teepee

sena's been really enjoying the book "grandfather" by tom brown. she is really interested in survival skills, and Native American lifestyles of the past. she's been working on a fire drill, trying to make fire, and she's looking for ways to make arrowheads. she also worked on making a teepee for two days straight, but it kept falling down and she got very frustrated. fortunately, grampa came to her help and they built a beautiful, sturdy teepee. the girls love it and have been plaing in it a lot. it is right by the side of our new field, where we will start planting this coming week.

 sena, aiyana and julia spent almost all day on friday playing in the teepee.

 peace

the greenhouse

i've been working in the greenhouse, transplanting peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, and still have a long way to go before they're done. but things are looking really good and i bring my radio and listen to whus if they have music i like on. it's one of the very few times i get to listen to music uninterrupted, and i like it.

Quote from "The Summer Day" by Mary Oliver

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

first time of the day i go out into the field, i feel so elated. it always strikes me how beautiful it is. the birds are singing, and all i see is green, growing, budding, alive. it's such a joyful feeling....
but it fades pretty quickly, as it gives rise to thoughts of what needs to get done today, as i start noticing what needs to get hoed, weeded, uncovered, watered, etc, etc.
but that first time, when the mind is still relatively empty, is very inspiring. this morning, i told ed that if i were a stranger to this place and just walked upon it one day, i would surely think that this is paradise.

my friend shared this poem from "The Soul of Rumi" with me:

Prayer is an Egg
On Resurrection Day God will say, “What did you do with
the strength and energy
your food I gave you on earth? How did you use your eyes?
What did you make with
your five senses while they were dimming and playing out?
I gave you hands and feet
as tools for preparing the ground for planting. Did you,
in the health I gave,
do the plowing?” You will not be able to stand when you
hear those questions. You
will bend double, and finally acknowledge the glory. God
will say, “Lift
your head and answer the questions.” Your head will rise
a little, then slump
again. “Look at me! Tell what you’ve done.” You try,
but you fall back flat
as a snake. “I want every detail. Say!” Eventually you
will be able to get to
a sitting position. “Be plain and clear. I have given you
such gifts. What did
you do with them?” You turn to the right looking to the
prophets for help, as
though to say, I am stuck in the mud of my life. Help me
out of this! They
will answer, those kings, “The time for helping is past.
The plow stands there in
the field. You should have used it.” Then you turn to
the left, where your family
is, and they will say, “Don’t look at us! This conversation
is between you and your
creator.” Then you pray the prayer that is the essence
of every ritual: God,
I have no hope. I am torn to shreds. You are my first and
last and only refuge.
Don’t do daily prayers like a bird pecking, moving its head
up and down. Prayer is an egg.
Hatch out the total helplessness inside.

a few pics i took in the field yesterday:

radishes and turnips are almost ready (the two green beds center and right). garlic is far left, and it's coming along great

 lettuces will be ready next week. i always think they look so pretty...

 shiitakes. yum! we've been eating them every night this week, sauteed with onions and garlic. the kids love them too, which is great since they are so good for you. i just cannot get enough of them, they are so delicious....

peace

ed put the chicks outside last week. they were really happy to be on the grass, and started pecking around right away. we still have a light in there for them, to keep them warm at night. ed's been moving the coop every day, and the chicks really like that. midnight crouches and watches right outside the coop - he'd love one of them little morsels....

this is a picture sena made last week. she said it was the Earth. i really like it, especially the little bird above the left eye, and the rain on the eyelids.

sena and aiyana went to an Easter party down in Rhode Island with grandma yesterday. they were very excited...

2/3 of the onions are in the ground already. the rest are going in today. we're still on schedule, although ever since we started working the new field (in addition to the old field), it seems a lot harder to keep up with everything. two fields at once is definitely a challenge, especially when one is brand new, just being brought into production. but we've brought two other fields into production from sod before, so by now we are experienced and know not to let the initial difficulties overwhelm us.
enjoy the sun...
peace

it's been warm and sunny, and now we're getting some rain, which is all good. the plants like it a lot. they've been growing visibly in one single day. i swear the onions grew 1 inch from the time i checked them in the morning until i closed the greenhouse at night. the garlic out in the field grew a couple of inches overnight. the peas have greminated, and the beets, radishes, turnips, salad greens, lettuces, are coming along too. the carrots are taking their time, as expected, but i'll keep checking them until i see them come up. every time a new crop comes up, i get all happy, as if it's the first time i've ever seen that.

i've been sick with a cold the last three days or so, and it's not fun. i'm dragging. but going outside and smelling the fresh air always makes me feel better. i can't wait to feel energetic again though... we have a lot to do this week, once it stops raining. 2400 onions to be transplanted in the ground, plus the weekly lettuces, radish, turnips and spicy greens to be direct seeded.
peace

my beautiful girls

i got my camera out just in time this morning, when sena and aiyana were hugging and listening to music. the sun was streaming in through the window, and it felt perfect. i want to keep all these precious moments locked inside me somehow...

peace

real helpers

aiyana helped me prep some beds this morning. we'll be transplanting cabbages this coming week. aiyana's a little worker, and she likes to help in the field. she's very pleasant to be with, and we can work together side by side just listening to the birds, without need for much talk. i really like that.

sena's been extra helpful lately too. she really likes to cook, and she's been making quite a few dishes for us. she does everything except for the stove part, which we do together, or i do by myself. her favorite dishes to make are crepes, corn bread, cheese biscuits, and apple fritters. she's got her recipes, which she copied from my books, and she follows them very well, and puts the whole thing together. last night she made the best cheese biscuits. all i had to do when i came in was put the tray in the oven, and they were ready 10 minutes later. sena's cooking is very helpful to me, and she loves to do it. besides, she's pracicing her reading, and her math, since she has to use all kinds of measurements. we had a little misunderstanding a while ago - she thought she was in charge of all cooking from now on, and when i told her that i still intended to cook, she was pretty disappointed. i told her she still has a few things to learn, but if it were up to her, she'd take it all on right now. i told her i'll give her my favorite recipes to study and then we can work on them together. so far, she prepped all the ingredients that go into butternut squash soup. when i came in, we cooked it on the stove together. now she's working on borcht.
one tricky part with this whole thing was the cleaning and everything else that goes with cooking. a few times, i walked into the kitchen and was about to start crying. there were onions all over the floor, and spices sprinkled all over the counter. i told her that this would not work, and that if she wanted to cook she had to take on the cleaning too. she did not like it, but she wants to cook so badly that she eventually agreed. so now the understanding is that she'll clean the counters, and sweep the floor after she's done, and she'll empty the dish rack, and i'll do all the dirty dishes when i come in (she does not like to wash dishes). so far this works pretty well.
it's really nice that the kids can be so helpful, and it's also unexpected (especially since they're still so young - aiyana is 5 and sena is 7). i never asked them to take these things on, but they really want to be helpful, and with the right guidance, they can be.
peace

if i weren't farming...

i'd be surfing, or climbing mountains, or biking around the world, or living in a gypsy wagon with my kids.
i'm glad i found farming.
peace

we're really busy once again, but this year, as opposed to last, it feels like we're more on top of things. we still have a long "to do" list, but it feels like we're able to cross things off just as new ones are added. the weather has been sunny and dry enough that we've been able to plant quite a few beds, maybe about 50 so far, and we're where we wanetd to be per our schedule. we did get a late start this season due to weather, but we've been able to catch up and we think we'll have crops ready for the beginning of the CSA in may, as planned. the hard thing about growing at this time of year is managing the hoop tunnels. they need to be covered at night and when it's cold, but when the sun comes out, they need to be vented, otherwise they overheat and the plants don't do well. so all of this means a lot of moving and lifting sandbags, which can take a lot out of you. also, on windy days it's harder, because the plastic covering the tunnels blows about wildly and is hard to manage, and being on top of a hill, we get lots of wind.
but, the upside with the tunnels is that we're able to grow crops at this time of year, without using any heating or any other power source other than the awsome sun. our greens are doing really well under there, so much so that we have an abundance and started selling them right at the farm. not as part of the CSA (which does not start until the third week of may), but as a stand alone thing. basically, we put out an email at the beginning of the week telling people we're going to be picking on a certain day, and they tell us what they want. we know what to pick, and they know that when they come we'll have it ready for them. we've been doing this the past two weeks and the response has been very good. we plan to keep doing it, every other weekend, when we're not doing the storrs farmers' market.
here's claytonia

 look how well it's doing under the covers! amazing, just a thin sheet of plastic, and sun!

 here's Ed, PhD (Professional hole Digger), putting in fence posts. we really would not be doing any of this without him. i'm the dreamer, he's the doer. i'm focused on overarching principles and ideas, he's on the practical. it's actually a pretty good combination.

 getting compost delivered.

 the rapt audience watching the delivery

tonight ed and i are invited to give a talk at eastern state university about farming and what drew us to it. i'm excited about it. i can talk about farming for a long time. i'm really in love with it, and don't really know where to start as far as explaining why. i guess the lifestyle is a big reason, being outside, being in touch, being independent - i thrive on these things. also, people's response to what we're doing is a big motivator for me to keep doing it. i'm a thinker and a dreamer, but i also like to make ideas materialize, and i guess farming makes all that comes together for me.

peace

chicks

we got 15 baby chicks yesterday, and are expecting 50 more today or tomorrow. the girls have been very excited. aiyana, especially has not left their side since they arrived. the chicks are currently in our livingroom, in a crate, under heat lamps. we have to maintain a temp of around 95F for the first week, and then lower it gradually until they're ready to be moved outside(by 5 weeks)

midnight, on the other hand, is not too excited about us getting the chicks. we told him that he couldn't eat them, so that's no fun, and then he had to give up his spot on the couch  since it's too risky having him in the house. he moved to the barn... i do miss him though. he's a great teacher of how to just be oneself with no apologies. he knows how to relax and seek comfort, and when he needs to spring into action he does it effortlessly.

peace

Henny Penny

Henny Penny, our oldest and smallest hen died this week of old age. we were really attached to her. she's been through a lot, but always came out tougher on the other side. one time some animal got her leg under the fence when we weren't around, and broke it. when we found her, her leg looked pretty bad, broken and a bloody mess. we brought her in the house and nursed her. it took weeks, but she recovered. at first she just hopped around the yard on her other good leg, but eventually she was able to use the broken one again too.
she was never a great mom, but she had a lot of personality, and even though she was half the size of all the other chickens, she was by far the wisest and most experienced. she also stayed very friendly with us after we helped her with her broken leg. we were all sad when she died...
here is Aiyana with Henny Penny a couple of weeks ago.

peace

in the gound

the soil got dry enough last week and we are able to plant in the ground. thursday and friday were gorgeous, sunny and warm, and working outside again felt blissful. made me feel very happy to be where i am, doing what i'm doing. but anyway, here are some pics showing what's going on in the field and the greenhouse:

lettuces, which we started in soil blocks in the greenhuse, germinated last week. normally we like to start lettuces directly in the ground, bc transplanting them (we have 3000 blocks) is painfuly time consuming. but this year with the snow and wet ground, we could not plant in the ground as early as we would have wanted to, so we decided to give them a jump and start them in soil blocks. 

 cabbages, coming up in the greenhouse (soil blocks also)

 look at the onions. they're cranking!

 more onions...

 2 beds of peas planted on friday. more to come this week, if the weather cooperates.

this is what most of our field looks like right now. we fixed up the hoop tunnels, removing the ripped plastic, and re-covering the beds. even with all the snow load the tunnels saw this winter, the spinach underneath was mostly fine. rodents did some damage though...it's so hard to control them. we're planning to get two more cats for rodent patrol. midnight, our beautiful, friendly cat, has been getting too comfortable on the couch over the winter, and he's been slacking on his rodent duties.

 this is what the spinach looks like under the hoop tunnels. we're pretty happy.

 and this is our garlic, which we planted last fall and had under hay all winter. it's coming up beautifully! very encouraging...

 peace

CSA news

our CSA filled up as of last week. can't believe it! it's only march....
we have 94 families, some with full shares, some with half shares, for a total of 80 shares. very exciting!
now we can just focus on growing the food.

Happy Spring, and Peace!

can't stop thinking about japan. i find the nuclear thing especially overwhelming and upsetting.

snowdrops

the world can be a crazy place, but there are always snowdrops. and spring is here!

the last picture is claytonia, growing in our greenhouse. people love it in our winter salad mix.
peace

we had a lot of rain in the past 2 days, and temperatures have been high enough that most of the snow is gone off our fields. the chickens are very excited to be on the grass again. we are happy too. last year, however, we were planting in the ground at this time. this year that won't be possible, with snow still being on the ground and everything being so wet. we will be delayed by a few weeks, but even so, things look much better now than they did a couple of days ago when everything was still under 2ft of snow. so we are hopeful that the ground will be dry enough to work and plant by the end of the month.

most exciting though, was welcoming the first few snowdrops in our yard yesterday. i always look for the snowdrops at this time of year, and i had been looking all last week, but all i saw was snow. finally, i went to check yesterday, and there they were, poking their beautiful white heads out of the melting snow. is there anything more hopeful than snowdrops on a gray, rainy, slushy kind of day? we were all very excited to see them.

peace

knitting

i've been knitting a bit this winter. we have a spinner at the market, and she sells beautiful wool from her own sheep, which she dies and spins by hand. we've been trading vegetables for wool. she gave me some nice brown wool, and i made myself a cardigan which i love to wear, and i also made sena a whale dress, which you can see in this picture. she is really excited about it.

i really like to knit at night by the fire. i find it very relaxing and meditative. i like how repetitive and simple it is and how it allows me to focus, to bring my wondering mind back to the present moment over and over again, with every stitch.

 aiyana wanted a picture by herself. she came up with this pose, which really made me laugh.

peace

saturday's market

we had a market on saturday, and managed to bring 22 bags of greens picked in the greenhouse (spinach and some salad mix). they sold out by 3:05 (the market officially opens at 3). people really want fresh greens at this time of year. i felt bad that for the rest of the market we had nothing on the table except for turnips. i kept appologizing to people for not having more...
soon enough though, there will be plenty of fresh vegetables again. although with all the snow that's still on the ground, we will be delayed somewhat in planting. our plan was to start planting in the ground next week, but that won't happen. we have to wait until the snow melts, and then another few weeks for the ground to be dry enough to work. working the soil when it is too wet is really bad practice. it ruins the soil organic matter. so we'll have to wait, but i hope not too long.
peace