Well, yes. It is that time again. A new year, cold weather, drought summer. Same old, same old. But,...the greenhouse is going up. Gonna make it longer this year. The smaller one, that is. The big one goes up when it's warmer.

Plan on making one of those chicken mobiles. Got an old trailer.Thing's a bit bent up from hauling logs, but looks sturdy enough. 

I guess, am gonna offer a CSA again, this year. Decided to go two ways with it. a regular 10 week harvest season; will start in May, and run thru the summer into July.  Folks'll get their boxes prepacked, but will still have some say in what does or does NOT go into it. Why waste good food. I'll keep the "exotic" stuff for my own table.

The second way, is going the pay-as-you-go route. Potential members pay an upfront nonrefundable $50 fee and then whenever they do choose to come by, pay $30 for a share box. This way, if they need to be somewheres else [vacation?] they don't lose a share. Can come for as many/few pick ups as they want. Not locked in to full 10 weeks. 

Am cutting down to two farmers' markets this year. One in Greensboro and the other in Burlington.

 major breezy yesterday.Lots to do. Difficult to lay  frost blankets out in the fields on one's own, but managed it  and thought I was done by dark. So.there  I am, sitting in my favorite sofa with my feet up, watching the local weather forecast and they mention how farmers are dreading the next couple of hours and how the blueberry crop might get affected and WHAT???!!!.....

MY BLUEBERRIES!!!   I'd forgotten all about them. AARRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHH.............But what can I do? No more stuff to cover them with, and I'm not set up for throwing water at 'em.

gotta hope for the best. So, I'm  out and about at 2AM this morning, checking on things. Temp gauge was showing 40F.  It was a full moon and dead calm.  The smoke coming out of the chimmey was floating straight up. No breeze. Eerily quiet,...no bugs sounding off or dogs chasing anything.

I think I got lucky this time. But the month of April can still hold a few surprises. Tonight's supposed to be even colder....we'll see.

  You know, I been thinking of late, how them Indians of old, had it wrong. Or at least did it the hard way. Dancing aorund a fire all day, sending up smoke signals, and praying to the Raingod to rescue their crops, slake their thirst,...anything to end the drought.

  No, the best way to make it rain?  Plant potatoes. Yep, plant potatoes and,  BOOM! - four straight days of rain. Gully washers. Take them taters who knows where. Hard to tell where them rows were, at all.

  Think it was a fluke?  Well, replant them taters and see what happens. Uh huh, works everytime. Bye, bye drought.

O' course, dancing around a fire can be a lot of fun, (although that secondhand smoke can be a killer). . But you're out socializing, gettin' some exercise. Heck, might even meet your future mate. But when you're serious about getting your garden wet, nothing beats taters.

...a word of caution... be careful what you wish for. Too much water can be worse than too little.

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Hello...

Hmm, hope this type is big enough. Anyway, my name is Ron, and I'll be your host on this lil' blog till one of us gets too bored to look at it.

Had thought of doing this long, drawn out, hilarious story bout how i got into farming, a la "farm story".  But unfortunately, I don't do funny. So, it'll just have to be mmm,....observational stuff. No, no, not that Jerry Seinfeld kinda stuff, just, oh..."Hey, look! It's snowing." kinda stuff.

Anyways,....I digress. I remember reading somewheres, how when it does snow, there's just a little bit of Nitrogen  in it,  and when it floats on down to the soil, it's like FREE fertilizer. And boy, do I like free. Ol' Mother Nature dumped tons of that free stuff on us a couple of days ago. However, I do hate that I don't have anything in the ground to take avantage of it. Too bad it don't snow in July.  

The DOT dumped a couple of loads of ground up "road stuff" two years ago. Was using a lot of it last year. Well, trying to anyway. Couldn't believe the number of copperheads that kept rolling out with each shovelful. Tried to get my brother to scoop up a bucketful with the bobcat, but after I told him about all them snakes goin' ever which a way. He wouldn't do it. 'Fraid he'd get a lap full of 'em. Hope its rotted down enough this year that there ain't as many. Better yet, none at all.