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04/01/2008: "Signs of Spring"

The fruit trees have budded but not flowered yet. Yet, we're into spring weather anyway: partly sunny days, interspersed with clouds, hail, and even snow! My friend Jon came down from Seattle recently, and Nate and I gave him a brief tour of the farm; so many projects, so little time.

We started our tour in the south yard. I've always had a vision of this fifth of an acre as a berry field; it's sunny, close to the water sources that run down the driveway, and somehow it seems sized for a small scale U-pick type of operation. However, it has drainage issues: every winter water pools up in the south yard. Nate says this is bad, because the nitrogen in the soil turns to ammonia in the aqueous solution, and then evaporates. Poof! No more nutrient for plants. And in truth, the raspberries and blueberries planted here have hung on, but not thrived. Note to self: rent Ditch Witch and tile south yard.



Next, we walked over to the barn. The barn is still standing, but the lower foundation is looking more and more ominous: there are visible signs of cracking and stress. Why anyone thought that they could just build a barn on a hillside without attending to the drainage properly just escapes me. Jon agreed that the barn will need serious attention, and soon. Luckily, my friend Bobby at work has given me some old timbers that I can use to construct cribbing; I'll put these in place in the basement of the barn just in case an unfortunate event occurs. The cribbing will hopefully hold up the barn long enough to replace or repair the foundation if it gives way.

Walking out of the barn, I noticed that we were not being greeted by the usual buzzing of the bees. Curious, I walked over to the hive and lifted the lid. The first thing I saw were dead bees; we pried up some honey frames, and saw that the whole hive had perished, probably during one of the cold snaps earlier this winter.



An unfortunate lesson: we should not have put a super on the hive last summer (it's hard for the colony to keep a larger space heated), and we should have been putting out food for them this winter, their first winter in the new hive. Live and learn; I've ordered a new queen to start over again; we'll get the delivery in mid-April.

We didn't walk out to the pasture, but Nate pointed out that the wheat was doing well, and the grass was finally starting to grow a bit. Nate explained that grass doesn't really grow unless the temperature is above 50 degrees F (10 degrees C); he's had to range Aura and Rainbow over the whole of the pasture this winter, just to keep them from eating the grass down to the roots.



Next, we visited the vineyard. Here we could see that most of the grapes were still alive, though again not thriving; we need to mulch heavily with cardboard to kill off the grass that is competing fiercely with the grapes. We also need to review the drip watering system in advance of the dry season, and replace the connection between the hose pipe and the black hose with one that doesn't leak.

In this photo Jon and Nate are discussing the cider apple trees.



We stopped by and looked at Nate's 'hot frame:' a hot frame is built over a bed of composting manure, which in theory heats the little greenhouse. Although we have on-farm generation of manure, this technology has not lived up to its promise yet. So far Nate reports that despite filling a good-size hole below the structure with Aura's cow patties, not much heat has been generated. I wonder if it needed a more balanced compost mixture of green and brown? I know that I've gotten some pretty hot compost piles just from regular old grass clippings (which are high-nitrogen) and wood chips (which are high-carbon).



Finally, we walked through the orchard, where I was reminded once again that cherry season was approaching. Following up on a comment by Rich of Mossback Farm, I decided to do a little jury-rigged starling habitat reduction. We covered up some of the more egregious holes in the south wall of the shop, and a couple of nesting sites on the barn.



Later this summer it would be nice to re-side the shop, but with the new roof it doesn't appear to be in danger of falling over. We'll probably live with it for a while, until we run out of other projects to do... hah!