Very Depressing

Yesterday we got a lot of snow!  Yes, snow......
This is all very depressing.  The overnight lows have been around 22 degrees, and I've had to heat my greenhouse so that my plants don't die in there.  No way we can get into the garden or do yard work.  The long range forecast says these low temperatures will continue for at least another 10 days.  Where is spring?  How come the rest of the nation is enjoying spring and we aren't?  Big sigh.............can someone remind me again why we live in Minnesota?  Oh yeah - I forgot - it's because of the "quality of life".   Yep, lots of good quality out there today!

This is what my back yard looks like this morning.  Three inches of snow.

My driveway.   I guess it needs shoveling again?

Growing Nicely on Earth Day - With A Little Help

Today is Earth Day and we are working with earth!  I spent a lot of time transplanting plants into larger pots, moving plants around, and working in the greenhouse.  Harold spent time filling up "craters" left in the yard when he moved snow this winter with his tractor.   It has not been really warm lately.  I put things in the greenhouse at the end of March (almost 2 months earlier than in regular gardens up here), hoping that I would get a head start on things.  But we've had some really cool nights and my greenhouse isn't heated by anything other than a small portable heater (which I hate to use unless I have to because of the electric costs).    Some plants are really doing well, like spinach and garlic and lettuce.  But other plants not so well.   It takes a lot of trial and error to really know how to grow things in a greenhouse, and I'm still learning!
     The other day I went to visit a friend who is a master gardener and has two huge high tunnel greenhouses, and used to have a professional retail greenhouse for 30 years.  In fact when I first moved up to these parts, I bought plants and seeds and trees from her greenhouse business.   Of course all of HER plants were doing extremely well and were huge.  She is almost ready to harvest cauliflower!  She has raspberries 4 feet high!  She has romaine lettuce that they have already been eating!  She got things started in her greenhouse on March 1.  So I asked some questions to see what I needed to do. 
     They have built up several platforms for plants that can be covered with plastic all around, and have a heater underneath.  Harold and I thought:  Yes!  We can do this!  So Harold built a nice platform for my greenhouse out of a recycled pallet and some scrap lumber.  We had some old plastic sheeting to re-use, too.   And so here is what we came up with:

Our platform for getting a head start on plants in the greenhouse.  On cool nights, we can either put down the plastic draping all around, and/or use the heater underneath.   The large area underneath for heating will diffuse the heat and won't be too harsh for the plants, as heat rises.  If we don't need to heat, but the evening will be possibly frosty (but not in the lower 20's for temps), the plastic should be enough to protect.   The plants get plenty of sunlight and air, too.  I can fit 8 trays of plants on top, and also some on the bottom (if I use really low heat).  These plants will be hardy and healthy when it's time to put them outside in the regular garden.

 Here is a closer look:

I have one side of the greenhouse planted up with bok choy, carrots, snow peas, lettuce varieties, and spinach.  The garlic is doing very well, as you can see in this photo.

I put up some fencing for the snow peas to be supported on:

Here's a photo of Harold after he finished filling in some of those craters:

Good job Harold!  You made these craters, now you can fix them!

As you can see in the above photo, the grass is green, but the trees have not leafed out yet.  I had a picture of our apple tree buds a couple blog articles ago, and the apple tree is coming along nicely:

There is so much to learn about growing things!  Growing plants in a greenhouse takes a special technique because of the high humidity and temperatures.  Even on  a semi-cloudy day, the temperature can be 90 to 100 degrees in there.  I am constantly adjusting the sides up or down, and watering sometimes several times a day.   This is my third year for growing things in my little greenhouse, and I'm still learning.   For example, I wanted to put some gladiolus bulbs in there.   I read up on the internet about how to grow glads in the greenhouse.  But the article warned that thrips might have wintered over in bulbs dug up from last fall, and they will cause big problems in the greenhouse because of the high humidity.   Thrips are hard to get rid of, they say.    Oops!  Glad I didn't just put them in, or I might have had a bug problem!   The Univ of Minnesota Extension Service said to control thrips in wintered over bulbs, by putting them in a closed paper bag with some moth ball crystals for a few weeks.  So I did that.   I'll try a few of these bulbs in there to see what they do.   The rest will go back outside.   But I know that professional growers plant and grow many beautiful flowers in greenhouses.  A person has to know what to do though.
   On this Earth Day I want to remind everyone to recycle, reuse, and conserve!   Re-purpose things if you can, don't go out and just buy new.  Don't make multiple trips to town, when errands can be bundled.  I like to hang clothes outside to dry and I'm glad I am in a position to do that.  (I know that many people in the city cannot do this)   There are lots of little things we can all do to preserve this beautiful earth for our children.  There is a lot of waste these days, especially in packaging of products.   Those hard to open plastic wrappers that toys and tools come in, is especially annoying!  I try to buy things that are not wrapped up in multiple layers of plastic.   We should try to take our own shopping bags to the store, not just have everything bagged up in those plastic bags.   I remember as a child, grocery stores would save boxes and 'bag' your groceries in those!
     The Lord made us stewards of this beautiful earth, and it's our duty to take good care of it!

Early April on the Farm

There isn't a whole lot happening here on Honey B Farm right now, but I went around the place today taking photos of what things are like at this time.  Today we are finishing up the last of the maple syrup making.   To our dismay, it has not been a good year for maple syrup.   The weather has just been too warm!   The night temperatures have barely hit the freezing mark, and the daytime temperatures are very warm.  The sap has not been running well.   Some years are like that.  We take what the Lord gives to us, and this year we have only made about 3 finished gallons of syrup.  That translates into about 24 pints.   That's hardly enough to sell, so this year our maple supply is just for us and for gifts to family and friends.   Here are some photos of today's sap gathering and maple syrup making.  The past couple evenings have not even hit the freezing mark, and today and tomorrow the temps are almost 70.  This will truly be the last for sap, as now the trees are in danger of budding out, and "buddy" sap is awful for making maple syrup - makes a bitter, bad tasting syrup.

Harold drives our Lo-Boy tractor around the woodland paths to gather the sap.

Harold pours a bucket of sap into the barrel.

The top of the barrel has a filter so that we pour clean sap into the barrel.

The bags aren't very full of sap at this time of the year. 

A view of the evaporator.  There are 7 sections, and each section has a small hole where the sap runs from one section to another.   Harold made this evaporator himself several years ago.

The inside of the stove has fire brick all around

The back of the stove has sand and fire brick to keep in the heat.

Harold tears up birch bark, which makes a really good fire starter.

Within 20 minutes he has a good boil going!  You can't see it in this photo, but there are 5 sections boiling!

The 2017 maple camp.  It takes patience and a lot of time and wood to boil up the sap.  You keep adding sap as it boils, add more wood to the fire, skim off foam, and just wait for the near-syrup to bring into the house for finishing.

We have two small lakes on our property.   One lake we call Two Squaw Lake.   Here are a couple photos of it.  This pond iced out early this year about 4 days ago.

The front part of the lake is a shallow bog.

The back part of the lake is deeper and supports much wildlife and birds, especially trumpeter swans and ducks and loons.

In the woods now, there are signs of wildflowers beginning to grow.  Here are tiny bloodroot flowers making an early appearance:

All over the woods there are these small bloodroot plants growing.  They are usually the first wildflowers to bloom.  Spring is here!

Besides cutting wood for maple syrup making, Harold has been getting an early start on next year's wood pile.   Easier to cut firewood now before the mosquitoes and ticks and thick woodland growth gets going.

A good start on next year's firewood!

Everywhere the fruit trees are beginning to bud out.  There's hope for a good fruit crop!

Apple tree buds.   We didn't kill off our tree after last spring's fiasco with frozen water!  We will have apples again!

The Nanking cherry bushes are in full bud mode also.   The mice chewed the bottom bark a little, but I think the bushes will survive and give us fruit.  That is, IF we can keep the birds from eating all our cherries!  Nanking cherries make an excellent jelly.

And now for some photos of our farm cats today!

A turned over bin makes a good place for a cat to contemplate life!  I always wonder what cats think about when they just sit there!?

This is Fluffy, the only summer kitten that survived the winter.  Perhaps her long hair saved her.  Unfortunately long hair cats do not do well out here on the farm, as their hair mats easily.  I am constantly brushing Fluffy.   As a result, she usually runs when she sees me coming with the brush!

This is Smokey Joe.  He was an early kitten from last year.  And very wild.  He ran away from home, and I found him down the road after several days.  I tried to catch him with heavy gloves and a cage, but he would have none of that.  After many huge struggles, I gave up and decided he would have to live on his own - eagle bait, for sure.   A couple weeks later he came home and would have nothing to do with me for months.  By the end of the summer, though, I managed to tame him down, and now he is a constant companion!  Always wants to be held, always by my side.  I cannot go anywhere around here without Smokey following me.  What a long way he has come!   From "wild kitty" to being a constant buddy. 

 I have started to plant things in the greenhouse.   As an experiment to see how early I can get tomatoes and veggies to grow, I put a few tomato plants, leeks, herbs, lettuce, spinach and radishes in the greenhouse.   This is almost 2 months earlier than regular gardening out in the big gardens.   So far so good.   I spent many an enjoyable afternoon cleaning out the greenhouse.   The garlic I planted last fall is up and growing nicely, too!

Just beginning to grow things in the greenhouse.   So far I have managed to keep  temperatures of 50 to 70 degrees in there, so my early tomatoes should do OK. 

The garlic planted last fall has wintered over nicely and is up and growing!

And that's about the sum of things as of April 8 here on the farm!   Sometimes it seems like nothing is going on, but the cycle of life continues.   Spring is here and we are starting to be busy with gardening and chores.  Everything is coming alive again!   The birds are back, the cats have survived the winter, the trees are starting to bud and flowers are starting to bloom.   Life is good.   Nothing spectacular - but sometimes the simple life is best....................