The Living Green Farm Journal

Thursday, June 3rd

Monsoon Season

P0591_FarmKurtDigging (40k image)

It's been a wet spring... a very wet spring. The Oregonian newspaper published an article in early June that revealed that we got something like 4.8" of rain in May... almost double what we received in February! This has really slowed down work on my drainage project. You just can't grade trenches when they're full of water. The picture above is from one of the few times I was able to work on it in late May. Sadly, immediately after this day, we resumed Monsoon season: cool, unseasonably wet weather.
Kurt on 06.03.10 @ 08:13 AM PST [more...]

Monday, May 10th

Hard Labor

P0581_FarmTrenchUngraded (66k image)

Well, as I feared, I started on the drainage project a little too early this year. It's going to bite me in the a... uh, well, in a place where no one likes to be bitten, I think. The image above shows the problem; the incessant rain that we've had in April has eroded the trenches quite a bit. During a rainy period the trenches fill up with water, and dirt sloughs off the walls and deposits in the bottom, reducing the depth of the trench.
Kurt on 05.10.10 @ 01:01 PM PST [more...]

Wednesday, April 21st

Apple Blossom Time

P0442_FarmBeeAppleBlossom (67k image)

It's blossom time in the orchard! I almost missed it; some of the trees have already blossomed and dropped. Some are just starting. And some are still not quite ready. The bees are out and doing their work; there is a hum audible as one walks through the orchard.
Kurt on 04.21.10 @ 08:09 AM PST [more...]

Sunday, March 28th

Keep On Diggin'

P0241_FarmKurtBackhoeBucket (79k image)
Click for larger image (opens new window)

I went back down this weekend to work on trenching again... it was a sunny day sandwiched between two weeks of drizzle. The ground was a bit wet still, but I figured it was my only chance in view to push the drainage project forward. The main downside was the need to stop periodically and pry the mud out of the backhoe bucket, as shown above. I learned to stop short of curling the bucket fully so as not to compress the dirt in the bucket; you only have to overshoot it once to pack the bucket so tightly that it is a real bear to get out.
Kurt on 03.28.10 @ 09:37 PM PST [more...]

Tuesday, March 23rd

One With The Machine

P0199_FarmKurtBackhoe (33k image)
Click on photo above to view movie (warning large 6430k Quicktime movie file)

Richard Heinberg, in his book "The Party's Over," refers to humans as going beyond mere tool-making. He says we equip ourselves with prosthetic devices that allow us to accomplish much more than what our bodies alone are capable of. The example he gives is that of an airline pilot; a pilot apparently once said to him that he "straps on a 747 and goes to work." And thus the 747, in effect a prosthetic device or super-tool, allows him to fly thousands of miles while in effect carrying hundreds of passengers.

This past weekend I strapped on the back hoe down at the farm and went to work digging trenches.
Kurt on 03.23.10 @ 10:50 PM PST [more...]

Monday, March 15th

The $80 Experiment

14677_FarmTrenching (82k image)

This has been a warm winter, and not as wet as some other years. Nonetheless, the south yard still ends up with pools of water... right where I planted a couple of rows of raspberries a couple of years ago. Needless to say, the raspberries have not done that well. In the city a raspberry patch is a fierce competitor: they leap fences into neighbor's yards, they sprout out of adjacent garden beds where they're not wanted, and they generally grow into a thick tangle of canes; I expected similar behavior out in the south yard, but the yearly winter drowning, the relentless pressure of the grass, and the dry summers have kept the farm canes looking like a set of spindly stalks.

What has been needed, and for some time, is better drainage in the south yard. With better drainage, the south yard could host all kinds of fruit and nuts: hazelnuts, grapes, blueberries, raspberries, etc. Thinking that this might be the year to develop the south yard, I ordered all those and more from my favorite nursery, Burnt Ridge Nursery.
Kurt on 03.15.10 @ 08:10 AM PST [more...]

Thursday, February 25th

Baby Goats!

14668_FarmBabyGoat (51k image)

We recently went through a birthing cycle at the farm: three of the goat does gave birth to a total of six baby goats! One of the cute fellas is shown above.
Kurt on 02.25.10 @ 01:10 PM PST [more...]

Tuesday, January 26th

Winter projects

4597_FarmCabinetOrganized (36k image)

My already irregular posting schedule has suffered lately, as farm trips have been relatively infrequent and I've been rebuilding my computer. Plus, Lou and I did a whole project in which none of the photos I took turned out! This relates back to last summer when my daughter borrowed the camera while eating sticky cotton candy, but that's a story for another day.

The only interesting photo I have to show is from a recent trip where I ran out of things to do... unbelievable, eh? Well, I didn't actually run out of things to do, but rather ran out of things that I could do in the time available. So I was reduced to organizing the shop a bit. Quite successful, I think. I found out that we were woefully under-stocked in 1/2" PVC fittings, which is a problem because a lot of the water supply is comprised of 1/2" PVC pipe.
Kurt on 01.26.10 @ 03:24 PM PST [more...]

Tuesday, December 8th

Saving The Shop

4436_FarmShopBracing (26k image)

OK, everybody is sick of hearing about the barn... the weather is getting colder, with a chance of snow... so, time to work on saving the shop. One of the contractors who came to look at the barn took one look at the shop and said that I was about six inches of snow away from a collapse there! I already knew that.
Kurt on 12.08.09 @ 10:11 PM PST [more...]

Sunday, December 6th

Saving The Barn, Part Five

4432_FarmCompletedGutters (39k image)

We've been fortunate to have a pretty dry autumn, actually. So much so that Lou and I have continued to make progress on the barn gutter project. Lou had a sunny day during the week right before Thanksgiving, and he single-handedly tacked the gutters up on the fascia that we had installed in part four. Don't ask me how he did it, but he managed. By the time I arrived on Saturday, much of the hard work had already been done.
Kurt on 12.06.09 @ 10:23 PM PST [more...]

Sunday, November 15th

Saving The Barn, Part Four

4366_FarmKurtBarnGutters (58k image)

Looks like it is going to take three trips to get gutters on the barn! Lou and I took a good run at it today, but we ran out of daylight and energy at about 4:30 pm. However, we did get some important things done today, and we're within striking distance of getting actual gutters on the south side of the barn. I don't know whether we'll be as lucky as we were today when it comes to weather, however. Today was overcast, but blessedly dry.
Kurt on 11.15.09 @ 09:51 PM PST [more...]

Monday, November 9th

Saving The Barn, Part Three

4347_FarmGutter (63k image)

As the crop season has wound down, I have found myself thinking about the buildings and other infrastructure. Not that late fall and winter is the best time to work outdoors on buildings, but you get what you get sometimes. In particular I've been worried about the barn. You may recall that I've done some bracing of things in the barn to try and arrest the (literally) downhill slide of the barn. I should go back and look at old pictures, but it seems to me that some things are visibly getting worse since last I paid attention to them. Like the foundation; one crack on the south wall appears to be getting wider. That is how I found myself recently standing in the rain, with a 32 foot ladder, contemplating how to install guttering on the two story barn. The shot above shows the results of a my trip to Home Depot prior to the commencement of festivities.
Kurt on 11.09.09 @ 01:25 PM PST [more...]

Thursday, October 22nd

Squash Harvest 2009

4145_FarmHubbardSquash (59k image)

If you've been following along on the blog, you've heard me write concerning the squash. These were plants that I started in soil blocks off-farm, and then transplanted into the farm garden in early summer. They were irrigated by the same drip irrigation that fed the beans and corn; I used 3' foot plant spacing in rows 6 feet apart. Each transplant got a small pocket of organic fertilizer below the transplant at planting time. The variety that I planted was Hubbard squash; the Territorial seed catalog said that the flesh was sweet and creamy, and they're open-pollinated. I originally had wanted to plant Delicata squash, but Territorial had run out of seed by mid-spring. The photo above shows one specimen as it appeared in August; they got a little larger over the next month before the vines finally succumbed to frost in early October.
Kurt on 10.22.09 @ 03:11 PM PST [more...]

Saturday, October 17th

Fall Spraying

4250_FarmCropped (19k image)

As I've mentioned in a previous post, I've recently realized how serious the weed problem was in the weed, er, wheat field. Bindweed is a non-native noxious weed, and it is a fierce competitor: roots that go thirty feet deep, seeds that remain viable for decades, ability to regrow from root fragments cut by rototilling, etc. So, after researching on-line a bit I came to the inescapable conclusion that spraying herbicide was going to have to be at least part of the strategy for getting it under control.
Kurt on 10.17.09 @ 09:56 AM PST [more...]

June 2010
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