Screeching halt!

After 3 days in a row last week with actual sunshine, the rain has started again.  We are on our 5th day in a row of rain with at least 2 more days of rain in the forecast before we get a sunny day.  Followed by?  More rain!  Puhleeeeeeeze!  To add insult to injury, the highs the last 2 days have been in the mid 40's when our normal highs should be upper 60's. 


And so we wait and twiddle our thumbs.  Or in my case I baked a couple loaves of bread and some dark chocolate chocolate chip cookies.  Home cooked food is always a good way to beat the weather blues.


Of course when things are looking bleak, it is always nice when someone points out that you are not alone.  Up here in the northeast tundra as we like to call it, we expect delays in planting, but not in the ENTIRE state of Ohio.  The Farm and Dairy publishes a crop report story every week and things are mighty slow getting planted in Ohio in the May 17th story.

The Ohio results are vastly different, however. We are at 7 percent, up from just 2 percent last week. Our average is 70 percent, so we are only a tenth done compared to a normal year.

Ok, so there are other farmers as worse off as us.  And of course we cannot forget the total devastation that has and is occuring along the Mississippi River this year.  We don't have that here.  I imagine that we will get things planted at some point.  Heck it was just 2008 when I remember the guys out planting in the first couple of weeks of July.  So there is precedence.


But let's focus on what actually got done last week.  The "big" fields got chisel plowed.  These are the fields where soybeans will be planted this year.  Wish we could plant corn again as corn prices are surely going to remain high, but we've had back to back corn in the fields and it is time to grow some beans.  Anyway, the fields will need disked and/or tilled and then they will be ready to plant.

Mike got part of the "lower" garden plowed and also tilled so that is ready to plant.  This area will have rhubarb, horseradish and onions.

Mike got started on the main garden area too.  He plowed up the areas where cover crop was planted last year and got a lot of that tilled.  This will be planted with potatoes and various greens (mustard, spinach and such).

Then I got what is probably not that bright of idea to take a photo of the main garden from one spot and show the transformation over time.  Not very bright because now I have to remember to take a picture from this spot on a regular basis and I can't even seem to blog on a regular basis.  The view is taken on May 11th from the tractor path at the corner of the pasture.  I think this area had cantaloupe last year.  You can hardly see the plastic mulch covering the rows because of all the weeds that have grown up.  The plastic needs lifted (we have a machine for this) and then the weeds plowed under. 

And in addition to the gardening activities that took place last week, the first batch of meat chicks arrived last Wednesday.  They are all settled in under their heat lamp and doing well. 

 The only ones that don't seem to mind the weather around here are the 4 pet hens that wander the farm.  There sure has been a bumper crop of worms for them to eat this spring.  This is Blackie and Mama Chicken.  I'll try to get pics of Whitey and Brownie later.

At the rate we are going, the next blog update will be June.  Seriously though, I hope not.  This is spring and things should be rockin' and rollin'.  Maybe next week.