Successes!

I thought that I should quickly update again, since the last blog entry was mostly about our farming trials and tribulations. The last two days have been incredibly productive, and we’re feeling much more confident about everything out here on the farm. Due to delays (and our own late start), we are a bit behind in our sowing schedule, but these spring rains might also keep us from actually planting too soon. The ground was drying some today, but a few more drenching rains could be coming in the next week. Spring is impossible to predict. Last year we spent Easter at Holden (a community at 3,200 ft elevation in the North Cascades)—on Good Friday the ground was almost cleared, and on Holy Saturday over two feet of wet snow fell in one day. I’m always on my toes in spring.

Anyhow, our recent successes: we completed our new hot house! Although our carpentry work is rough, we’re proud of how sturdy and functional it is. Today a stiff wind picked up in the afternoon, and the house barely noticed. Plus, every piece of the house (walls, plastic, bows, etc.) can come apart easily to be moved, either to another site at Seven Spoke or to another property should we buy land. And the scale is so much more manageable for the two of us than the Haygrove ever would have been.

(Above) So, here it is, finally completed. The door to the left ‘slides’ in place for warmth at night, but we think we’ll leave it open most days. The flats were at 90 degrees this afternoon. Beautiful.

Yes, I do work on the farm! Casey gets to be the star of most of our photos, since I’m usually the one with a free hand to pull out the camera. But here’s one of me, moving around some flats in the house.

In terms of construction, we used many of the Haygrove pieces and concepts on this little mini-house. As you can see in these two photos, we used rope to attach plastic to the metal bows. On the right, you can see how we tied the ropes to eye-bolts attached to the base of each bow. The coolest part about this system is that it’s really easy to get the plastic tight, and we’ve put zero holes into the plastic (reusable!). Plus, we’ll be able to push up the sides a few feet in the summer heat to add more ventilation. As I mentioned in my previous post, this ‘design’ of ours is a hybrid between the Nordell’s ‘portahoopies’ and the Haygrove—it’s small and super easy to build like the Nordell’s, but the rope method is Haygrove-inspired.

I’m almost embarrassed to be so proud of this, since this is kind of late in the season for a first sowing, but we’re proud all the same: see that little yellow box? See the little squiggly thing inside it? That’s our first germinating seed! Kale! Exciting, indeed.

Another random shot: the seed potatoes ‘chitting’ (preparing to sprout) in one of our outbuildings.

And, finally, now that we’re feeling better about everything we can share a dramatic image of one of our recent ‘lessons’: don’t water in newly sown soil blocks in the dark during a thunderstorm!!!!!!!! Fortunately this is the only tray that looks mushy like this, but we’re not super optimistic about these seeds’ chance of survival. We’re re-sowing them tomorrow.