Farm Update

As we've said, farming this year is about two things: 1) improving the soil and 2) learning about the soil, weather, bugs, etc in this area. As such, Phil has a lot of little things going on, all with those two goals in mind. For example, he's growing a lot of green manure--plants like crimson clover, vetch, and a rye-type grain that will get tilled into the soil later and add important nutrients and materials. He also has a pumpkin patch. Pumpkins come with a lot of green stuff that can get tilled into the soil. Plus, we may even have some pumpkins to carve or sell. Then there's the lasagna gardening--raised beds of layers of straw, manure, and other stuff.

To learn about bugs and get a baseline for what will grow in the soil he's also planted a variety of plants like herbs, tomatoes, peppers, peas, beans, and okra. We don't think we'll get a lot to eat, but that's not the point of this year.

Right now it's a muddy mess out there (apparently when it rains in Mississippi it's always a torrential storm, never a pleasant sprinkling), but here are some pictures we've taken over the past few months.

Farm April and May 2010

Farm Hands

Phil decided he could use a couple of extra hands around the farm so we got ourselves a new recruit. Pretty sure this isn't the most economical or efficient way to get help, but child labor serves so many companies so well we thought we'd give it a shot. Who needs values and morals anyway?


Expected arrival date: 11/26/2010. Expected first day of work: unknown at this time.

No more chicken

I fear my previous post has left many of you thinking we live in a dangerous area. Rest assured, Oktibbeha County is a quiet, bucolic haven. We assume that the chicken was a gift from the neighborhood teenagers. Maybe the four I saw yesterday crammed onto a 4 wheeler coming back from fishin'? Or maybe the two I saw riding horses down the street?

I've been admiring the wildlife on the farm a lot lately. We had a barred owl perching on a fence post the other morning, a red tailed hawk patrols the skies above us regularly, I saw my first blue bird (gorgeous!), and yesterday I saw what I believe was a wolf spider carrying her bright blue egg sac.

This weekend I'm hoping to write a post about what's growing on the farm.

Chicken...

in the mailbox. That was our most recent interaction with our neighbors. No, not live chickens for us to raise but chewed up fried chicken spit into our mailbox. They also broke off the little red flag.