Sandhill News
By Stan
As so often on a farm, weather continues to be a major influence in
our lives. Up until recently, the cold & wet prevented us from
planting the fields as well as transplanting warm weather crops (such
as tomatoes & peppers) into the garden. It also dampens our spirits.
All that changed dramatically last week when the weather turned hot &
dry. We finally got back into the fields and planted our sorghum crop
over the weekend - about 2 acres of transplants and 3.5 of direct
seeded. We also got all of our 350 tomato plants in the ground! The
cool weather was hard on many of our seedlings: the tomatoes have
fungus issues and the sorghum plants appeared bedraggled and sad. Oh
well, there's the rest of the growing season to look forward to,
right?
Our bees continue to swarm - it's such a mixed thing: on the one
hand, they don't swarm unless they are doing well (great!); on the
other, it means we lose a lot of bees that will not be making honey
for us (boohoo!). We captured a few swarms (some heroics - ladders on
a front end loader, etc), but then they escaped anyway; however, the
good news is that in general our bees are doing well.
Another seasonal phenomenon - our turkey hen is sitting on a clutch
of eggs. We have also been noticing red fox around the yard - so far
they have not bothered our poultry. It's another one of those mixed
blessings - foxes are fun to watch and we welcome them to our area -
as long as they don't mess with our birds!
The school year ended - so now we see more of Renay - hooray! It
ended just in time for her to take part in her favorite job on the
farm - transplanting sorghum. At 13, she is our most experienced
sorghum transplanter (it takes a crew of 4) on every shift. Most
recently - she was in the marching band at the Memorial Day parade in
town.
We are a farm - but sometimes it's amazing how many of us are off the
farm at any given time. Recently, some of us went to several open
houses on farms in the La Plata area - it's great to find another
cluster of back to the landers in that area. Then - a few weeks ago,
Laird left on a 41 day trip recently (that's according to his blog,
which is how I keep up with him these days - who woulda ever thought
this old geezer would admit to that??) and Chris just returned from a
meeting (which included Laird) on the west coast. It seems like Gigi
and/or Renay are in Memphis every other day or so; Apple, Emily,
Owen, & Chris go to Dancing Rabbit to play Ultimate Frisbee 2 or 3
times a week, we have community potluck dinner with Dancing Rabbit
and Redearth Farms every week, etc. On the other hand, folks from all
over the country come to our area - on one 2 hour sorghum
transplanting shift, we had visitors from Florida & California
helping Renay on the crew.
But most important - we are lucky to be here: on the land, "doing our
thing"; and because we feel accepted and supported by folks in the
county and visitors from all over, we believe we are in the right
place at the right time.
A blessed spring & summer to y'all!