April showers.....

We got out just in time for the last day of the sap run.  Cassidy had asked to tap some trees, and we kinda forgot, and then this Sunday, she said "When are we going to tap the trees?"  We ran out and hung a few buckets, and the sap just gushed out of the holes! for one day!  Mission accomplished though, for her having the experience.  We'll be more on it next year.

Here I am cutting seed potatoes.  That's what they're called, but they are really just potatoes.  They are sold as "seed" because potatoes sold for planting, have to be tested for diseases and funguses, to ensure we aren't introducing those maladies into our fields .

That's adirondack red I'm holding... blue gold, yukon gem, purple viking.  The early potatoes.  We planted them the 14th of April.  I have some nice high dry land, and I often get on that way before any one else around can be driving a tractor on theirs.  A little early to be planting potatoes, but we put row cover over them, and I'm hoping it will mean new potatoes by 4th of July.

John Shreiber from Rosemont Produce came up for a visit!  Rosemont Produce and Stonecipher farm, have both grown a lot in the past few years, and grown together.  The Rosemont stores do an awesome job getting local and organic produce out to Portland and the area, and keep the prices good for the farmers!  John came up to see the seedlings and the field, as well as the new facilities.  As long as he was here, I had him help me pull the broke down tractor with the running one.

There's me jumping off Keith's old Same, runnin back to my Deere, to fill another load of manure.  Keith is an old dairy man, 5th generation on his farm.  Long hard go he's had.  Everything's old and beat to shit at Keith's farm.  Just the same, Keith has been helping me from day one of my farming here.  This day, the spreader broke....

This is what it looks like when it works.  There are lots of good jokes to make while executing this task....it's a real shit show!

Manure is real hard on steel.  The rust on this old machine ate through the vital parts over the winter.  Later this day, the head hydraulic piston that pushes the load back, took it's last hit against the floor that had dropped down onto it, and it cracked.  Keith and I worked on it for a day... and at the end of that day, the decision was made ... the old spreader is gettin pushed back into the woods,  at the grave yard behind Keith's silage pit.

It's a big deal.  It really sucks for Keith.  It's one more insult to the injuries that beat the crap out of him his whole life, trying to make a living selling milk in Maine.  Keith can't afford to fix the thing to the point where it could be reliable again.  He doesn't need it bad enough.  Just part of the slow death that is his farm.

Don't they grow! Just about ready to move out of their brooder.  All feathered out, they are much more resilient, and able to fend.  Getting them to this point, is the hardest part.  Especially with nights in the 20's and days in the 30's.  We'll move them to a section of the bigger hen house, where they will be able to fly around a little... in a month or more, we'll start letting them out.

All these green house photos look like a dream sequence because it was cold out today, and the greenhouse is all tropical and humid, so the camera steamed up.

None of these plants have moved since the last posting, so take a look at that photo, and then this one.  It's only been 2 weeks!  It's amazing what a giant plastic building and $200 of propane a week can do!  All those little plants think it's summer!

I'm building another little hoop house, as an unheated space to segue the plants out to the field.  So as soon as that's done (tomorrow?) half the plants in the heated house will move out to that one.  It's called "hardening off" because it eases them into the actual climate that they are going to meet when they get put in the ground, in a week.  More importantly, it frees up space for all the other plants hot on their tail, that need table space in there!

In the foreground there, is the peppers, and behind them the tomatoes.  In another 2 weeks you won't be able to see the pots!  The pressure in on to get those high tunnels I bought last year, up already! so I can plant them out under plastic as soon as possible. I can't do it alone, so I'm waiting for the arrival of my crew, which is gonna be none too soon!


I did get the rest of the manure spread.  Another guy rescued me with his huge side slinger.  He came down on a Sunday, and slung shit all the way into the rain.  The Monday, I got it disced down just ahead of that torrential down pour we got Tuesday.  Haven't been able to get on the fields since.

I seeded into the field on Monday too!  Some greens, lots of turnips, radishes, beets, and carrots.  The weather hasn't been great to them, but I have faith that they'll make it.  Got the favas in last week, and row covered, so they think it's a little balmier than it really is... almost Mediterranean you might say.... trick them into thinkin their back in Italy.