Well, so much for my renewed interest in blogging from last
year. I was so on fire to keep the blog up to date and interesting, but then it
started raining, and if you remember last year’s weather, you will remember
that it basically didn’t stop raining from June until August. When it didn’t dry
up after a few weeks, I got so depressed that I didn’t feel like blogging
anymore. And it just kept raining. Nothing much happened on the farm last year.
All of my experiments either washed or rotted away. All the fun things I
wanted to blog about were non-existent. And of course, I didn’t want to write
about the weather week after week. It would have been something like “It’s
still raining on the farm, so we’re not doing much right now” or "We tried to work again today, but we just got stuck in the mud a few times, so we gave up and went home."
That being said, we did release our first bottle of wine
this past year. And, again, I failed to blog about that. It was indeed one of
the most momentous events of my life. I was too busy living it to write about
it. We had a party at Wanda's to release the vintage. We had over 200 people stop by and taste the wine. My friend Jordan serenaded us on a grand piano that we had rented. Students from Johnson and Wales helped mom and me with the catering. We got a local food truck to provide dinner to those who wanted it. We had a fire pit going in the parking lot of the store. It was easily the most sophisticated night the west side of Concord has seen since the Mexican pool hall closed down a few years ago.
And then came all of the polar vortexes. The plants froze. So, again, we had
nothing going down on the farm. Just cold weather. I stayed inside. The
Moldovans didn’t seem to mind working in the cold, but there was simply nothing
to do since all of our plants died and we had nothing for sale.
Even the snow was not that fun. It was one of the most anxious times of the year for me. I knew that we needed to keep the snow off the high tunnels or they would collapse, however, when I went out that morning to get the snow off, I couldn't get out of my driveway to get to the high tunnels. My dad said he'd come over to help me get out, but he got stuck too. And by the time he got out, and got to me, the tunnels had already collapsed with the weight of the snow. The next day, we got into the tunnels and shoveled the snow out. They popped back up and no plants were seriously damaged. Sigh of relief. Nevertheless, we will have to replace the majority of the PVC bands that support the structure.
So, in summary- I am not very good at blogging. Especially
when there’s not much going on. I can’t even seem to write about the fact that
there’s nothing going on. I really must hire someone to take over the blog next
year.
BUT! Spring is around the corner. The garden is planned, the plants are ordered and we'll start getting our root vegetables and peas in the ground at the end of this week. Leafy greens will start going in the ground sometime next week. We're all caught up on the office work and the garages are all sparkling clean and organized (as much as a farm garage can be sparkling clean, that is).
BUT! Spring is around the corner. The garden is planned, the plants are ordered and we'll start getting our root vegetables and peas in the ground at the end of this week. Leafy greens will start going in the ground sometime next week. We're all caught up on the office work and the garages are all sparkling clean and organized (as much as a farm garage can be sparkling clean, that is).
