cold-frame

There is a time for everything . . . A time to plant and a time to uproot . . . What do workers gain from their toil? . . . He (God) has made everything beautiful in its time. . . . There is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil – this is the gift of God. Ecclesiastes 3:1-13

There are many cycles in life. And it is time for us start our cycle of planting, growing and toiling, which we pray will have a beautiful and blessed outcome. With the time change and a little warmer temperatures, we are more motivated to get to work and work longer into the evening. Lettuce is growing in cold frame 1. We built a third cold frame this Spring. This is where most of the seedlings are going to be started. Planting is already underway and seedlings are coming up. Potatoes are planted too. We will be planting many more seeds in the near future. DSCN9903

Cold frame 2 has been taken over by the cows. They decided it is a nice warm “shed” to take shelter in when a storm hits and where they spent their nights during the winter. We decided to let the cows have that cold frame for the time being. It is our largest cold frame and also our most problematic one. It’s so large it is hard to keep the plastic on it, the plastic rips or wind picks the whole thing up. Really, it’s issue is the height; it’s just too tall. We have decided we like and can maintain the shorter longer cold frames better. And have had a discussion of a abandoning it or taking it down. Although, the farmer is now talking about experimenting with growing sweet potatoes in cold frame 2 this year. So the cows may lose their “shed” for the summer. They spend most their days and nights out at pasture now anyway since the weather has warmed and the grass is growing.

Another cycle taking place on the farm; chicks are hatched. They are in that cute phase of life with yellow fuzz covering their bodies and have adorable little “cheep, cheeps” coming from their tiny beaks. In the near future, they will lose their baby fuzz and start to grow feathers; growing into that awkward, ugly phase. Then into a full sized bird so we can have chickens available in June.

The seasons will keep cycling along with all the other cycles of life, but for a brief moment, we can look around and smile at all the joy that Spring brings before the real work begins.

For most of January, farming took a backseat to house issues and maintenance. We discovered we had a toilet leaking on the second floor of our house. This leak also did damage to the dining room ceiling. After investigating the issue, we figured out the plumbing was not done correctly. We checked one of our other toilets, and it was leaking too. We have a third bathroom that we have not tore into yet, but that bathroom has been remodeled since the house was built so we’re hoping that the plumbing was updated with the remodel. So we’ve had two bathrooms tore apart and are working on putting them back together. Then the wiring in our well shorted and caught fire. Three issues in one month . . . crossing our fingers and hoping we are done these home issues. I’m told it happens in threes.

When the farmer realized we had issues with plumbing, he wanted to cry. That is his least favorite home improvement project to work on, especially when it involves tearing out sheetrock and the sub-floor. And with the mild winter we are having, the farmer has been really antsy to be outside getting things done, not in the house tearing bathrooms apart to work on plumbing and replacing floors. So he split his time between house projects and farm projects; one or two days working on bathrooms and then a couple days of farm projects. The farm wife gets really cranky when her house is tore up and especially when it’s the toilet that is out of commission.

Normally, this time of year we have snow on the ground, it’s froze and there is not much to do but order seeds and plan when we want to start the seedlings in the cold frame. But this winter has been very different with mild temperatures and little precipitation. We put up a second cold-frame, got the plastic on it and still need to get plastic on our original cold-frame. We finished pulling up the last of that ridiculous plastic row cover that we put down last year. And amazingly, the ground is not frozen and dry enough that the farmer ripped, roto-tilled and marked out one of our fields. That is just crazy that we are working the ground the first of February!

DSCN9408 — Chickens follow the farmer as he tills the ground.

It was the first week of February when I wrote this post, when we had Spring-like temperatures and we worked the ground. The following week, when I’m posting this, it is back to Winter. There is snow on the ground and things are frozen again. Time once again to stay inside to work on bathrooms.

February Happenings:

Put plastic on the cold-frame that we start our bedding plants in
Broiler chicks arrive
Get some lettuce and spinach planted

Agrarian Harvest

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Time to Plant

January Juggle