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| Our first March snowstorm (of two so far) |
About two weeks ago we seeded our entire 2012 crop of onions
and leeks in the annual edition of the North Branch Minifarm.
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| Anna seeding leeks |
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| Minh filling the water tub |
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| Leek seeds in their mini trenches |
We have over eighty 11”x21” trays full of
potting soil and thousands of seeds, furiously putting out radicles (we hope)
and starting to push their little green hairpins up out of the dirt. Since our greenhouse is way bigger than we
need for seedlings, and way bigger than we can easily heat, we plasticked off a
kind of room within the greenhouse to be the seedling zone, and in there we
have 9 mesh-top tables, a potting bench, a woodstove, and barrels full of
hundreds of gallons of water to help moderate the temperature. On cold nights we have to get up and stoke
the woodstove through the night, and on warm days we have to open ventilate it
as much as possible so it doesn’t get too hot, but given that our onion
seedlings seem to be thriving, I think it’s working out.
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| The seedling room, looking down towards the woodstove. |
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| Lettuce and spinach seedlings for the home garden. |
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| Onion knees, the miniature cousins of cypress knees. |
The new cow we’re milking—our
Canadian Jersey—acts like a cow should: calm, placid, overall so…bovine,
especially in contrast to our American “Milking” Devons. She stays with her calf through the days, and
we separate them at night so we can milk her for a gallon and a half or two of
sweet Jersey milk every morning. The
rest of her herd-mates are still out in the back field, happily chomping on old
round bales and sipping from the stream.
Elsie and I dug the first spring parsnips yesterday, and I
chopped them into matchsticks, tossed them with miso and olive oil and baked
them for Chris’ birthday dinner last night.
They wintered well, but the ground’s still frozen solid below about six
inches so many beautiful parsnips lost their elegant tails as we dug them. After temperatures above 50°F during the days and above freezing at night in this
week’s forecast, I think we’ll be able to dig parsnips and maybe even carrots by
next weekend.
Tyler, Gilbert, and our apprentice Willie spent most of
yesterday re-wiring the barn in preparation for becoming an official milking
operation and also for being able to see in the barn at night without a
headlamp (ah, modernity). The milk room
is almost totally gutted and ready to be renovated, and the next cow due to
calve is starting to bag up, according to Tyler. This farm will be seeing its first commercial
milk sales for almost thirty years in the not-to-distant future; right now we
plan to sell our cows’ milk to Fuzzy Udder Creamery, owned and run by the
intrepid Jessie Dowling in Unity, ME.
Willie’s putting in his last week with us before he heads back over to Village
Farm, where he will work for a second season.
I think he wins the “most manure moved in one week so far” award for
2012. Not glamorous, by any means, but
absolutely crucial.
The sheep are scheduled to be sheared by Tyler, Elsie, and
friends on Wednesday, after which I think they will enjoy their greenhouse
lodgings much more. These days, I often
go into the greenhouse with Ada to check the temperature in the seedling house
and find the poor woolly ewes in the east half panting and lying around
lethargically, their huge fleeces sprouting out from under their army-surplus-canvas
sheep-jackets. The ram we have on loan—Gregory
Bateson—is new to being a dad, but if he did his job we’ll have around fourteen
lambs in the next month or so. And not
too long after that, it will be the season of baby lambs sproinking around in
the new, green grass!
