Approved!

I just got the most fantastic email. It was our EFP adviser informing me that we have been approved for our full amount on the rain-water harvesting idea for both our chickens and cows.

It is our first funded project and the funding will knock a few thousand off the price tag bringing it down to 40% of its original cost.

Next steps: I need to cost out the gutters and other non-funded materials to get a final price tag for the team so we can decide if and when we will do this.

Wish me luck!

Easter Long Weekend

Happy Easter everyone. He is risen!

As per usual, we made the most of our long weekend with a flurry of work.

On Friday, Josh and Marc pushed to finish bucketing. Our tenant Grace surprised us by wrapping that up in the evening as Josh and Marc had to make a few hay runs on Friday. I was tied up painting at my rental.

Saturday morning, I popped out to wrap up bucketing and noted it was all done. I proceeded to show epic fire starting prowess and burned down the two remaining piles. Raking is done!

Saturday afternoon we all disappeared from the farm to attend the birthday party for Darren, who has probably been one of our biggest volunteers for our many work parties. I think he has been at every one except one day when he was sick.

Sunday was mostly church stuff, lunches and dinners so we did not do much that day. We need a day of rest you know...

Monday we plowed through shavings and knocked out a third of the remaining rows. We did most of them in the morning with all three guys plus my kids. In the afternoon, Marc and I returned to do another two rows. We called it a day for shavings as we were not sure where we were at on fuel.

We then went over to the area adjoining the cow pasture and pulled up an entire fence. The ground was soft so we made quick work of it. I now have 13 nice fence posts to use for blocking the cows from the pond.

No word yet on my funding. It should be coming soon. Work proceeds as expected.

I am looking forward to May. We are hoping to wrap up shavings soon. Then we can hit some fun stuff. We have a stall or two to repair, plus a chicken coop to build. It should be exciting.

Work Shift

Thanks to some hard work over the weekend, blueberry pruning is now complete. Marc and Josh finished off the last row and started into the remaining raking that needs to be completed. We still have well over half a field of raking, plus shavings for the remainder of field one.

What this signifies is a shift in the work focus on the farm. We are now winding down blueberry prep and are stepping into the spring work project season. We have a number of projects demanding our attention and the game now falls into my realm of prioritizing work based on need, cost, and time.

Work Party Update

I'm about a week or two late on this one. I kept meaning to post up pictures of our work party but I guess I lost track of time...

Way back in the days of yore, about two weeks ago on March 22nd, we gathered the fair folk of the community around us to rally towards one common goal...shavings in field one. Ok. I can't type the whole post like that...

One of the smaller piles at the start of raking.

The Birds

Walking through our fields makes one feel like they are trapped in an Alfred Hitchcock movie. The amount of robins is astounding.

As I mentioned previously, I was working to post up pinwheels on bamboo stakes to deter them. The method seems to work well in personal gardens, but we wanted to try it on a larger scale. The goal is to deter the birds from pecking and eating our berries.

One of my bird deterrents.

Moving in the mud

As I mentioned previously, one of our projects was to move all of the Patriots from the rows adjacent to our ditch system into the Patriot field to fill in the gaps. Over time some bushes get damaged and there are a lot of gaps. Moving them will be beneficial in a few ways:

• Being more susceptable to "mummy berry" the patriots along the ditch are the biggest targets. The lack of space on the one side means we cannot spray as completely for the fungus.
• We want to create a visible separation between the varieties for ease of pruning and organization.
• Getting them away from mixed rows with Blue Jays will allow them to thrive without being overwhelmed by the faster growing Blue Jays.

Blueberries on the brain

Time for a big work push.

Pruning is quickly coming to a close. Josh and I are putting in as much time as we can on the weekends to contribute, while Marc plugs away at it during the week as our full-time farmer. We have a few big projects coming up these next two weekends.

This weekend we are making the push to move the remaining 15 bushes from the row we started to move. The original goal of moving well over a hundred bushes was a bit too lofty given the time needed and the weather that has been slowing the moves down. We will aim to move another row in the fall. We should be able to get this done.

Next weekend will be a big work party. We will be raking, burning, and doing shavings all in one weekend (God willing). We have recruited our church's youth group for the task, as well as any friends and family who can come out for some hard work. We are only aiming to do shavings on one field, but raking needs to be done on all three.