Happy Birthday!

We celebrated Isaiah's 7th birthday this week. The boys all got foam swords, and above you can see them all practicing their, "Hail, Caesar, we about to die salute you" poses (excuse the busyness of the background).

Isaiah, as a mature young man, opted for a facade of casual indifference as he opened his presents. Brother Jadon helped to keep the excitement high, and we all enjoyed ourselves.


And a few more cheery photos of a happy day.

The Start of the Fence

The RV is back in place! I can again do dishes and open the refrigerator without a coronary. Wonderful!

I wondered if Bianca was in heat: she was bellowing more than usual, and the other cows sniffed around. I combined all the animals, in hopes that Bethany would offer proof (mounting), but despite watching on and off all day, there was no evidence of heat, so our cows remain unbred, and a major prayer request for me.

Phil got started on the neighbor's fencing. He is using an auger to dig out the holes, and he came back after the first hole, jubilant: it took only about a minute to dig that hole!

The second hole, though, sucked in the auger and buried it. So Phil unhooked the auger, drove the tractor back to get the backhoe, and dug out the auger. That took hours, and at 3:30pm, he had finished two posts (as you can see, foreground and background, below).

I worked on the third hole with him, to get the two posts on the sides of the future gate properly spaced. He augered, and the auger kept falling off the tractor. After putting it back about six times, he finally sprayed it with WD-40 and the catch mechanism began to work again.

It was 4:30, and we figured he could get the fourth hole done before nightfall. Except that the auger got stuck in the hole again. He'll wait to dig it out until tomorrow.

After a full day of effort for three posts, he said, "I'm sure glad I don't have many of these to do!"

Only 52.

The rye and clover is coming up a bit on the neighbor's land. Hopefully the fence will be ready to contain our animals for grazing this spring.

Phil's Unfortunate Morning

Progress continues at a dizzying pace, despite poor Phil's incredibly distressing morning.

First, a client asked for a drawing. If he had all his resources unpacked, he could have found the reference note he needed in a few seconds, then done the small drawing in a few minutes. As it was, he had to first shift multiple boxes around in order to access his filing cabinet, only to find that he didn't have the needed file. Then he opened five banker boxes in search of the one binder he needed. Finally, he found it.

Then the scanner wouldn't work. At 2am, after hours of irritating labor, he crawled into bed.

First thing after he got up, he went to back the motor home into its spot. I was thrilled to again have a level surface. Except, he overshot the backing up, and, for some reason, the motor home refused to go forward. Could it be the transmission?! Maybe!

We tried to pull the motor home forward with the tractor, which did absolutely nothing. After recharging the truck battery, the truck was able to pull the motor home forward, but by then, the ground had thawed too much. Maybe tomorrow we'll get the motor home in place.

Until then, I try not to open the fridge. Each time, I have a heart-stopping instant where I wait for eight half-gallons of milk to fall off the shelves. (It's only happened once: the other times I've caught them.) Living not on the level is a challenge!

Thankfully, we had some good things happen today, too. Phil ordered the greenhouse. When I learned that the bees I ordered yesterday would need to be picked up in New York, I found other bees that will ship to my home (phew!). I am still looking for potting soil, and calculated I'll need around 50 cubic feet. (I have no idea how accurate that will be, but that's the rough calculation.)

Next year, I plan to be proactive and get potting soil ready for spring in the fall. As it is, our compost has frozen solid and won't be useful for potting soil. Last fall, though, this wasn't on my radar at all.

This afternoon, we had a mobile truck repair man come. He found the reason for the truck's hopping in less than ten minutes. Phil came in thrilled with this man's work. (We'd taken the truck to a certified dealer, and they had missed the very obvious ding that was effectively making our engine not a V8 but a V4.)

So the end of today was better than the start. (Good thing.)

P.S. Do peek down a few entries and see the photos of the Old Spot piglets I just added.

More Excursions into the Realm of Commerce

Ordering continued at a frantic pace: more seeds, small equipment, standard beehives, more bees. (We need pollinators; even though the bees were such a huge and expensive disappointment last year, we're ready to try again.)

I calculated, roughly, the size of transplants we'll need to do this year, and came up with the astounding figure of over 500 square feet. Especially astonishing considering the largest transplants (melons, squash, tomatoes, peppers) are in a 4"x4" container; the rest in 2"x2" or even 3/4"x3/4". How to keep that many baby plants alive? How many grow mats to buy? (How much will the energy bill be once we are using the mats?!)

The enormity of the task ahead boggles my mind, and, for a bit, made me question my sanity. The last few days, running on 5 or 6 hours of sleep, I wondered if we would die of exhaustion about mid-July, but I think, after a bit more sleep last night, and a feeling like we're closing in on all the purchases we need to make, that we'll manage.

Phil drove the motor home to the KOA Kamp to buy more propane, only to discover that they're closed until March! (Thankfully, we didn't need to dump the blackwater! That would have been more than annoying: it would have been desperate!) He went to the Co-op for propane instead, and by the time he made it back, the ground had again thawed too much to park. Tomorrow morning, though, we'll get the RV back into its spot, hooked up, level, and ready to cook and clean again. Warm running water—it's coming!

Productive Day

Phil and I haven't been sleeping all that well. Around lunch time, Phil mentioned that he had finally fallen asleep around 3:30am. I woke at 4:30, so the world almost had one of us awake around the clock.

By 9am, I had had my quiet time, and worked a few hours. I milked the cow while Phil did the other chores, and then we turned our attention to where to house the piglets.

We had planned to move them into the pigpen, stuck at the bottom of a hillside. That would have meant carrying a strong, squirmy 50 pounds of screaming pig about 150 feet from driveway to pigpen, over rough terrain, in 20 degree weather. Four times. Not terribly attractive.

Phil, though, realized that if we could move our "stuck" pig pen about 20 feet up a steep hillside (lifting it, corner by corner over a small peach tree!), we would be able to use the tractor to drag it over more level ground, without a stump to catch it. Then he could back the van right up to the pen and set the pigs in. Much better.

So we pushed and tugged, dragged and shoved, but Phil (with a teeny help from me) got that pen out from its "permanent" site. The piglets, after a night in the van, were remarkably subdued: one screamed half-heartedly, and they all put up a token struggle, but they were pretty glad to stretch and root.

Now that they're here, we need to give them names.

Our boar has the most spots. He's also about 30% bigger than the other three. Connie the seller raved about his fine, long bacon line. "I haven't let anyone else buy this one, but you are just a great family, so I'll let you buy him."

The other boar has a sharp, pointy snout. He's intended for bacon, so his looks aren't terribly important.

My favorite of the two (female) gilts has a spot over her eye, which I think is charming.

The other gilt has small spots, like a dalmatian.

They are friendly piglets, coming up to sniff fingers with their amazingly flexible noses.

***
Our piglet fun was done, though, by about 9am. We talked through, and placed, orders of seeds and sprayers, irrigation connectors and seed potatoes. We contacted a contractor to extend our road; we contacted a repair man to look at our truck. It needs a good bit of work.

In preparation for garden preparation, Phil moved the cows to a new area. I did a rough measurement of the area we have for market gardening, and it's about 75'x280', or about a half acre. For crops that require more growing space, we can, for a time, use the land between the trees.

We also tried to get more propane for the RV, since it ran out, but the mud sucked us in. Tomorrow morning, when the ground is still frozen, Phil will head out.

The Virginia mud is quite deep. After Phil moved the animals, he moved hay into their pen and almost got the tractor stuck. Using the bucket, he managed to inch his way out, but his tires left deep tracks.

Jadon, too, had a productive day. He built his Christmas puzzle, 500 pieces, all by himself. It took all day, but he did every piece himself.

New Year Photo and Gloucester Old Spots

For the second year in a row, we offer this photo of our family at New Year's; this year, in front of our church-at-an-elementary-school. Happy New Years.

Phil spent yesterday afternoon building a pen for picking up pigs today. Using some of our lumber, he made this handsome crate to fit right in the back of our van. You can see the bottom has the extra slats, used to block up the end, for easier pig loading.

We picked up long desired Gloucester Old Spot piglets after church. We got to talking to pig breeder Connie, and had such a pleasant time (she invited us in for a tour of her beautiful new home, made mostly from scrounged materials). In her barn, she has a rocking chair, and demonstrated one nice boar who would sprawl on her lap. She rocks him to sleep.

One of her pigs gave birth on Friday, and the seven teeny piglets crawled all over her. Incredibly, this mother was so mild-mannered, Isaiah and Abraham joined Connie inside the pen, and let the boys pet and pick up the piglets.

We loaded four piglets into our pen: two females for breeding, a magnificent boar, and a slightly runty boar for breeding. By the time we got home, the sun had gone down, and with no moon, we opted to leave the piglets in the van overnight (we did try to move the pen out, but with 200 pounds of pig and a fairly hefty pen, we couldn't budge it). We've had enough experience with unloading animals at dusk and having them run wild for days. No thanks.

Other photos of the last week.

The largest turnip in my garden. I was pleased with it, until I read that turnips are better when 3" in diameter or less. Oops.

Lettuce yet alive in my garden bed, surrounded by dessicated kale leaves.

Our Adopt-a-Hoo students brought their pet hamster, Neville, to church today, and Isaiah enjoyed holding her (I know, I know: Neville isn't a standard girl name). Isaiah loves animals!

On Christmas, Isaiah lost his first tooth. Phil's genetics make teeth persist in the jaw for a long time, but one tooth is finally out.

Surprises in Growing

I understand why wise market gardeners begin to plan in November. There's a LOT to consider!

Market gardening has always overwhelmed me. Unlike animals, which may have slightly different needs but all, generally, do well with appropriate food, water, and shelter, a gardener deals with dozens of different crops, all ripening at different times, all of which need different heats, different lengths, different yields.

Furthermore, I know so little about growing things. I think something yummy, like a BLT, and realize that, generally, lettuce doesn't ripen in mid-summer. (And before refrigeration, there wouldn't have been much bacon to eat in August anyway!) The year I had my first garden (in Boulder, 2008), I had such delicious lettuce in June, and a friend at church mentioned she wished she had planted more, since it was cooler later than usual. I had no idea lettuce wouldn't just keep on producing until the fall. (It doesn't. Most varieties don't like hot weather.)

Or take potatoes. Don't potatoes sound like a hearty fall meal? Well, I was shocked to learn that potatoes here go in the ground at the end of March and are harvested in June! (Staggered crops after that can go in until early July, then, for fall harvest.) Potatoes in June! I'm shocked.

I have spent the last few days cramming as much knowledge as I can into my head, so I can place a reasonable order for seeds on Monday. My spring last frost date, here on the 38th parallel in Zone 7(ish) is April 27, with a fall first frost date of October 12. However, I think there are frosts on Mother's Day often, so I'll need to watch that.

Between my two seed catalogs (my beloved local Southern Exposure Seed Exchange for most things and the encyclopedia Johnny's Selected Seeds for everything else, including small equipment), and the several books I am studying, I have found a little lapse of helpful information. I'm trying to guess how much an average family might eat of a particular food in a year. Like carrots, I bet we buy a five pound bag every month, so about 60 pounds a year. So, for ten families, I need 600 pounds of carrots. But how much does the average carrot weigh?! I can learn diameter and length, but nary a scrap of information about weight.

Carrots, though, are easy. I could go and weigh a few right now on my little scale.

Harder are snap peas. I'm not sure how many a family could eat in a year (well, in spring and maybe fall, since they die in hot weather). Our family has never had one reach the kitchen, all eaten in the garden, so I think it's a good bit more than we grow now.

But, say, 20 pounds per family, or 200 pounds total. How much does a single bush produce? Ten pounds? Half a pound? It makes a difference!

Or tomatoes. I know I will not be like Guinness Champion Charles Wilber, who grew 1368 pounds on four plants (average: 342 pounds each!). I probably won't even be on the high side of average. But even if I'm half of average, I don't know what average is. The closest I found was a tomato that gave "3/4 of a bushel!" but I don't know how large a bushel is. It sounds like a lot.

These are the sorts of conundrums that I knew I would face. I almost didn't start, until I remembered, "Amy, you are GOOD at details! You LOVE to plan! You are the right person for the job!"

So now, when I wonder about how quickly kale regrows in early spring (my little cut-and-come-again plot last year was my greens delight for months), I just give myself a pep talk, and keep on learning.