A Whole Week

It's been a whole week since I last posted and I apologize for the silence. As expected, I am crazy busy between work, El Brego, and farm life.

Amazing progress continues to be made on the farm. My eleven laying hens have settled into an easy 9 eggs a day rhythm. They love free ranging around the farm and they appear to be very happy chickens, which of course is important to me.

The chicklins are about a week away from being moved outside to a temporary pen until they are big enough to either be butchered or integrated with the laying flock. I've been lucky and have not lost a single one of the thirty two.

The plants inside the greenhouse are growing like gangbusters. The plants outside are just now starting to perk up. I've got potatoes and peas up, way up, but something amiss has happened to my onions. They have yet to make an appearance. My neighbors also have a garden plot and are not so smug as me so they use conventional fertilizers and seedlings bought from Agway. And I have to say that they are kicking my ass right now. Not only is their garden patch mysteriously weed free, but their plants are bigger by far. So, I am on the hunt for some organic fertilizer to give my little ones a boost.

In other fabulous news, a woman who contacted me from this blog stopped by this weekend and put her and her husband's sweat equity into my little farm. They came bearing beautiful strawberry plants and quickly made themselves busy cleaning up the place. They helped us plant the strawberries, tear out raspberries from the terraces, cut down Sumac, teach me how to safely operate a chainsaw, chop out tree roots blocking some drainage pipes, and otherwise educate and entertain. I am truly indebted to their kindness and willingness to help a complete stranger make sense of it all. I hope to see them again soon!

The logging of the back pasture will being in the next few weeks. I can't wait to have beautiful green pasture. Driving around the area, you can see these deeply green lush fields which were hand carved out of the New Hampshire forest generations ago. I only hope to achieve the same success on a small scale here on the farm.