Down on the Farm

Waverly and Henry

The sun is getting stronger and stronger every day. The rooms with South facing windows are bright and warm even at 8:30 a.m. when this was taken.

Tomato tropics

The tomatoes are growing and growing. We have them in a room in our house, the room that will someday be Henry's, waiting till it is time to move them to the greenhouse. We tried a colder room this year compared to last, hoping to get stocky, sturdy plants. It seemed to be a little too cold, though, inhibiting the plants from getting the phosphorous they need from the soil, so now we have a space heater going in there off and on. Plus a fan for good circulation which also helps keep the plants healthy - prevent damping off and to get the stalks strong. So it's lovely in there, green and breezy and balmy. Makes me excited for greenhouse season!!

In the photo above in the very forefront you can see some newly sprouted tomatoes, better view below. The first ones we planted are already in 4 inch pots. There are also some sweet pepper plants way in the back there.

Logo

We have been considering changing our logo to something that more clearly shows we are primarily a vegetable farm. This is the logo we use now -- on bags of mesclun and other veggies, on flyers, on t-shirts etc.

We were tossing around the idea of going to a bushel basket full of veggies, typical of a CSA share. But if the barn is too vague, that would probably be too specific -- could we use that on flyers advertising the seedling sale or what if (when) we start growing flowers?

Anyway, yesterday Peter got interviewed for a video a foundation in Boston is making about shared medical decision making. The camera crew came and walked all over the house and the property, and guess where they chose to film the interview?

Yup, the high drive. So these experts in visual arts pick the site that is our logo -- maybe we should keep it.

Behind them in the photo above is the finished! end wall of the second greenhouse.

Henry

Henry is three months old today! Happy birthday Henry!!

Plastic is on

We hired two pros, Robert and Jeremy, to finish most of the serious construction on the greenhouse. With Peter's surgery and all, it was the only hope of getting the greenhouse finished this spring. Robert and Jeremy were awesome, getting a huge amount of work done including putting the two layers of plastic on. That's a difficult job because you have to maneuver heavy rolls of plastic while balanced on the purlins of the greenhouse. I definitely had lost some sleep worrying about how we were going to get that done safely this year. They made it look easy though.

The furnace, fuel tank and electricity need to be done still. Robert and Jeremy got the furnace and fuel tank in there, but setting them up needs to wait till the snow melts and the subsequent mud resolves, which should only take a few sunny days. And there are other pieces to finish, but we are shockingly close, considering.

Waverly asked Robert and Jeremy each, "What your favorite Mother Goose Rhyme is", which she loves to ask people these days. Robert's is Humpty Dumpty and Jeremy's is the Cat and the Fiddle (my favorite too). Waverly's -- and Peter's -- favorite is Old King Cole.

New greenhouse furnace

The new greenhouse furnace is here!! It is 278 pounds so getting it off the truck (it was delivered by semi) was a big adventure. We (the truck driver and I) couldn't figure out how to get it off onto the ground so we unloaded it onto the back of our pickup truck which was less of a drop but still more than enough of a challenge! To go from changing diapers and nursing the baby to maneuvering a large heavy furnace was cool, and I was proud to show off a little to Waverly who was banging excitedly on the window the whole time.

Farm girl

My favorite Waverly quote from breakfast this morning:

"I want to be a dinosaur when I grow up. . . . No, I want to be a lion when I grow up."

Honorable mention (apropos of nothing):

"Cows poop out their butts in the field."

Farm wife

Since we have owned the farm, I have been either pregnant or nursing. So while I've definitely done physical work on the farm, the bulk of it, especially the really heavy lifting, has fallen to Peter. I've focussed more on marketing and bookkeeping etc. (You can work on the computer and nurse at the same time, as I am doing right now.)

The back surgery, though, has changed that, at least for a while. Yesterday found me trying to wrestle 150 pound huge rolls of greenhouse plastic and heavy, unwieldy stacks of pots out of the truck, and Peter working on the capital budget and watching the (sleeping) baby.

Role reversal can be good for any partnership. I tend to fuss at Peter about how we need to be better organized and efficient, but as I was rushing to try to unpack the truck before the baby woke up, I found myself dumping things wherever I could get them to in the barn to at least have them out of the truck and out of the snow.

Peter says this post needs a concluding sentence, and I can't think or what to write except that for me this was just another reminder that life is not a dress rehearsal. I mean that I don't need to wait till we are all organized and efficient and know what we're doing to enjoy the farm. It was actually fun to try to figure out how to move heavy, unwieldy objects.

Summer dreams

Something to think about on a cold February morning. Oh, and this too.

Home Day 2

Well, I am much less groggy than when I made that last post. And I have felt exponentially better each of the last two mornings. But I guess spine surgery takes a lot out of you, because I am not exactly out throwing bales of hay down from the loft, or shoveling compost. I am not sure what I expected, but I am still at the "take a few ginger steps then need to lie down because I am exhausted" stage. But hey, I don't have the level 6 or 7 (out of 10) daily pain that I had been living with for the last six months, so I will take this, even with the slow recovery, over the chronic pain experience.

Somewhere in here there is a post about how this experience has changed my view of the medical establishment, but I think that will have to wait, because I am actually going to go lie down for a while.