My Cherry Amore

Ah, summer. Warm breeze, blue sky and succulent cherries. My favorite are the yellowish ones on top. They are a variety called Yellow Spanish. So sweet and juicy.

Wonderful Watering Wand

Yes I'm a dork for noticing but this is the best watering wand design I've come across. So what makes it so good. Mostly it's the pull trigger on/off mechanism. It allows for one handed operation of the wand. (My other hand is busy pulling the hose as I walk down the row.) Also, the telescoping shaft is nice. I can reach out further - almost twice as far. So it takes less trips through the garden to water all the rows. Better yet would be an all metal design. The plastic parts I know won't last long.

Going to Auction

Loaded up are fourteen lambs bound for auction. It's a job to get the flock rounded up, and sorted. When cutting out the lambs I found it easiest just to grab them up one by one. Each was about one hundred pounds. We got a good price for them too - above a dollar a pound. Anything over a dollar Carla considers good.

Meet Nick Rutledge

On last Saturday I went up to Springfield, Oregon. There on an urban farm lives Nick Rutledge. He's quite an interesting man. A plant man like myself, he's a fun conversationalist - especially with his English accent. On that day, Nick was co-hosting a discussion of winter gardening. And being new to the Northwest, I was excited to attend. Of particular interest to me are the 'grex' mixes Nick is working on. Essentially, a 'grex' mix is a grow out of many different varieties of the same plant. When they flower they cross pollinate. And when that seed is grown out over a few years, many interesting new varieties emerge. Nick shared some kale seed with me that originated from a grow out of fourteen different European varieties. I'm interested to see what will emerge and I'm glad to call Nick Rutledge my friend.

Grapes, Old School

Here is a nice shot of a fraction of Nick's grape collection. I find what makes them interesting is the way in which they're raised. Rather than using modern trellising, these vines are trained to a single post. That's it. No wire. It's the way the Romans did it - old school. Every spring, the canes are cut back to two buds. And every year the trunk gets a bit thicker. Also, pictured are some cabbages to the right and some tomatoes in the two rows off to the left.

Wild Hogs

Got to host a work party today. What a good group of people. All hard workers. Hey, even got to hang out with a fellow Kansan. At far left, Patrick hails from the town of Courtland, Kansas. Grade A marks to him. We were literally running to get the last two runs cleaned of blackberries. Can't speak highly enough of his effort and the efforts of all the rest. The orchard looks so much better. Actually, it looks like a bunch of wild hogs went through it - in a good way. All around what a beautiful day.

Chicken Tractor

After a few late nights working once up till one in the morning (in a soaking rain no less), there is now a new coop for my ten chicks. It is called a chicken tractor. It has no permanent foundation. Everyday it is pulled ten feet to a new spot. The chickens get new grass to eat and I don't have to scoop poop. In all the structure is 10 ft x 5 ft x 2.5 ft tall. It is framed with wood 2x2 that I ripped with a circular saw. Actually, the whole thing is built with found scrap from around the farm. So the cost was a refreshing $0. Well, I guess it cost me some sleep, but it was worth it. The chickens are much happier.

Crash

Rain. Rain. Rain. Nick said two inches fell on Wednesday and Thursday of last week. And with all that water softening the soil and coating the leaves, two massive oaks fell slicing the old chicken coop neatly in half. Now five days later 10 of 13 chickens are caught, quite a bit of firewood has been cut, and what remained was pushed into a pile and burned. All that is left is a big pile of ashes.