Whoa Nelly on the Big K

For you non-scientists out there, that K stands for kalium- Latin that is, for potassium and I’ve plenty of it!

In the PNW, soils from British Columbia to the south end of the Willamette Valley are heavy on potash (alkaline) and deficient on calcium (Ca, for the closest chemists). That means, of course, I have to add it, and add I shall.

Amend at a rate of about 50lbs to 1000 square feet of garden. Good. It’s cheap stuff. Ours, purchased through Azure Standard of Dufer, Oregon, was six and some change, for a 50lb. bag. Oops, now! Don’t overdo it! More is too much and you could do damage to the tilth (healthy dirt).

Soil west of the Cascade Mountains, range from coarse loam to clay. Ours here in the Hedgerow falls smack dab in the middle at fine silt.

Though only a few feet under the surface lies clay (fine, flat particles, fitting tightly together), the fraction of clay particulate in the topsoil for balanced loam, is quite probably wanting. Did I say balanced loam? That would be redundant, silly me!

Loam is soil that is balanced. Just about equal parts sand, silt and clay (clay being the slighted fraction) and loam is what we’re aiming at.

Our garden is blooming with math and science. It’s a new classroom (without the ‘class’ or the ‘room’) everyday we’re in it! We hope yours is too.

Big Equipment Farmer

Here's the Boss-Man farming the only way he knows how: Big equipment.

When driving by the CAT dealership, forget any conversation you might have been engaged in... someone just lost connection...and it wasn't me. "Uh, huh," I hear, from lips on the port bow of the truck, responding absently. Give it another block or so and he'll return to the land of human relationships, and pick up the dialog with no suggestion of distraction.

Most men hook their truck up to the travel trailer to move it. This is much more efficient, Mike might tell you. Some men may scoff. But then, every farmer knows his crop.

Have a truck that no longer runs, has flat tires? Need it flipped around? Say, try the a loader bucket!

Need a tree stump removed where there happens to be a hive nearby? Just wear your sister's beekeeper net!

No guts, no glory- or something like that.

Who said the Big Guy and I couldn't work in the garden together? We both move around soil with two hands and puff exhaust. My hoe turns delicate, detailed areas around beets and rutabagas, while his D3C XL (XL? duh.) cuts through hard pan and clay, falls trees, and shapes swaths of land.

I know women who require their husbands to shower before bed or keep clean fingernails. There's no doubt that makes housekeeping easier! For that matter, I know men who have a tidier dispositions than their wives, flannel wearing or not. As for me, give me a farmer, whatever the crop, covered in dust and smelling of diesel fuel-

White sheets can always be replaced!

Cinderella Who?

Smoke billowing out of the woodstove means only one thing: I’ll be on the roof with a brush in one hand a flat screwdriver in the other.

Today, I timed myself. How long does it take this little lady to do a man-job?

45 minutes.

Thirty minutes to set up the ladder, climb up on the roof, oops, I forgot the screwdriver, retrieve the screwdriver, back up the ladder, attach brush to pole sections, remove chimney cap, brush stove pipe, brush chimney cap and replace, ask Dale for the broom, sweep roof, gather tools and head down the ladder. (Deep Breath) Fold up ladder, put away the Bossman’s coveted Snap-on Screwdriver, breakdown brush and pole, and into the house to eradicate creosote from the firebox.

Thirty minutes. Not bad, though I don’t know the current record for such a task. Maybe I should aim at beating my time.

The 45 minute mark comes in with that tiresome piece of insulation lid inside the stove that comes out fairly easily but is a beast to return: this is what slows my time, every time. Argh!

Ah, I do this sneeze inducing task but twice a year, so in spring, I may implement new methods. Any ideas? Cinderella you say? Nah, we don’t have time to moon romantically over ashes!

If These are the Dog Days of Summer...

Who's the Dog?

For the several weeks, we girls have been splitting wood, tending to the garden, swimming with friends, harvesting berries, making jam, entertaining guests, preparing canning jars. Fhew!(deep breath) Cleaning the attic, cleaning the pool, cleaning the closets, cleaning the shed. Trellising tomatoes, saving seeds, propagating fuchsias, forgetting to fix dinner. Oops.

 

All the while the Boss-man keeps bringing home the bacon, building a bulldozer, acquiring wood for the girls to split, devouring berries, covering fellow employee vacations, expanding pasture and clearing fence lines. Paying bills, hearing from God, telling jokes, loving his family.

   

This weekend our little band will be enjoying the company of good friends at the foot of Mount St. Helens along the Cispus River.

When we return we continue on the quest for a quiet winter solstice, happy cows, molting poultry, sleepy dogs, a blazing fire and warm apple pie.

Funny to think on this glorious, hot, sunny August day that's the reason we're so busy!

 

First Swim

On Saturday, Quackers took her ducklings for a lesson. She was teaching them how to swim.

After the swim she foraged with them, and settled them down under her downy feathers in the yard, sometimes in the sun and sometimes in the shade.

The Ducklings are Here!!

Quackers ducklings just hatched early this morning! It was twenty-eight days exactly! One left to hatch out of it's shell. They are sooo cute! Quackers is not so happy that we are so near her ducklings.

The greyish ducklings are the Blue Swedes and the black ones are Black Swedes, but I'd like to know where the yellow one came from! I'll have figure that out- maybe I'll know when it grows up or I could ask someone who knows about ducks or look in my duck book.

Can you see at the bottom of this picture is a wet little head still working its way from out of the shell? We count eight so far.

Setting Duck

At 7 o'clock every morning Quackers calls to me for her food and after a thorough bath she waddles back to her nest that she has covered with feathers to keep hidden and warm. She is usually a forager but for now I feed her so she can stay close to her nest.

Quackers is setting on nine eggs. We ordered them from a farm somewhere in California. Some eggs will hatch Blue Swedish and others will hatch Black Swedish. It is important to have both varieties for breeding a strong blue color.

It takes 28 days to hatch a duckling. At this post, she will have four days, counting today, to hatch her eggs.

You can see here, Quackers fanning her tail. This means get away from her nest because she is protecting her babies or should I say eggs.

Tending to the Hive

For a history of our family’s honeybee hive, refer to You Never Can Tell With Bees

Stephie called us out watch her add another box to the hive for the growing colony.

She also requested Benedryl for the boy. 

Next to the friendly hive, grown from the swarm we rescued from the apple orchard behind the barn last May, a renegade throng of feral bees has recently discovered an abandoned hive(they’re a rough bunch smoking and drinking, carousing with the queen bee and all).

They fidget around the hive, loitering as it were, without the order and pattern of the tended colony. Seemingly looking for trouble and Kai found it on the lip.

Now Kai’s no sissy when it comes to bees. Since he was a tot, he was tenderly picking bumblebees out of the clover, petting them, before sending them on their way. Occasionally you’ll hear the little guy say “oh, he stung me”, but without delay Kai is back to his apian aspirations. 

The lip incident was no different.

As our family beekeeper,  Stephie cracks the whip on any drone who thinks they’ll be nipping honey off the sweat of another bee’s back. She is prepared with a beautifully painted nuc box, should another swarm head for the orchard.

To The Fair!

The girls (mama is one of those girls, remember) will be in the Puyallup valley this week at state fair. The Fair marks our official rollover of seasons...When we return, Fall will commence.

Here we work the exhibit of heritage breed turkeys for one of our family’s farms. Five days of the public multitudes, little sleep and eating Fischer scones; shoveling manure, re-acquainting with familiar faces and deep fried indigestion. Did I mention the Washington Junior Poultry Expo-tition (as Pooh would say)? The daughters will be entwining turkey husbandry with that of the responsibilities of the state poultry barn and showing their own hens and ducks. Fhew (wipe brow) I’m tired already!

It’s no doubt a love-hate relationship; late September is an awfully busy time around here to disappear for five days but corn dogs and throngs of people are too, too hard to resist.

Here we go into the mission field ready to do God’s work for His Kingdom; Holy Ghost, teach us and make us able.

The girls get ready for fit and show by washing thier cochin hens.

A Pasture Improvement- Miniature Herefords

The miniature Hereford is a lowline variety of the standard sized breed of the same name. Standards weigh from 900 to 2,000 pounds and stand 51 to 54 inches. But a miniature only weighs about 700 to 1,000 pounds. A bovine is classified miniature by frame measuring 38 to 43 inches from the hip. The mini Hereford was developed in the 1960’s in Texas.

Cattle are a herd of cows all together. Cattle are from the family bovidae which means cloven hooves and genus Bos meaning ruminant quadruped (cud chewing, four-legged animal). A female bovine is a cow; a male, a bull; a castrated male, a steer. A calf is a baby. A heifer is a young cow that has not yet calved. And that’s what we’ve added to our pasture.

Her name is Miss Mini Moo and she’s about two years old so she can be bred for calving next spring. She is our primary stock for a miniature herd.
Miniature Herefords are easy to take care of because: they have a docile/sweet temper, less pasture needed, make great pets, easier on fences (mama loves that), and they’re great reproducers. I love miniature Herefords because Number 1: they have good looks; Number 2, they are friendly and lovable.