Sunday, June 28, 2009

Weekend Review

The present incarnation of Palace Poultry. It's been a really windy, cool spring/summer, so Himself got some lumber-tarps from the local Co-Op building supply, and we tuck them in. Behind you'll see Farm Security Headquarters, manned by one or the other of the Cherubic Infants through the night. Usually. The coyotes are incredibly noisy, as is the donkey who lives half a mile down the road, so every now and then the sleep deprivation levels become so dire that we leave the chickens to fend for themselves and let the children sleep indoors. Not that I want them to get used to that sort of soft living. I'd like a sewing room, and I'm trying to convince one or both that they'd find ample, unparented space in the auction mart. So far, no takers.

Haven't lost any more birdies. They were only on the antibiotics for a week to get them past the pneumonia, and now we're just adding some vitamin/mineral supplement to their water. Praise be! That every-morning-death-cart experience was getting to me.

Bless the potatoes. Nothing else come up except the potatoes and dill, so they're lovely green oases in the sea of dust. This weekend I gave up hope in ever seeing any of our original seedings, so I dug up some beds and replanted. 55 days to maturity for the beets, so I figure we can squeak through a season, even if we don't manage to construct any row-cover to extend the growing time. That, and peas. And maybe carrots too. I put another bed of those in.


The mice have been freely exploring the spilled grain, and sometimes get themselves trapped in the five-gallon buckets that litter our farm. When the kids find them, they pop the kitten in with it to "homeschool" him into hunting, but so far he hasn't got the gist. Not for lack of his mother trying either. She's a ferocious huntress. She'll learn him eventually, I'm sure.

Other than that, reviewing and re-memorizing my muscles and A&P for the fall when I start school again, a few clients now and then, reading books about Chinese medicine, and Joseph Campbell, and Diana Wynne Jones. I seem to keep busy.

And now it's bedtime, right? Zzzz....

2 comments:

clairesgarden said...

good work getting your garden growing, I'll be having to re-sow carrots and beetroot, no idea why they didn'come up as a row of turnips came up in the same bed. your life there looks very busy and very good!!

Madcap said...

Hi Claire,

Yup, pretty busy, though not as busy as some. Or at least, I don't get that much accomplished! I think I'm not very efficient!

We're finally getting rain here, not soon enough to save a lot of crops, but enough to kick-start the gardens. Whew!