Chipper Assembly

Phil's task for the day was to bring the chipper from shipped state to assembled state.

It took most of the day.

Not only were the directions unintelligible, the steps were out of order and, in the end, the three-point hitch didn't fit with all the bolts in place. Oh—and they didn't send all the proper hardware. He borrowed bolts from the metal shipping crate itself.

But by midafternoon, he chipped a small tree. We'll be ready for action come Monday.

Bitsy might be ready for action in the next week, too. Her teats are distended, and her belly chubbed out. The puppies are coming!


I had a much more fun day. I have realized that Jadon is a fan of regular cleaning. He cheerfully reassembled the bed after I shook the sheets out the window and swept under the mattress. Joe likes to help sweep; Isaiah is usually good for a vacuum, and Abraham begrudgingly picks up the scattered toys.

By the end of the day, though, the cleaned room had returned to a state of toy scattering, though the dirt had been removed. Jadon said, "Ahh! We just cleaned this up!" (I think it is a mystery of nature that when I only cleaned every several months, I would get a pile of dirt, and a full vacuum canister. But now that I clean every week, I still get a pile of dirt and almost a full vacuum canister. Where does it come from? Where did it go before?)

January is supposed to be a good month to plant onions. I haven't received seeds yet, but I took the little failed onions from last year, the ones that only grew to the size of a pea or a marble or a plum, and went and put them in the ground in the uncovered greenhouse, then mulched with hay. Most of them had sprouted already, and maybe they'll live and grow large for me. I hope so. We eat a lot of onions. And if not, I'll start some from seed soon.

While I was planting onions, I heard a familiar buzz. One of my honeybees was foraging nearby. It's not even February yet, but my hive had awakened! I went down to visit, and there were bees. I was amazed to see that some were returning with pollen bags full! What's in bloom in January? A mystery. (I noticed later that I have a few dandelions blooming. Perhaps the bees were harvesting dandelion pollen.)

I have wondered at times if the 10,000 daffodils will be a total bust. I walk by the swales where they're planted and see ... nothing. But that changed today. Down by the beehive there was one precious shoot poking up.

But that was nothing. A little later, I walked through the apple orchard and found several trees with almost an entire ring of green already up: eight or ten out of twelve bravely poking up about the ground. It's enough to make me cheer!

I belatedly remembered to check the biodynamic calendar (it's been some months since I actually planted), and realized that it was a leaf day, so I also seeded my first tray of greens: two varieties of mustard, arugula, collards, and kale. Since I only need enough for my family, I figure a flat is sufficient for the week. It's a much more manageable pace than many flats for many people.

And how lovely to have a year's experience with making soil blocks. What took hours last year, both in failed attempts and research in how to do better, took minutes this year: right amount of soil and water right from the start, a flat of soil blocks done with no mishaps.

When I think of this day last year, when we had wrestled with getting the truck fixed for a solid month, where everything felt frantic and behind, hopeful but frustrated, I'm deeply grateful for a month like what we've had. Time to read to the boys (me) and play card games with them (Phil). Time to dream and work indoors. Maybe we're not moving forward swiftly, but to not have major repairs for a solid month, like last January—that's a blessing in itself.