Tag: Winter - Page 9 - Tiny Farm Blog

Dirt Farmer’s Dialogue

7 Feb 20137 Feb 2013 by Mike (tfb)

At the top of the winter reading book stack. From the 1970s. Bought by chance from a used book table in the trade show at an organic farming conference. Always fun to hear someone explain what they know and believe, in simple, articulate words. As opposed to…weasel words!

“When I am milking my cows in the barn early in the morning or when I am working in the field, sitting on a tractor for many hours with little interruption, sometimes with searchlights into the night, who is there to talk to? It is then that I have put questions to myself and tried to find the answers, and in writing about farming, why not retain this form?”

Um, why not! Dirt Farmer’s Dialogue, Carsten Jens Pank, B-D Press, 1976. More to follow…

It’s crispy out there

6 Feb 2013 by Mike (tfb)

It’s crispy out there. The latest crazy weather trick seems to winter acting like…winter. Except colder. And with less snow. Still, the sun is getting higher, the days are getting longer, another season in the field…comin’ up! I’m quite excited!! (In the pic, next year’s firewood is a real wood pile, a motley assortment of softwood, hardwood, and the occasional bits of lumber, gathered from around the farm, and so much of it that it was easier to cut, split and pile for a while and sort and stack later.)

Winter market: third week!

20 Nov 201317 Nov 2012 by Mike (tfb)

Third week of our first winter farmers’ market and it’s going great. So far, the weather hasn’t been bad, so it doesn’t seem entirely radical to have freshly harvested greens and carrots this late in the season, but it’s still quite a novelty at our market. One other small farm is doing the same season extension stuff for the first time this year, which is cool, it makes the idea of fresh, local food well past the usual outdoor season seem…doable. Which it obviously is. After the last few years of ending the market, outdoors, on the last Saturday of October, being up and running this late in the year feels excellent, and going till Christmas will be fun. Only downside of being indoors here is the rather ghastly lighting, but like most things, you get used to it, and warm is good. On the stand today (and almost sold out by mid-morning): carrots (Nelson), spinach (Bloomsdale), mizuna, mustard, arugula, everything harvested yesterday.

Greenhouse out in the cold

22 Nov 20131 Mar 2012 by Mike (tfb)

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!

Drip, drip, drip

25 Mar 20121 Feb 2012 by Mike (tfb)

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…

Winter?

26 Feb 201628 Jan 2012 by Mike (tfb)

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!

Nothing like New Year’s Day!

1 Jan 2012 by Mike (tfb)

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!