Yup, I used to love it. I remember when they opened a Super Wal-Mart about 20 miles away from where I grew up. It was the new cool place to go. After all, they were open 24 hours. That was when I was just starting to do my own grocery shopping and buy my own stuff. I would always get nervous at the checkout trying to organize my coupons and find my debit card, and I remember more than once having to put something back because I had miscalculated and gone over my meager budget. For all those reasons and more, my favorite time to shop was the middle of the night. I would go to bed early and get up at 3 or 4 to go. Besides, you couldn’t beat the traffic. I remember getting e-mails way back then encouraging me to “boycott” Wal-mart because of their crappy treatment of workers. I even read a great book in which the author experimentally tries to live on the wages she makes working for Wal-mart. That was awhile ago but I remember liking the book and would recommend it if you’re interested in such topics. I’m still not sure that I
Continue readingCategory: farming
Pickle Farming – Part 1
Yesterday I was lucky enough to head out to the beach with a friend for the first part of the day. My fiance, Brian, was working for our friends that grow pickles so when I got home I decided to go ride in the semi with him. He was driving a semi with doubles behind it. That means it has 2 separate trailers behind it. The whole rig from front bumper to rear hitch is 70′ long. The set of 2 trailers is also known as “trains”. They aren’t too hard to drive but they are very tricky to back up. Brian drove the same setup for 4 years at an excavating company so he does great with them. I’m so proud of him! 🙂 Anyway, enough bragging, on to the story of pickles… Pickle farmers try to schedule their planting so that they know exactly what day the pickles will be ready to harvest. If it is 90 degrees and humid out the pickles can grow very fast. They can be too small to pick in the morning and too big to pick at night. Our friends had a 30 acre field ready to be picked on Saturday and
Continue readingGooseberries and Currants
I’ll just make a quick update here before I have to leave. On Mother’s Day I went with my Mom to a nursery and purchased about $120 worth of plants. Here is a breakdown of what I got: 2 Gooseberry bushes ($8 each) 2 Black Currant bushes ($8 each) 3 Red Heritage Raspberry bushes ($4.50 each) 2 Himrod Green Seedless Grapevines ($6.75 each) 1 Bartlett Pear tree ($22) 1 Harold Pear tree ($22) 1 Dozen Red Seed Potatoes ($1.83) 25 Earliglow Strawberries ($11) 25 Jewell Strawberries ($11) So far I have only planted the Gooseberries and Black Currants. Both thrive in a colder, shader area and can stand up to a North wind so I planted them on the North end of our shop. I mulched them heavily and they seem to be doing well so far. I’m waiting to plant the pear trees until we pull a few stumps around the yard to make more room. Hopefully I can get everything else in this weekend! The plan is to use edible plants as much as possible thoroughout our landscaping. I just am not motivated to work on plants that I can’t eat! I’ll have more on this later…
Continue readingSpring cleaning
Sometimes it is really important to take a step back and look at the big picture… especially when zoom works this good! We took the screen out of the window to toss some boxes out so Baxter decided he wanted some fresh air. Now that the upstairs is cleared out I need to move all the boxes from our extra bedroom downstairs up there. Then we will actually have a guest bedroom that people can use! It is hard to stay inside and get things done with so much going on outside. Tomorrow we have a busy day planned. Here is our to-do list: Build a pen for the chickens (they are outgrowing their makeshift brooder boxes) Divide up the horse pasture to allow for rotational grazing. We barely got the perimeter fence up last fall so now we need to finish the job. While we’re at it there are a few shorts that need to be fixed. Spread a few more loads of pig manure on the fields. A friend is giving us all we can use but it takes a little over an hour for each load by the time we fill the spreader, pull it home, and
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