Only one thing crossed off the to-do list today

Sometimes the end of the day comes and I look at my list and I may have only crossed off one thing and some days I don't cross off anything.  As a person who makes lists, not crossing anything off is pretty disheartening.  I look around at the end of the day and try to figure out where it went.

Today I started to work on rabbit waterers when Little man's father came inside and said that his car was stuck in the driveway.  To some that would seem strange, but our driveway is a little better than a third of a mile long with a hill flanked on either side at the top by two ponds.  Sometimes you head for the ditch to ensure you don't sink your car in either pond.  Thankfully he was only stuck in a three foot snow drift.  After several tries and some sheer determination I managed to get his car up the hill (not on the list).  While I was spinning and sliding, he took care of the rabbit water bottles.

Inside to warm up and pour myself a cup of coffee, I looked at my list and decided where to begin.  There is squash in the back room that froze in the double digit below zero temperatures that we had last week.  Since the temperatures for the end of the week are predicted to be well above freezing, I started there so we wouldn't lose the squash (on the list).  I needed a clean sink and a clear kitchen table; dishes washed and counters disinfected.  Some play time with Little man and a couple of emails answered (not on the list), then I went to the back room to retrieve the squash.  

Our back room is very cool most months of the year and will usually only dip below freezing during the coldest of weather.  I will often set leftovers or the carcass from the chicken we had for dinner last night out there to cool while keeping it safe from our four-legged family members.  I grabbed that along with the squash and returned to the kitchen.  I washed, cut, and scooped out the seeds from the squash and put the first couple of them in the oven.  Then I stripped the chicken from the carcass (some for chicken sandwiches and some for chicken and biscuits later in the week) and added it to a pot on the stove for broth (not on the list).  I pulled the squash I had cooked two days ago out of the refrigerator, processed it and put it into two cup bags for the freezer.  

I had one lonely cup of butternut squash leftover.  Hmm, I don't have much for afternoon snack so I took to the internet and made a modified version of this butternut squash apple bread.  It was delicious!  If I am lucky there might be two slices left for snack for Little man and I to take with us tomorrow (not on the list).


Two more batches of squash were cooked and set on the counter to cool.  In between I took the seeds that I wanted to save, washed them and set them on labelled paper towels to dry over the next couple of weeks (not on the list).   Some lunch, play time with Little man and a few more emails dealt with, another batch of dishes done and it was back to processing the squash I had just cooked while I added the next variety to the oven.

Little man's father came in and asked for some help with changing the tires on his car.  I was busy, but figured my time would be better spent helping this afternoon then trying to unstuck a car again in the wee hours of tomorrow morning.  A little play time outside before the snow squalls came and forced us back inside.  Some more dishes, some more squash, some paperwork, a little business accounting and another set of seeds set to dry (not on the list).

Dinner was easy tonight as we had leftovers in the freezer I wanted to use up to make room for all this squash.  Afternoon/evening chores assisted with and a last check of emails for the evening.  A blog post written and then to some quality time with family before dinner (not on the list).  

I checked the list before heading into the living room and realized that after all that I had accomplished today I had only crossed one thing off my list.  There remains a pile of squash in the back room that should have been moved to the cellar before the below freezing temperatures.  Lesson learned.  Tonight, eggs will be washed for a regular customer, more dishes done, some more playtime then showers, teeth brushed, stories read and a Little man tucked in (not on the list).  After Little man and his father have retreated to dream-land, I will try to cross one more item off the list.  The goal remains that by the end of the week at least two thirds of the items are crossed off.  Each week is a new challenge, but I continue moving forward.

Testing seed germination

I have been saving seeds for the past six or seven years.  Much of what I choose to grow are heirloom varieties so the seeds that come from those plants can be saved from one year too the next.  After I collected all the seeds that I saved from this fall, I went to add them to my seed stash.  My brown paper bag that I had begun with more than five years ago was finally torn beyond it's holding capacity. I went out to the greenhouse to collect the cardboard box that I had some other seeds stored in and found that it too had seen many years of abuse.  Then as I turned to head back to the house I saw the brown paper lunch bags where I had collected flower heads, sitting on yet another surface.  It was time for some organization.

I went in search of another box or bag that would work,  I knew there was a shoe box around somewhere, but since the full size brown paper grocery bag was overflowing, I thought I should look for something bigger.  Any container too much bigger wasn't going to fit in the cabinet where I have stored my seeds for a long time.  In my search I found yet another grocery bag full of seeds that were saved by my mother-in-law and her boyfriend.  After they passed I was blessed with the collection.  Some old heirloom corn grown by the Native Americans and  seeds from her boyfriend's homestead in Maine - many undated, some just collected in the outer wrapper of a cigarette package and tucked into the bag.  I  needed two boxes.  After about 20 minutes of searching for the perfect cardboard box, I found a three drawer plastic storage bin in the wood shop.  Two of the drawers were already empty.  I washed off years of sawdust and cobwebs and set to work.

Any seed less than five years old whose packaging was in good shape was inventoried and placed in alphabetical order into a storage drawer  Anything older, with a damaged package or unidentified in a paper bag, glass jar or cigarette wrapper, was added to the original falling apart paper bag to be tested for germination.  Round about mid November I was in between soccer and fall yard clean up, I pulled out some snack bags, some paper towels, a permanent marker and ten seed packets.

Ten paper towels were removed from the roll, moistened and placed on a dinner plate.  From the first seed packet I extracted ten seeds.  If all of them germinated then I had 100% germination rate.  If only two germinated then I had a 20% germination rate.  I rolled the seeds into the moistened paper towel, placed the roll into a snack bag and carefully labeled each bag with the information from the seed packet, including the year.  I set the filled plate in a warmish corner of the kitchen and let them simmer for seven days.  A few sets of tests went to ten days, but those got a little moldy so I tried to keep subsequent tests to seven days.  

It took about eight weeks to get all of the questionable seeds tested.  Amazingly enough, some of the seeds from 2006 still germinated.  Many did not.  Those that were cleaned and dried well had great germination rates.  Some that were just tossed into a bag and stapled remain as yet unidentified, but if they germinated at 80% or better, I kept them anyway.  I was going to throw away everything that didn't grow, but Little man's father asked me to keep them.  He is going to take a corner somewhere with good soil, till it up and dump everything that was left into it and see what happens.

Weed control, landscape cloth

I have tried all manner of weed control on the farm - tilling, mowing, rotation, mulch, spraying, and last year it was landscape cloth.  A section of old pasture was tilled in and the landscape cloth was carefully rolled out.  When performing this task, be sure to choose a day with little to no wind - much easier that way!  Rocks were collected from various piles put on top of the cloth at the end and on each seam.  It wasn't until later in the year that I was walking through the hardware store and I found out they make 'staples' to secure this stuff to the ground - I bought those for this season.

When we finally got the cloth down, it was a little late in the season and my transplants were getting root bound so not as much care was taken with the rocks to ensure that everything stayed where it should have.  The wind got underneath one section during the summer and over the winter, it took up two more sections and wrapped them around neighboring trees.  Where the cloth stayed down, the weeds are pretty much gone, although there is still some stubborn grass.  Areas without cloth are definitely covered with weeds.

The cost of this stuff can be pricey when you start talking about acres, but I am thinking that I might run each section of new field through a season or two with the cloth to help eradicate a lot of the weeds.  Long season or set it and forget it crops might get landscape cloth all the time.  It worked really well for our squash patch last year.

This section will get tilled this week and the old landscape cloth re-applied.  Some people say that you shouldn't bother rolling it up but the cash flow is meager at the moment so I will re-use and recycle it for another season.  Now I have to find the seeder that has the big holes for the squash seeds.

Seedlings ready for transplant

I have been watching the weather with an obsession for the past two weeks; that was the day that the seedlings moved from inside the house to the greenhouse.  After being carefully protected while inside, watered carefully, turned so they received even sunlight, these tomatoes had grown up enough to move into their own pots.  Like a mom whose kids were moving from their crib to their toddler or big kid bed, I was a little sad to see them go outside.

The greenhouse is not heated, it is more like a giant cold frame with some heat retention characteristics built in.  There are bricks in the floor by the door, there is a large raised bed with dark boards to help hold any heat collected by the sun throughout the day and there is the compost experiment in the corner.  But it was late March/early April in Northern Vermont, the risk of frost remains very real for another month and a half.

For the first night, the transplants were fine.  The following day was cool, rainy and snowy.  At only 224 sq. ft., it doesn't take much to keep the temperature above freezing, but it does require action on my part.  Into the garage to find the small propane tank and the little buddy heater.   Little man's father got it all set up while the temperature inside was well in the fifties, no need to waste the propane.  I went out later to turn on the valve and light the heater - NO HEAT!  Moving over 750 transplants back into the house was not going to be a fun experience, especially with it snowing.  I closed the valve, took the heater off the tank and looked inside to fine one ticked off spider.  I grabbed a pencil and evicted her then put the assembly back together, turned on the valve, and poof - HEAT!

We have used just over 20 lbs of propane (a standard grill sized tank) over five nights.  This coming weekend is forecast to have some upper 20 degree nights.  I will watch carefully and decide whether supplemental heat will be needed.

During the day, the temperatures inside the greenhouse have to be watched as well.  If I leave the house in the morning with outside temperatures in the upper 30's and overcast skies, I would consider leaving the door closed.  If the sun were to come out and shine in earnest for the better part of the day, the poor little transplants could cook before someone else arrives to open the door.

Spring brings renewed life and a longer to-do list to this small farm.  It is hard to be off the farm when the sun is shining and temperatures are above 40 degrees.  Soon enough this farmer will be able to be on the farm full-time.

It's always good to stop and regroup.

Last year I paused.  It had been nine years since I jumped in.  I was burnt out, I was overtired, it seemed like nothing was going right and that I had failed at everything I had tried.  My marriage was in a downward spiral.  It felt like I was drowning in my to-do list.  I couldn't get ahead no matter how hard I tried, how much I scrimped, what I did cut the budget or scrounge out some extra time.  I had been in a pretty rough spot since the summer of 2014.

For 2015 I decided I wasn't going to take on anything new.  I took some time to regroup, review all of the activities I had tried, those that were successful, those that failed, what I wanted to do going forward, what I absolutely didn't want to try again and what I could accomplish completely on my own.

I faced difficult questions from my friends and family - 

• Why are you so dead set on having a farm?
• A farm is hard work and you aren't getting any younger?
• You know that having animals means you can't leave for the weekend?
• You haven't been successful so far, why are you even still considering this?

Through all the negativity, there is still a lot of positive.  I tried.  A lot of people can't even say that.  My husband called them learning experiences, expensive ones at that.  But I have learned A LOT over the course of nine years.  I learned how to do a few things REALLY well.  I also learned a lot about how to not to do other things.

2016 will be the year I re-invest myself into this farm.  Little man is old enough that he can help a little more and not need to be entertained every minute of every day.  I am determined to be here when he gets off the school bus.  I have a couple years to make that dream come to fruition.

I revisited a post from January of last year - 

Growing Magazine had one sentence that justified my lists this month: 

Setting goals before each season is the only way to know at the end of the year whether you succeeded.

The three things I will be focused on are vegetables, chickens and Christmas trees.  So the lists have begun - like this one of the current inventory of vegetable seed.  Orders will be placed this weekend for the ones I need to get going again.  Yesterday, another package arrived for the poultry venture.

Baby steps. 

First harvest of asparagus

We planted it three years ago, last year there were a couple of spears, enough to be a palette teaser.  Our first real harvest of any vegetable for 2014 yields enough for dinner for the three of us and there is more coming!