Time once again to keep an eye on the snow build-up on the Milkhouse roof. From the last two year’s experience, this shouldn’t be a problem. Still, it bears watching, because of all the heavy ice formation lately, including the extra load that slides off the much steeper barn roof. There hasn’t been that much snow, and usually, between wind and the radiant warmth of sunny days, this roof has cleared. But the crazy amount of sub-freezing cold this year has left a thick, dense, icy, layered crust that’s a little more of a concern. Hope it doesn’t get to the point where I have to clear it! A day of warmth and rain is forecast for Monday. That ought to fix things for a while. Count on climate change! :)
Drive shed clean-up continues
You can see the back wall! The fairly massive, once-in-a-century farm clean-up continues, and the two-floor drive shed, home of a million parts and pieces of not-junk, is an action center. I can’t imagine how one could capture a real feel for all of the stuff that was in there, you had to poke around and experience it first-hand. It was literally packed to the rafters with EVERYTHING. There were all sorts of shelves, racks, parts drawers, crates, boxes, a couple of decommissioned fridges used as storage, stuff hanging off endless nails and hooks, and much of it in murky half-darkness. All of that is being slowly and carefully peeled away. The superficial mess of tiny farming gear from a couple of weeks back is long sorted out. And as cluttered as this one corner still looks, that’s nothing compared to what was there even a few days ago. What impresses me now is not seeing, but FEELING the amount of life and time it’s taken to accumulate all of this, through having built and fixed so many things, with unexpected parts and tools that’ve magically appeared out of there. This is the history of a generations-old family farm recorded in its spare parts, methodically being unravelled… The whole clean-up is fascinating and kinda awesome to observe, in a low-key, mildly melancholy, wheels-keep-turning way… Life on a farm!
Off-season visit
Lynn and her friend Ian dropped by for a visit today. Not quite the same as hanging out on a warm and sunny afternoon. But it was fun listening to Lynn happily chat about the growing season as we trudged around in calf-deep snow, visiting the half-buried greenhouse, checking on the chickens in the chilly chickenhouse, saying hi to Jack the Miniature Donkey in the cold barn. Memories of the summer’s farming settled over the whiteness everywhere. On this tiny farm, it’s definitely the off-season…
Road to the Chickenhouse
In bits and pieces, with no one storm to take the credit, the snow has been steadily building up. Regular barnyard clearing is fully underway, by blade-on-truck and then the big tractor, with snow banks appearing in all the usual places, like the ones that form the winter laneway leading to the Chickenhouse…
Chickens love eggs
Today, a bit of an egg disaster, around 20 eggs down, by far the biggest single egg loss in my brief egg-collecting career. The girls choose to do most of their laying in one nest box (there are six in a row), so there’re usually around a couple of dozen eggs in there, conveniently waiting for pick-up. This time, there were only 8 or 10, all slimy with egg white and coated with shavings and droppings, with tiny bits of eggshell thoroughly mixed into the rest of the litter. What I think happened was, one of the eggs somehow broke, the girls jammed into the egg-packed nest in a feeding frenzy, their jostling and mad pecking broke some more, increasing the frenzy and the breaking, and so forth. As I was cleaning up the rest, one egg slipped and cracked, and half a dozen chickens went crazy slurping it up. Man, do they love eating eggs… I tossed the rest into a bucket (whereI later took the pic)… I don’t expect this to be a new regular thing, as the girls don’t seem to be interested in actually trying to break eggs…though I’m sure they could learn.
Hitting the books
The first new seed catalog came in three weeks ago, but the first from the two seed companies I mostly use arrived on Friday. Today, I took a quick look, checking to see what’s new, but mainly making sure that reliable stand-bys are still around. Dusky eggplant, that manages to come through in the craziest conditions. Rich, earthy Bloomsdale spinach (open pollinated!). Earlivee sweet corn for its speed and it’s more-corn-less-sugar, not-overly-sweet taste (it’s…gone!). Early Dividend broccoli and First Crop beets, planted in spring for their reliably extreme earliness. The shortlist goes on. Most of ’em are still there! The ones that fall off tend to be open-pollinated varieties, as they make way for “better” hybrids… These catalogs are convenient, but I wonder when I’ll get around to seed-saving for real. Progress!
News, off!
Tiny farming tip: to be happier, healthier, and more productive, in and out of the garden, stop following the NEWS! I quit around three years ago, and never felt better. I got sucked back in last September by a tasty combo of Obama, Sarah Palin, and a side order of global economic meltdown. Who could resist? But now, the election’s long over, and CNN is still on in the background, like a radio… Until today.
Today, for no real reason, I decided to actually watch the news for a while. Started with some Terror in India, a little Baghdad Shootout, and then, the main course, a special investigative report, “America’s Killer Diet”… Wow. Segment after segment of bizarre, surreal and mildly disturbing bits of bad-food trivia. Healthy kid moves from Jamaica to the US, discovers junk food, and gains 30 lbs in his first year (concerned mom intervenes by actually COOKING). Secretary of Agriculture agrees that, if Americans tried to eat the recommended daily five servings of veg, there wouldn’t be enough to go around. Revealed: just about all of the food in America is really made out of CORN (and soy). Twinkies-maker says: “The core ingredients of Twinkies have been the same for decades: flour, sugar and water. Deconstructing the Twinkie is like trying to deconstruct the universe.” Spokeswoman for an urban farming project in Chicago explains that, in her neighborhood, you can easily buy a gun, but you CAN’T FIND AN ORGANIC TOMATO. What’s THAT about? What does that even mean? Off goes the news! Again. Phew! :)