The holidays are fine and all, but in recent years, I’ve liked New Year’s Day! This is the view to the left from the front door—the market garden is about a mile down that road. Our little stretch of winter-like weather is holding, but it’s supposed to warm up and rain a little later, so most of this snow will likely soon be gone. For now, a nice, white and wintry start to what I’m sure will be an interestin’ year all round. I’m up for it. Happy New Year!
Year: 2012
Winter?
It’s a different winter from day to day. Same picture, new weather: today, a more traditionally winter look, with soft flurries and gentle snow drifts. The weather continues to swing around rather wildly. Indoors, this has been a month of reading, clicking and scrolling through the web, thinking about this year’s plan, burning wood. Not having a real winter is a little disorienting, but I’m starting to notice the days getting longer!
Drip, drip, drip
This isn’t really winter. No-one around here has seen anything like this weather before. February around here means knee-deep in snow drifts. Deep freeze. Instead, it’s been…raining. The strange, roughly weekly cycle continues: a few days of cold and snow, then up goes the temperature again. Can’t say it is having a huge effect on me, though, because I’ve been mostly holed up for the last month. Soul searching, re-examining my life in tiny farming. Trying to put things in perspective… Well, not exactly. :) I’d love to do all that stuff (although it also sounds a little depressing), but I’m not really wired that way. How do you search your soul, I mean…where IS IT? Been reading a lot, and…online. Splitting wood and building fires when it does get cold enough. Gearing up for the new growing season by chilling out a bit now. Watching the weather…
Greenhouse out in the cold
Checked out the greenhouse, haven’t been out to see it in a while. As usual, it’s there! I’m still always…pleased that it handles whatever weather comes at it, no problem. The first installation, it was in the middle of a 9-acre garden and hayfield, no nearby windbreaks, for five years unfazed, through real blizzards and windstorms that felled trees and took roofs off of houses. Reliable!
It’s gotta be summer!
Wayne doing early evening yardwork SHIRTLESS on one of his trusty old tractors means it’s gotta be summer, right?! Well, this is actually only the first day of spring, a balmy 27ºC (80ºF) day that even managed to get the sweat rolling just a bit around midday walking around the field, and cooled down gently as it pulled into dusk. Nice, but freaky. Late March in the last few years around here has often been pretty clear of snow, but day after day of summer temperatures like this…not nearly. Birds are twittering, the grass is greening, and garlic is already pushing up through the mulch. Crazy weather continues…
Garlic rising
The garlic really pushed up in the freakishly summery end-of-winter days, already around 6″ high. Don’t recall exactly how far ahead they are—there may be pics on the blog from this time in past years, I haven’t checked—but this is pretty big early growth. I’ve been wondering about deer tucking in as they are about the greenest thing around at the moment, but it seems they’re not to the deer’s taste. And they’ve done fine through a couple of -5°C/23°F nights, and a bit of snow. So it’s so far looking good for the first crop up this season!
Planting the rain gauge
The field is way dry enough to till, so it’s time to get on the rain watch (yeah, and like as not there will be some snow in there)! Picked a new spot, just for variety, and set out the rain gauge once again. Hopefully it won’t fill up, then freeze and explode in some freakish lotsa-rain-then-cold-snap-all-in-one-night event. The 2×2 that it’s mounted on is starting to split from being pounded, so rather than change it at the moment, I only went down about a foot till it hit real resistance, and then shored it up with some rocks that were conveniently collected right there. Good for now, and probably all season! No effort wasted for real is my motto for the year. :)