Worms of Clay

Our photo session photos are up! Joy and hooray! Phil said, when he saw them, "Wow—those photos make it look like we know what we're doing." And it has perhaps the best family photo we've ever had, which, with Jadon's stress issues in front of the camera, was an awesome accomplishment.

This was great timing, as I spent a goodly amount of daylight hours working on copy for our farm's website. I finally decided that I wasn't getting it done in dribs and drabs late at night. And I was feeling at loose ends around the farm. I have tasks I need to do, but without the "put out the fire!" threat of plants or animals nearing death, I'm having a hard time prioritizing. Get customers: that is moving up on the list.

Planting continues, a bit. A few flats of greens seeded yesterday. The first round of corn planting today, except when I weighed the seeds after running the walk behind seeder, less than half the expected seed had sown. I'm not sure where to go from there; maybe reseed and thin? How frustrating. I got in another 50 raspberries (I had hoped to finish today, but that's okay).

I was under the weather yesterday, just a little sore throat, extremely grumpy, exhausted. Phil had had similar symptoms last week, and I sort of wanted him to perk up. He was much more understanding and caring with me than I was with him.

Phil has been moving the sheep daily. With the grass reaching chest-high in places, he scythes or crushes the edges so he can set the fence, which is good, but takes about two hours. We can't afford two hours a day to mess with fences for the sheep. He had the breakthrough idea to "permanently" put electric lines along both sides of the trees, then using a couple of cross strands to subdivide. After stringing the three miles of electric line initially, moving the sheep will be a quick chore each day. I'm ready.

Yesterday Phil moved the pigs up to what had been the sheep pen. They are so happy to plow up the compost, to lounge in the sun after months in the shade of the forest, to stretch out on the hay instead of peat moss. Phil and I like having them so close to our living quarters: it means we can feed, water, and slop them very easily, right over the fence.

Phil measured Chunky yesterday. Buttercup is so large, she dwarfs the others, and we had no idea how much they weigh, or whether Chunky is close to slaughter weight. Chunky's heart girth measured 47 inches. We squared that, then multiplied by his length of 51 inches. Divided by 400 gives his weight of 282 pounds, supposedly accurate to within three percent. He is ready for the freezer. (For posterity: he's the one closest to the camera.)

As are the first set of broilers. Besides crowing early in the morning, the roosters are cock-fighting for dominance and mounting the hens. We were going to process them tomorrow, but by the time we got to the local convenience store for ice and propane, the store had closed. Maybe Monday.

Besides the joyful photos, the other wonderful thing of the last two days was that I opened the hives again to check on the bees. They still haven't moved up into the upper level, but I actually pulled some of the frames on the bottom level. They are so, so beautiful. I saw the white-capped honey cells, the dark yellow pollen cells, and the wax-covered brood cells. I saw little white bee babies, liquid cells not yet capped, fully completed frames and almost completed frames. I didn't see either queen, and although a few bees flew threateningly at my face mask, I escaped unscathed.

What a blessing, to have not one, but two thriving hives! So wonderful!

Periodically, the boys pull out the pattern blocks and want to pose with their creations. "Get the camera!" is their cry. Here, Joe shows off his orange road.

And Isaiah shows off his mid-air triangle.

Later, he improved on his first attempt, and makes a free-standing triangle with a triangle missing.

Jadon's impressive upright pattern out of parallelograms was yet intact at the beginning of this post. Below, you can see the end of that shape. I love how Jadon shows no trace of irritation or frustration, just resignedness.

And to end with something totally different. About once a week, Joe comes to me and says, "See my worm!" He will make a fat "worm" out of a handful of Virginia clay. I have no idea how or why he came up with that idea, and it makes me laugh that he does it over and over, with long breaks in between, but I always show my appreciation and surprise.