Saturday, February 17, 2018

Update

Since my last blog post, this place here has turned into "constant wet"......rain, rain, rain. Not a waterfall type rain, but a constant fall of moisture shifting from light mist to moderate downpour. Nothing steady, other than a general wet, but rather a dance of passing squalls in a landscape of swirling mist. In a way it's sounds pretty, but frankly, I'm sick of the wet! 

The constant wet has stymied my progress on the farm. There for awhile I was happily zipping along. Now things are at a standstill. Well, actually worse than standstill. The excess moisture is damaging the young plant seedlings. And I can't get the next crop succession planted. Life as a small farmer is full of frustrations. I deal with it by being flexible, changing my goals. But rain this many days in a row even makes this solution difficult to achieve. I'm just plan sick of rain and frustrated as heck. 

Just before the rain started, this farm was hopping. 5 lambs born -- thank heavens the last ewe is 3 weeks behind the others and not lambing in this rain. All the yacon has gotten planted. 80% of the turmeric is in the ground, but there's no rush to get the rest in. It can wait. All the garden beds are planted. 19 of the mini-greenhouses are full. 2 of the new 5 grow boxes are filled. 6 of the coarse compost bins got loaded up. And a new bed for 14 pineapple plants got created and planted. Zip...zip...yup, just zipping along. If you're an avid gardener or small farmer, you know just how good it feels to get things planted. 

Now I'm at a standstill. Blag! But I still have farm chores that need doing, even if it's raining. So each day I go through several changes of clothes, peeling off the wet clothes sticking to my skin, snuggling into wonderfully dry new ones. Yes, I could wear a raincoat, but I get overheated really quickly. The rain here isn't cold, so raincoats turn into personal saunas in a hurry. I'd rather just change into fresh clothes several times a day. I'll use a light raincoat or a long sleeved shirt for those quick trips out. But feeding livestock or checking the fenceline means a long time out in the rain. Yes, I'd rather just change into dry clothing. 

So what to do for the day? Farm work is out. What are my choices? There's only so many naps one can take to claim that I'm "catching up on my sleep". I've already finished up the books that I was reading. I'm burned out on seed catalog browsing. What's left seems to be house cleaning and tax paper work. Blag. Super barf! Perhaps I can start a new hobby called Photographing The Cats In The House. Yes, they too are escaping the rain. 

Rikki Tikki 

Miss Molly


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