Diary - After the Holidays

Ok, it's back to work. Vacation days are over. Boy, do I have a lot of catching up to do! There's no way I'm going to get everything fine in just a couple of days. 

This morning started out with harvesting more turmeric and cleaning it up for market. I pack it into ziplock bags, 6-8 ounces to the bag. A bag sells for $3. I could get more if I wanted to get stuck with unsold bags, but at this price, I can sell the whole batch. I only sell the best looking roots....fat, unblemished. The rejects I keep for myself or for gifting. Since I'm just going to grind mine up and dry it, it doesn't matter if the roots are small, misshapened, lighter in color. Anyway, I got my bags down to market just about 8 o'clock. I've really got to try to get down there a bit earlier in order to catch the early shoppers. Did some trading this morning, bringing home broccoli, oranges, and fresh fish. 

After getting the standard farm chores out of the way, I jumped into the unenviable task of doing laundry. 12 days of doing zero wash = piles of dirty clothes. Good thing we have lots of clothing, or we'd be running around naked by now! Got 5 loads washed and hung out. Ran out of wash line space for today. 

Next, between other small jobs, transferred the laundry water to the hugelpit beds. I try to utilize the wash water to hydrate the hugelpits that are being built. A lot of material goes into creating one hugelpit. All that material needs to be moistened so that it begins to decompose and the hugelpit can function as it should. Even though I get plenty of rain, more water is needed during the filling process than rain alone can provide. Thus it's a perfect place to use that laundry greywater. Today I pumped and transferred 6 large trashcanfuls of water, to which I added manure tea and fermented urine as nutrient sources. 

Lunch break. Time to peruse the farmers market for myself, have lunch with hubby, then off to pick up cardboard from the local businesses. As I load the cardboard into the truck, I sort out the part that I can use in the hugelpits from the pieces that will go into the recycle bins at the dump. I avoid using cardboard with plastic on it or colored inks. 

Back on the farm, it's time to replenish the livestock feed fermenting buckets. With trusty sawsall in hand, 5 banana trees give up their lives to feed the pigs for the coming couple weeks. Hack, hack, hack. 5 trees into small pieces, into the buckets, fill with water, seal the tops shut, set aside to ferment some. 

While in town today, an acquaintance gave me a bunch of ti cuttings. Retrieving them from the truck, I trim the up for planting. I'm glad to add more ti plants for sheep feed. 

Dragging out the lawnmower, I have time to clean up the area around my driveway gate and up along part of the driveway. Two trashcanfuls of clippings go to the sheep. One goes to the chickens. The fourth goes as mulch around the new banana trees. 

Wish I had had more hours in the day. So much to do, so little time.