07.18.10
Feelin’ Good

Thursdays Yoga is our favorite farm day! Diane in front and us in the back following her! Photograph compliments from Sabrina.
Carl and Julie’s Life on the Farm

Thursdays Yoga is our favorite farm day! Diane in front and us in the back following her! Photograph compliments from Sabrina.

Look at our overhead irrigation! It is such an amazing sight to see all the sprinkler heads raining on the crops. My photo does not do it justice.

Our first succession of corn. It has tassels and the ears are forming. We are praying that it forms decent ears for our CSA and tailgate market customers.

WATERMELON CROP FAILURE. Our watermelon plants just plain died a week or so ago. We think due to it being too hot in our greenhouse. We only have a single layer of plastic and the only ventilation are the sides which we rolled up. For the past 3 years the crows ate all the watermelons in the fields. We will keep trying because we really want to figure out how to grow watermelons here in Spring Creek. Do we shoot all the crows are learn how to grow them in a greenhouse?

Cute Harmon! We call him "Lover Boy" because he just loves people. He especially loves Sabrina and every time he sees her he gets so EXCITED because he knows he will get some good lovin from her.

Our house the "sweat lodge" during the summer. We decided to farm rather than have a nice house. Not sure why. Someday we are gong to build us a nice house.

A tree blew down crushing our irrigation intake pipe! No irrigating until I solve this problem and our crops need water.

Alvin with his dozer pulling the tree out of the creek. I want a dozer! Can't afford one.
One of the many luxuries here in our valley is that there are not many “Safe Shine” lights, which those lights are provided by the electric company so they can earn money during non peak hours (wasting valuable fossil fuels), so our valley is GEORGOUS at night. On a clear night the sky is filled with a gazillion stars and planets which makes we want to spend more time at night identifying those amazing star formations other than the big and little dipper. From around the beginning of June until mid June the fireflies are out in mass trying to find a partner which to do their thing and procreate. It is an amazing site, one which we have been enjoying as we sit outside each night for the past week, and we look forward to this season each year!

This dog will no longer be bothering Peter (our pig), Harmon or Kaiser (our dogs), Inky or Nadia (our cats) or our goats!
|
Tuesday Morning, around 5:30 AM, we were in the house drinking coffee when I heard a horn honking outside. I went to the door and found our neighbor, Jay Green, who said “Wild dogs are killing your hogs”. I yelled to Carl, “Get your gun wild dogs are killing our pigs.”. Carl grabbed his glasses and gun and went out the field, which is a bit from the house and Jay had to drive him because our truck was at the barn, then Carl took a couple shots at the dogs but unfortunately missed. Poor Peter is pretty badly hurt but he is hanging in there and has more energy today than the day he was attacked. Peter is the smartest pig and the one who leads the others around so we think Peter might have been protecting his buddies. (Thank goodness pigs have a LOUD SQUEAL and our neighbor heard them from his house!)
|
|
![]() Thankfully Peter is eating! If you look closly, you will see his wouds in his hind quarters. He is moving around a little more today and as you can see he has been rolling in the mud to keep the bugs at bay! |
|
|
The next day, Carl described the dogs to Dean, who lives up in the holler, and Dean assured us that they are Danny Keeners dogs.
A few years ago, David who is part owner of land in the holler and visits on weekends staying in his camper, found a bear dog named Princess who had been missing after running a bear. David called Princess’ owner and while the owner was on his way to get Princess a couple wild dogs appeared out of the woods and in just a couple minutes those dogs skinned Princess alive. So David called Animal Control, after having seen the dogs, and animal control found the dogs at Danny Keeners place. Danny just lives across the road and up the mountain a bit. Animal Control fined Danny for the cost of Princess and gave him two weeks to “contain” his 25 dogs. (Danny does not neuter his dogs. I guess they just keep breeding with each other.) Animal Control never enforced the “containment” requirement and to this day Danny’s dogs still run wild.
After the incident with Princess, Wilson, who lives in the holler above Dean, found the dogs in Dean’s chicken coop attacking the chickens, so shot at the dog and injured it. Once again, Animal Control was notified, then Animal Control confronted Danny who denied it was his dogs. I don’t think Danny ever compensated Dean for the chickens.
Our neighbor Angela’s son Tyler also had a dog attacked and killed by Danny’s dogs. Ken and Mary had a dog attacked and killed by Danny’s dogs.
The Frisbee boy, who has some bear dogs on run lines, had one of his dogs dragged up the creek and killed probably by these same dogs.
Etta, Alvins sister who lives next to us, had a dog that was attacked and killed while another of her dogs escaped and returned home a few days after the attack mangled and kind of looking like Peter.
Shortly after the situation with Princess, we had a border collie named Lucky, who we had for 9 years and who suddenly disappeared into the woods never to return. We are not sure what ever happened to Lucky but we have suspicions that it was these same dogs. In addition, we had a plott hound dog for a couple years who disappeared around the same time as Lucky. We assume the hound dog was also attacked by these same dogs.
|
|
![]() Sweet Peter. I certainly am glad that he is moving around pretty normal! |
|
|
This week Carl has not been getting any sleep because he has been staying out until 10 PM, then getting up at 3 AM, trying to protect the pigs from these wild dogs. What do we do about the pigs? It is such an investment in purchasing the pigs, feeding them, watering them, only to have them destroyed by wild dogs. So we are not sure if we should take the pigs to the butcher before the dogs return or just hope we can shoot the dogs before they kill the pigs.
These dogs are smart and have been shot at multiple times so they are survivors and I am not sure of our chances at catching them. Carl can’t physically stay out each night waiting for the dogs to return because farming is hard work and he needs his sleep!
What to do…. Do we take the pigs to market, keep the pigs and hope the dogs don’t return or keep the pigs and hope we shoot the dogs?
|
|
![]() Peter fending for his food which is a good sign of his strength after being attacked by wild dogs! |
|
From around mid May into the first or second week of June we HAVE SO MUCH WORK TO DO. Unlike “Peak Oil”, “Peak Workload” will disappear only to reappear next year at this time. It is at this point in the season when we need to transplant those warm loving plants, those that must stay inside the greenhouse until after our last expected frost date which is May 15th, and most of these crops are transplanted by hand onto black plastic mulch because they are in the fields the entire season. In addition, we must maintain (mostly trying to keep the weeds at bay) all the crops that have been transplanted/direct seeded since the beginning of April. On top of these chores, we are harvesting, packaging and selling produce (We definitely are trying to grow more than we should on our small scale.)
It certainly feels great to be harvesting, processing, packaging and selling produce because it is at this point in the season that the farmer has already paid out money for supplies then to FINALLY have some cash to offset those expenses! (Supplies purchased at the beginning of the season include: seeds, fertilizer, labor, parts for equipment maintenance, a new seeder, row cover.) WE ARE THAKFUL for the MANY CSA Members WHO PAY for their PRODUCE at the BEGINNING OF THE SEASON which helps OFFSET OUR EXPENSES!
So why is it Peak Workload? There are only 4 of us farming full time (we just hired, Chirs, another part timer who will save our bodies from being over-worked!
Here is a typical work week for us:
(a) Tuesday and Friday is spent harvesting, processing and packing produce
(b) One of us goes to market Wednesday for most of the day
(c) Two of us goes to market Saturday
(d) One of us has a half day off on Wednesday (because we worked extra hard at Market the previous Saturday) leaving 3 of us for half the day on the farm in the morning and 2 of us on the farm in the afternoon
(e) So that only leaves Mondays and Thursdays when all 4 of us are on the farm for doing all the work outside of harvesting, packaging and selling.
So WHAT are we doing from mid May until June????
|
|
![]() We pressure washed our black landscape plastic, we then burried the edges under the soil (by hand), and finally HAND transplanted around 1400 plants of basil, peppers and eggplant. The eggplant is covered until it begins growing to prevent the flea beetles from destroying our crop! |
|
|
By the end of the week we hope to transplant field melons and winter squash. (That requires us pressure wash/sterilize black plastic mulch, place the plastic it in the bed and burry the edges so it doesn’t end up in the trees and then HAND transplant over 500 plants to the field.)
|
|
|
All the while doing the above mentioned jobs, we must maintain existing crops, which requires us to hoe/hand pull weeds from approximately 3800 bed feet of crops. We normally like to hoe, but some weeds got away from us so yes we are hand pulling weeds!) These crops are: green cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, swiss chard, beets, and onions!
|
![]() Chris did our first pass at trellising our greenhouse pepper crop. We use the stake and weave system and it works fairly well at keeping the plants from breaking once the bell peppers begin ripening. |
![]() Carl, Noah, Sabrina and I transplanted our first succession of corn right before a light rain shower this AM. We have tried direct seeding our corn only to have the crows eat it. It is risky transplanting corn because if it stays in the greenhouse too long it might bolt (tassel) without forming ears. We are praying that this succession forms ears for our CSA! |
|
|
So YES we are SUPER BUSY. Once these warm loving crops have all been transplanted to the fields it is just farming as usual except we have a great sense of accomplishment to have these crops out of the greenhouse and growing in the fields!
|
|
|
It is about time that we finally made ourselves pull the kale and swiss chard out of our greenhouse! These crops fed and nourished us all winter long and into the spring which is why it was so difficult for us to pull these crops up. The kale and swiss chard finally bolted (when a plant is very near to producing seed) and once these greens go to seed there is not much leaf production anymore thus not much edible crop! The kale and swiss chard should have been pulled up weeks ago to prepare the soil and transplant watermelons earlier. Not to mention, we are now eating greens from our spring crops planted in the fields which are so much more tender and tasty.
|
![]() Our watermelon was transplanted 10 days ago into the greenhouse! If we are lucky and they produce fruit, we will need to keep the rodents away, which can be very tricky! |
|
We have followed the kale and swiss chard crop with watermelons. Last year the rodents (probably rabbits and rats) ate the melons from the greenhouse but a tailgate market customer recommended a spray sold at Tractor Supply that is a mixture of cayenne pepper and rotten eggs which works fairly well in keeping rodents away. We simply need to spray once a month to keep the scent on the plants. (The crows eat the watermelons out in the fields which are why we are trying to them in a greenhouse.)
|
|
May 12th was our first CSA harvest of the season. We had hoped for Strawberries but they just aren’t yet ripping in mass. Our first CSA share consisted of: salad mix, spicy greens mix, spinach, arugula, tatsoi, baby boc choi, radishes and zucchini. We were able to provide the Saturday CSA members with Strawberries! We think that strawberries are among some of the tastiest fruit of the season.
(We were ecstatic that we were able to provide the Wednesday CSA members strawberries for their second box of produce for the season that was delivered last week! In addition, Monday the 17th,, we transplanted our final spring crop of broccoli, boc choi and napa cabbage.)
|
![]() A Sugar Snap pea plump, sweet and ready for eating! (We hope our crop yeilds enough for the CSA.) |
![]() Sweet Peppers transplanted to our Greenhouse April 26th. We trellis using a stake and weave system and so far Noah has 3/4 of the stakes driven into the ground! |