week 19: bits and bobs
this week on the little dream farm
The farm is a flurry of activity at the moment as Spring is in full swing and Chris and I are in a sort of mad dash to work around our work and travel schedules to fit in all the things we’ve put on our list.
Spring chores and projects are always so gratifying because they’re the kind of thing you put in a lot of effort for to be able to stand back and visually see the results of your labor. My favorite kinds of projects are the ones with the reward that beautify the farm or make something better for the animals or for us—the kind where you can sit back and say, “Wow, that looks so much better!”
Every now and again we’ve got a sort of list of things to tell you about. This week I happen to have five things, so without delay, let’s do just that for the week’s Farm Note!
David’s meditation class is open for registration!
I mentioned via Instagram a little while back that David is hosting a meditation class in May. Well, the details are finally available! A local church in St. Petersburg, Florida where David lives is hosting the course in person for members of the church. Because they knew there were going to be people who’d want to take it online, and because I told David that some of you were interested in it, too, the church is going to record all of the sessions so that more people can access this wonderful course and David’s teachings. It is totally free, but you can make a donation either to David and/or the church hosting the course.
To sign up, go to allendaleUMC.org/mind and enter your name, email, and phone number, and you will be registered for the class! It begins May 31 and will take place every Wednesday from 6:00 - 7:30 PM. The classes will be recorded so you can take it at your own pace, and the dates of the class are May 31, June 7, 14, 21, 28, July 5, 12, & 26.
I am signed up for it and planning to follow along with the class each week. I’d love for you to sign up and take it alongside me! If you’ve wanted to learn to meditate or have tried before in the past and haven’t seemed to grasp it, David is a wonderful teacher who has spent the better part of his life learning about, practicing, and teaching meditation. I’m really excited he was able to offer the class in this way! Would love to see you there and be sure to let me know if you sign up!!
The wide world of drip irrigation
I’ve been talking a whole heck of a lot about seedlings and cut flower patches and gardening as of late, but that’s been our main focus lately! The cats, donkeys, and chickens—or Furmers, Buggies, and Girlies—as we call them here on the farm, are all doing exceptionally well and that has given us the ability to focus on learning something new and getting the Cut Flower Patch underway.
All throughout this Cut Flower Patch journey I was worrying about how I’d water the 70’ x 35’ patch. There’s a frost-free hydrant nearby and a natural spring relatively close, too. This year, it seemed easiest to water everything by hand so that I didn’t have to make any large investments into a water system I wasn’t sure we’d need. But, as the patch got tilled, then the landscape fabric laid out, then the seedlings (or “seedos,” as I like to call them) got hardened off outside, and as we had a string of warm days, I kept looking out at the patch thinking there’s no way on this earth we can keep up with the watering requirements we now have on this farm. It’d be a lot for both of us to do together daily, but then imagine if one of us went away or we had someone come stay here if we both wanted or needed to go away—it’s just way too much work! Enter drip irrigation and soaker hoses.
I knew that drip irrigation would be our best bet for the Cut Flower Patch. But if you’ve ever gone to the hardware store and stood in the parts aisle or shopped the online retailers for drip irrigation kits, then you know it feels like an overwhelming task to take on and learn. With everything else I’m currently learning on the fly, I didn’t want to have to add this to my brain energy. Earlier this week I found myself being more stressed out about the upcoming watering we’d have to be doing than being excited about all the wonderful flowers and food we’re about to grow in our gardens this year, and so I hit my breaking point.
I sat down and finally committed myself to just learning enough about the drip irrigation systems to order it for the Cut Flower Patch and install it. This will delay the seedlings going into the ground by another week, but you know what? It ended up being a blessing in disguise because we’re expected to have a freeze this coming week and the seedlings absolutely would have struggled through that cold night had they already been transplanted. So, luck is on our side in this case.
After watching a few YouTube videos on drip irrigation and some product and information videos via the site I used to order it all, it was so easy to make the custom irrigation kits that I even ended up ordering one kit for the patio planters and another for the hanging baskets. Those will both go on timers and run on autopilot for us this season once they’re installed. I was so excited about the prospect of us saving time with watering (and that watering at the soil level as opposed to overhead hand watering is so much better for the health of the plants) that I ended up also ordering a string of soaker hose kits in order to water the Big Garden and the Cottage Garden bed at the front of the house.
It’ll be a bunch of extra work to get them installed and take them up each fall and lay them out each spring, but we’ll end up saving ourselves about three hours a day just in watering alone, and because the water is going straight into the soil and not partially evaporating from being sprayed overhead, we’ll also save a ton of water, too! This was a huge win for the farm and for Chris and I, and I’m proud of myself for just finally sitting down and giving myself the crash course I needed to order the irrigation stuff so that we could do things the right way! I’ll be sure to share more on this as the kits arrive and we start getting them all installed.
The LDF Cows are back…almost!
This has been the question we’ve been asked most frequently this week… “When are the cows coming back?” Up until this week we didn’t actually know or have a date scheduled, but on Wednesday the farmer came up and walked the farm with me to talk about some fencing changes that I’ll need him to make this year to account for the Cut Flower Patch, the donkey’s grazing pasture, the newly-installed old greenhouse, the pond, and some additional space that I need in order to be able to get our new zero-turn mower (if you missed it, we bought a zero turn at the end of the season last year and got an amazing price on it!) into some spaces I couldn’t previously reach with the way the fence was set up last year.
Next, he’ll come back up to the farm with either his brother or one of his sons and they’ll run all the electric fencing back around the perimeter of the farm. He usually comes up on a side-by-side for this job and takes all the fiber glass poles Big Barn and the electric wiring we store in the Big Barn and drives the side-by-side along the perimeter of the 58 acres of the farm and pounds the fence poles in and then runs the wire and hangs it on the poles. It’s a couple hours of work each year for him to set it up and take it down, but it keeps all the poles and wiring in good condition and protects it from winter snow, freezing temps, and tress falling on the fence.
As far as the cattle, he’s planning to bring 11 this year—9 beef cattle and 1 cow and her new-ish baby. The mom has had a limp for a while now, and oddly enough the baby has a limp, too. They’ve been treating them both with some medication and extra attention, but often the farmer (his name is John) likes to bring some of the “misfit cows” as we lovingly refer to them, up to our farm so that they can spend the summer in the sunshine grazing our farm. I prefer that he brings us the ones that have minor issues, too, because I think this farm has healing powers and it seems to be especially good for the animals who really need a little extra something. Funny enough, John told me that David always liked for him to bring up the misfits, too. He must have been onto something.
So the cows should likely get here this week and while I’ll be out of town on a work trip, I’ll try and see if Chris can get some video of them arriving—I’m so sad I’m going to miss it! It’s one of my favorite parts of living on this farm and one of my favorite parts of the year when they arrive here. The farm only really feels like a true working farm when the cows are out grazing in the pastures. So! More wonderful cattle fun coming up!
We think we found a farm sitter!
This is like breaking news! A few weeks ago while my mom was in town we stopped at a local antique store and got to talking to the two sisters who run it. They’re maybe just a few years older than me, and we were talking about how hard it is to get away with animals and gardens and a farm. One of the sisters recommended their sitter to me, and I had a chance to talk with her earlier this week.
She’s so wonderfully sweet and lives in the next town over but works on the main street of our little town. She works full time and does pet and farm sitting full time, too, and because she does both full time she prefers to stay at your home so that she can go to work from your house and come right back to it once she’s done working. This is exactly what we were wanting—someone who could stay here while we’re away so that there’d always be an eye on the farm and the animals.
She’ll be coming to the farm for a meet and greet in early June and then we’ve already booked her for a short trip the same month. We’re planning to do a few smaller trips at the outset until we feel comfortable enough with leaving before we take a longer vacation away together. But! This is the first time Chris and I will go away together for more than a day trip since we moved to the farm in October 2021. This sitter said she comes across that so often and that many of her clients are farm owners who really hate to leave their animals. So, she’s really well experienced with cats, chickens, and equines (she’s worked mainly with horses) and she’s fully familiar with the long list of daily farm chores that have to get done.
We’re so grateful to have found her at the recommendation of someone who couldn’t say enough good things, and we’re excited to get to take a few mini vacations together this year!
I should mention also that while my mom was in town I taught her all of the chores and how the daily farm routine gets done, so we can always fly her up from Florida if needed to watch the farm for us, too. We’re hoping to have one or two other options on hand so that we’re always prepared, especially if our work schedules ever force us both to have to be away at the same time without much notice. Anyhow…this is exciting!!!
This is Tracy and Chuck and their awesome dog Jake, my buddy! Helping out at a community plant sale
For those of you who followed along on Friday this past week, I happened to have the day off of work on both Thursday and Friday and spent the first half of the day on Friday in Vermont with our friends Tracy and Chuck. Tracy and I met via the cat rescue world while Chris and I lived in Philly. She and I have spent countless hours on the phone in the past talking about the health of our fosters, the state of the cat rescue scene in Philadelphia, general cat care, and she provided so much wonderful advice and help to us with Melky, Boonce, and Mr. B, our cats, when they were having various health issues. She’s also the person who introduced us to our vet in Vermont and I consider her to be a mentor, friend, and like family. She and Chuck have been over here to our farm a few times and we’ve been up to their house in Vermont as well. They both used to work at UPenn in Philly and retired in Vermont, and they happen to live just about an hour away from us.
So Friday I got to head up to their town to meet Tracy and Chuck at a nearby local diner for breakfast and then we headed back to their house. Their home is a beautiful sprawling oasis of the most divine gardens surrounding the house they custom built. Truly, they’re my dream gardens, and as much as I’ve learned from Tracy about cat care, I’m now learning about gardening, too. Years ago they had a farm in New Jersey, so they’re all too familiar with all our goings on on the farm. We really love spending time with them and are grateful to have great friends who feel like family nearby.
This plant sale has been organized by Tracy’s neighbor for the past 37 years! Each year, members of the community go out and dig their plants in their gardens in the spring, digging up things they’d like to part with or dividing some of what they maybe have too much of. There are about 200 varieties of plants available, and this year they had more than 1,800 plants for sale. The plants are $6 and the shrubs are $12, and all the proceeds from this sale go to a community scholarship fund for youth. They generally sell out of the plants, and I’m so glad I got to witness this amazing community plant sale—it made me want to start one in our little town!
We spent our time watering all the pots, putting stakes in the ground for signage for all the plant types and varieties, and getting everything ready for opening day this past Saturday. The sale will continue this week, and all the volunteers who work to make it happen really do one heck of a job! I was lucky to come home with a truckbed and a backseat full of some incredible perennial plants and shrubs that will go in the Cottage Garden bed, the front of the house, and down by our farm sign by the road. This is one event I’ll be sure to attend every year!
So, you see what I mean?! We had this whole list of stuff to tell you about!
So many awesome things going on on and around the farm and as always we’re grateful and blessed to have you along for the ride with us. If I haven’t said it recently, thank you so much for showing up here on Sunday’s or whenever you have a moment to read this weekly Farm Note. Thanks for riding along with us, for being the world’s best cheerleaders, for telling us about you and your life and sharing photos of your animals with us in our Instagram DMs (we LOVE this btw!) and for spending your moments with us. We truly appreciate it, and we appreciate you, too.
Wishing a very Happy Mother’s Day to all the mama’s out there!
That’s all for now on this 19th week of 2023! Love ya friends…mean it!
I've signed up for David's class!!! I am so excited!
I’m flying up with your Mom!!!