Farm life is keeping us busy and distracted from the chaos of the world.
This week, we’ve not only continued to keep eyes on the Coronavirus evolution, but we’re also watching protests of the George Floyd murder from a distance. The heartbreaking events of the last week have weighed on me more than I can really describe. I’ve been sad, frustrated, anxious, angry, exhausted and more.
I’m overwhelmingly grateful for the farm. I’m grateful for the people that surround us. I’m grateful for our perspective on the world from living in the inner city, traveling and more. I’m crushed for those hurting – and I’m so unsure of how to be helpful.
So, instead, we’ve been buried in the work this week. Not only is my day job insane (luckily so!), the garden is cruising toward harvest. Nearly every square foot of the garden is planted with something. It’s incredible. Many of the plants are thriving. Many of the seeds are launching sprouts from the ground. It’s a beautiful mosaic of green.
I’ve weeded the whole North garden by hand. Basket on basket of green weeds has been turned into the compost pile.
After all of last week’s rain, the livestock all needed clean pens. A small mountain of straw and cow manure is now drying next to the pole barn. Eventually it can be incorporated as the “browns” in the compost as well. The chicken coop got a sweep, rinse and fresh bedding. You guessed it – the old bedding gets composted too! The chicken run got a brand new layer of hardwood playground chips. What was a very smelly post-rain mess quickly smells amazing and looks fantastic. Sure, it was purely reactionary but our quick research and solution was magical.
Aaron also hung the chicken’s water fount from the top of the chicken run to help minimize the mess inside and outside. We’re reworking the feeders a bit to minimize waste. Hopefully, the next week or so will really give the chickens some epic upgrades in their fancy-pants palace.
Three new kittens have joined the farm: Mackall, Benning and Bragg. They’re awesome. They are slowly exploring the new digs and really enjoying pouncing through the potatoes while I weed the garden. The dogs are getting used to their new friends. So far, all is great.
Aaron has been hard at work on all kinds of new goodies. We have a brand-spanking-new trellis for the peas that is absolutely gorgeous. He’s going to build more to provide a blind for the rain barrel. He’s been engineering new solutions for feeding the chickens. Plus, he spent about 6 hours mowing the very tall yard the other day. The odd jobs never seem to end.