It felt kind-of like a “normal” farm around here this week. We had our wheat thrashed with an actual combine, no harvesting by hand (with market garden farming everything except our peas and beans are harvested by hand). Getting the wheat thrashed takes a little pressure off, but kept the farmer busy with “normal” farm work instead of the market gardening type of work. It feels good to check a harvest off of the to do list and have it be done for the year. Now to swath the straw, bale and stack it, water the stubble and let the pigs out in the field.
Speaking of pigs, we are having issues with pigs. We have not been able to keep them in this week. Apparently the old saying is true, it’s greener on the other side of the fence. We have spent a lot of time putting the pigs in and fixing fence. Some say that pigs respect a hot wire. Well, ours don’t! They go right through the hot wire, lift the panels up, destroy the woven wire (they will go through and destroy three fences in 30 seconds flat!) and go where they please. . . . which has been into the squash and corn patch. So we will have very little corn and winter squash this year thanks to the pigs.
So that leaves us thinking: what to do now? What to do differently around here? And most importantly, how to manage pigs that don’t want to be managed?
For the market garden farming, the ladybugs have arrived! The kale is not on
ly covered with aphids now. It is also covered with ladybugs that are feasting on aphids. The ladybugs are not as abundant as the aphid population, but the ladybugs are plentiful and busy feasting. It is a beautiful site to see from our point of view.
And the apricots are ripe and plentiful! The sweet taste of fruit in the summer is so pleasing and such an easy snack. When we get hungry when we are out working, we simply stop by the apricot tree to have feast of apricots. And now to think of recipes to use apricots.
waiting and having no control of what happens next . . . . we are at the mercy of someone else or a higher power and we have no idea how the day, weeks, months or even the year will turn out. From my experience with the farming life, it is like riding a roller coaster with the faith that you will make it to the end of the ride. There are lots of ups and downs
the chickens do. The ducks are staying in their safe zone we are calling it. They are keeping themselves contained to the back, out behind the yard and around beside the garden. At this point they are so well behaved, they are the favorite animal of the farm. They have access to a ditch and love playing in the water. And we love to hear them splashing around and quacking merrily. They are not laying eggs yet, but are keeping the grass and weeds ate down so I don’t have to do any mowing or weed-eating back there. That means less work for me, they aren’t destroying my yard or garden and they don’t scratch. That makes for a very happy farm wife!
eppers very soon. The eggplants are blooming their beautiful purple blooms too. The corn is growing taller and loving the heat we have had. The melons are really sprawling and growing too. We have even seen a few baby melons on a few of the plants. We are looking forward to lots of vegetables and melons.
Agrarian Harvest 