I’m trying a new feature on the blog for everyone who’s not of Facebook. I try to post notes about things I’m doing out here on a more or less daily basis to my Face Book page. Lots of people are not on FB, so I decided to post a collection of the FB posts to the blog. It makes for an interesting window on what’s going on out here, in my life, etc. I did a ‘day in the life’ type of twitter type posts once over at La Vida Locavore ( www.lavidalocavore.org ), Jill Richardson’s wonderful blog about food, farming and politics. I don’t particularly like Twitter as it’s a bit to breife for me, and comments on a post are hard for me to follow as things move so fast over there. FB’s more my speed, and if I need to post something longer than FB allowes, I can do a tease, then post the rest as the first comment.

Anyhoo, here’s the first installment in my experiment in ag blogging – A week in the life on FB.

Monday 8-2-2010

Moving half of the seedling trays I started last week out of the greenhouse and into the arena garden this AM. I’ll be starting trays and rotating them out every week for the next 6 weeks. That’s a minimum of 2250 seedlings every 7 days or so, some trays have multiple seedlings per plug, so it’ll be many more plants. Should provide lots to eat this winter for the family and CSA members!

Tuesday 8-3-2010

Cool video on the GDF Moo Tube Minute about harvesting corn silage. (via Gilmer Dairy Farm)

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Kind of bummed today. Met with the lawyer and my two brothers to get the last of the paperwork ready to go to close out dad’s estate. Everything went well, but it kinda puts the period at the end of that sentence if ya know what I mean…..

Wednesday 8-4-2010

Moving trays out of the greenhouse today so I can start more ‘stuff’! It’s so much fun to plant the seeds and then see the little plants poking their ‘head’ up! I’ve been seeding pots with artichoke and cardoon seed too. I have almost 200 of those with a few more to do.

*****************************  Wow! Just found 3 trays of Walla Walla Sweet onion sets that I had started from seed last spring. Now I gotta figure out how to overwinter them for next spring. I may do that in the ground and mulch them heavily. I don’t think they’ll grow much this time of year as the days are getting shorter. But maybe…..

*****************************  Weird things about my goat – Snowman, the buck boer, is in rut right now. Among his favorite passtimes, aside from peeing all over his front legs, and his hay, is peeing into his mouth and then showing the flemen response (curling the upper lip, etc.) Not my favorite time of year with respect to the goats…..

*****************************  Gave the kids their first collar training session today. Tieing and leading. Everyone did well except Buffy, Clover’s doeling. She’s wild as a march hare, had to trick her to get the collar on and then boy was she mad and scared when I tied her. Ended on a good note though and we’re friends again.

Thursday 8-5-2010  Very cool post from Eatwell Farm on their blog (via Eatwell Farm) -

http://www.eatwell.com/2010/08/04/what-i-enjoy-most/

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Excellent article by Michael Pollan ( via www.growingpower.org )

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704271804575405521469248574.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

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New chicks hatching. Chickens this time, ducks next week and more guinea fowl. Fortunately Harold DID. NOT. BUY. MORE. HATCHING. EGGS. AT. WOODBURN. the other day….. ;-)

 

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Check out the Brown Swiss oxen that Kendra Kimbrauskas is working with in Colton. Too cool for words! (via Kendra Kimrauskas)

http://oregonoxen.org/

Friday 8-6-2010

Absolutely amazing! I wonder what the fuel usage of the airline industry is vs the passenger cars that eveyone bashes is? (via Dorothy Meyer)

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Aria, Diva’s doeling decided that not being in with the rest of the kids was NOT COOL. Found her in the isleway looking longingly at the kid herd. So now she’s in, sporting a blue collar like her ma. She’ll start her collar and tie out training this afternoon. Does look like they’re happy to have the paddocks to themse…lves. Now if they can only get shut of that pesky ram lamb…..

 

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Too cool! (scythe art via Cooking Up a Story – http://cookingupastory.com/ )

http://scytheconnected.blogspot.com/2010/05/sharpening-scythes-in-art.html

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Another page from Scythe Connected – Many cattle need much hay; hence in dairy sections haying is the period of “storm and stress” in the farmer’s year. To get the hay in, in good condition, and before the grass gets too ripe, is a great matter. All the energies and resources of the farm are bent to this purpose.

http://scytheconnected.blogspot.com/search/label/History

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According to this article at The Ethicurean it appears that if you want to grow and sell produce to restaurants in LA, California, you have to have some special license. HUH?????

http://www.ethicurean.com/2010/08/06/forage-restaurant/

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Just gave one of the turkeys a ride into the barn. Here’s how it went – put bale of hay on wheel barrow, turkey says “looks mighty comfy”, turkey hops up on bale and settles down, wheel whole shebang down to barn, pick turkey up off bale and carry back out of barn, set turkey on stack of old grass straw bales…..

 

　

Saturday 8-7-2010

Harvest day and delivery day today. Glad it’s going to be a bit cooler.

 

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Ha! Just put flea stuff on the new grey kitty. He’s the one I thought was a feral, but turned out to probably be a cat someone dumped out here. Squirted the stuff between his shoulder blades and he didn’t even notice (or he doesn’t care as long as he’s getting lots of scratches). Sammy and JD hate it when I do that to …them. Takes ‘em a couple days to get over it. Go figure…..