Week 20, 2013 Season

I found some things out about myself while keeping this blog of our farm's journey.

1.  I have a mental block when it comes to spelling zucchini (Of course I had to look up the spelling to make sure it was correct).  Maybe I will learn how eventually with more practice. Zucchini, zucchini, zucchini.

2.  I believe that I have a limited number of written words that need to be expressed over a given time period.

In the early days of our farm and blog, I spoke very little and never wrote at my previous employment.  My written word quota was not being reached.  Now with four little ones and a job where most of what I do is write and speak, I think I am exceeding my quota.  Priorities have changed.  I don't have much of an urge to write about the farm.  I'm expressing myself aplenty.  I'd like to say I am going to write more...but probably I won't.  I used to feel guilty about not posting, but now if I write a post I congratulate myself.  Celebrate the small victories!

Regardless, now that I am taking the time to write I'll let you know what is going on at the farm.

We have a nesting pair of bluebirds in our bird box.  They are fun to see and cool to watch bringing food to the little ones.  We also have a mockingbird nest on an old trailer.  Nate and I discovered it last week by accident. We also had the privilege of seeing a flight of termites from our shredded tree piles from the powerline work.  These are the dump piles from the contractors cleaning up live oaks underneath the powerlines along the road ways.  I asked if they would dump the mostly chipped leaves on our farm and they were all to happy to oblige.  Now we use it to increase the organic matter of our soils.  The interesting thing about the termites was that a flock of swallows were eating them and were flying all around us when we went over to investigate.  They were so close you could here their mouths snapping as they flew through the aerial buffet line.  It was a neat experience and we spent some time just taking it all in.

Another interesting development is that our humble farm is apparently a goldmine for the local research plant pathologist.  He got excited when I was explaining about how my tomato plants' foliage turned purple and was wondering what it might be.  After some intense questioning he determined that we had tomato purple leaf disorder.  This is a yet unexplained problem (probably a new virus) on tomatoes and it got the scientist out to the field to collect samples and whiteflies with a bug vac.  He has been back to get more samples and found new and interesting diseases on our potatoes as well.  Well I'm glad we can do our part to advance horticultural science as well as grow organic vegetables for our local community.  It  makes for a win-win for our community at large...maybe.  I hope to add some pictures soon.  That reminds me...

3.  I find downloading pictures to a blog post harder to do than actually sitting down to write a post.