Farm Life: April 2007 Archives

I did. Peaches. Blueberries. Apples. HAY, for crying out loud. All of it, frozen and worthless because of this cold weather. With more on the way for this weekend.

Blackberries are the only fruit we've got left for the year. That's a dent in the ol' wallet.

All of the blueberry plants were in full bloom last week after two weeks of glorious warm weather. And all of those plants now have withered, brittle blooms after the deep freeze that hit last weekend.

I will be very surprised if we get enough fruit from 260 bushes to make a couple of pies, some smoothies, and if we're really blessed, I might be able to freeze a couple of quarts for the off-season. There won't be enough to sell at market.

My potato plants are looking like goners, too. The leaves are mostly dark brown and the stems seem soft, which I can't think is a good sign. Never having grown potatoes before, I'm not exactly sure what a dead plant looks like, but I'll be shocked if any of them survived. The wheat straw mulch, although applied thickly, does not seem to have worked. I should've gone with plastic. Rookie mistake. I don't know....it was so cold for four days, it might not have made a difference.

To say that I'm crushed is a bit of an understatement right now. I'm pretty heavily crushed.

I read this piece in Slate today (hat tip: Drudge) on how there is no perfect temperature anywhere in the world and all this climate change hysteria is out of control. Here are the money quotes as far as this little dirt farmer from NGA is concerned:

The earth is always warming or cooling by as much as a few tenths of a degree a year; periods of constant average temperatures are rare. Looking back on the earth's climate history, it's apparent that there's no such thing as an optimal temperature--a climate at which everything is just right. The current alarm rests on the false assumption not only that we live in a perfect world, temperaturewise, but also that our warming forecasts for the year 2040 are somehow more reliable than the weatherman's forecast for next week.

After refilling water jars and feeders at night, I like to talk to my chickens. It seems they listen to what I have to say (which doesn't happen often around here) and several of them have become quite brave, coming up and investigating my hand or looking me over at length as I sit and talk.

I made a little noise tonight with my mouth, the kind of tongue/roof of mouth/lip thing I'm always telling the boys to stop making. The two or three hens right in front of me froze, tilted their heads and looked at me. I made the noise a little faster and louder, and a hush fell over the brooder pen as every single chicken stopped still, stretched it's neck out and turned it's head sideways to listen.

I've never seen so many necks stretched out so tall! Each was trying to out-stretch the next one, but they were silent and still otherwise as they listened to my noise. I switched to another mouth sound, a little faster, and their necks dropped back into regular position. When I started to talk to them again, they all loosened up and started slowly back to whatever it was they were doing before I entranced them.

I felt very powerful, just for a minute. Then I went back upstairs to wash the dinner dishes and reality came crashing back in.

On April 6, tonight, we experienced a brief snow shower at 9pm. The temperature tonight is targeted to hit 28F, with Saturday night's low dropping to 24F. I can't remember it this cold this late. I'm sure it has been, but certainly not since we've been farming!

Every blueberry bush is already in full bloom. Mike and Mom and a couple of the offspring covered up the largest ones with sheets. Our only irrigation is a drip tube at the base of the plant; the other huge blueberry producer two counties over has overhead sprayers in place to intermittently shower water on the blooms to protect them right at 32F. We do not have that option.

And I didn't even think about the honeybees! We're six hives down already with the colony collapse going on, and if another one is lost to the bitter cold.......will there be enough bee action to pollinate the blooms, assuming there are any remaining after this deep freeze?

So I pray. I pray that God will protect our blossoms and the fruit they will yield, and that He will be glorified in our crop success or failure. He knows what we need, how much fruit we can handle and I trust Him to provide it.

Tomorrow, construction of the chicken pens. Pics to follow.

Is it my imagination, or does this Araucana hen have an Elizabeth-Taylor-as-Queen-Cleopatra eye liner thing going on? This little beauty will be four weeks old on Sunday and her feathers are coming in unevenly, making her look not unlike an awkward preteen with a strange hairdo.

In fact, the whole flock reminds me of pre-teenagers. They all look funny, they sleep late, they are eating me out of house and home, and there are quite a few "disagreements" over territory that usually involve belly bumping and loud squawking. Sounds like middle school to me.

We're one month closer to farm fresh pastured eggs than we've ever been before. And I'm excited.

Sunday brought us a wonderfully wet day with slow soft showers from early morning until middle of the afternoon. The seeds we planted Saturday got watered in pretty well and we irrigated again on Monday evening just to keep them moist. Meanwhile, the beans in the raised beds have already sprouted. And those seeds were left overs from late last summer!

Last night brought more rain and some thunder/lightening, too, pretty late. Got the Jim Cantore phone call from the Weather Channel at 12:00 midnight saying there was a thunderstorm warning for our area for the next hour. I really like that feature they offer and the fee is not much. Living with no TV for a month and keeping the radio off, too, makes for an uninformed housewife. On most things lately, that's good. On severe weather, not so much. And doubly so in the middle of the night!

Anyway, I strawed the potatoes again and I need to transplant the lettuce, if it's not already past the point at which that will work. I'm not much of a salad gardener; I'm much better with beans and tomatoes, but I love the greens (from a consumption perspective) and therefore I need to acquire some experience. Will document the success (or failure) of that project upon it's completion.