A Moment of Peace

 ...before the storm. Not every day starts with a double rainbow over the hayfield. As much as we need the rain, this is an auspicious start to the day!

Perspective

Last night as we were in town enjoying a movie, our winter chicken coop burned to the ground. The coop housed more than 100 two-month-old pullets (young chickens) that were to become our laying flock for next season. Thanks to the quick response and hard labor of my parents, the fire didn't spread to any other buildings, the closest of which is our house and the small high tunnel.  Blue and Luci are fine, and the current laying flock was unharmed.

So today we filed a claim with the insurance agent and then called the hatchery and ordered replacement chicks. The new babies will arrive around the 17th so we have 2 weeks to rebuild the coop, the plans for which are already on paper.

When something like this happens, it becomes all about perspective.

Its so sad to think of the loss of all those little birds, the waste of time and life, but it could have been so very much worse. My parents could have not seen it, it could have easily spread to the house or someone could have been injured in the fire. Had it happened today, instead of yesterday, the freezing temps would have made it so much harder to fight. In so many ways it could have been worse.

Morning Peace

This morning I woke up to a beautiful sunrise over slightly misty hills. I made my morning coffee and sat down in the office, while the computer slowly woke I looked out the window to see how the world looked today and I noticed a strange shape a ways out by the pasture fence. It was a deer, but something looked strange about it. I grabbed the binoculars and looked again...it was a doe and it looked strange because she was bent around, bathing her nursing fawn. It was quite a sight, this little peek at nature. Then as I watched, a large bird flew into my little binocular-aided circles of vision. It was a large Bard owl, and it settled on a fencepost a distance away, but still within my still-life view of doe and fawn. What a picture!

I wish I could have shared it, the actual picture, but we don't have anything nearly that powerful in the way of cameras, so you will simply have to take my word for it and use your imagination.

The grasses are a golden green this morning, headed now with blooms and immature seed heads. The light is soft as the morning mist hasn't yet burned away and the sky is a clear blue, finally empty of the recently persistent rainclouds. The Red-winged blackbirds, Chipping sparrows and Meadowlarks are singing loudly, making their morning declarations of territory and above it all the roosters crow, announcing their intentions to start the day. Here on the farm, this is our morning peace.

Farm Safety

Everyone says that safety is important. Many of us talk about it around the dinner table or at a gathering of farmers or to kids around the farm. But then we go outside and in a rush to get through the endless list of chores we take shortcuts with our equipment (and our safety) to try and get just a little more done. I would hazard that we have all done something along those lines at some time. Maybe it was something small like forgetting to wear safety goggles when using a chainsaw or weedwacker, or maybe it was running a tractor across a slope that was just a little too steep. Regardless, you never know when things might go wrong.

This is a video that was recently released by ISU Extension on Farm Safety. It features our friend and neighbor Kristi and her family. I hope you will watch it and share it with anyone who works with machinery big or small, we could all use a reminder.

my name is Kristi from Iowa State University Extension on Vimeo.

At the End of the Day...

Warm, dry spring days tend to be busy here on the farm. This shot was taken at the end of just such a day when The Tall Farmer was just plain worn out...

He was sacked out cold (I did check to make sure he was breathing before running for the camera) and slept soundly there for nearly an hour. Blue watched over him and protected him from any opportunistic vultures who might have flown over.

We have done a few things other than nap, new bees have been installed and most of the seedlings have been transplanted up to their pots and are ready to go out the the high tunnel for 'hardening off'. Half of the shelving is up in the smaller high tunnel, ready to receive the seedlings. Much weeding has been done in both tunnels, though there is still much to do. And so farm we are pretty much on schedule with our garden seed sowing. The peas started poking up through the soil in the past couple of days and the asparagus is now growing with purpose. Probably the most exciting new development this week was the nearly magical appearance of our first eggs! Right on schedule (at 26 weeks old) the first of our hens have started laying eggs. We're only getting around a half dozen right now (from 75 birds) but its a good sign that we should start seeing more in the near future.

I know that those of you who know us well probably read the phrase "nearly magical appearance" and thought we had found the first mushrooms of the season, but alas no...just hasn't been warm enough yet. The forcast for the upcoming week is looking good though, so I am predicting that the Morel season will start in southern Iowa within the next 7 days. You can look forward to a full "fungus" report coming soon.

The least exciting event of the past week was the untimely demise of our car (which had more than 150,000 miles on it). Now we are left with "le petite" cargo van for our weekly errands, or one of my parents' cars which they are very generous to lend us. So we find ourselves in the market for a new-to-us car, something with five doors (to facilitate CSA deliveries), good gas mileage and a reliable countanence. This was not a line item on the proposed 2009 Blue Gate Farm budget, so we will see what happens. Until then, if you see a large, white cargo van winding through the gravel roads of Marion County, its just us.