Terrabyte Farm

It was a really nice weekend here, temps in the 60s and a bright blue sky.  It was a bit blustery, with our open fields and slightly elevated position, the winds can be very strong.  However, it will likely be very nice to have some cool breezes come summer.  We had a productive weekend.  We put up our hammock, Jackson’s tire-swing and Charlotte’s baby-swing.  While Charlotte and I rested, Mike and Jackson put together our four rocking chairs for the front porch, a house warming gift from Mike’s parents.  We also started letting the cows out into the main portion of the property to take advantage of the lush green grass.  The first day was pretty funny, the cows made several loops looking at everything: the garden, pigs, shed, etc.  Now they have pretty much seen everything and just eat the grass.  We haven’t yet worked out how we will rotate them throughout the property, ideally they would graze on small sections at a time until they cover the whole field.  For now, this seems to be working.

We also put up our grape arbor with the help of our neighbor and his augur for the tractor.  Tomorrow morning I will plant the grapes as well as some horseradish, rhubarb, and cranberry plants.  We still haven’t planted our mushrooms, but hopefully that will happen this week.  I am still waiting to get potatoes, onions, shallots, sweet potatoes, and another 30 or so fruit trees in.  Once that is done, we will shift to planting seeds, the survivors from our seedling experiment (just the peppers have made it), and some seedlings from a local organic farmer.  Our grow tunnel also arrives next week, we likely will not put it to full use until the end of the summer, we hope to plant a fall crop of veggies in it.  Also, the rest of our geese, ducks, and turkeys get here Wednesday.  Bees arrive on May 1st and by that time, things may just slow down around here, if only by a little.  It is so hard getting started, it feels like just when you have finished one thing, you are on to the next, but I keep thinking how amazing it will be once we get through this first year.  We have accomplished so much and set such a strong foundation.  Even when it is hard, it is still fun, and that feeling of rightness always pervades.  We haven’t once questioned this choice, it feels so good to have found your true calling.

We took lots of great pics this weekend, make sure to check them out here.