The End of Unnamed

Hey everybody (all 4 of you!)-

In case you haven't heard, we finally named the farm. It is (drumroll?) Stone's Throw Farm. We polled a bunch of people and it was the hands-down favorite. Plus, both Elden and I like it pretty darn well.

There--that was easy.

I moved this blog over to http://stonesthrowfarm.wordpress.com/. Some of the pages are still in progress, but you can head on over there anyway.

Thanks.

Stoney Point, January 16, 2010.

Gearing Up

I bought a laptop! And a printer/copier/scanner, and some software and stuff. It's a Toshiba Satellite A505-S6980.

Now I can design marketing materials and keep track of expenses and budgets and communicate with the outside world from the home office. Well, not now, exactly, but in a few days when my broadband service is activated and some nice person from the tech store arrives to set up my wireless router, etc. Soon.

We have power!

A few years ago, I never would have guessed that my first glimpse of an ugly pole would have caused such a big boost in my mood. But that is exactly what happened yesterday as I drove toward our new property on County 102, because I knew it meant we now have electricity at the ready. It doesn't go anywhere, and I'll have to pay $8/month for the privilege of having a meter even though we're not using any power yet, but that's okay. It's one less thing to worry about.

The Closing, or Something ...

So, the closing didn't exactly happen on Friday the 18th at 9 am. Elden and I arrived at the appointed hour only to find that not everyone had been informed about the closing. Namely, the seller. Also, the documents weren't exactly ready for me to sign. (None of this was my lawyer's fault, I should mention. I won't mention whose fault it was. Ahem.) Forty-five minutes and some impulse buys at L&M later (where else does a farmer go to kill time than the local fleet/supply store?), we returned to the lawyer's office, I signed our lives away and handed over the really big check, which would remain in my lawyer's care until such time as the seller could come in and sign, which turned out to be Wednesday, December 23rd. I still do not have an official document, but my lawyer assures me it is being recorded as I type. Good thing I've never been one for ceremony. Maybe we should call it Anticlimactic Farm.

Closing tomorrow at 9 am!

Pigs Like Corn

I'm getting pretty excited about raising pigs on pasture. I'm trying to figure out whether to put them out on one of the hayfield areas or if it would be better to sow some oats and peas in one of the fields I prepped this year, or use a combination of the two. Either way, they'll need corn to eat, too, and my dad has some picked and set aside for me/them. Thanks, Dad!

I talked to my grandpa about maybe buying some feeder pigs from him in the spring. He raises purebred Berkshire hogs, and he told me Martha Stewart recently featured a Berk on her show. I couldn't get the sound to work on this computer, but I watched the video and I've never seen a pig that calm when being held that way. I wonder if they gave it a paralytic.

Just add plastic.

The greenhouse has bright and shiny wirelock brackets now. (For those of you who don't know, wirelock is an aluminum channel that you put the plastic over, then insert special wiggle wire--or "wiggly wire," as E says--into the channel to secure the plastic.)

We're afraid to put the plastic on because we don't have electricity yet, and therefore no way to inflate the two layers of plastic this winter. Maybe it wouldn't matter, but that plastic is expensive.

We still have no address, but now we can tell people to look for the greenhouse on the right.

Just add fire, E.

Here's a look at the rye. It looks pretty good in the field by the road.

Frosty.

A Flurry of Hoophouse Construction

Thanks to some amazing 50-degrees and sunny weather (and Elden being able to take a day off work on Tuesday), we got our hoophouse frame up! This hoophouse will be a multi-purpose greenhouse for a while--I'll use it for starting plants and I'll also plant some tomatoes in the soil inside. Instead of plowing it, I spread some topsoil that the excavator piled up for me during the driveway construction (the driveway has been completed, by the way--see photo of the turnaround in the woods below). John recommended this to me because it will help the site to drain better if it is a bit elevated, and it will kill the grass underneath without disturbing the soil structure, worm pathways, etc. Setting the foundation posts was, of course, tons of fun, and despite our best efforts to keep the tops of the posts from getting bent out of shape during the pounding, we had to do some filing and hammering to get the hoops into the foundation posts, but it wasn't too bad. I am incredibly relieved to have this much progress done. The weather is supposed to be halfway decent this weekend, so Elden and I should get some work done on the endwalls.

Destruction

Ploughing 2 acres didn't seem anywhere near as destructive as putting in this driveway did. Perhaps that is because I was an active participant in the ploughing, whereas the culvert, driveway, and accompanying ditches went in one Friday while I was at work. When I stopped by on Friday night, it was a shock to see the huge piles of soil and very wide expanse of grass-less area screaming at me from what had for so long been a quiet little hayfield. Elden and I spent the next day clearing trees for the rest of the driveway.

Every Veggie Farm Needs a Greenhouse or 6

With lots of encouragement from Dave of the Food Farm, I bought a 30' x 40'greenhouse from a nice guy in Gary. Dave then gallantly helped Elden, our friend Greg, and I dismantle the greenhouse on a cold Saturday (thanks, guys!). Elden and I moved it out to the unnamed farm and stacked all the materials for now....

My first cover crop

I hired a neighbor to spread some manure on the fields, and hauled a few loads myself with my little manure spreader. Then I seeded some winter rye as a cover crop. It's not a very even stand, but it will have to do.

Breaking Ground

First Steps

My parents came up in September to help me get started. They worked their butts off for 3 days straight. Dad had already sent up some machinery ... a LOT of machinery. Dad and Mom helped me locate property lines (approximately), measure and mark the fields--a one-acre field and two half-acre fields. Elden staked out the driveway.

We moved some hay bales out of the way.