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unicorndukeMonday was a delightful day. I went to local down T instead of slightly larger town D because I wanted to get a library card there too. I wandered through the grocery store and since the library didn't open until 10, wandered around the downtown looking at the shops. Found a restaurant I want to try that said they have gluten free options which is very cool. Made a couple of phone calls and then headed into the library. The librarian at the desk was extremely helpful and immediately pinged me as trans, asking if I had a preferred name and pronouns which I was pleased with. She emphasized I could use any bathroom I wanted and if anyone gave me trouble to come to them. Fantastic, really pleased. Then she gave me a tour! I haven't been to that library since like, 2005 or something so she took me around. They have a little bookstore in the back that you can buy books from all the time as well.
Then we really got chatting, turns out she's been to our farm, she has a farm with her siblings and they sell beef and chicken and honey. And then we started talking about fiber arts and all sorts of things. So that was a delight. She had some recommendations for places to find fun things in the area, books we chatted about and some other things. It was a delight. We connected on facebook so we can chat.
I made a maple banana custard pie with a oat flour shortbread crust which turned out incredible. The oat flour crust was in place of a graham cracker crust and I highly recommend it. I used oat flour that I made with my little flour mill, so it still had some texture (I think also a food processor would work) and it absorbed all the maple goo but also stayed a little bit crunchy. So good. Also made blueberry bars and bread. And tacos that night for dinner.
This whole rest of the week has been preparing for strawberry planting. Both of the tractors that can pull the plows developed leaks in the rear tires last week, so Tuesday I ran the second tire down to a tire place to be fixed and check in about the first tractor that went down. These are both the tires that had issues last year and were replaced with tubed tires. They suck. If they break again, we're buying new tubeless tires since those seem just fine given literally every other tractor tire last forever. This is second or third repair on both of those tubed tires. Did some other stuff tuesday like weed and take off seedheads in the rhubarb. We'll open those for picking next week after we mow around them.
Wednesday, I worked on irrigation setup and then picked the tractor tires up. That night, dad and I put them on using the bobcat skidsteer which was pretty quick in comparison to normal efforts.
Thursday I plowed. It went pretty quick, we have a four bottom plow and the hardest part of getting the starting rows straight since you put your tire into the track of the previous plow pass. Then. More irrigation work. Dad put our worker on disking which went decently while dad worked on fertilizer.
Friday we realized that the forecast was looking dire, with at least three days of all rain starting saturday night. Given we usually do a saturday/sunday planting, this was bad. So we kicked into high gear. I did more irrigation work (ugh!) which is tedious and difficult. But I got the water running and the lines flushed and then had to reconfigure the setup at the start of the strawberry field. Then I trenched the supply line using the middle buster, laid out the distance flags for dad to aim at (every five rows and you align on the tractor tracks for the rest of the rows), and did something else.
We got planting around 4pm in the end, which was fine. After 12 rows, we turned the irrigation line on and absolutely blew the pressure way too high whoops. So we turned on some of the strawberry blocks from last year and also turned the power down on the pump. Learned where all the leaks were in last year's block and ignored them. There's always a lot of leaks, mostly from animals chewing the lines since we didn't renovate those berries. They desperately need to be weeded. On the list.
Mom and I were on the planter, dad was driving and our worker followed along and made sure the berries were fully in the ground. Worker left around 7pm, the rest of us kept planting until 8.
To do after I finish eating breakfast/typing this: finish trench down at west, plant until extra competent worker arrives, go do trenching, irrigation setup in the field next to the house including moving the pump (ugh) since we only have one running pump right now. The other two were at the shop being fixed and I got the text yesterday that they were done. Looks like almost a quarter inch of rain coming overnight but between all the workers and the effort, we might get most of it all done. The planter is so slow (.83mph) and there's a lot of rows to do, so my dad said we usually manage an acre a day. A half acre got done yesterday (a quarter of the plants), so we'll see what we can do.
Then we really got chatting, turns out she's been to our farm, she has a farm with her siblings and they sell beef and chicken and honey. And then we started talking about fiber arts and all sorts of things. So that was a delight. She had some recommendations for places to find fun things in the area, books we chatted about and some other things. It was a delight. We connected on facebook so we can chat.
I made a maple banana custard pie with a oat flour shortbread crust which turned out incredible. The oat flour crust was in place of a graham cracker crust and I highly recommend it. I used oat flour that I made with my little flour mill, so it still had some texture (I think also a food processor would work) and it absorbed all the maple goo but also stayed a little bit crunchy. So good. Also made blueberry bars and bread. And tacos that night for dinner.
This whole rest of the week has been preparing for strawberry planting. Both of the tractors that can pull the plows developed leaks in the rear tires last week, so Tuesday I ran the second tire down to a tire place to be fixed and check in about the first tractor that went down. These are both the tires that had issues last year and were replaced with tubed tires. They suck. If they break again, we're buying new tubeless tires since those seem just fine given literally every other tractor tire last forever. This is second or third repair on both of those tubed tires. Did some other stuff tuesday like weed and take off seedheads in the rhubarb. We'll open those for picking next week after we mow around them.
Wednesday, I worked on irrigation setup and then picked the tractor tires up. That night, dad and I put them on using the bobcat skidsteer which was pretty quick in comparison to normal efforts.
Thursday I plowed. It went pretty quick, we have a four bottom plow and the hardest part of getting the starting rows straight since you put your tire into the track of the previous plow pass. Then. More irrigation work. Dad put our worker on disking which went decently while dad worked on fertilizer.
Friday we realized that the forecast was looking dire, with at least three days of all rain starting saturday night. Given we usually do a saturday/sunday planting, this was bad. So we kicked into high gear. I did more irrigation work (ugh!) which is tedious and difficult. But I got the water running and the lines flushed and then had to reconfigure the setup at the start of the strawberry field. Then I trenched the supply line using the middle buster, laid out the distance flags for dad to aim at (every five rows and you align on the tractor tracks for the rest of the rows), and did something else.
We got planting around 4pm in the end, which was fine. After 12 rows, we turned the irrigation line on and absolutely blew the pressure way too high whoops. So we turned on some of the strawberry blocks from last year and also turned the power down on the pump. Learned where all the leaks were in last year's block and ignored them. There's always a lot of leaks, mostly from animals chewing the lines since we didn't renovate those berries. They desperately need to be weeded. On the list.
Mom and I were on the planter, dad was driving and our worker followed along and made sure the berries were fully in the ground. Worker left around 7pm, the rest of us kept planting until 8.
To do after I finish eating breakfast/typing this: finish trench down at west, plant until extra competent worker arrives, go do trenching, irrigation setup in the field next to the house including moving the pump (ugh) since we only have one running pump right now. The other two were at the shop being fixed and I got the text yesterday that they were done. Looks like almost a quarter inch of rain coming overnight but between all the workers and the effort, we might get most of it all done. The planter is so slow (.83mph) and there's a lot of rows to do, so my dad said we usually manage an acre a day. A half acre got done yesterday (a quarter of the plants), so we'll see what we can do.
no subject
Date: 2025-05-03 02:25 pm (UTC)Yeah, solid tractor tires are a lot better. Years ago, we switched and then switched back on the old tractor.