Rain and lots of it!

It rained.  The good old fashioned spring time rains that come every year, but usually not until mid April.  It started raining yesterday and continued off an on throughout the evening and most of the day today.  As I traveled home from my off farm job, the steam poured forth from most of the sugar houses in plain view of my twenty-three mile journey.  I thought for a moment that perhaps I ought try and throw together some kind of sugar house so that I could boil this year and have some of that delicious gold, boiled and bottled with my own hands, for our personal use on the farm this year.  A few more miles past ice jams and flooded fields and I thought better of it - the focus is Christmas trees, vegetables and chickens this year.  Stay focused!  I am better off trading some pullets, a few trees or several pounds of tomatoes for that delicious sweet Vermont tradition instead of taking taking my focus away from what needs to be done to make this farm a success.

Pulling into the driveway this evening, any thoughts of straying from the plan were quickly washed away.  I was met with a half flooded pig pen as I crested the hill.  The porcine pond took over more than half of the pasture.  Zeb was comfy and dry in his house with plenty of hay and his side of the pasture above the water level.  Unfortunately, his fence goes around the entire pasture, which includes the south side where sows or gilts might reside while pregnant.  The southeast corner of the fence was underwater, not sufficient to keep Zeb home.

By the time I got into the house, hugged little man and discussed the excitement of his day, the rain had turned to snow.  I changed clothes, got Little man and I bundled for the weather, grabbed a few more dog treats to keep Peter on the West 40, and headed into the now blowing snow with DH in tow.

Zeb's fence is a three strand system - the repair was short, moving the power from the bottom/middle to the middle/top and turning the charger back on.  This weekend, weather and lack of rain permitting, the bottom strand will be moved out of the water and the bottom/middle will be charged again.  For now, plenty of hay, a little extra delectable treat and plenty of water should combine with a strong charge on the middle wire to keep Zeb home.  

This weekend will start with a meeting to discuss this seasons farmers market, then returning to farm to visit with family and weather permitting and water receding - heading outside to make some fence repairs.  The tool for the plumbing repairs along with a new mixing valve part was located in the shop among the twenty plus years of spare supplies.   I knew it was there, but I was rushing and frustrated the other night so I couldn't have found it if it flew off the shelf and hit me in the head.  So, fence repairs to avoid the water and mixing valve/tub repairs to get the right temperature water are on the agenda for the weekend.

The incubator was powered up tonight.  First temperature checks were over 110 degrees.  If we can get it adjusted, eggs will move from the coop to the incubator too.  Spring is coming!

Seeds

Today's weather teased me all day.  I woke up this morning to a warm south wind, no precipitation and the promise of spring.  By the time I had gotten out of the shower there was a dusting of snow on the driveway.  An hour later as I took Peter out for a walk before leaving for my off farm job, there was an inch of heavy, wet sugaring snow coating the yard and driveway.

My drive is usually twenty-five or so minutes; today stretched to almost forty as we made our way through slushy, slick roads.  As I walked from the car to the office, the snow was switching to ice pellets, soon forecast to change over to all rain.

Returning to the farm this evening the temperatures had risen to a balmy thirty-five degrees and my thoughts turned to seeds, a greenhouse and eggs in the incubator.  I will wait, however impatiently, for another week or so before jumping into spring chores in earnest.

This evening, though, was reserved for the optimist in me hoping that spring is just around the corner.  I finished cleaning these tithonia seeds, saved late last summer, in hopes that they will soon be germinating in warm spring soil.

Twice as much time and at least that much money

If I can impart one thing to people who are dreaming of farming or homesteading it is this - it will take twice as much time as you are planning and at least that much more money.  Unless you are starting your homesteading or farming journey independently wealthy or having been gifted all the possible tools and equipment you can possibly think of, then know it will take more than you planned - almost every time!

We adopted a dog a couple of weeks ago and he has been a wonderful addition to this farm.  His bio said he was great with kids, cats and other dogs, heart worm negative and potty trained.  I would drive the hour south to collect him on Friday night, spend all weekend getting him used to our home and continue about getting the farm ready for spring.  He would be a welcome distraction for Little man - it was a good plan!

His introduction to the cats was less than ideal - thankfully they were controlled introductions.  We were present and could immediately intervene when he pinned one cat to the floor and shortly thereafter had another one in his mouth.  While he came potty trained, he was not good with cats, had very little if any training and is a two year old puppy.  Time planned to get the floor and raised beds into the greenhouse has been spent with obedience training, boundary education, electric fence introduction and all the things that usually come with adopting an eight week old puppy.  In less than 48 hours he broke his halter and the food we bought him ran right through him.  Another halter purchased and two different kinds of food later, we have reduced the number of times needed to go out and poop to less than four.

After a week, we decided Peter could stay.  He and Little man were playing so I decided I would give each a bath and then get my seeds ordered and make a dent in my taxes.  Into the bathroom I went to start the water in the tub and get it to temperature.  No cold water - only hot.  Faucet disassembled, instructions for repair researched on the internet and a brief search of the shop for the tool I need and the replacement cartridges that I have seen around 100 times before but can't manage to find at 7:30 p.m. and I head back in to give Little man his shower.  This particular evening was forecast to have lows in the single digits and there are no shut-offs plumbed for the bathroom.  I will not be shutting off the water and the heat to the house to attempt a repair for which I have not located all of the proper parts.  Around 8:45 p.m. the child, the dog, the mom and most of the bathroom have been sufficiently bathed and it is time for bedtime stories and settling in for the night.

3:30 a.m., I wake up on the couch, mad at myself for not getting my seeds ordered or progress made on my taxes.  I get up, shut off the lights and head to bed.

The seeds were ordered this past weekend.  The taxes still aren't done.  I have found that if I let the to-do list rule my life then life isn't that interesting.  It is more of a guideline.  Progress is being made - albeit slow and slightly disorganized - it is still progress.

I hadn't planned on cleaning the bathroom - that was a bonus!

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. 

Getting ready

The new window for the incubator arrived this week.  

Getting ready!

Rhubarb patch

Rhubarb here on the farm lives in three places.  
The original patch lives at the edge of the yard; it hasn't been well weeded nor well maintained since it was planted there. 
Newly planted rhubarb on the edge of the back lawn and adjacent to the Christmas trees - this rhubarb was found on the side of the road in the Northeast Kindgtom of Vermont and relocated here very well.
Brand new rhubarb started from seed in old hoophouse - the only green rhubarb here on the farm.

The goal was to consolidate all the rhubarb this spring, but the weather and the greenhouse project took entirely more time than we expected.  Recently I heard something about homesteading that resonates with me - the 1.5 times principle.  For every project you are planning to do on the farm - plan 1.5 times more time and 1.5 - 2 times more money than you thing it should take.   Every big project here on the farm has taken far more time than I budgeted for.  Thankfully most come in right about where I budget them financially.

In this case, postponing the rhubarb move is working in my favor.  I am able to work on killing the weeds in the area I want to move the rhubarb to before planting.  Weeding on this farm takes up an inordinate amount of time because I have not prepared my planting beds well at all.  My best performing bed is the 4 ft x 20 ft raised bed that we put in last year.  Planted in the square foot gardening method it only requires weeding early in the spring and the occasional maintenance weed eradication here and there.

The best location for the rhubarb is where we put the Northeast Kingdom plants.  Tonight, I weeded and heavily mulched around the existing plants; weed whacked a 25 - 30 ft square area down as close to dirt as possible; pulled out some saved feed bags, cut them open and laid them on the ground around the existing patch; collected rocks (which grow better on this farm then most plants) and started killing the weeds around the rhubarb.  I would like to add four to six more sacks around what you see above and let them all sit and kill the underlying weeds until late September.  At that point I will dig up all the rhubarb from the front yard and greenhouse and move it to this spot, mulch it heavily and hope for the best come spring.

On to the herb garden? 

Modest harvest

Last night's harvest from our early July garden was modest - the radishes were cleaned and put into the refrigerator awaiting their place in a salad or a batch of radish relish this weekend and the rhubarb frozen for its use in strawberry rhubarb jam, pie or delectable rhubarb bars.

The stalks on the very left are only about eight inches long.  To be healthy, rhubarb should be split and separated, ours did not get moved or separated this spring.  Tomorrow night's farm task is mowing the location for the new rhubarb patch and putting down weed suppression in preparation to move the rhubarb this fall.

I spend far too much time weeding.  Better bed preparation results in better yields.  Valuable lesson learned.