The chickens are here!

And the sky is not falling yet! As I was preparing tea for breakfast this morning, I looked out the window to see the Chickenman working with Eric and Intern Rachel to get the chickens into the coop area. I coined it the Annual Chicken Toss because that's about what it looked like. The Chickenman told me that he is located in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and that these are Highline chickens. Chickens seem to get a pretty bad rap. Everyone that I've talked to who has previously taken care of chickens seem to have consensus that they are, well, stupid. Aw! Poor things, just because Rachel and Eric had to work together to show them the other side of the pen where the feed and water were located? Got them all out from under the coop, Rachel?

And because the sky hasn't fallen for quite some time now, Eric decided to get the irrigation hoses rolled out all over the fields. I've noticed that we've had several days with rain clouds but no rain. Or the clouds will sprinkle a few drops and then roll on by. We have covering over most of the plants in the fields right now, so a sprinkle has a hard time penetrating the cover. The predictions say there's a hundred percent chance of rain this morning, though, so cross your fingers! And where are my RAIN PANTS?! :)

What else happened this week? Ah yes, the frost and the greenhouse. Well, we ended up losing a fair amount of tomatoes out in the field, and several more of them look sick. We spent one afternoon following Eric through the field as he laid out a new plants for us...more about that below. We pulled the dead ones right out of the ground (we planted those earlier!) and then re-planted the new ones. Sigh.

Here are four pictures from a couple days ago at the greenhouse - two of basil and two of tomatoes. They demonstrate the other problem that we have had with plants this year. We stored soil over the winter and it ended up going bad. You can see the stark difference between the two flats of plants that were planted at the same time, some in old soil and some in the new soil. A pretty remarkable difference if you ask me. As mentioned in a previous post, we flat-out composted many of these plants. However, we used some of the tomato plants above to replace the dead ones in the field. They don't have a lot going for them, but we're cheering them on anyway!

This past Sunday was my first time selling at the Takoma Park market. Eric called it a "doozy!" I was worried he meant a flop, but he just meant it was busy! And I concur. There were four of us working the stand and we seemed to have customers rolling up the entire time. I think I mentioned in a past post that at markets I suddenly get appointed to expert plant adviser and weather predictor! I have learned a lot but there is still much to study up on. Which flowers like shade? Which herbs will come back again next year? Can I trellis the cucumbers? My eggplant died last year...can you tell me why? Why does this melon plant's leaf curl like this? How many tomatoes am I going to get from this thing? How do you harvest arugula so that it keeps growing? Is it too late to plant lettuce? Which plants in my bag are companion plants and like to be planted next to each other? I have deer...what should I plant to keep them out of my garden? And the million dollar question: Is it too early to plant the basil/tomatoes?????

On my day off yesterday, I went for a bike ride. I explored some of the roads that run behind the farm. I had gone running on these roads, but hadn't made it as far as I wanted to before I had to turn back. I found a nice three mile loop that I can go running on, I think. Or I can see if I in fact achieve three miles (like I think I do) when I run for 30 to 40 minutes! The landscape out here is so intriguing to me because it is so different from the mountains of Colorado. It's what I imagine when people describe really old farming country, but it's different to be right in the heart of it. It's stunning really, the huge farm trees in the middle of pastures, abandoned barns alongside creeks, streets named Old Hollow Rd, and butterflies lining the roads.


My last stop on the bike ride was at Roy and Janet's Orchard. They have a convenience store with all of the basics and everything you could ever dream of that's pickled. Oh, and pints of local ice cream! The store is located around the corner from our farm, so every year the interns are regular customers. He has yet to remember any of our names or faces despite our frequent visits, but we're working on him. I forgot to ask him how long he has been on the land, but I did ask him what he was working on. He said he had "pushed up" several trees this morning so that he and his "help" could plant 150 more. They planted 165 last week. Here's a pic of Roy:It's raining! Alright! Looks like this one may stick around for a little while. Thank goodness.