Country Surfing

Although I think Isaiah came up with the idea first, Abraham was very proud of his surfing. He rode two pieces of insulation in the stock tank, and appeared to be having a great time.

Phil worked on getting the trench for the metal building completely ready. Butch had dug most of it, but Phil needed to clean it up. At one point, I went up to find Phil digging by hand. When I asked why, he said that as long as the tractor was in the future building space, it could excavate around the perimeter. But he needed to leave some perimeter more or less intact to get the tractor out, and that section needed hand excavation, using pick and shovel. (It reminded me of the classic children's book Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel. An exit is very important!)

Straight, narrow, and long, the building is getting ready for pouring.

I spent my outdoor time digging daffodil bulbs. I was amazed at how much more dry the soil was, how much more challenging to find the bulbs. So much of their foliage has dried up and vanished in the last week. I hope I can get enough dug for the fall before the tops disappear completely. It was not nearly as fun, doing both digging and lifting: before, my sister dug and stayed upright, and I lifted and stayed crouched. All the bending probably wouldn't have bothered me, except I knew how much easier it could be. Perhaps I should have asked a son to join me. In that case, I shouldn't have started at 3pm, as it was still very hot and sunny.

The first of my favorite Music garlic scapes went upright today, with the rest nearly unfurled. Only a few more weeks until garlic harvest!

In the cover crop area, there is rye heading out.

I don't particularly like walking through the knee high cover crop: even if there were no ticks, there may be snakes, and it's hard to see where I'm stepping. But it is lush growth!

A less than pleasant thing: a lapse in judgment that resulted in a bird's death. I heard a chick peeping as if it had escaped the trailer-brooder but wanted back in. I had just sat down for a snack after three hours of hot, sweaty digging, and figured I would finish the last few bites before I went and tried to round up the escaped chick. The idea of going back into nature, where both bugs and grasses make my legs itch, was more than I could bear.

So Bitsy got to the chick before I did. Though he was still living, his neck was broken, and he soon died.

Was I greedy and selfish for eating? Or just justifiably tired, unwilling to try to round up a fleet footed chick from under a cattle trailer? In either case, the chick died. Boo.

What other occupation penalizes you so severely?

One-Third Century

While decades, quarters, and halves are usual century divisions, I am 33 1/3 today: a third of a century. That's my exciting news. Abraham's exciting news is that he asked the Lord this morning to let him lose his tooth. And after watching it visibly grow more and more loose, it popped out right before dinner. He was thrilled: "The Lord God answered my prayer!" he said over and over.

As a treat, my parents, sister, and nieces have been visiting for the last week.

It was a delight to see the cousins interact beautifully for a week, despite fatigue and various levels of introvertedness. Joe played, "How big is Eliana? SOO big!" with the baby, over and over. And the two three-year-olds, only twelve days apart in age, bounced on the trampoline, collaborated on the bulldozers, splashed in the stock tank pool, and listened to stories together. Very sweet.

Unlike last year, I didn't need my mom and sister to help plant dozens of flats of vegetables. Besides, most of the week was pushing 90 and cloudless, which means simply being outside makes one sweat. We spent a lot of time indoors after Phil put in the air conditioner. Surprisingly, the air conditioner went in the same day as it did last year: May 25.

My sister helped me dig up dozens (hundreds?) of daffodils, which enabled Phil to actually drive down the ridge of the clearing, rather than the side, where the road has been. I really liked digging daffodils: amazing to see their large roundness, like uncovering treasure.

Phil and I also spent a little time with the backhoe, planting the 100 larger, year-old comfrey plants in the orchard. That was much easier than digging holes by hand.

I remember last year that this was about the time we fell apart. With the warm weather and rainfall (or at least heavy dew), the cover crop plants appeared to grow about a foot during the last week. My sister commented that she tries to spend an hour a day in her garden, pulling weeds and doing general maintenance. Somehow I missed the memo that weeding is really, really important in gardening, and somehow am again surprised that I need to do it. Last year I was blindsided. This year, I'm just feeling a bit amazed that even though I've weeded my apple nursery once (twice?), it needed it again. So I weeded, and it took maybe two hours. But it is nice to stay on top of it, nice to feel like I'm not making us more behind.

I noticed, too, that a patch of Johnson grass is setting seed. I popped the seeds into a garbage bag, and then started to dig. With the overall good cover crop growing, it is interesting to see the three or so patches of Johnson grass. It's not everywhere yet, and I'm going to do my best to contain it. That's what Joe and I did today: we dug up "baddies" as best we could.

Joe and I planted three of the 15 or so stinging nettle plants back behind the compost pile. I think that's a good place for them: fertile soil, good shade, adequate moisture, not much traffic. I said, "Joe, is it silly to plant a plant that stings? It will feel like a bee sting."

He said, "Well, if a bee stings it, the plant can sting back. It will be a stinging party!"

He really liked that line of thought.

Joe was also pleased, when we hoed the few weeds out of the greenhouse comfrey planting, to see that we already had an emergent little bit of greenery. Two weeks after planting the little root cutting, I have a viable plant two inches above ground. So cool!

Phil worked a day in the asparagus patch. As nice as the idea of perennial vegetables sounds, the reality is, the asparagus was planted in very weedy soil, and the weeds, under control a month ago, are now higher than our heads. There are plenty of awful itchy bugs biting, too. I joined Phil for an hour or two, until I ran away, mentally screaming over the amount of itches I'd acquired.

Whatever we end up getting for asparagus some day, I don't know that it will be financially profitable, with the amount of man hours required up front.

On the other hand, to have a garden, the weed seed bank needs to exhaust itself, if not in an asparagus patch then some other way. So the weeding needs to be done. It looks different when finished.

We are in the explosive growth period, and are enjoying the ride. If the guinea could step up tick annihilation, I'd like it even more.

Looking Good

On Monday, Phil moved the cows from one neighbor's land to the other. I always enjoy the day that they are in view from my door: the gleam of their red coats through the trees makes me happy. Phil said they are looking good, well-fed and shiny, the picture of health.

I was sitting with Abraham, when Jadon came in, his little secret smile on his face. He casually set down a jar on the table, filled with a wildflower display he had collected around the orchard. I don't know what tickled me more: his eye for beauty, his happy secret smile, or the love behind the flowers. It looks good.

Up near the road, some day lilies, planted a couple years back, burst into bloom. Isaiah must have heard me compliment Jadon on his flower collection, since a few minutes later he came to the house, bearing a gift: the entire top of the daylily plant, heavy with blossoms now for our eyes only. The top of the driveway isn't looking quite as good, but I appreciate the thought and dispatch with which Isaiah also blessed me with flowers.

In the moonbed, I have other orange flowers to make up for the plucked daylily: a single nasturtium bloom, with hope for more to come.

In the orchard, a few of the most vigorous and dwarfing apples are growing their fruit well. About golf ball size now, I like their beautiful form and the red blush on some.

The orchard itself looks beautiful. The understory nicely mown, it looks managed, manicured.

In the apple nursery, many of the young trees show sprouts now several inches tall. So cute!

In the greenhouse, the 200 goji berry plants that I've potted on gladden my heart. I have about 15 sprouts a day, so a simple daily transplanting keeps up with the task. I don't think I actually got the 1000 seeds I ordered (I suspect only about half that), so I won't have quite the quantity I had hoped for, but it is fun to have a few hundred growing well. (And, really, I didn't have the heart to count the tiny seeds.)

With the 600 comfrey cuttings in the greenhouse, I received my shipment of 100 year-old comfrey plants. What a difference! These are large, beautiful plants. We plan to put them in the orchard, and because we hope to multiply them over time, we plan to put them not between the trees (since that could be damaging to the apple roots, if we dig up transplants regularly), but down a row. That will be easier to harvest as feed for cows, too.

The garlic bed has three vigorous scapes standing up straight.

Most of the scapes remain curled over. Once they go upright, the book says that the straightening up process also helps the plant harden off: rather than an easy, wet snap off (which happens with the scapes at this stage), the scapes will supposedly turn woody: they will harden. The hardening should help with storage. I'm ready: I've had a good number of garlic bulbs go bad while waiting for fall planting.

The bed clearly needs to be weeded: next year, I won't plant in an offset pattern, but make sure the garlic goes in straight lines: that will make hoeing much easier!

I had planted herbs in my funny olive oil container planters (idea courtesy of Organic Gardening Magazine). The basil, lemon balm, and such grew almost none, but I think they're finally starting to look filled out. They rest on the hitch for the trailer, which keeps them up off the ground and away from puppies, and I like them.

On Monday, while Phil did many weeks of laundry, Butch came and dug the perimeter of the metal building. The little boys thought it great fun to run around when he was finished. Continued progress on construction looks good to me.

Phil had noticed that a line on the tractor was leaking hydraulic fluid. (It seemed that had just happened, but he said the lines on the backhoe had sprung a leak: different implement.) He went to replace that single hose, but when he checked the rest, he realized most were ready to spring leaks. And he looked at the hydraulic fluid, and that needed changing. So he dealt with the tractor for most of the day, but it looks like it's in good shape now.

Butch couldn't believe we'd put about 900 hours on the tractor in the last year. It's been a necessary, helpful implement for us.

We were going to dig daffodils after the heat of the day passed, when suddenly a terrific rainstorm struck. With almost an inch in about a half hour, the rain quickly saturated everything. Daffodil digging will wait for another day.

The Chick Has Landed

Shortly after breakfast, Phil and the boys shoveled out the woodchips in the truck bed, preparing a brood house for the chicks soon to arrive.

While they were doing that, I got the call from the Post Office: today was the day! So I picked up the cheeping box and headed home.

What a joy to unload the near hundred chicks and three ducklings (a duckling and chick died in transit). I had forgotten how incredibly light the fluff balls are, but I hadn't forgotten how quickly they run when first released. Phil, Isaiah, and I sat and got to know the little Holland chicks.

I had wanted to try a new breed, and since we have critically endangered cows, I figured critically endangered chickens might be good. White chickens open themselves up to predation, so a barred chicken (speckled) seemed like a good option.

The Holland chicken, called the most rare breed in the United States, sounded like the perfect chicken for us. They fell out of favor because they grow well on pasture, although slowly. The longer growing time is supposed to be offset by their ability to rustle up their own food from bugs and forage. A good multi-purpose bird, they dress out to a nicely colored carcass (which is important: black-feathered birds can have black dots where the feathers were. Taste-wise, that's not a big deal, but the appearance can be a bit too strange for most Americans.

So we'll try them. Harvey Ussery pointed out that because most people want only pullets (females), the cocks are killed in mass quantity at the hatchery. I had never thought of that, but it felt good to order straight run chickens: a mix of boys and girls. The boys will go in the freezer, and the girls will hopefully become part of the laying flock.

I think last year we were so overwhelmed with our tasks, the magic of chicks grew passe. Today, though, the magic was back in force.

These chicks are so funny. I remember chicks running about, but not acting too inquisitive of people. These chicks, though, jump up on our legs, peck at shoelaces, wedding ring, fingernails. Jadon laughed and laughed when first one, then two, three, four, five, and a bunch suddenly jumped up on him, like a collection of penguins.

They mobbed Isaiah, too. I think Isaiah enjoyed it more.

Joe liked that he could simply reach down and pick a little one up.

With their mottled backs in light and dark grey, with a bit of white, and their lighter stomachs with a bit of yellow, I think they are handsome.

I noticed, too, that their little beaks were dual colored, with a little light tip. "That's the egg tooth," said Isaiah. "It will come off soon." I bet he's right. How did he know that?

The excitement of the chicks carried through the day. The three Mallard ducklings are Isaiah's joy. There is one with a unique, grey tuft on the back of the head that looks much like a dandelion puff. Clearly, Dandelion is a good name for that duckling. The others are Daisy and Daffodil. (When I asked him if it bothered him that I had a beehive named Daffodil, he said, incredulously, "But that is the name for BEES. This is a DUCK.")

I had received a small shipment of about 20 stinging nettle plants. After trying 1000 seeds and getting no sprouts, over a period of several years, I finally bought some cuttings. I potted them on into almost the last of the 360 pots I bought. Those have been so incredibly useful!

Why plant stinging nettles? Plants with little spines that inject passersby with painful venom: plant it on purpose? It is supposed to be incredible for building humus, for one thing. If I soak it in water for some time, the compost tea that results is very beneficial for plants. And we can even eat it: after cooking, the stings lose power, and it has more vitamins than spinach.

And Phil helped me carry the extremely heavy crates of pots into their spot in the greenhouse. I have less than five empty pots; I hope a few more pawpaw seeds will sprout, and then they will all be filled and in use.

The greenhouse has blooming blackberries on one edge, with the pots in between. Then a few transplanted tomatoes and lettuces. The back 40 feet or so is the large comfrey patch. I hope that the front will have transplanted shrubs soon.

I checked the beehives: all appears well. Baby brood in all three, so all three queens are producing properly.

I also regrafted all the trees that needed it. There were 21 total grafts that had failed. Three of them were dead from the roots up: note the difference between the living green cambium and the brown dead.

Several of the grafts had strange dead sections most of the way around the cambium layer, and since seven of these failures was from the 15 Melrose trees, I suspect I should have been more diligent in cleaning my knife and pruning shears: perhaps some disease killed parts of the cambium.

Phil chipped most of the day. I helped in the afternoon. The boys shoveled out the extremely huge load. So we all worked hard today, and enjoyed the chicks, the fertility, and the pleasure of being in this place.

Redneck Swimming Pool

Phil, finally feeling better, went to the lower pasture. We need wood chips for the soon arrival of our new chicks and ducklings, and for our composting toilet, let alone for mulch and general happiness that a quantity of wood chips offers.

He ended up chipping a portion of his discard pile from the sawmill. Which generally required first cutting the strange shapes with the chainsaw. After several hours, his fingers felt like they were vibrating constantly, so he quit for the day.

Joe had gone down to watch him. Joe sits in the truck, and while waiting, found a pair of Phil's sunglasses. He was quite pleased with his appearance.

Happily, he came to help me. I had contemplated trying to plant the remaining 450 comfrey root cuttings, but that sounded a bit much. But at about 5pm, with 300 more in the ground that afternoon, I decided to press on, just to get it done. It was with great relief that Phil came. He would dig the holes, and I put the cuttings in and patted them down. So those 600 are done, and take up a bit more than a quarter of the greenhouse. I may have been able to finish it on my own, but I would have been under-the-table tired, and dinner would have been a questionable proposition.

Early on in my planting, I uncovered a largeish spider carrying an egg sac the size of a small grape. In its fright, it dropped the egg sac, so I returned it. With a possessive, impatient gesture, it grabbed on again, and then crept along with me for about five rows of planting. It was using my rock, weighing down the measuring tape, as its shelter. But I think after the shelter moved repeatedly, it gave up. I saw it running toward the back of the greenhouse.

Happily, some of the blackberries in the greenhouse are blooming. Maybe we'll get some fruit yet this year.

Since I had done school work with the boys, there were eager to keep a low profile: who knows what other assignments I might come up with to occupy their minds? Phil had pulled a stock tank up, and the older boys played in their for a few hours. I think it could rightfully be a redneck swimming pool: we are all quite sunburned on our necks at this point.

I Pot On Blueberries

With Phil resting off his watermelon chemical poisoning a second day (besides moving the cows, a little after 7pm, he managed to drag himself out to mow the rest of the orchard, in hopes of chipping tomorrow), I decided to pot on as many of the 200 blueberries as I could.

In our zone 7 climate, ostensibly we can grow three types of blueberries: Northern Highbush, Southern Highbush, and Rabbiteyes (leaving only Northern Lowbush for our neighbors to the north to grow: not surprisingly, blueberries that thrive in Michigan and Maine have a harder time here in Virginia). The blueberry farm we visited last fall grew only Northern Highbush, with a good deal of success. Our supplier, Finch Blueberry Nursery, thought we would be a good deal happier with Rabbiteyes (which shouldn't be grown in climates much cooler than ours).

So we bought four varieties of Northern Highbush and four varieties of Rabbiteyes (25 of eight types), and we'll see which we like more, and which do the best. The potential disadvantage of Rabbiteyes is that they grow to ten feet, and it is odd to think of harvesting berries from a ladder. The main advantage, as I see it, is that they are supposed to be extremely hardy. And for a little over a dollar a plant, and about a year to let the berries grow in pots, I'm happy to let this experiment run.

Blueberries, according to our workshop this spring, are the only plant that actually enjoys being in pots. "All plants prefer to be in the soil as soon as possible—except blueberries. They are content to grow (slowly) in pots for a long time."

Which raises the question: is it better to buy bareroot two-year-old plants, or buy the cheaper one-year-old plants, grow them in pots for a year, and then transplant not bareroot? We're planning to experiment with that, too. One-year plants this year, two-year plants next.

Amazingly, several of the one-year plants had blueberries growing on them. So tough to pinch them off, even knowing it's better for the plant.

I had wondered about how much effort it would take to pot these plants. Since today is a biodynamic fruit day, I hoped to get done as much as possible. I knew it would require a good bit of shoveling and water hauling: shovel from my tote of peat moss (previously shoveled and moved up near the greenhouse), shovel from the purchased compost on the driveway, haul water from the spigot to the work zone, and mix peat, compost, and water in a large red bucket.

Then add filling the pots, each over a foot tall (since I'm using what I have: the tree pots). I got started, and Isaiah immediately came to my rescue.

For several hours, he was my helper. I was so impressed with him. Several weeks back, he helped Butch and Phil lay out the greenhouse. His curiosity and enthusiastic, immediate help with whatever needed doing prompted Butch to say, "I want to hire him in a few years!"

Today I was the fortunate recipient of his keen mind and enthusiastic nature. A list of him impressive innovations.

• He tried filling the pots with a little scoop. That was too slow. Like me, he tried holding a pot in one hand, and filling it with the other. That was faster. But then he set two pots on the ground in front of him, and, like a puppy, scooped with both hands, over the rim of the red bucket and into the pots. This did make him a bit more messy in both shorts and shirt than I was willing to get, but he also filled his pots twice as fast as I did. Which made him, rightfully, proud of his accomplishment.
• I had planned to fill the buckets at the spigot and carry them upslope. He took a length of hose, put it on the spigot, and ran the hose uphill so I wouldn't have to carry the buckets so far. He would stand at the spigot and turn it on and off for me.
• At one point, I went to fetch more peat and compost, leaving Isaiah to finish off the bottom third of what was left in the bucket. I expected he would finish before I was done, and take a well-deserved rest. Instead, he headed down to the spigot to get the water buckets filled, so I would waste no time in waiting to haul when I was ready.
• He didn't like the mixing method I was using: add all peat, add all compost, add all water: mix. We had to reach so far down into the bucket to mix it well. He proposed adding one dry matter and water, mixing, then adding the other dry matter. This definitely made mixing easier.
• He tried the stomp mixing method, like what you'd expect at an old grape pressing for wine. I don't know if it went faster, but it was creative!

Because of Isaiah's help getting the pots prefilled, I spent the afternoon putting the blueberries in pots and covering with extra potting mixture. It was still a huge, exhausting job in the sunny 80-something weather, and I have a nice sunburn to prove it, but it was a very fulfilling day. We ended with eight full crates (one for each type), plus a few extras.

The other boys amused themselves in various ways. I think Jadon read most of the day. Abraham had found a little purse of small change, so throughout the day he and Joe would "pay" Phil and I for the things we did. Served lunch? Here's a nickel and two pennies. (Since we went to Monticello, Abraham is pleased to note that a nickel has both Thomas Jefferson and his house.)

Joe sat nearby, and as often as he could catch and hold Cadbury, he did.