Spring-Summer

Memorial Day has passed (no rain on the fair) and it's starting to feel like summer. We are still having highs in the low 80s, but it's predicted to be in the 90s in a few days. Everything is growing like crazy, and many things are ripening up, but more on that in a minute. The big news is that we got that nasty corner cleaned up. We'd been "encouraged" to do so by our insurance company, but it was long overdue anyway. We hired Neacail to haul all the junk. They started with the motor.

This shows most of what we were facing. We had already made a few runs the weekend before.

All the metal is gone.

Now we're working on privet and stumps.

It looks soo much better now!

Almost looks like a real house!

Yay for us! Rick and Catherine toast in their lovely shiny mugs.

Ok, so in the meantime, we still had farming to do. We harvested the garlic. This is only part of one row.

Rick harvested his also, and brought one over to show how nice and big they were. That's my Spanish Roja on the left, Rick's Early California White on the right.

We also pulled the last of the lettuce. We had some lovely heads.

Lovely stuff, and so very delicious. I'm glad I learned how to make great homemade blue cheese dressing (the secret is homemade mayo and lots of lemon juice).

The chard is still performing, although I expect it to bolt soon.

The tomatoes have grown into a forest in sector 3.

And as of yesterday, one has topped the cage. The six-foot-high cage... This is an Indigo Blueberry from my saved seeds, and I have high hopes for it.

All the tomatoes are setting fruit.The blueberries are so very blue.

The peppers always look hot and tired, but they are setting lots of fruit. And just in time! I'm almost out of both hot sauce and fermented peppers.

The volunteer sunflower is blooming.

And we're getting a few marigolds

I just finished pruning the plums yesterday. They are starting to color up. And there are a zillion!

The old apricot is ripening up also. That tree just won't die.

Here's what we harvested two days ago. Chard, lettuce, basil, and eggs.

Delina and Jae share in some of the bounty.

At home, I picked my onions. Didn't really get a good crop at either location. They all bolted before making much of a bulb. These yellow ones did the best.

My backyard tomatoes aren't as big as the ones at the farm, but they are producing!

In fact, I have a ripe borg now. Here it is on 5-16, just starting to color up.

And that baby is ripe by 5-22.

I pruned all the fruit trees. Here the peach/ nectarine in the backyard is looking nice and tidy.

And the apple tree has lots of apples.

I planted a few rows of beans in the backyard. I put zipper beans down row 3 and saved cranberry beans (flambo) in row 6.

The zipper beans came up well. I'm using tomato cages as trellis for them.

And this is just here so I can remember this phone number in case I need a mason.

Farm Catchup

Time to do some catchup shots of the Farm and friends over the last month. It's been pleasantly springlike, meaning cold one day and hot the next. Cold in the morning, hot at midday, and cold again at night.

This overview is from 4-25. Everything is much bigger now.

This lovely big lettuce patch is almost all harvested now.

And the chard keeps pumping out delicious and colorful leaves.

Amber's head even bloomed.

It was nice to get to spend some time hanging out with Dave.

We took him to Park Avenue for a burger.

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What We're Drinking
Sadly, Kolsch is only available in mixed packs, not in kegs or even in kolsch-only packs. Good thing Glen made Rick some kolsch for his birthday.

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One of my major projects was to brick in the floor of the henhouse. Rats were tunneling under the wire and bricks Rick put down, so we had to thwart them. I moved almost every brick by myself, usually at least 3 times. It wore me out!

But the chicks are safe and secure.

There was a Chapman cleanup day, with trashbins placed at Chapman School. We made the most of it. But more about that in the next post.

Rick's 60th

We had a fun party for Rick's 60th birthday. Rick's brother Dave came up to join us.

Tom sets up for the band.

Folks gathered around the keg. I can't believe I didn't take a picture of the food table. We had a ton of great food, including Glen's smoked pulled pork (which got all eaten up!). We did it as a taco bar, so I had tortillas, rice, ground beef, salsa, lettuce, cheese, chips, etc. and everyone could build their own plateful.

It turned out to be a lovely day: a bit warm for the season but pleasant.

Keith and Noel are back in town so they were able to come too.

And Old Spice sounded great!

They started as soon as the area was in shade.

And played into the night. All the neighbors were sitting on their porches listening! One neighbor even crashed the party!

A good time was had by all.

April: Showers, Sunshade, and Chicks

Yes, we finally got a little more rain. It wasn't enough to put a dent in the drought, but at least it wetted everything down and cleaned some of the pollen out of the air. We measured about an inch. And even though the storm was rather cold, the ground temperature stayed over 50 degrees.

 Meanwhile, a lot has been happening. I helped Delina and Jae set up Jae's show at Morning Thunder. Jae's photos are spectacular.

By late March, I had the tomatoes repotted and in the greenhouse.

And at about the same time, the peppers look big and vigorous. I resisted potting up all but the earliest ones. Note for the future; Second week in Feb is about the right time to seed if I don't want to have to transplant.

While Ed and Ann were in Australia/New Zealand, some idiot smashed into their fence and knocked part of it down. We got it fixed as good as new. In fact, since we used old fabric, it looked the same as ever. Ed made us brats for our help.

Delina picks up her loot of tomato and pepper starts.

Lori and I got hair bling, then went for drinks afterward. Doesn't she look cute in her new bling?

We ordered another feeder like the one Rick built. It came unassembled, so Rick traced all the parts so he can make another one if needed. This size is smaller than the first one Rick built.

The really big thing we got done recently was putting up the sunshade to keep the taproom cool. Rick got out the giant ladder.

It took some doing to get it properly positioned. We finally got the right angles worked out. Notice how nicely the shade falls.

We're so happy that it provides the shade right where and when we need it.

Then we hung matchstick shades to further provide cooling insulation.

This whole area has seen some major upgrades.

We decided that we could put our tomatoes in on 3-30, about two weeks before the technical last frost date. We haven't had any frost since December... Rick digs us nice deep holes. I put in organic fertilizer and we got the cages put up also.

I got the peppers in about a week later (4-6).

On April 2, I got our new chicks. I was hoping for Silver Laced Wyandottes, but they were already almost gone. I got the last one that was left and filled out the order with five Delawares. They are in the top tier for good laying/docile and they are very pretty besides. They will look like this:

So I got them on Thursday, and the next Monday, the power went out. I woke up knowing something was wrong, and a minute later Buddy called me asking what he should go about the chicks. Oh no! Without their heat light, they will die very quickly. So I rushed to the farm, frantically thinking how to keep them warm. I turned on the propane heater, brought their box out to the bar, and set it on two chairs. I had to keep turning the box as one side got too hot, but it worked, and it kept them alive until the power finally came back on about three hours later.

Here's what the farm is looking like now. I got all the straw down between the rows. I just have 2 more rows to plant (plus the beans in sector 4, but I'm waiting a little for really warm weather). Left side:

Right side. The lettuces are starting to get big. Also you can't really see in these shots, but the chard has been providing lots of delicious leaves.

I was supposed to have lunch with Nancy on the day the power went out, but of course, I had to save my chicks. So we got together later for a drink at Tres and I gave her the scarf I made for her. It totally goes with her jacket!

Buddy and Rick toast to National Beer Day (4-7).