Wednesday, March 24, 2021

transplanting

transplanting has begun for a some little greenies that were sown a few weeks ago and have been growing in flats the greenhouse...

 

variety of kales, heading cabbage, broccoli, and chinese cabbage


bed of broccoli and chinese cabbage

it's warming up, grow little guys!

Saturday, March 20, 2021

pictures

my camera is pretty worn out but it still gets an okay shot now and then.  here are a few pictures from the last several days...


 benji watching birds while riding on my shoulder after his feet got cold during his afternoon walk


buckeye starting to leaf out


slime mold on rotting pine---pinker in person!


a duck called goose


zane scanning while ducks forage


prowling


Monday, March 15, 2021

more snow

the snow from 4 days ago brought down a large oak tree and staal and i (nick got a few licks in too) spent a few days tromping around in the melting snow getting it cut up and cleared away. 

 





last night we got some heavy rain followed by a couple inches of light, powdery snowfall early this morning...







Wednesday, March 10, 2021

down the road

it's been a very dry winter.  happy to have some snowfall overnight and this morning.  we'll see what's down the road for spring.


 

Monday, February 15, 2021

some pictures i like

 raining today.  going through some pictures i've taken recently.  sharing some of the ones i like...












Monday, February 1, 2021

falling (the best we can do)

 

when we are very young

and first learning to walk

mostly we fall down

this is the best we can do

but

falling isn't failing

if

each time we fall

we get back up

and try again

and so we take another step

or two

and we fall again

and again

we get back up

and we grow 

as we walk on

and sometimes 

we stumble

and sometimes 

the path is full of obstacles

that trip us up

and still

mostly we fall down

and still

this is the best we can do

and one day

we learn

that walking

is

falling

that with each step forward

we fall

and we catch ourselves

over and over

and this 

is the best we can do



Friday, January 29, 2021

windfall

 

i didn't mean for the post i did recently regarding the mono wind event to sound like i was bemoaning some tragedy that had befallen us.  i only meant to relate an experience.  if anything, what came down in the mono wind was truly a windfall.

there will be a lot of work cutting up and clearing the fallen trees but we'll be getting a lot out of it...

 

those trees will provide us with firewood that will keep us warm for years.  

photo taken 11/20/2019

since the trees that came down were live we can use some of the wood to grow more shiitake mushrooms.  

a recent flush of our log grown shiitake mushrooms

our local fire safe council has a free chipping program.  they will come out and chip anything up to 3" diameter that is stacked appropriately and readily accessible to their equipment which means all the smaller branches can be made into wood chips and used to grow winecap mushrooms, mulch the gardens, and keep a clean, dry surface in the duck yard (which, after they "fertilize" it, gets composted and goes into the gardens to feed the fruits and vegetables that feed us).

bucket-o-winecaps harvested last september from a crop grown on wood chips that also serve as mulch for the raspberries

wood chips keep a clean, healthy environment in the duck run by catching manure and soaking up the water from all the splashing around the ducks do just being ducks

another benefit of fallen trees is that many of them, although living, were holding a lot of dead, dry wood that made for an inaccessible fire hazard while they were standing.  now that they're on the ground we can clean things up and take some of the fuel out of our immediate area.  

so, i don't see what happened due to the mono wind as a hardship or misfortune in any way.  i think it was a pretty good deal and i'm grateful.