March 21, 2010
Happy Spring Equinox! Well, it's here. We've hit the mark where the days finally begin getting longer than the nights. All of a sudden, things are growing again, and fast. It's been a long winter, weather-wise, so I actually feel like it's time for Spring now. Bring it on.
Farm news:
Last weekend, March 13, we had a workday on the farm from noon-4pm. We transplanted cabbages, broccoli, and two kinds of kale! Brassica-rific. Nice to have all the extra hands to get the work done. I think we put in over 400 plants, and that's work that would have taken Patrick and I several days to do on our own. Serious thanks to the folks who came out and helped. The morning was beautiful, the afternoon, a bit stormy. By the time we were working on the kale, we could see a huge dark cloud on the horizon. The onset of rain sped us up a bit; the hail was just ridiculous. And to top it off, after we got soaked and rushed to finish up and pack our gear away, the cloud moved off on it's merry way and the sun came out again. Ah well. So it goes. We finished up the day with cups of hot tea and slices of homemade carrot-nut bread (thanks to the Joy of Cooking). Yum! I call it success.
In the past week, we've managed to finally finish our fencing projects. Since we planted all those new plants in the lower garden, it was high time to tighten up our fence to keep the deer out. We had 3 walls to build, and had finished most of 2 of them by Friday before the workday, so on Monday, we went back to work and got the last wall and the gates done. Installed a double-sided gate this time, which I'm excited about, so we'll have more options of getting the tractor in to that garden with ease and mobility.
We also re-set a wall in the big garden that had sagged since we installed it last year. We had tried to run it through the trees to save on buying fence posts--those 10-foot T-posts cost about $10/each--but that meant no top wire to hold things up. So this year we bit the bullet and bought more posts and installed a top wire. We also extended the gates more, again for ease of getting in and out with things powered by motor and mostly by diesel. And we patrolled the line to patch up holes were our 4-legged foes had found their way in. Those deer. There's smart, they're agile, and I've learned not to underestimate their wiley ways. They're a challenge for sure.
In the realm of plants, the workday was our first transplanting of home-grown seedlings. Our little babies, going out to field. Now, we've also transplanted chard. The greenhouse is full of lettuces for transplanting this week, as well as lots of baby summer squash, cukes, and tiny tomatoes. We direct-seeded some cilantro, arugula, and radishes, and the beets and dill and carrots that we seeded before have germinated. Garlic and onions are bursting forth with new tall green growth. Things are really beginning to rock.
Seed, plant, weed.
Showing posts with label fencing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fencing. Show all posts
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Creating & Destruction: Fencing
March 17, 2009
Creation and destruction. Today found me tearing down an old fence to put up a new one. We're extending the boundaries of the garden to include new ground, which requires new fencing. It was a bigger project than I had envisioned when I was mulling over my day at breakfast. I thought, "yeah, we'll just snip the old fence, swing it around, dig out a couple of posts, reattach it, and take lunch." Yeah. Sure. Right.
What I didn't take into account were all the trees and vines and grass that had interwoven with the netting over the years. Or all the bits of wire holding it together. Or the amount of time it would take to dig out angle iron that was sunk in over a foot of concrete. Thank goodness it'd been raining for the last two days or that clay would've exacted a more trialsome price from us for digging up the posts. I thought all we'd need were snips, shovels, and string. But we ended up with wire cutters, ratchets, lineman's pliers, ladders, gloves, and boots out there, too. Wow. All to make space for new growth. Which is why I'm writing this, anyway.
New growth. Come to find out, farming is just full of handy metaphores for life. This one takes its form in the fencing. The old fence line was handy. It served us well for quite some time. But we were outgrowing it and needed new space. To make new space, though, we had to take down the old fence line and make a new one. Oh, how like life it is. It's like an old habit you're comfy with or a belief you've settled into. It suits you well for a while. But the time comes when you want to grow, to expand yourself. So you have to move your fence line. But it ain't easy. That there fence is just entrenched in your way of being, in your life. And it's gonna take some hard work and effort to change things. You can see the new fence appearing, but you have to work to make it come about. You have to dismantle what was. And it make take a little sweating and swearing and some good friends helping out. But it's worth it. Worth it to make space for that new ground you're gonna grow into. Worth it to change. You have boundaries. You have to make new boundaries. Wow. I feel like I'm being so didactic. Ah well. My apologies if I'm banging you over the head with this. I'll try to be more concise.
I had a fence. It didn't suit me anymore. I wanted to expand beyond it. So I had to take apart part of the old fence. It wasn't an easy task. Years had grown it into place. But we prevailed. We made space. Now there is room to expand. Now we have to build a new fence.
And more interesting is the fact that we ended up taking apart more than we had initially planned. We were going to move only one side; now we will move two. It was the snowstorm that initiated the second wall relocating. Heavy snow brought down several important posts along that side. And since we hadn't planned on replacing that side, this was going to lead to more work than we had bargained for. More work is not necessarily a very welcome thing in farming life. Usually you've already got enough of it to go around already. But broken posts are a no-go for fencing. We figured since we'd have to replace them anyway, why not expand? Again, metaphors for life. Sometimes something unexpected happens. Not necessarily desirable. And it leads us to grow in ways we hadn't planned on, probably wouldn't have otherwise. And it works out well for us in the end. That's life for you. Tossing you curveballs and teaching you to bat. No creation without destruction. It's time for us to get building.
Farmer Sara
Creation and destruction. Today found me tearing down an old fence to put up a new one. We're extending the boundaries of the garden to include new ground, which requires new fencing. It was a bigger project than I had envisioned when I was mulling over my day at breakfast. I thought, "yeah, we'll just snip the old fence, swing it around, dig out a couple of posts, reattach it, and take lunch." Yeah. Sure. Right.
What I didn't take into account were all the trees and vines and grass that had interwoven with the netting over the years. Or all the bits of wire holding it together. Or the amount of time it would take to dig out angle iron that was sunk in over a foot of concrete. Thank goodness it'd been raining for the last two days or that clay would've exacted a more trialsome price from us for digging up the posts. I thought all we'd need were snips, shovels, and string. But we ended up with wire cutters, ratchets, lineman's pliers, ladders, gloves, and boots out there, too. Wow. All to make space for new growth. Which is why I'm writing this, anyway.
New growth. Come to find out, farming is just full of handy metaphores for life. This one takes its form in the fencing. The old fence line was handy. It served us well for quite some time. But we were outgrowing it and needed new space. To make new space, though, we had to take down the old fence line and make a new one. Oh, how like life it is. It's like an old habit you're comfy with or a belief you've settled into. It suits you well for a while. But the time comes when you want to grow, to expand yourself. So you have to move your fence line. But it ain't easy. That there fence is just entrenched in your way of being, in your life. And it's gonna take some hard work and effort to change things. You can see the new fence appearing, but you have to work to make it come about. You have to dismantle what was. And it make take a little sweating and swearing and some good friends helping out. But it's worth it. Worth it to make space for that new ground you're gonna grow into. Worth it to change. You have boundaries. You have to make new boundaries. Wow. I feel like I'm being so didactic. Ah well. My apologies if I'm banging you over the head with this. I'll try to be more concise.
I had a fence. It didn't suit me anymore. I wanted to expand beyond it. So I had to take apart part of the old fence. It wasn't an easy task. Years had grown it into place. But we prevailed. We made space. Now there is room to expand. Now we have to build a new fence.
And more interesting is the fact that we ended up taking apart more than we had initially planned. We were going to move only one side; now we will move two. It was the snowstorm that initiated the second wall relocating. Heavy snow brought down several important posts along that side. And since we hadn't planned on replacing that side, this was going to lead to more work than we had bargained for. More work is not necessarily a very welcome thing in farming life. Usually you've already got enough of it to go around already. But broken posts are a no-go for fencing. We figured since we'd have to replace them anyway, why not expand? Again, metaphors for life. Sometimes something unexpected happens. Not necessarily desirable. And it leads us to grow in ways we hadn't planned on, probably wouldn't have otherwise. And it works out well for us in the end. That's life for you. Tossing you curveballs and teaching you to bat. No creation without destruction. It's time for us to get building.
Farmer Sara
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
