Ten Days Away

I was away for ten days. I came back to find all changed.

The beautiful red clover I left had turned to seed pods.

The two or three heads of spelt multiplied into dozens. (I don't know if I'll eat any, though, as the chickens range there and nip the grains out of the stalk very neatly.

In my herb garden, the two that came up, milk thistle and cilantro, both went to flower. They'll set seed soon.

The kale finished flowering and began growing seed pods.

The spinach finished growing leaves and set seed.

The chickens dug up all of my turnip bed.

The elephant garlic sent up scapes, beautiful central stalks that would flower and set seed, except the grower pinches them off so the root develops strong cloves. The scapes are edible, a potent mix between green onion and garlic.

One walking onion started developing a bulbous second tier. Eventually it will fall over (and "walk," as the bulbous part grows roots).

The stone fruit orchard shifted from almost bare ground (I had hoped to plant peas and corn between trees) to a flowering bed of wild herbs (er, weeds).

In my absence, Phil started rotating the Babydoll sheep through the orchard. They did a great job the last week. (In the photo below, you can clearly see the demarcation of where they grazed v. where they didn't.)

This morning, I walked out to find a horror: one of the apple trees lying flat, enthusiastic sheep tearing its leaves off. Thankfully the tree was not uprooted, so it sprang back without apparent damage, and I must have come across the sheep almost immediately, as they had not even finished devouring the leaves.

Unhappily, this affects future grazing: for a time, the trees will have to be outside the fencing, which makes rotations a bit of a puzzle. I think there are methods to train sheep not to eat desirables (spray trees with pepper spray perhaps?), but I have not learned those yet. There is plenty of organic matter for the sheep to graze, though: baby Benny and yearling Joseph romp through new pasture.

Also in my absence, Phil finished his enormous piles of chipping, and he, mother-in-law Cheri, and Phil's grandpa Gramps all planted the remaining eight apple trees. My fragile palisade vanished. And then was immediately replaced by the next round of planting: 13 trees, many berries (see below for the few heeled in plants). We got 13 of those trees in the ground today, pushing us over the 400 tree mark. (We're at 408!)

Despite Phil's heroic efforts, the egg consumption fell behind, and we still are not good at marketing, so we have a backlog of delicious, organic eggs.

And, speaking of eggs, while planting trees today, we came across a chicken hiding in tall grass. An hour later, after she moved, we discovered she was sitting on, not four eggs as we thought, but 25 eggs! What a cache!

In other news, the bees swarmed twice more while I was away. Phil bravely captured them each time, once trying to replace them in the populated hive, and the second time putting them into the empty hive. I came home to find a swarm once again on the ground. This time, they didn't move into the box, so when I dumped them into the empty hive this morning, most remained on the ground.

I dumped them into the hive again in the early afternoon, and felt encouraged to watch nine bees fly into the hive and none exit. Minutes before our afternoon thunderstorm began, I checked to find all bees in hives. Phew! What a relief!

Abraham turned four today. He is a cheerful, affectionate fellow and we are glad he's part of our family.