In the Greenhouse

Today was a day to work out in the greenhouse.  I pulled out all the plants, topped off all the pots with a mix of potting soil, compost, and coffee grounds.  I planted three kinds of tomatoes (might be too late in the year, but worth a try), bok choy, three kinds of basil, winter squash, lettuce, and cucumbers (also late in the year). 

I planted sweet potato slips under the ti leaves and in the pile of compost left over from the potting pile dumped by my husband.  There are still quite a lot of slips to plant, but we're not quite done with layering the compost on the outside garden. 

One of the Buff Orpingtons is standing on one leg.  I can't really see anything wrong with her leg - no sores, swellings, or breaks, but the ewe's not limping anymore.  Odd. 

Near Death Experience

Well, not really - I didn't see any lights or actually have a physical brush with death. 

Kind of disappointed in myself that my almost last words were "Holy" and an obscenity.  My husband says I should be happy that at least I got the Holy in there. 

I picked up my niece who is on an exchange with our local university this semester and was driving her up the mountain to ride Gibby this afternoon.  Two cars were turning right onto a road and decided to drive on the shoulder which obstructed the view of the truck who wished to make a left turn onto the highway.  As I passed the cars which were on the shoulder, the truck pulled out right in front of me.  I had no time to brake, so I swerved (while saying my almost last words).  Tires squealing, I thought I would lose control of the car, but I swerved back into my proper lane.  If there'd been an oncoming car, I would have had to run right into the truck, but thankfully, there wasn't. 

Since my car is so small, I think my front end would have gone under the big pick-up and my niece and I would have been killed.  Even the airbags wouldn't have helped. If I'd been driving our SUV, I would have for sure hit him - the smaller car has great maneuverability - but we wouldn't have died.  I guess I am glad I had the maneuverable car because we got to come home and ride.

Riding is always important - and it took my mind right off the near car accident. 

Gibby did well - he's really stiff on the right, so we worked on circles (my niece and my daughter who are novice riders) and side passes (me).  I found that it isn't the mounting that he minds, it's the person stepping in the stirrups.  When I gave the girls a leg up, he did great.  He knew the rain was coming and started getting a little antsy after 90 minutes (walking pretty much exclusively) in the arena. 

I spent the first few days of my school break on Oahu.  I had a follow-up with the breast care center and I got to see my daughter and my parents and a few friends who live in my hometown.  I also walked/ran 20 miles over three days - 10 in just one of the days.  It started me thinking about trying a marathon.  One of the friends I saw has run in over 30 marathons - as well as had a marathon battle with an inherited kidney disease and cancer.  She's always been an inspiration - and ever since I saw her run a marathon when we were in middle school, I have wanted to do just one.  It will take me a long, long, long time to finish, but at least it will be a goal I accomplished. 

Maybe I will do it. 

Phew!

A much needed (by my farm) break from school is coming up.  Although I am heading to Oahu for a follow-up to my mammogram scare last March, when I come back I plan to pull all the dried out, sad looking plants from my greenhouse and work on the outside garden and the taro bed, too.  It's just a little early for the broccoli-type stuff, but I can put in a few other brassica and lettuce.  I have quite a few taro huli hanging around in buckets that need to be planted.  I need to come up with more of a routine that works during the school terms, because I lose a lot of productivity during those times. 

I feel somewhat urgent about providing for the food security of my family - at least the ones who still live with me. 

I am sorry for not having written for some time, but I do notice that less weird referrer stats show up when I take a few days off.  I don't really get those weird spikes that seem to be happening because Russian proxies bounce off my site, and I am unable to take the time to navigate through the Google help to figure out how to report or block or even to find out if they are my problem or Google's.  Any other bloggers noticing that stuff? 

Audrey is a lot closer to delivering than I thought - because Elvis was chasing her in June, I thought we were looking at December/January, but he must have been chasing her for nothing, because she is only a few weeks out.  It's definitely at least twins because I can palpate a couple of little heads and she's quite rotund.  Remember she had triplets back on March 2?  I am hoping it is only twins, and I need to keep the rams away from her for a year just to give her a break.  She's not as young as she used to be. 

I hope that we can use the break to get the sheep stall scraped and load that large load of cinder to resurface it as well as move more of the mountain of compost into the garden spaces and around the bananas.  Bananas don't actually need finished compost; they can take manure straight from the barn, but finished doesn't hurt them.  I think the citrus could do with a good dose, too.  There is just a lot to do and we probably don't have a ton of relatively rain free time to do it in. 

Hope all is well with you all. 

That Horrible Moment...

when you realize that the two ram lambs you castrated 4 months ago slipped their bands and you have four rams and one wether instead of two rams and three wethers.  Sigh.  I think I am going to have to invest in a Burdizzo or learn to castrate with a knife. 

Audrey's limping and I can't figure out why.  Caught her and inspected her hooves and dipped them in hoof solution, but can't see anything.  Hope it works belatedly.  It brings back memories of years of dealing with Ohia's hooves.  I still miss that horse - found a picture of him while cleaning today and hit me kind of hard. 

Our small chest freezer is full of meat - up to the top.  We defrosted a couple of steaks for a barbecue tonight and they look GREAT!  I can't wait to try them. I am a little bummed I wasn't here to help load up the freezer because I don't know what all is in there and I don't think there was any rhyme or reason to how the meat got loaded in.  That's the one drawback of a chest freezer - the digging around you have to do to see what's inside. I do love grass fed beef, so I am happy in spite of the hassles of excavating the freezer. 

I had a great day on Maui - stimulating professional conversation and the long flight back wasn't too bad, because the second leg was on the same plane as the first, so we just all had to move seats.  I know I have mentioned it before - but I really love my job.  I love teaching, I love teacher geek work like yesterday, and I love the organization at which I am so blessed to have a job.  And then I get to come home to sheep (mixed blessing) and Gibby (great blessing) and the dogs and cat and the garden. 

I do feel blessed. 

Beef Delivery

We decided to go in on a cow with some neighbors.  Tomorrow, our 1/4 will be in the freezer - all grass fed and good.  We'll have to move some items from the chest freezer to the smaller freezers, but it will be worth it!  It's the next best thing to growing your own. 

I am going to Maui tomorrow for a work day with teachers from the other campuses of our school.  I love doing the work, but I am not looking forward to the whole airport thing.  It isn't so bad flying direct from Hilo to Maui, but to get back we have to fly the wrong direction to Honolulu and then back over Maui to the Big Island.  It's asinine and irritating, and I am not looking forward to it. Maui is going to be busy in the evening, too.  (I have to secretly admit I am not fond of Maui - long story). 

I ran into my niece at school today - she was giving a guest talk in one of the classes. I asked her how long my sweet potato slips could sit in the bucket, since the garden isn't done being layered with mountain of compost.  She said, "Forever.  Don't put them on any ground you don't want them to grow on!!!"  (She really did add the three exclamation points, you know, verbally.)  It was reassuring. 

I haven't had much time to exercise, which is making me cranky.  It's the end of a marking period, so the kids are all scrambling and I sat until 4:30 twice this week helping kids finish work for other classes.  I feel like a saint - well, not really, but I do feel virtuous.  At least the mostly rest has let my hamstring heel up a bit. 

Well, that's it for me - not very exciting - except for the beef! 

When Farming Hurts

I pulled my hamstring pulling sweet potatoes on Sunday.  I thought I was just sore from squatting and pulling, but nope, it is a genuine strain.  I really strained the muscle nearly 30 years ago in track and it's been a bit dicey since then.  Sometimes, if I am riding after taking a break or even kneeling in church, the muscle will cramp up.  When I was pregnant and still riding, I would dismount and fall to the ground (not gracefully) because the muscle would give out on me. 

I thought since I really do spend a ridiculous amount of time working out each week that I would have avoided something like this - but apparently not.  I am limping around and wincing from the bottom of my wimpy soul.  Thank goodness I work at a school with wonderful athletic trainers who don't laugh at the middle-aged wannabe, but instead hand me ice and compression wraps and apply heat and manually stretch me out (ouch) before I head off to run with middle schoolers (my goal is to up myself to high school next year) or to the cardio room.  I have to do something while waiting for my student athletes....

Beyond the physical trials of doing something at my age that would have been a lot easier 20 years ago, the farm is moving along.  I pulled those sweet potatoes, picked up some seeds for things like greens and lettuce - things that grow better in our winter.  My husband cleared the patch for the bigger greenhouse.  I could, in theory, have made last night's dinner completely from ingredients in my kitchen - although I did leave that homegrown hen in the freezer and used store bought instead - the day's coming (in case any kid is reading - you will not know when we eat her; don't even try to guess) but it wasn't last night.  

Step by step, getting closer to having several meals a day raised and grown on our own land. 

In the Garden

As there appears to be a longish break in the incessant rain (meaning rain just part of the day). we've made incursions into the garden areas.  My husband wants to move the entire manure pile to the garden (there has to be 20+ cubic yards of composted manure there) because it is causing water flow problems in the sheep stall in its present location. The thought is to layer it thick on the "new garden" - which is two years old - because the soil is not as good as we'd like it there. 

Those plans meant that I had to get out into the garden and pull up all the sweet potato slips and dig out any tubers.  Considering I started with 6-8 small slips from my niece, I was impressed with what I pulled - a 5 gallon bucket packed with slips and about 5 lbs of sweet potatoes.  I cut up about a pound of them this morning to throw in the crock pot with beans and chicken.  I had two or three different varieties of slips to begin with and some of them have crossbred so I had some really unique mixtures of the Hawaiian sweet potato and the Okinawan purple sweet potato.  I am looking forward to seeing how they taste tonight. 

We wanted to get the sheep into the taro bed, so my husband made a corridor of emergency fence to the fenced bed - a lot of the taro got smothered by the thick grass, which is a huge shame, but the sheep should clean out the grass and we can see what's left and get it pulled and replanted.  Taro and sweet potatoes are so great, because you can pull the roots and replant the tops (if you can resist eating them - I love both lau and sweet potato leaves). 

My husband also cleared out the area where he wants to put a bigger greenhouse, burning a lot of the brush he'd cut down.  We bought a huge load of six inch minus cinder to layer in the sheep stall for drainage, too.  Hopefully, all this work can lead to greater food production.  I think we're going to need it as gas prices rise.  85% of the food on island shelves, I've read, is imported from elsewhere.  Fuel increases mean food cost increases so the more I can grow, the better it is for us. 

I just wish there were more hours in a day.  Maybe if we put lights in the greenhouses I can spend more hours out there after work.