2020
DECEMBER 2020
For our winter solstice dinner, we made tamales from the nixtamal from our blue corn, ground in the Corona mill, and soaked in cal. Delicious!
NOVEMBER 2020
Winter's coming on! Our bioreactors seem to be sleeping peacefully.
OCTOBER 2020
The cover crop mixture in the lower terrace is looking phenomenal: Dwarf Essex canola, winter wheat, Austrian winter peas, and fava beans.
SEPTEMBER 2020
It's about the animals this month. Augusta's holding the first eggs from the flock of hens, who were mere day-old chicks back in April! Poor Syd went downhill, though, and we made the decision to put him town not long after this. Then there is the rare Black Hawk, held by the vet at Española Wildlife Rescue, who had to put it down when its broken wing couldn't be repaired. The barn will get a roof soon!
AUGUST 2020
The market garden is steaming along! But the biggest news is that our yurt arrived after its long journey from Mongolia (in a huge semi driven by Yves, who's in this video leading the setup process).
JULY 2020
It's starting to look like a market garden out there! A good rain, finally, last week. So as a result things look pretty weedy, but with Katherine back from her two-week maiden road trip with the Aliner out to California, and Robin filling in while Jake is off on a river trip, and the parts for the mower in, hopefully we'll get back on top of it.
JUNE 2020
Jake and Sheryl are out in the market and kitchen gardens most mornings, planting, weeding, harvesting, and working the phones to sell beets, lettuce, chard, and snow peas.
The poultry are growing rapidly! Alfonso, the guinea fowl, just joined the flock of seventeen young chickens and five turkeys (looks like four toms and one hen). This whole crew is working its way along the upper terrace cover crops, pooping and eating greens and seeds and bugs, and having a fine time of it.
MAY 2020
As the fallow tarps come off the moist ground, Darcy and Jake et al. are laying out beds in the market garden, and transplanting the seedlings from the greenhouse, as well as running the Earthway seeder.
The barn project is finally, literally, "off the ground", as experienced carpenter Rod helps Katherine, Jake, Emma, Zach and Darcy cut and erect timbers. Jake and Zach and Emma did the preparation, digging the foundation holes for the posts and getting the concrete poured.
APRIL 2020
Katherine, Jake, and Emma learn more about rapidly-evolving best practices around food safety.
And we get some river time, as the snow melts up high!
MARCH 2020
From 0 to 60 in about a day: Katherine and four WWOOFers (Ally and Mark, Emma and Zach) arrive, as society shuts down due to COVID, and settle in to working together. First task is to erect a greenhouse. Experienced Massachusetts farmer Ulanda joins us, as does friend Jake, back from sailing in Mexico. Seeds are planted in greenhouse trays. The acequia is cleaned (burning weeds, digging out sediment), and irrigation water runs there and through the pipes. Zach and others wrestle with drip irrigation equipment.
FEBRUARY 2020
Martin helps get fields covered with fallow tarps to hold in winter moisture, and knock back perennial weeds. Gathering dead grass will be good mulch for the gardens around the house.
JANUARY 2020
No pictures needed: Katherine's on the computer watching "Curtis Stone Urban Farmer" on Youtube, and reading JM Fortier's "The Market Gardener", and making lots of spreadsheets!