This week started off, and continued, in exact opposition to the last. It rained every day. It was cold most of the time. But nothing was lost. We had such high hopes for the week.
Last Saturday we added five baby Runner Ducks to the Farm's flock of five, making ten all together. The babies live comfortably in a crate on top of the clothes dryer. They'll be moved out to the Duck pond in a few weeks, but before we can trust them around water their feathers need to come in and waterproofing oil glands start working. The Babies need a pretty rigorous hygiene program. They get a bath every day and the crate they live in gets completely washed out. Our baby Runners are cute, but noisy, messy, and smelly. And we are quite happy they are here.
In spite of the rain there were a few things that got done. . .
The local Ban on Burning went into effect last week due to hot weather and no rain. The Burn Ban was lifted by the rain and the reprieve allowed us to take the extra time to built a nice warm fire out of winter debris collected up from all over the Farm. The place not only looks better, it will be much easier to keep clean of wild plants since the ground can be kept cleared using machinery.
The unexpected rain brought on a wave of rapid growth in the weeds found in the Strawberry fields. I'm reluctant to make too much of a fuss, even though weeding rows of strawberries is a back breaking sort of labor. We spent quite a few hours pulling weeds and ought to have it all fixed up by Saturday. The weeds grew everywhere the land hasn't been improved. I used the rotot-tiller on our tractor, set to a very shallow level, to run around the Farm and tear a large portion of the new growth apart and the Farm is looking pretty good. With minimal effort for the first time.
We got the last of the watering system adjustments made. Not that this did us much good, since it began raining, and I had to turn the system off. The new irrigation system inside of the Greenhouse is doing a bang-up job of growing things and sprouting seeds. I designed and built a water fogging rail to water the front bed in the Greenhouse and the lettuces in that bed are exploding with growth. I did the same with the sprouting tables and the seeds are sprouting a bit quicker than before. The tomatoes are on drip hose, so the plants will be more resistant to blight.
The rabbits, gophers, rats, moles, and mice, seem pretty well under control this week. But it just might be that they aren't interested in working in the cool weather. Throwing lit road flares down gopher holes seems to discourage them from using their extensive tunnel network. The Chickens are always looking out for mice and moles, so these keep to dark corners. The dogs, especially Laffee Taffee spend a lot of their time harassing the rats and mice. As for rabbits, we put in some more chicken wire fencing to add one more laying of protection for the gardens. Between all of our efforts, and a few old fashioned traps, we seem to be getting ahead of the rodents at this time. But it is a long growing season.
All in all, the week didn't give much opportunity for growing things, but other important things did get done. Now if only the County would finalize our building permits . . .
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