we promissed ourselves (and the kids) that we were going to take a full day off each week this year, meaning no farm work, but so far we've broken the promise more than kept it. unfortunately i think it's just not realistic, with the weather and all other factors that impact our work. we've been working almost straight through the past two weekends. but we managed to take half a day each with the kids - ed on sunday morning, and me in the afternoon.

i stopped working at 2 on sunday and we spent the rest of the afternoon at a beautiful spot by the river. it was very relaxing.

peace

from the past week

sena at sturbridge village

sena and snowflake, reading on a rainy morning

aiyana - flowers in her hair

that's their tepee, behind aiyana, covered in deer skins.

other than that, it's been really busy for us. but i'm glad that we got all our peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, cucumbers and squashes in the ground already. lots more to go though... it's that time of the season.

peace

the CSA began, and evertything is going well.

we are really busy right now; everything is growing like mad, and especially the plants that are in the greenhouse, in soil blocks, they're getting so big and need to go in the ground as soon as possible. my "to do" list is impossible, but i am trying to take it one thing at a time, and prioritize as best as i can.

people ask us how many hours a week we work. i have a hard time answering that question. maybe they should ask how many hours we don't work. that's a lot easier.

feeling good though.

peace

aiyana's vacation

aiyana went on a little vacation last week with my sister and her family. they went to new hampshire and took some very nice pics, which are posted on their blog.

things have been busy, and everything's going well. we have 100 apple trees in the ground already, and a lot of vegetables growing. everything's doing well, with the water from the recent rains; it will be even better when we get a little more sun.
we've been selling weekly at our farm to our email list customers, and next week our CSA begins. that's a big deal, it's going to be really busy with lots of people coming; but i think we're well prepared for it. in addition, we have two new retail customers, that we've been selling to. we'll see where that goes. our first commitment is to our CSA, but we may have enough production to supply these other customers as well.

so it's been busy, but good and rewarding. we're having some problems with cutworms in our chard and parsley beds; and i think crickets or slugs are damaging leaves on some of our seedlings. but overall no major losses just a nuissance dealing with these guys, having to look for them and pick them off by hand.

i'm off to do one of my favorite things right now: weeding and thinning. i really like to weed, it's addictive, and very satisfying to see the results at the end.

peace