Long Day

Boy, am I beat! Spent most of the day in the field. I finished planting the elderberries, plums and juneberries. I planted 12 juneberries along the driveway and surrounded them with stones to make it easier for me to find them. I will start looking for flowers to plant around them. I like any native flowers. I still have the hazelnut trees and I received 5 free spruce trees to plant. Whew! My knees and back are killing me. After I planted, I watered the orchard. I am so happy with the trees: all of the cherries are leafing out and all of the apple trees either have buds or are leafing out. That Chestnut Crab is taking off; I wonder if that is characteristic of all crabs. Even the Knobbed Russet, which I was giving a last chance this year, has new leaves. Unfortunately, the pears are the bad news. They are not looking good at all. I will keep my fingers crossed with them.

In the perennial section, all of the currants are leafing out, as are most of the gooseberries. The rhubarb is starting to take off and the garlic is looking great. I took a break and munched on chives. The moon is in Scorpio for the next three days so it is a great time to get plants in the ground. I want to get the high tunnel planted and the oats and wheat and peas in the ground. We are expecting rain tonight and tomorrow, so I hope I can still get some planting in.

Well, I'm going to go take some Arnica and fix a cup of tea. Good night all!

When the Moon is Right

At Swamp Creek Farm we believe in following natural rythyms to make the circumstances of our lives flow smoothly. My personal observations about gardening by the moon have shown me there is something to it, and by extending following the moon's position and sign to other areas of life, it seems to me that our lives do indeed seem easier. A lot of people say such things are pure hogwash, and I certainly accord them their opinion; however, I believe there is more to life than what can be seen. I suppose the reason I bring this subject up is because the moon was so bright tonight as it is waxing in the sign of Virgo. The night clouds were lit up prettily and the stars are bright where you can see them. It made me think of the passage of time -- and how I want to get my oats and wheat and peas planted tomorrow.

Tonight was the second Price Direct meeting and we had two guest speakers. One was Jasia Steinmetz PhD, RD, CD, from the UW-Stevfens Point. She is quite an impressive lady. She spoke about the importance of eating locally grown food and discussed different ways that we, as producers, can encourage customers to eat locally grown food. The other presenter was Enos Hoover of Sunnyside Meadow Farm in Dorchester, WI. He spoke about sustainable farming practices and showed us how he farmed using livestock rotation. It was amazing to see how (in his slide show) poor pasture was reclaimed without reseeding or using any kind of chemicals by simply rotating cows, chickens and pigs. He suggested having a "centerpiece" farm activity and then having "complementary" activities for farm diversification. All in all, it was a very enjoyable evening. The only problem was we didn't get around to discussing the actual Price Direct agenda, so we scheduled another meeting for June 7th at 7:00 p.m. If you live in Price County or a county adjoining Price County and would be interested in joining our group of small producers as we discuss ways to keep our group alive and growing, by all means come to the next meeting!

I had a busy week. Tom and I fixed the broken corner post in the northwest corner of the field fence at the orchard end of the field and tightened most of the fence wire. I'll keep my fingers crossed, but when I went to water the fruit trees and bushes today, I didn't see any sign of deer in the garden since we fixed the fence. I was so happy to see the rhubarb starting to green up and the currants and gooseberries starting to leaf. The garlic is about 4 inches high already.

I took down the agribon and wire hoops I had over the collards and we'll see if the roots send up seed stalks.This is my first attempt at getting seed from a biennial so we'll see what kind of luck I have.

It took two days (Tuesday and Wednesday) to clean out the chicken coop. Last year it took me a week to do by myself, but with Tom helping me it only took two days. We hauled all of the bedding to the compost bins. I wound up going to town to get some plywood to fix a hole in the floor. I think I fixed it pretty good. I hosed the whole place down with bleach water and aired it out. Then I put down a couple of plastic tarps on the floor and covered them with a couple of bags of new wood shavings. The chickens are very happy! I'm getting pretty deft with that cordless 18v drill.

Had not one, but two, groshawks yesterday in the front yard high in a maple tree watching the chickens. I stayed nearby and left the dog out and the hawks didn't try anything. No wonder Chin Lee kept his big beak shut and the chickens stayed in the little shelter I built for them at the south end of the chicken run while I worked in the big coop. I think I will firm up the chicken fence and think about a top cover.

Today after I watered the orchard, I finished turning over the soil in the high tunnel. Tomorrow I hope to take the BCS out and turn all the ground over so I can plant my wheat and cover crops of oats and peas, and prepare the high tunnel so I can move the seedlings from the basement to the high tunnel, and start new seedlings in the basement. Mary is going to pick up my elderberry plants and plum trees in Phillips for me tomorrow, so I hope to get those planted on Saturday.

I am sore and tired, but very happy. I send all of you Blessings and Peace!

The Second Part of the Story

Yesterday I didn't get to finish the story of the beaver because it was getting late and I had to take care of Lara, so I'll finish today. Anyway, I was laughing because I "stole" my own tree back from the beaver and put it up as a new corner post. I'm not very good with fence building and the post is up crooked, but it will do. If you take a look at the top of the post you can see where the beaver almost chewed through it. What is really ironic though is the fact that here I have put up a 10' high woven wire topped with 4 smooth 12.5 gauge wires fence to keep varmints out and the first thing I saw after I tightened up the wires was fresh deer poop next to my new chestnut crab tree! Now, who do you think has the last laugh? I suppose the moral of the story is, once you build a fence, you are always building a fence!

I think Spring is finally here because last night I heard the cricket frogs in the marsh. We need rain though -- the water in the marshes is so low that our dog had no trouble running in the marsh by the field. That really troubles me as I don't remember the water in the marshes this low since the mid-70's. Where is all the water going?

I got a lot done between yesterday and today. I finally was able to find out where to get my farmers market hanging scale certified: a girl from DATCP returned my telephone call of the previous day and e-mailed me a list of scale certifiers that service northern Wisconsin. It turns out she was from Park Falls so that made the call a bit more at ease for me, and it also turns out that the nearest certifier is in Tomahawk. I called the company and the guy was really nice. Because the cost of gas is going up and my scale is small, he asked me to mail him the scale and he will square it away for me and mail it back. That will really save us both some time. The way people are able to amicably work out exchanges up here really is neighborly -- it's as if living in Wisconsin is like living in a big neighborhood. I also got a call from Hunts engine repair in Marshfield who we bought our BCS from. We needed a new air filter so I called John and he called me today to let me know he has the filter and prefilter for me already. He'll drop it off with his brother at the Phillips Airport and next week when I go to Phillips I'll pick it up and get the check off to John. Did I tell you I signed up to go to that conference in June to check out the commercial kitchen? I am looking forward to that. Today I also ordered some 100% biodegradable produce bags for the farmers market stand. The company's name is Brenmar. They have all kinds of packaging for food, but there is a $100 minimum - not including shipping and tax. It was more of an expense than I wanted to make, but the bags should last me (I hope) a good two years. The business is building, slowly but surely.

Tomorrow night is the poultry certifying class up in Ashland from 6:30-10:00 p.m. That will be a long day. Tomorrow morning I think I will clean out the chicken coop.

Well, I have to check out the UPS web site so I can get my scale off to BSI Scales, Inc. in Tomahawk. Talk to you soon.