Five for Friday: Spring?

1. Snow? Yup, it snowed about 4 inches last night - wet, heavy stuff that is slowly oozing into slush as we speak. The sun over the next two days should make some slippery morns and slushy evening chores. Lesson: It is still March in NY.


2. Seedlings - I over-estimated our pea and broccoli seedlings' hardiness and didn't cover them in the hoophouse. On Monday night, the temp outside dipped down to 20-something F and they got tagged. Leaves collapsed, about 75% of the broccoli's stems just twisted up and disappeared. Reseeded those with "Nutribud" (a Seeds of Change variety) and the open-pollinated "Green Goliath" (that I found at Wal-Mart!). Peas look OK - their stems are still upright (see above pic), tho the leaves are roughed up. They have both been covered with 4 mil plastic sheeting since then. I'll pull that when the sun comes out tomorrow. Lesson: Tho the sun may shine and the air is 68 F, the nights are still cold.

3. Sick - Me and Bri are fighting some throat-sinus-mucus thing. Her ear clogged today and it made those bubbly sounds, as bubbles popped in the mucus trapped in her ear. Only, remember she is 5 and hasn't had this happen before. Weirded her right out :D Lesson: Explaining ear anatomy using your fingers, hanging in mid-air, may not make sense to a child.



4. Buds - Tulips have crowned and there are tiny green nubs sticking up above the soil surface. We haven't timed this in the past, but Carol thinks this is about right. Give them two weeks to really put up some leaves and then they will bud up. Lesson: Even tho this is March in NY, not even bulbs can ignore 45 F days.


5. Chocolate - We made some chocolate yummy bars (well, they ended up as bits, really) for C's b-day tomorrow. I am posting some pics and explanation then. It was quite the experience. Lesson: The kids can do a lot, just not exactly what you expect them to do.

Fava Beans Up Up Up

Fava beans (broad beans in Europe) are very tasty, large beans that grow in the cool part of the spring. In cooler, milder climates they can grow over the winter and so can be fall planted. Here in upstate New York we plant them in very early spring (around the Equinox).

• Growing fava beans - we used this a guideline and then went with 1 per square foot.
• Why grow favas - they are a vetch, so most grow them as a green manure and plow them under. Or wait and get some green fava beans.
• Fava plant showing the branching - so pretty!
  
• Fava flowering clusters along the stem

This is a pic of our two week old fava beans starts - variety is "Aqua Dulce" from Bountiful Gardens. Very nice, vigorous as h*ll, they need warmth to germinate (more than 70F), but we just put them under the cool tubes and they popped up pretty fast. Hardening them off this week, planting them out this weekend with some plastic protection.

I love the branching and extra leaves that are sprouting lower down the stem. Very interesting - they like to become "shrub-like" and about 3 feet tall. We want them for the beans... to make some super-yummy food like this:

And Now For Something Completely Drier

The great question of global warming is, "What happens to my home? Will it be warmer in the winter, but not the spring? Less snow? No snow? More rain, less rain?"

The answer is complex, but our best bet is that over the past 20 years, most of North America has seen more of the extremes (drought, flood, snow, rain, heat, cold). This unpredictability is pretty much the norm for any chaotic system going through a phase change.

Brian Fagan (an anthropologist interested in cultural records of global warming in the warmer "Middle Ages") was on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart last week. It wasn't terribly detailed regionally, but that is in line with our chaotic change issue. It is interesting hearing how he worked the analysis for a lay audience with no background in medieval climatology. This is truly where the rubber meets the road.

Design for chaos.

Kid Quotes

Eiley: (Carol blew up a new balloon when her's popped) "I am happier now than crying"

Brianna is waiting outside the bathroom door to tell me about her balloon's adopting a toy as a baby

• Daddy: "Are you waiting for me?"
• Brianna: "Yes, I am being patient."
• (time passes)
• Daddy: "Is waiting right outside the door really being patient?"
• Brianna: "Yes, a little patient. But not really patient because I am going to tell you right now."

Five for Friday

1. Who says kids don't know what they are saying? I mean sure, ours babble all-day, everyday, but there are glimpses of brilliance.

• Eiley: "What is for dezzewww-ut?
• Ma: "Errrr, say errrr... dessert!"
• Eiley: "What is for dezzurrrt?"
• Ma: "Err, like Grr... Grrr.. Grrr"
• Eiley: "Dezzerrd. Dezzerrrrt. Dezzewwwurt. Uh,... that thing after dinnuh?"

2. Spring must be somewhere out there - Before Carol started her APEX project last week, she pushed us to trim hooves and prune the fruit trees. Like many of our projects outside in spring, it was overcast and hinting about rain. Since we finished that, it has been in indoors week upstairs with the kids - all cloudy, snowy, windy and coooold. Nothing to report:

• Pussywillows were budding up - nipped right in the bud.
• No hellebore activity yet.
• Looking slim on the spring peepers making their traditional "coming out by C's birthday" announcement for spring. The ice is too thick on the wetland.

3. St Patrick's Day Feast - we had this a day ahead so we could have a proper dinner. Corned beef fresh from Eagle Bridge Smokehouse, boiled veggies, and soda bread. Came out delicious, the beef was killer. What else would you expect from grassfed beef? Best quote:

• Brianna: "Today we are celebrating the day that they drove out all the A'gains." (this is a reference to our talking about St Patrick banishing the snakes from Ireland being an allusion to his breaking the Pagan hold on Ireland - the Pagans adorned their arms with snake tattoos.)

4. Goat Kiddings for 2008 - It looks like we have 10 or 11 pregnant does (out of 12). Not sure about Tasia and she is only 30 or 60 days in, she is such a peanut anyway, she isn't showing much. Almost everyone else (including all the juniors) appears to be carrying it heavy and low. Even Erica has got a pouchy udder.

5. Animalia 2008 - I think we are still on schedule to bring in feeder pigs in April (we need them for some tilling of May beds) and this will allow us to use their electric fencing for the turkeys come August. That ought to be exciting.

Spring Has Sprung

We planted out something alive! Yes, seeds that had germinated - so it must be official - Spring has sprung. Planted out 144 2-week old spinach seedlings (4 per square foot) on Friday into the hoop house.


Soil was about 44'F after being under red plastic mulch for 2 weeks. It was a nice day - about 45 F outside, 70 F inside at 4 feet aboveground. Nice and warm for our little friends.

Then March reared its ugly head again. The next day it poured a bit over an inch and sheetflow into the hoophouse watered the mulch for us! Luckily, the worst of it washed away mulch in the shadow of the hoophouse endwall. Today it is below freezing again and the wind is howling. Good thing we anchored the roll-up sides tightly before the wind came :D

In other March news, mud season has got us down - "we've only just begun,... to sliiiiiide". Weeks to go, snow possible, but I think it will be a mild spring, but wet. We'll see.

The girls are super excited that spring is coming - "is it spring yet, Daddy?" "When is Mommy's birthday?" (that's our version of the beginning of spring as the spring peepers come out right around her b-day). "Not yet, honey."

Top Ten Reasons You Know You're in a Coma

1. The World begins making sense - the arguments are logical ("We really can use biofuels to stop global warming")
2. You have nothing you need to do right now.
   
3. Children actually talk at normal volumes in your presence.
4. Your pets begin listening to you.
5. March is suddenly the shortest month of the year. And Mud Season disappears.
6. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart runs out of things to make fun of.
7. You don't have to agonize over your choice of three wishes from the genie.
8. The Doctor Who quote "Everybody lives, Rose! Just this once! Everybody lives!!" seems odd - doesn't it always work that way?
9. You actually don't worry about the small things.
   
10. The voices in your head suddenly stop. And you hear faint sounds of an ICU in their place.