Pasture Walk

Phil went to a pasture walk and general lecture about dairying today. Some of the interesting tidbits: pull a calf and bottle feed, up to about three gallons of milk a day to produce strong, capable milkers in the future. The escutcheon, a pattern on the backside of a cow, is indicative of good milk production: the broader, the better. And that's genetic: if the escutcheon is slim, all babies will also be slim, good nutrition or not.

We had considered having Jadon go, too, since one of the presenters is a nationally recognized organic vet (Dr. Paul Detloff), but with the rain, we decided Jadon should stay home. We had almost half an inch fall off and on all day. When Phil got home, though, a real deluge began: more than that fell in a half hour.

I did some weeding in the nursery bed. How discouraging! I had cleaned it "thoroughly" two weeks ago, and now it is again a solid mat of green.

Worse, I've lost thirty of my grafts, ten percent of the total. All but one or two were grafted with electrical tape. It kills me, because almost three weeks ago, when my sister was visiting, I noticed one was dying. At the time, I figured it was probably time and past time for me to slit the electrical tape that joined the graft.

But somehow, I never made it back down with a knife. A simple, twenty-minute task in a timely manner would have saved those thirty trees.

I realized this yesterday, after finding the dead chicks. In my despair, I was tempted to not even bother slitting the tape on the rest of the trees. But perhaps I'm growing in character, since I went and found an exacto blade and made slits. It was impossible to tell if I was going deep enough: the cut tape looked about like uncut tape.

Today, though, with an inch and more of rain, the slits had burst through. It was good to open up those trees.

But in future grafting years, I intend to ensure I have lots and lots of Parafilm or freezer tape. I don't ever want to run out again!

My other "keep your chin up" moment came today with the chicks. I get really tired by dusk, but I heard some cheeping and went to investigate. The chicks had jumped up onto the ledge of the garbage can where we've stored feed. They finished the feed today, so the can was empty. I'm guessing the chicks hadn't had perfect balance, as I reached in, blind, and came out with two flustered birds.

Then I added some feed, and stuck the handle in up near the top. Hopefully if any others meet with disaster, they will be able to get out.

I used the empty feed bag to cover the waterer, too. If they're roosting on the edge of the feed bin and falling in, I'd rather not lose any to a drowning death. Ugh.

Around the farm, there is growth. Much of the comfrey in the orchard is well up, with the rain.

The greenhouse comfrey is actually visible from a distance (the little green in the far right corner). At least a quarter has sprouted, but you can see that we have some drainage issues in the greenhouse: I don't dare walk on the comfrey patch to weed and count sprouts.

I have dutifully checked the tree pots daily for signs of sprouting pawpaws. There hasn't been anything, but it's not worrying: pawpaw grows down for a long time before it grows up. But today, there were two pawpaw seeds poking up, and four more little sprouts about to break free.

My most advanced gingko biloba sprout is looking good, too. And I like growing it mostly because gingko biloba is so fun to say.

I am especially looking forward to having the metal building up off the ground in front of the orchard. I take nice photos about three trees in, avoiding what's on the ground and making the farm look as good as possible in the blog.

The reality, though, is all visitors get the view from the drive.

Not too much longer now!

I had a lovely day, going through school books. Since we use Sonlight, "school books" is usually defined as "great books." Today, though, I wanted to clear out several shelves for next year's books, soon to arrive, and that required looking through various workbooks and electives that I haven't gotten to yet. And there's always a book or two I miss during the school year. I have a multi-year collection of those misfits, waiting for me to read them to Jadon and Isaiah. I'm guessing that I might just wait another year or two, and then make the older boys listen when I read the books to the littles.

Abraham, the only son who seems less interested in books, had a breakthrough day today. He had finished his second I Can Read It! readers yesterday, so I prompted him to try a "real" books today. He chose the Dr. Seuss classic, Green Eggs and Ham.

And he read it through! In one sitting!

My moment of Mommy guilt came, though, about a third of the way through.

When I only had Jadon, I read and reread Dr. Seuss books. He craved them. He loved them. When he started to read them, I was fairly sure he was actually reading, but there could have been some level of recitation there, too.

Abraham, though, had no recollection of ever hearing the story. We were laughing over the pictures and he said, "I had no idea it would be this funny!"

Which is good, since it shows that he was enjoying the book as he read it (books can be good!). But, oh, how sad for me, to realize he had missed out on 100 earlier readings of Green Eggs and Ham.

There's only so much Amy to go around. If I'm weeding the baby tree nursery, I'm not reading to the growing boys.

Some days, I'm pretty sure my balance is off. Like today.