This morning I looked out my bedroom window and the sun was shining and the grass was more green than brown. Before the day was over several daffodils had opened.
I planted beets (Three Root Grex).
For dinner I cooked a half shoulder of Luick pork with my homemade sauerkraut. It was so good.
I cut into one of my cheeses today, the one that was intended to be teleme. It is a long way from being teleme but is nonetheless delicious. It reminds me of a Caerphilly.
Martha was limping less today but still last in line.
April15, 2012 Sunday
Sally started the day by making almond cookies. What a treat.
Still no rain but much warmer. It reached 70F.
Martha is still last in line but definitely moving better. The state of health can be hard to judge in a prey animal. They do their best to conceal illness and injury so as not to draw the attention of predators.
Here are a few pictures from last week's sheep-shearing.
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Sally planted four kinds of potatoes in the sunken garden. It does not get full sun but the soil is excellent and I think they will do OK if this continues to be a dry year. If wet, I will have to get Max to do some trenching. There have never been potatoes there so the beetles should be delayed in finding them.
I usually get help from Max with laying hose to my lower veg garden but he is out of town and my seeds are going to come up and frizzle if I don’t get water down there. The radishes are already up. I spent most of the day organizing hose fittings, dragging hoses and all the things we all hate about hoses. Then Sally helped me drag it down to the garden. I filled the dustbins that I use for reservoirs and carried water in sprinkling cans to the rows. Now our helper, Nancy has called to say that we may have snow next week. The weather is wobbling in its orbit.
April 17, 2012 Tuesday
Milton is not cutting Jasmine’s teats now that Max filed them (twice) but is eroding the skin around the top of her teats and attacking her too violently. She tries to kick him off but then gives up trying. We put the cow bra back on her this morning. It’s a nuisance I had hoped to avoid after Sally leaves but at this point the only other options I can think of (besides freezer camp) are equally troublesome. A huge advantage of preventing Milton from sucking is that I will now get an extra gallon a day of milk. Milton will be 6 months old on the 23rd of this month and ought to be weaned.
It was very warm again today. Sally and Nancy H. laid a double strand of barbed wire along half the length of my north property line. I had a new survey this past winter to clarify it. The person I sold it to (not the current owners) moved the stakes to take more land for himself and then built a shed half on my land and cut down some of my trees to improve his view and then became threatening when I complained. I am so relieved to have at least the first half of a new property line fence. Sally and Nancy came in exhausted. They had to make their way through the nearest thing that Maine has to a jungle and it includes some swamp although not as much swamp as there used to be because the former owner without permission drained a lot of it to make himself a lake at the lower end of the property.
April 18, 2012 Wednesday
Not so warm today but full sun. We got an extra gallon from Jasmine thanks to putting the cow bra on yesterday.
Lots of excitement in the garden. I dug up a three foot long self-seeded volunteer parsnip, just perfect. Lots of perennials are up- peonies, Michaelmas daisy, lychnis. The 100 year old crabapple tree is leafed out well. The tamarack tree is a nice froth of green. Sally planted lupine seeds and more potatoes in the paddock garden, transplanted baby Helenium to a larger pot, and so on. We are thinking of potting on the tomatoes into larger pots as they are anxious to have more spacious quarters and we don’t trust the weather yet. They are from mixed heirloom seed from Fedco and we are most anxious to see what they turn into. They are fine plants.
The cows got down to the pocket field today for the first time this year. The grass is already quite lush down there and they seemed delighted with it. None the less they came running when called in for their evening grain snack; it was quite funny to see them all running, the two calves way ahead and the moms not liking that and galumphing along. The grain is mostly to get them in so the calves can be separated for the night.
April 19, 2012 Thursday
We got a frost last night. It was down to 22F. There was one early morning warning but all day the prediction was for a low of 45F. Fortunately we did not trust the weather and brought in or covered all the seedlings and did not lose anything. It would have been a heartbreaker. Sally gardened like crazy all day and I dug and watered for an hour or so.
My spinach is up. I am trying not to buy any more vegetables. Mostly this means I am serving sauerkraut or parsnips.
April 20, 2012 Friday
We got another light frost last night but suffered no real damage. Sally had taken all the same precautions as the night before.
Yesterday I feared that Jasmine was getting mastitis, perhaps as a result of the pummeling she had been getting from Milton. Last night I applied Uddermint, a strongly scented peppermint lotion approved for organic practice. She was in good shape this morning but I applied it again anyway. She will continue to wear her cow bra for protection.
DS Max was here for hours helping with a long honey-do list. He got the old tarps off of the veg garden. DD Marcia put them down two winters ago to solarize a big patch of comfrey, a task which they appear to have accomplished.
DS Martin and the kids came this afternoon without Amy. She is home cooking for Hannah’s 6th birthday party which will be at the lake on Sunday. I joined them for pizza and sunset watching on the deck. Sally stayed home to work on her packing.
©Copyright 2012 Joann S. Rogers
