Even though the rain kept us from weeding and hoeing and mulching, our intern crew did get the Sugar Ann peas twines up the stakes put in earlier. Sugar Ann sugar snap peas will grow about 4 feet tall and need twines to hold them up. As the vines grow, we will add more twines. This keeps the pods clean and makes picking the peas much easier when that time comes. The twining happened between rain showers which have been the frustrating story of our lives this week. 
The potato plants are doing great. They seem to love the rain. They are well mulched so the weed growth is held to a minimum. In some of the other fields, we watch in frustration bordering on mild horror as the weeds grow and grow and grow with all the rain, taking over and becasue the fields are so wet, we can only watch and wait. We did enjoy our couple of days shelling dry Black Turtle beans from last year, making cheese and wine and and working on a variety of clean-up, fix it assorted projects. And, the weeds keep growing and and growing and we know we'll have a lot of weeding and hoeing once the soil dries out enough. One of the projects accomplished today between rains, was renovating the turkey hoop house - adding a first floor to the small hoop. Liz, our intern carpenter tackled the project making a wonderful house with a roost and a Dutch door! Our Bourbon Red Turkeys - hopefully our new breeding stock, seem very happy with their new raised roof.
Just this last week we also made new hoop houses for the Aurocks and the Barracanas (our Barred Rock X Aracana) chickens we hatched in our incubator. Karla built the new much larger hoop pens for the teenage chickens who had outgrown their smaller house. Robin tried to sex them and only move the hens into the new faciltiy leaving the cockerels in the old house. We're not so sure how good Robin's sexing skills are as we heard a suspicious rooster crowing noise coming from the all-female? house. Karla also began the second hoop house for the Aurocks - the second group of chicks we hatched and Emily and Holly finished the house with nettings tied in many places. All of the chickens seem to be enjoying their roomier accomodations. Robin mowed the grass today putting in many miles and hours while retracing her steps through the wet grass. It looks great around here.
The animals don't seem to mind the rain. They have shelter to get out of the rain, wind to keep the bugs at bay, and a lot of farmers who feed, water and care for them.
Our harvest buckets are all scrubbed out and ready for the harvest that will start tomorrow morning. Robin and Gigi and all of the interns and critters are praying for a little Thursday sunshine. It is so much more fun harvesting, processign and packing your shares when it is not raining! We look at weather predictions but trusting in any prediction beyond 48 hours seems to be less accurate than more. So we keep our raincoats handy, keep our eyes on the clouds searching for sun and continue to farm and harvest through whatever comes.
Until next week. Robin
What's in Your Share This Week
Mei Qing Choi Bok Choi
Green Onions
Salad Mix including:
lettuce
mustard greens
mizuna
kale
arugula
swiss chard
bulls blood beets
pea shoots
garlic scapes
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