When there is no time like the present

i have been meaning to blog for what seems an eternity, but never do find the time. Planting season is a busy one!!! As i am temporarily trapped inside (its raining pretty good out) i had best blog now, or it might get put off again for another month or so.

This May has been rewarding and brutal. i am loving my job so much that it has really become more of an extension of my life. This is a far cry from most of my previous job experiences i have had, and i am totally loving it. The sad part is that it is eating into my personal time. A triumphantly disastrous example played out this weekend. . .
At Pearson's Town we had a "community planting celebration". It was fabulous. We invited anyone and everyone to come and plant with us, talk with us, and see what we are up to over behind that mysterious ol' barn. Well . . . . in my frenetic rush around the house Saturday morning to make sure that everything was ready and rolling for work, i somehow (absentmindedness) failed to turn on the climate control system for my home green house. My starts, all five hundred plus of them, were the pride of my spring. Guess what. . . . all but 10 are now dead. Yes, Saturday was the first day in four that reached above 55 degrees outside, and was the first that we had seen the sun in as many days.

Well, 70 degrees outside might feel nice, but it equates to about 120 degrees in the greenhouse. The starts are in small plastic cells that are about 1 inch cubed. Needless to say, it doesn't take long for a 1 inch cube to dry out and cook. . .

On the other hand everything else on the Phunny Pharm is doing quiet well. . . .ooooh look, lightening. Maybe i will stay in a little longer. . . Sorry, ADHD moment.

Where was i?? Oh yes. . . We are expecting baby turkeys any day now. The sheep are getting fat and now respond to whistles and the calling of their names, the chickens are recovering from fox paranoia, and we are finally reclaiming the yard from last years brush and debris.

Um. . .wow. . . it's really raining now. This is so going to delay my digging expedition (yes, i am way behind and still building beds in my garden). In the meantime, here are some pictures for your enjoyment:

The Pearson's Town Gang on Saturday morning before the Planting Celebration

Owen and Sissy joining in the work (No i am not violating labor laws. . . they have a union too).

Mom and Sissy supervising in the Kinder-Garden.

James reclaiming his hands after a "hard day" playing on the farm.

Rainbow Chard. . . Beautiful and yummy!!!!

Sheep - the other, other, other white meat. . . unless mom and the kids name them!

Begining the down hill slide

May is now officially over the hump. The busiest month of our year. Two major events down (birthdays) with two remaining (first camping weekend, and Community Planting Celebration at work). i am still not sure how the latter of all of these events is going to go. Am i nervous?? Not yet. . . there will be time to freak out later!

"Do you consider yourself an agriculturalist?"

That was the question that i was asked last week. . . The question was sincere, and necessary, but definitely the person asking new very little about me. For me to consider myself an agriculturalist, or even a farmer for that matter, would be an insult to those folks that make an honest living toiling in the soil. Do i learn a ridiculous amount every year and put a fraction of that into practice. . . yes.

As my excitement grows, the size of our garden makes huge leaps. As the size of our garden makes huge leaps, the practical application of important principles makes small strides.

******Intermission time****** Buster the Ram just ran through the portable fence because it was turned off and a chicken was tormenting him******

Where was i??? Oh yes!

So now that the garden is MUCH larger we have figured out that we should be orienting the rows east to west instead convenient to more convenient. We learned how very valuable that crop rotations can be for soil health. Lastly (well not lastly, but i don't want to go to jail for genocide. . . the boring to death of all of the 1/2 a reader that visits here) we learned that some pestilences like powder mildew (which affects your curcubits) can be forecast like the weather. It would seem that this last little charm is a gift to us from Florida in exchange for our sending all of our old people to their state.

Anyway. . . not to bore you any longer. . . the garden is finally tilled, the first trench is dug, the sheep is back in the "barn", and the children are in the breezeway playing "Lord of the Flies". Life is as it should be. . . .

It's a busy month. . .

Birthdays, birthdays, birthdays.

This is the second weekend of birthday parties. Last weekend, a surprise party, this weekend a pirate party, next weekend. . . camping. It will be a good time and relaxing, but with everything happening between here and Pearson's Town, i could really just use a weekend off.

Here on the Pharm we are recovering from the second big poultry slaughter in two years. The turkeys are fine this year, but the foxes are back and they are exhibiting a rather unusual hunting method. It has always been my experience that they hunt alone, and usually take just one or at the most, two birds a night.

This Mother's Day, they were pack hunting, during the middle of the day, and took between 8 and 10 birds. We are still trying to get an exact count. This first set of chicken chicks has arrived, and are already taking over the house.

In the turkey coop, the hens have abandoned two clutches of eggs, but a third hen has been sitting fairly religiously on a new clutch for about two weeks. We might yet be surprised this year.

And, the sheep - they are getting acclimated. Today was our first attempt at herding them without any fencing. The "barn" and the portable fence are about 20 feet apart, which doesn't sound like a lot until you have to get three skittish critters from point A to point B.

We expected a busy season. . . we were right. With any luck we will slow down before summer is over!!!

The Pharm / Nature interface. . .

The week is finally over. We were able to keep Amy's party a surprise after all! You have no idea how difficult, or stressful that can be.

And so, my wife enters her thirties, and she is still willing to deal with me! Yea for me!

May is usually busy for us with three birthdays, and our normal trip to visit our good friends at Bellvale, but this year is just worse. . . . Now i have a slew of new projects for work that are going on this month too. It has been so overloaded that we had to postpone our trip to Bellvale till later in the summer. The consulation prize is that we managed to finagle our way back into a wicked good campsite that we used to visit every year. . . we lost our spot on year when Amy was pregnant and have had to wait four years to get it back.

On the Pharm. . . We have added three new friends to our little village. Buster, Dina, and (whatever the kids named the other one) have now taken up residence in what used to be the kids "play house". You know, the thing that dad always referred to as a "shed". Well. . .now we call it a barn. It's not really a barn. Unless of course you use your imagination.

They no less about what to think about us than we know about what to think about them. For the moment they are cute and fun, and should mow the lawn, so things are great. In the future we should be able to set 'em and forget 'em. Love them now, love them then (only with the addition of steak sauce).

On the flip side. We have developed a fox problem. Worse than any year past. At last count today, we lost 10 birds (or somewhere in that neighborhood). i have never heard of foxes working like that. It's just weird. Sadly i keep my pal Mr. Remington locked up (we do have kids in the house), so by the time he comes out of the closet (so to speak). The bandits are gone. Any suggestions out there as to how to deal with these irritating little beauties??

Let nature take it's course (this one could be long)

What a couple of weeks. I don't even know where to begin really. Since the tale has been told of the John Deere, I will add only that the search for sheep is on. We (and by we, i mean, me) has settled on Katahdin Sheep. They are a good breed of meet sheep, that were developed in Maine (developed. . . that makes them sound genetically engineered. . .eeeek). They are hair sheep not wool sheep (sorry Laura), but still cute as a button and very prolific. On top of mowing our lawn the potential exists to fill our freezer and maybe sell a lamb to offset feed costs.

And so spring has sprung and now it is officially official. i shared the excitement of our new incubator?! Well. . . i never did get the darned thing calibrated (though i have ordered some new parts for it). Alas, i thought to myself no baby turkeys this year - not that we need more than the 12 or so that are in the freezer anyway. Then one day a few weeks ago we lost a hen. She had escaped, or so i thought.

One afternoon while collecting eggs, i heard some really weird noises from under the turkey coop. It turns out that our "missing" hen has been brooding a clutch of eggs underneath the turkey coop this whole time. Yes, she is part groundhog i guess. She has been sitting there faithfully on who knows how many eggs. Two fell from the nest some time last night, so i candled them this morning and confirmed that they are indeed fertile. . . "Let nature take it's course."
The baby chickens have started arriving. Some will go to Pearson's Town for the summer. The rest will offset our supply as we are dividing the existing flock with the Hogans. We are adding some new varieties including broilers this year. Stay tuned for that circus. . .

And yes, i won the war. . . sort of. Amy let me "grow" the garden. It is now about three times the square footage of the house. So yes, i won the verbal war. . . but. . . the actual expansion itself - the sod is killing me!!! i don't ever remember having to hit a patch of yard this hard with the tiller. We have used both a hand tiller AND a tractor and still the soil isn't fully turned. It's evil grass i tell you, EVIL. Stupid European grasses!!!! The chickens are enjoying the slow progress, and i will appreciated it later. As i make passes they have been coming in and feeding on the grubs, worms, and various other pests that have been lurking in the sod. Green pest control at it's finest.

Now my hope is that i can get the beds prepped in time to get the starts in. Nothing worse than crops that grow tiny heads because the plant became root bound in their cells. . .