The great storm of 2010...

Welcome to a new week and new adventures. Last Saturday, some of the guys on the farm wanted to try some new bars so we went out on the not-so-world-famous Route 77! We went to two bars, The Roadrunner and Avery's. When we walked into Roadrunner's the jukebox came to a halt and everyone looked over at us. Everyone eyed us as we strutted over to the bar. Little did we know, there was a $4 cover charge. We managed to smooth-talk our way out of it as we were only staying for 30 minutes. Almost all of that entrance was true, minus the jukebox coming to a screeching halt. It was a cool place...the guy next to us had a bottle of Crown and stirring his glass with a rubber serving spoon. Talk about classy. Avery's was next on the list. Turns out this was a biker bar. We walked into Avery's and had some-what of the same welcome except these were bikers sizing us up. Avery met us at the bar and introduced herself. We sat down and found out that she is from Lancaster/Palmdale, the same place that she grew up. She walked away and 15 or so minutes later returned with her Dad. He thought it was cool that I was out there so he decided to buy us all a round! He stayed around and talked with us for about an hour...I stress the fact that he talked to us. Turns out he's an ex-Hells Angel that works at L-3 communications on aircraft instrument upgrades. He told us about the Hells Angels and how he got out of it. Apparently they're run like a company. They'll pay for you to get your law degree or a PHD so long as you'll help another HA in need. He gave an example of when one of his friends needed surgery and so they did it in a guys bike garage. He also told us how he got out of the HA. It's not something that you just walk away from. His sister married someone who was high up in the ranks in the organization so he was able to leave in peace. The guy doesn't talk to him anymore and he had to have his tatoo covered with another one, but he got out. He is now part of Sons of the South and told us if we had a bike we could ride with them. We were really tempted to ride over on 18 speed road bikes...He then talked about how he works at L-3 and has a top secret clearance. I'm confused as to how someone with a background like his could attain one. It was a crazy night.

Sunday was pretty eventful as well. I biked into town and tried to go to a mediterannean restaurant. Turns out all of Waco is closed on Sunday (Baylor is in town, it's a private Baptist university). I biked to a really cool coffee bar called Common Grounds and asked where some good local BBQ is. I had to cross back under a freeway and found that this hole-in-the-wall joint that looked really good was also closed. I eventually found a local sandwich place before biking back to Common Grounds. CG is your stereotypical bohemian hipster coffee bar with a Texas twist. There are antlers on the walls and most of the drinks have a western name. They're famous for their Cowboy Brew. I will admit it was pretty delicious.I was mostly happy get the chance to bike around town and learn how to get around. I got back to the farm and found out that one of the goats had kidded! We have a new male goat named Billy Jack (named after the best movie trilogy ever). The farm decided to sell Billy because he came so much earlier than the other kids (9 goats are preggers!). If we keep kids we have to bottle feed them, a chore that isn't worth doing when we have one goat (versus 10 or more). Another reason is because, being a male, we can't get milk from him. We may save a few for meet and breeding but Billy came at a bad time.

This week work was new and exciting. I spent Monday morning weeding, thinning and side dressing. Side dressing is when you add fertilizer around plants to ensure that there is enough nitrogen for proper growth. Something else that you have to be aware of is how close the plants are planted. This is the act of thinning. If there are too many plants in a small space, they will fight for the nutrients and all of them will be stunted. Tuesday was my cooking debut. I cooked red beans and rice, made salad, and cinnamon raisin rolls. Wednesday morning was spent digging a 30 foot long ditch for the RV area in the back of the farm. When we were a few feet from finishing the ditch my partner took a pick axe to the ground and punctured a pipe (with no pressure behind it, thank god). We repaired it and finished the trench all before lunch. I feel like we earned our merit badges on that project. One of the volunteers and I found out that we could start a garden of our own if we wanted to. We spent the afternoon preparing and planting one row in a garden. More on this later. We did this Wednesday because we were expecting rain Thursday. Little did we know we were going to get 4 inches of rain over 24 hours. Thursday morning about four of us dug ditches on either side of some carrots and other vegetables to increase the drainage. Since we have clay soil, water doesn't sink down into the ground, it runs off an pools up. If you're not careful it will pool up on your beds and drown the plants. Starting at around 12 the rain started. That night was man cave. I decided to make my cinnamon rolls again but this time with icing. The men were grateful for the bounty that I brought with me. If we were back in the old times I would have surely been brought a chicken as a token. Friday morning, all hell broke loose.

I am in charge of tending to the pullets (chicks) in the morning before breakfast. They have a new cage that was build using chicken wire and PVC pipe.

The idea is that with a light cage we can drag it around and expose them to new ground much the same way the chicken coops are moved. In order to protect them from the weather we have a heat lamp, blankets, and tarps. I went out on Friday morning and the cage was in shambles: the tarps had retained water and damaged a quarter of the cage, water had built up all around the cage, and then light had gone out. The chicks were wet and miserable, in fact, one had died overnight. This can happen when they huddle around for warmth and one can't get out. I had to rally the troops in order to get the chicks to safety. We got cages to put the 40 or so chicks in and transported them to the barn where a warm, dry cage was waiting. They were rather reluctant to leave even when there were only a few chicks left. We got the chicks into the barn and dried them off. There were a few that were suffering from hypothermia but they all pulled through. The rest of the day was spent inside putting together a quarterly newsletter. When it finally stopped raining we had received about 4 inches of rain.

One cool thing that I started with a friend is a row of winter vegetables. We decided to plant potatoes, radishes, beets, carrots, and turnips in no particular order. There are several steps that go into creating a row that's ready for plants.

First you have to gather some fresh soil and fertilizer to put on top of the ground to mix in.

This will ensure that there is a good amount of nitrogen available. The next step is to break up the ground in big chunks to ensure that the weeds don't have their roots planted in the soil. The weeds will then die and decompose back into the soil without coming back to be a problem.

The third step in the process is to go back over the soil breaking up the larger chunks into pieces that will allow the plant roots to penetrate the soil. At this point you should start to see more black than green. The last step is to rake the beds smooth to ensure no water pools up on your beds.

Depending on what you're planting you can attach some small pipes to the rake to ensure even spacing between the plants.

Now you're ready to plant!

There are several methods of tending to your garden mainly tilling and no-till. One decision we made was to till everything by hand. You can use either a tractor or small roto-till machine to rip up the ground if you'd like. We felt it would be more reqarding if we did everything primatively. I'll write more about the differences in future blogs.

I can't believe January's over! One random thought that makes sense but you may not have ever put together in your head: trees lose their leaves to fertilize themselves. And in case I don't see you, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!