I'm going to give a brief synopsis of the past couple of months along with some photos to catch up.
January
Gavin (our new apprentice) and his girlfriend Angela moved onto the farm, spent a day shoveling chicken manure from a nearby farm to add to our compost (it smells like the flatulents of a big man digesting a block of cheddar cheese - no joke!), fruit tree pruning, pruning of perennial herbs and flowers, direct seeded spinach (soaked the seed overnight first)and carrots in a greenhouse, watered the carrot beds with warm water every morning to aid germination, became the master at pretzel making, Holger taught and Gavin and I how to make sourdough bread, Gavin, Angela and I instituted Sunday night dinners and Wednesday Movie Nights making for a very happy social Natalie. Yay! No more lonely nights knitting by the fire!
February
Seedy Saturdays begin (we travel to different locations on Vancouver Island to sell our seeds), packaged tons more seeds, had an excavator come and pull out huge stumps from the new property and we got to tend and feed huge fires all day! It was amazing to climb on top of huge piles of stumps and push them down into the flames...I didn't realize I am such a pyro!, began harvesting salad again (started out with 2lbs a week and now we are at 5...come the summer we will be harvesting close to 40!), my carrots and spinach germinated!, went to a workshop on biointensive farming on Saltspring Island, had a concert in the farmhouse to celebrate Bob Marley's birthday (Marika's band played along with a couple other folks...Gavin, Angela, and I also performed "No Woman, No Cry" in a bluegrass style to feature my spoon playin...poor guy rolled over in his grave), had a surprise dinner for Gavin's birthday, Colin moved onto the farm, soil blocked lettuce (to eventually be saved for seed), onions, leeks, shallots, mustards, broccoli, kale, peas, fava beans and put them to germinate on a heat tables in a greenhouse, germinated tomato seeds by placing them in wet paper towels in plastic bags on the printer for several days, I killed the sourdough starter by not setting any aside to use for the next round (I was viewed as a failure by all and labeled as a yeast murderer), went to West Palm Beach, Fl for my cousin's wedding and had a big family reunion, came back and seeded flowers in trays to germinate at different temperatures on the heat tables (65-70 degrees), and continued weeding the flower bed next to the trailer. And that's it! Whew! Big month.
Now for the pictures:
Weeding next to the trailer...come spring it will be full of flowers!
Gavin and Angela
Pretzels!
Gordy and Leslie (I knit with Leslie once a week)
Playing the spoons at our farm concert
Tool Sharpening
Gavin's Rat Trapping Extravaganza!!!
