It took a day to sort things out after the move on Sunday, and now the onion seedlings are back in the light racks in the new seedling room, soaking up the cool white fluorescent light. Three trays in all of onions, along with a still-to-germinate tray of parsley, made the little old farm-new farm road trip, and that’s the season’s start so far!
moving
Tiny farm moving – Part 2
Moving day minus one. Tomorrow we take the second trailer load, the main haul (when moving a tiny farm, it’s good to have access to a 20-foot trailer like this one, it’s Bob’s) The first move day, Part 1, was at the end of November, with the Kubota compact tractor and some other bigger stuff, like irrigation pipe, the greens-drying washing machine, the Horse rototiller, heavier things. This time around, it’s all of the smaller, indoor tiny farming gear: seed inventory, light racks, plug sheets and other seed starting tools, books, computer, PAPERS (lots of paper, somehow, bins full of notes, print-outs, brochures, receipts, you name it), hand tools, and so on and on. The one big item is the composting toilet, complete with its converted ice fishing hut enclosure (which is crammed with fluorescent light fixtures and plug sheets for the move). We did a bit of loading today, but most will happen tomorrow morning. After this, there’s a final trailer load in March: John Deere riding mower, greenhouse, farm stand, a heap of valuable scrap lumber. Moving an entire line-up of tiny farming gear is a really interesting way to see exactly what STUFF we think it takes to grow food on a small scale, on a couple of acres. Of course, the equipment list can vary a lot from tiny farm to tiny farm, but this overall set-up is probably pretty similar to the majority of North American under-five-acre farms. It’s not SO much gear, but we still rely on a lot to grow. A lot more than a handful of seed and a pointy stick!
See ya, goats and chickens…
Doing the last rounds on the old farm, saying farewell to chickens and goats. Here, a bunch of the girls (goats) are chomping away on hay, and the eight cockerels are enjoying a day in the cold sun. They seem to be getting on well, there used to be usually one low guy running a little scared, but since they’ve been kept in for a bunch of supercold days, all has apparently been worked out and they stick togther now. Of course, who knows what’s going on in the chicken mind?! The goodbye is not any formal thing—a little ceremony, perhaps?!—just something in my head. Ends and beginnings are weird, before and after we can make as much or as little of ’em as we like, but the actual fact happens in a blink. It looks like I’ll do the big main farming move on Sunday. The farm sale doesn’t close for a couple of months, so I’ll be back here in March (hey, that’s only next month already!) for the greenhouse and to dig up some herb transplants. Meanwhile, I’ve given Bob the chickens (the girls are laying away, the guys, well, they’re past their tender meat-bird prime…and looking good), so they’re be well taken care of. And I’m looking around these last days with slightly new eyes at the familiar stuff I’ll be leaving… :)