Haiku Farm

The garden is pretty much "put to bed" for the season, the Dragon is snugged up in her medium-weight blanket, the maple tree in the yard is denuding itself fast  (and I am collecting the leaves for garden mulch), and also... It's time to re-gravel the driveway! If I were rich (and organized) I'd get gravel spread on the driveway every 6 months.   We joke about starting a gravel-of-the-month club:  January's gravel is sand mixed with salt,  March gravel is pea gravel for walkways,  and October gravel is 5/8 minus for driveways and paddocks.   Okay, it's not really a joke.  If anybody wants to give me a load of gravel every month, I'd be thrilled. There's no such thing as too much gravel  on a farm Lest you think that gravel isn't a seasonal thing, I give you this: I was 2 years old when "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" first aired,  and it is definitely a major part of the season for me. I'm not big on seasonal decorations t

2020, in one picture. This one is just pretty.  

  It took the online equestrian community less than a minute to identify me, my horse, and my probable location and activity. And yes.  I was hunting mushrooms.  I caught a few, too. Mostly chanterelles, but also one lobster--the other lobsters are in the dehydrator already ...and on the way back to the trailer, there was this.  I needed both hands to keep the camera steady, so I didn't have any hands available to steady the Dragon...who stood still and wiggled her ears menacingly at the machine. This is my life.  And it is Good.

 If it hadn't been for work disruptions due to the pandemic, we probably wouldn't have finished the paint and cosmetic repairs in 2020. Jim and I took advantage of a clear day to install the purple trim at the south end The painting was, truthfully, mostly my job.  Since I work from home two days each week now, getting a few sections painted each morning was actually possible.  In the  Before Times, I was spending those hours on the road, sitting in traffic. We've used greenhouse-plastic to fill the triangular spaces up until now.  I like having the extra light, but having boards there will keep more rain out. Although painting could be done by one person, installing these triangular bits took four hands (sometimes five).   We had to pull up the drip edging from the roof and fit the purple boards up underneath,  then screw the whole thing back together. I love  the color. Most of the year (in the Before Times) I would only see my horse in the dark. It's kinda nice to se

No matter what is happening in the rest of the world, here on the Farm we are prepping like crazy for the rainy season. The list is always the same:  shelter, heat, food.   We work on all all those things throughout the year, for us and for the animals, but we know that the exam will be handed out in the middle of winter when it will be difficult (if not impossible) to catch up on the tasks that keep us busy in the dryer months. Firewood is a perennial Big Deal here. The shed is FULL! Last year, Sandy had an enormous  tree taken down from her yard in town.   The pro tree crew makes it look easy--and of course,  they have all the right equipment for the job! Her family kept about half the wood from that tree, and the rest came out here.   The green rounds were so enormous--and so heavy--that we couldn't lift most of them into the rented wood splitter, so we ended up rolling them into a heap in the driveway, and covering the whole thing with tarps for a year to allow them to dry out

"The woods are wet, the air is clear, and the Dragon is happy." That's the message I sent with this picture last week Finally, the rains have returned and the smoke is gone! If smoke pollution is the "new normal", I want to be on record as "not a fan." I haven't ridden much yet, post-smoke, but Fee and I did get out for 5.5 miles of walking--basically, out to Chanterelle Hill and back.  That put us over the 26 miles point in our Virtual Tevis journey.   Because the smoke was so widespread and so long-lasting, the Virtual Tevis deadline has been extended to the end of 2020. The forecasters say the rain is temporary, and that "summer temps" will return next week, but it doesn't matter--once we've had a proper bucket-dump of water, the heat feels different and it isn't  summer anymore. I raced out between squalls and threw paint on the barn. I love the blue, but I also love the purple "triangles" near the roof line. I