Farming in the shade

Saturday we were busy with various tasks when the power went out. We have a backup generator for just such an occasion (as the chickens cannot be without feed/water/lights/fans). Within a second or two of losing power the generator kicks on automatically. It's one of those things (like insurance policies) that buys us a little sleep at night. The generator is very loud when it runs, so daughter #2 took this photo quickly and made her escape.  It is vented to the outside, so we always know by the noise and the flapping exhaust panels that the generator is on.  We were without power for several hours. We don't often lose power. When we do, I remember why I'm grateful for backup generators.

Need a lawn mower now that gas has hit $4?

O beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife, Who more than self their country loved, and mercy more than life! America! America! May God thy gold refine, Till all success be nobleness, and every gain divine! --In honor of those who "more than self their country loved"

This week the fertilizer spreader guy was finally able to come and spread the compost we purchased to use as fertilizer this year. We find that in some cases it is just cheaper to hire something done than to purchase the equipment and do it ourselves. Take a look at this rig... It's been so wet that we haven't been able to do any fieldwork for about a month. We planted oats and hay early, but corn and soybeans need to wait for a bit. They need warm soil, or the seed will not germinate. Then when the calendar said it was time to begin tilling the fields, the rains came.  All that changed this week. We've had a stretch of dry weather, and were able to start chisel plowing. After plowing, we let the ground rest for 2 or 3 days. Then we field cultivate, which kills all the newly-germinated weed seeds. Finally, we plant and pack the soil down with a cultipacker. 

In between computers, I am not able to post the photos I took today of a huge spreader distributing compost on our farm. It may be a quiet week on this blog.  Don't forget to vote on the poll on the sidebar. And folks? I was just kiddin' around when I included "Lona's far-out political views" as an option. Vanilla ice cream here--nothing radical. Probably put you to sleep if I started talking about things like that... So stop voting for that already!

"Really, there are only two kinds of people who are going to understand about hand-knit socks: those who wear them and know the singular joy of perfect socks, and the knitters who have the pleasure of giving that exquisite experience. Everybody else thinks you must be a special kind of crazy to spend so much time making something that you could buy for $1.99 at the store." --from At Knit's End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (quotation courtesy of Carol, who laments that she is not able to knit enough )

Saturday evening The Farmer worked on cranking out socks on his sock machine . He used some of the yarn we purchased from fellow Etsian Grasshopper Handmade recently. (An aside: I have no idea why or how etsy shop owners come up with such creative names for their shops.) Here's the first sock in process, with the scrap yarn (mint green) that joins all the socks together into one long tube. He ended up with four socks and a little yarn left over. It's always nice when he gets an even number of socks from a skein! This is one of the socks, finished. The color is truer in the photo above. Why are we buying sock yarn when we have plenty of our own wool in all different forms? Because the sock knitting machine is cranky, that's why. It needs a very lightweight yarn, and we have four different sizes of yarn--all too heavy. We brought some raw wool in to Zeilinger Wool Co. in March and placed our order for sock yarn, but it takes about 6 months from order to ship date. Watch for ...