The road(s) less travelled...
Two days away from the start of our summer CSA and things around here are beyond crazy. Our wash station construction has been pushed back (which we knew would happen) so we have been scrambling to organize a makeshift wash station and cold room for the interim. We managed to do it with two days to spare and while it’s not pretty, it’ll work. We are both really looking forward to the future wash/storage station but it is definitely our biggest infrastructure project and we need to take the time to do it right so there’s nothing to change a few years down the road. The old garage has been demolished, the permits have been obtained, the new base has been done and all our roof trusses are here. Over the next few months we'll just whip up a nice lil' permanent wash area bigger than our house. No big deal. ;)
The insanity on the farm also comes from the fact that we are slowly introducing some animals to our farm-ily (with squeals of delight coming from our siblings and eye-rolls coming from all the parents). We recently got 7 laying hens to get more experience with egg production so (hopefully) in the future we can offer eggs for sale. This means the old (and very cluttered and dirty) barn on the property needed to be emptied and fixed up. This was not a small task. It has decades of farm stuff and junk accumulated in it and has taken us months to clean. However, I am very happy to say that most of it is now looking pretty good and we built a nice indoor coop and outdoor area for the animals. The gals are loving life being well protected and having a big area to dig for insects. Winnie is in need of some training since she has an extremely high prey drive but luckily she’s a smart pooch. And also we have adequate fencing….
Our biggest issue still seems to be road access. In order to get our wash station materials delivered we were told that our road (only sand) needed to be paved with larger gravel. So we did and it definitely made it better. Then the back road to our growing field turned from a mess to a complete disaster. Our tractor started getting stuck every time we tried to go back there. While we don’t mind walking back there at this point in the season we need to bring hundreds of trays back there to be transplanted not to mention our harvests which happen about four days a week. And so, yet again, we need to make another road. We will be making a new road with access over a small hill and just totally bypassing the old sink hole of a road. Hopefully this can get done this week and we can cross road #2 off our list.
So between the barn, the animals, the wash station, the cold room, and getting our CSA organized I must say we are tired (understatement of the year). That being said we are also pretty excited. It feels like we have been concentrating on getting all our infrastructure projects ready that we have completely neglected what we love doing – growing vegetables. However, our field is all set. All our raised beds are built, we have put up all our tunnels, our irrigation system has been installed, and our beds are full with vegetables. With the CSA underway we can refocus our attention to the growing field. And allll the weeds that have happily made it their home.
With love,
Jennie, Chris, and Winnie the farm pup
And introducing (in no particular order)...Francene, Betty, Veronica, Sweet Midge, Bertha, Mama Red, and Phyllis