Greenhouse: Ready for Planting

When Phil went out to do chores this morning, he came right back to fetch me. Our pigs, freely wandering about the farm these days, mostly unseen, were certainly visible first thing.

There the nine were, lolling about the feed bin, waiting for breakfast. The babies, fortified with Buttercup's milk, went off to play.

I was impressed with Phil's calmness as he took out a bag of feed. Had it been me, with three hungry, full-sized pigs around me, I would have been sure they were waiting to tear into the bag. And perhaps they would have.

But for Phil, he simply hoisted the 50 pounds to his shoulder, and led the herd back down slope.

We had tentatively planned to kill Chunky tomorrow, but as I snapped photos of the rears of the hogs, I noticed that Chunky looked, er, more manly from behind. When I mentioned that to Phil, he said that Chunky does seem to have more vitality than the longer and larger Charles. So, for a bit longer, Chunky (or Charles) has won a reprieve.

Phil spent most of the rest of the day in materials handling. First, he scooped the rest of the lasagna bed into the back of the truck. He then shoveled that entire load out onto the greenhouse floor. That took a while. Next, he took down more of the cattle panels that surrounded our dry lot, and used the tractor to move more of the compost we had made last spring. That done, he tilled the greenhouse floor, until the lovely organic matter was incorporated as well as it could be. The greenhouse is ready for planting!

The energy must be good there, since all the boys were drawn to it. Joe was headed out to play at the wellhead, when he veered into the greenhouse, and dashed about, around and around. Then Jadon and Isaiah went in, and they paced back and forth, telling an elaborate story about Buster and Andy, in which they contribute alternating sentences. Abraham came over also, and he climbed the poles. Then he chased he brothers with a small shovel, in a game they made up called "home wrecker-y." No one was in danger of injury, and they all appeared to have a good time; I've heard tell of this game in the past, but had not witnessed it myself.

I was happy to finally have a place to transplant my poor blackberries. The few uncovered by the pigs look pretty horrible at this point, so I started by digging up some of the 100 I planted this past spring. Again, that was unexpectedly difficult emotionally. Here are these plants I had such high hopes for; many hardly grown a bit. The opportunity cost of six months of poor soil, and the time spent digging, planting, hoping, and trying again: it's no worse than most of the things we've tried around the farm, but I had to take a break after a while. I was blue.

But after a can of sardines (good brain food), I was ready to resume. And it was really quite pleasant to see the lengthening row of green in the gorgeous soil of the greenhouse, with the boys around me playing home wrecker-y.

While I did that, Phil fixed up the layers' little coop, giving them a sheet metal roof, and filling their laying boxes with fresh grass. He found a little nest of eggs underneath the boxes. We put them into the boxes, for Jadon to gather on the morrow, but Abraham decided he'd check the eggs. He was incredibly thrilled to find that there were twelve eggs, and proudly ran to the motor home to get the basket, carefully carried the eggs back, and put them in a carton, narrating the whole time. "Mom, there's twelve eggs! That's enough to fit a whole carton. One is really big, and one is just a baby egg, maybe the size of a guinea egg, and it's cracked." And so on.

In the final act of today's materials' handling, Phil took the compost made during our first year year and spread it in the apple orchard, bucket by bucket. He then tilled it in, and, since all green is now incorporated, and the soil is exposed, he plans to seed tomorrow.

I was amazed at the incredibly rich color of that old compost.

And as we get more of the area in front of the motor home cleared, it is giving me vision. We could turn the dry lot, right in front of the motor home, into a garden. It's already mostly cleared; already well fertilized; mostly flat; unused, near water. I think I could transplant many of the raspberries, currently hiding among the weeds in the defunct market garden. The raspberries planted in reasonably decent soil are doing quite well, and none of us would be sad to have raspberries to eat daily.