Homestead Update

It's been a miserable week. Cold. Wet. Gloomy. The downside of creating soil on this place is that it's now muddy! When it was mostly lava rock and grass, puddles seldom were a problem.

I haven't been able to mow lately. When it's been dry enough to mow, I've had other more pressing tasks. And when I finally get home, guess what..,..it's raining. So I've only managed to get a little bit of mowing in, just enough to feed the hens some fresh grass. The girls have had to make do with other greenery, such as sweet potato and comfrey. As a result my growing areas and the chicken pen are begging for grass clippings. For now they will have to make do with bamboo leaf litter instead. 

I was scheduled to replant the pallet boxes this week, now that I've harvested the bean seed out of them. But that's on hold because of the excess wet. And the farm schedule says that I should have planted peas, pole beans, and bok choi this week. Nope...none. Foul weather is something that has to be either accepted or dealt with. For now, I'm just accepting it and waiting it out. 

Earlier today I checked in the pipinolas that I planted at the new bamboo trellis. Both pipinolas took and are growing multiple stems. I'm actually surprised that they made it. In the past I've had pipinola rot due to excess moisture. These two pipinolas are both white ones. Whenever I get around to building another trellis, I'll plant that with smooth green ones. The green and the white ones taste the same to me, but the white ones look nicer in mock apple pie. The green ones look nicer in veggie stir fries. 

The first plant. 

Another downside of all the gloom is that the solar system is complaining. I've needed to run the washer and dryer, so without sun I have had to run the generator. I'm glad we installed a generator to charge the battery bank when needed. This past week it was needed! I actually have the generator charging the batteries and the washer (or dryer) running off the other side of the generator at the same time.....two birds with one stone theory. It works for us. 

The second plant. The white thing on the right is the starter pipinola. 

With weeks like this one, it's apparent why we don't have solar hot water. We really don't have consistent enough sun the have solar hot water, thus we have propane hot water on demand. I've heard several people here say that they have had to turn on the electric hot water back up because the solar wasn't making hot water. Yes, deciding to use a propane hot water heater turned out to be a good decision for this location. 

Since I'll be occupied with a spay clinic all day tomorrow, I bet the sun will come out.