoes, carrots, beets and onions from storage (in addition to a ham and industrial veggies from the supermarket) didn’t seem quite enough. But what could I find? The bed of Brussels sprouts left standing when the snow hit was…still there, not fully buried, and possibly perfectly preserved in a frozen state. Remembering a harvesting lesson of the past, I headed up the field with short, stiff saw in hand and bagged three (once again, the saw did its stuff!). Unfortunately, between the snow and the leaves, the sprouts were too well-mulched and probably never really got frozen solid, or at least, froze and partially thawed a few times. Many were damaged and discolored, but some were definitely…fine (I tasted a few raw on the spot). In the end, between the rather unappetizing, damp mass in a bucket waiting outside the kitchen, and all the other cooking to do, this time around, the good sprouts never got sorted, and it’s on to the frozen compost heap for the lot. But there’s more out there for another try… This is not exactly part of the Professional Market Garden side of tiny farming, more like my personal garden-addicted behavior, but it’s all part of learning!