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Muddy Valley Farm

~ Life on a tiny west coast hobby farm

Muddy Valley Farm

Category Archives: Seasons

A Christmas Bargain

21 Tuesday Dec 2021

Posted by Jodi in Farm Life, Seasons

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On a whim one Sunday, years ago when our girls were little, DH and I went to a liquidation auction in Sooke. Much drama ensued, and we returned home that day the proud owners of several boxes of random Christmas decorations, the entire seasonal detritus of a defunct hardware store. It was our first auction experience and it was a doozy.

When we got to the store that morning we had no idea that we would shortly be participants in an event that would impact all our Christmases to come. We innocently wandered around checking out the goods, DH spotting one or two lots of tools he was interested in. Then the bidding started. As we waited for his lots, the first of two Christmas lots came up. It included everything on one whole side of a two-sided display unit. The auctioneer started off at $30 but no one seemed interested. At all. He wheedled and pleaded but still zero interest. So he dropped to $20 and tried again. Nothing. “Oh why not” I thought to myself “that’s a real good deal plus it will be fun for the kids!”, and I nudged DH to bid. He did! And no one outbid us! And all of a sudden oh my gosh the whole lot was ours!

Hardware store treasures

As we were digesting our delight, and feeling quite the seasoned auction pros, the auctioneer started the bidding at $20 on the second lot, the other side of the afore-mentioned display unit. We held back, pleased with our take (only twenty bucks!!); we didn’t need to bid on this one. A pair of women immediately bid, but no one else challenged. It looked like they were going to get the second lot for super cheap like we did!

The auctioneer kept trying to get something going, to start someone else bidding, but no one went for it. That was when he lost his temper, slamming his hands down on the counter, then pointing at the two women in disgust, “I saw what you did!” he sneered. “Moving all the good stuff into this lot and putting all the crap in the first lot! Yeah, I know what you’re up to!”

“So…we’re gonna go with auctioneer’s prerogative here! Sir?” he snapped, turning to us, “you took the first lot, so I’m giving you dibs, would you like to take the second lot for $20 too? We stared blankly at him for a moment as howls erupted from the two women. The rest of the crowd stood silently, no doubt enjoying the drama. Then… “sure!” we agreed. I mean how could we not? I was on the auctioneer’s side anyway. Naive us hadn’t noticed those two ladies’ pre-auction shenanigans. But the auctioneer had. Probably everyone else had too, and that was why nobody but us bid on the first lot.

More hardware store treasures

The argument went on for a bit, the women loudly protesting about the unfairness of it all, and saying he couldn’t do that, and the auctioneer giving them hell for cheating, and saying he could do whatever he bloody well wanted. It ended with the two cheaters being bounced from the auction. We hung around till the end, happily paid for and collected our two lots, and headed home, feeling like we really did well at our first auction.

We shared our largess with family and friends, and that Christmas, we went whole hog, putting up every speck of those decorations, along with all the stuff we already had. The results were over the top and the kids LOVED it.

Little did we know that we had set the bar so high, we would spend every Christmas for the next 25 years doing the same. It’s just part of our tradition now, and thank goodness everyone pitches in to help. The ladder work especially takes longer than it used to. Some of the decorations have disintegrated over the years, and some I conveniently “lost” (spray snow and window stencils…NEVER again), but we still have plenty of mementoes of that long ago auction in Sooke.

Last year, with one of our three daughters unable to make it home thanks to Covid restrictions, we were more subdued, some boxes stayed under the stairs. But this year, over the past couple weeks, our wonderful children have all pitched in to help, and the place looks crazy Christmas, as always. We are ready, and excited, because this year, with everyone vaccinated and living much closer, we will all be together again. ❤️ I can’t wait. ❤️

A Storm for the Record Books

21 Sunday Nov 2021

Posted by Jodi in Farm Improvements, Farm Life, Seasons, Weather

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The meteorologists warned us well before it arrived. “An ‘atmospheric river’ is on its way!” they excitedly predicted, “and a windstorm!” Rolling our eyes at their hyperbole, we got ready anyway, pulling the foot bridges off the creek, putting the carport freezer up on blocks, moving our vehicles to higher ground. The weather has been nuts this year, anything is possible. We charged all the things; the neck lights and headlamps, our phones and tablets. We filled the potable water jugs, lining them up along the kitchen counter. The well pump won’t run if the power goes out, and we like our tea, so we need plenty of water. We stacked firewood by the door, made sure there was gas for the generator, and that the barnyard crew were well provisioned.

Saturday around noon, right on schedule, it began to pour, and it didn’t let up until 48 hours and 153.9 mm later. More rain at one time than we’ve seen since we moved here almost a quarter century ago. Over the last ten years, only seven MONTHS beat the rainfall we saw in TWO DAYS. We didn’t quite make the top ten, but our Malahat (Island Highway) did.

Now, I love the rain, but this was too much rain, and all the time it fell, my nerves were on edge. When would it stop? Would we flood out? We live in the bottom of a valley, right beside (…like, within six feet of) Goward Spring creek. The barnyard is next to the creek too, further down the property. In other words, we are about as exposed to flood risk as a beach dweller is to a tsunami. And an atmospheric river was flowing.

After dark was the worst, because we couldn’t see what was going on outside. We could only hear the enemy, drumming on the skylights. We took it in turns through Saturday and Sunday nights, putting on raincoats and headlamps and tromping outside to monitor water levels while practicing SAR whitewater safety – “stay far enough away from the rushing water so that if you do slip, you won’t slide in”. That could easily end badly. The water was roaring through our valley so vigorously that we had to shout to talk to each other outside. One of the nights, I forget which, RG flashed her light in our window, doing a bed check, and woke me up. Why was she looking in our bedroom window at 3 in the morning in the pouring rain? She’d been doing the rounds, and DH had left his office light on and the back door unlocked, and she was worried he’d gone out to check on things and fallen in. But he was snoozing beside me. So she went to bed too, and soon after that I got up, and we carried on.

For the last year or so, seeing our weather misbehave more often, and reading about weather events around the world, we have paying more attention to planning for disasters. One improvement that we had been debating was putting a culvert in on the far side of the driveway bridge, to redirect water away from the house if the creek flooded over the bridge and rushed down the driveway. We hadn’t broken ground yet though on that little job, and this weighed on my mind as I watched the rain fall. Were we too late? Had we dithered too long?

But much to our relief our house stayed dry. All our floodwaters went to harmless places. The people who built this house did good when they put it on the high side of the creek. Our little watercourse burst its banks quickly, growing from her usual five feet wide to more than 20. She overwhelmed the driveway bridge, but harmlessly, splitting into three streams temporarily, then rejoining herself and flowing out across the yard in an big double arc that combined again well below the house. She did not come down the driveway towards the house at all.

The coops stayed safe too, the creek banks get quite tall down that end of the place, so there was enough capacity to carry the excess water away with only a bit of flooding on the far side of the creek. It was close though, if the water had risen another few inches, the hen hotel would have turned into a spa.

The property right below us flooded badly. The creek widened into a lake across its entire 200 foot width, and spilled over the public path that runs alongside. Luckily there is no house there yet. Although they are trying to get a permit to build.

The deep ravine at the other end of our lane flooded too, sending water sheeting across the road so that DH’s brakes temporarily failed as he tried to negotiate the corner. All a bit of fun for him, I suppose. Motorsport man would have enjoyed getting out of that little difficulty.

At noon on Monday, the rain finally stopped. What a relief!! And then, literally half an hour later, our valley ringing with emergency vehicle sirens, the creek roaring like a jet engine, and a line of cars strung out along the far side of our place turning around because the road ahead was submerged, the wind started blowing hard. It was surreal. Almost immediately, grove of 3 or 4 big alders crashed down across the roadway, the rain soaked soil letting go without a fight. The power went out and the roadblocks went up. It would be almost 24 hours before the road reopened and the lights came back on.

“It’s a good thing” I thought at the time, “that we’re not trying to run any pumps”. We didn’t need to. Our little creek was a champ, working 24/7 to whisk all that water away down the Colquitz watershed to the Salish sea.

It’s been a week now since the storm began and here on the island things are starting to settle down. Parts of the lower mainland are still a colossal mess. Thousands of farm animals dead, thousands of people with flooded homes, and people missing in highway slide areas. The main routes to the rest of Canada were still closed Saturday morning, three of them finally opened in the afternoon.

Over here on the island, our grocery store shelves are half empty, the feed stores have no feed, and gas is rationed. Our island highway has reopened, single lane alternating, but hey, it’s not closed for 12 hours a night anymore! They’ve managed to stop it dissolving down the mountainside.

Here in our muddy valley, we’re in clean-up mode, and watching the weather forecasts. Another storm is expected this week. North of us this time though, they say. Like many people, we can see the weather is changing, so we will keep doing what we can to be ready. It’s only sensible. We’re not going full tinfoil hat prepper, with big buckets of dried food in the basement and an AK47 in the closet; not even close. We made sure to get pictures of the storm’s impacts, and I am storing these online along with the rainfall stats and my observational notes. Data yields information, which yields actionable knowledge, which yields… we hope, a roadmap to guide next steps. We know now that we don’t need a culvert, for example, and we have the pictures to prove it..

This weekend, as I work around the place, I will keep an eye out for trouble spots. I might take more pictures, make a couple more notes, and I will definitely stake the high water marks where we plan a new bridge over the creek. All jobs best done while the storm’s scars are fresh on our minds and on our environment. Because there will be a next time, and the gods help those who help themselves.

Eating Local

01 Sunday Aug 2021

Posted by Jodi in Farm Produce, Gardening, Preserving, Seasons

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Wednesday is my day off, and the day I head to the feed store. The feed truck arrives early in the morning on Wednesdays, so I know they will be freshly stocked. Some weeks, they sell out of my poultry feed by the weekend.

Although stocking up on fresh feed for my feathered friends and the rest of the barnyard crew is my primary goal, my route takes me down country roads past many micro farms like ours, so all year long I stop along the way to pick up whatever is in season. The less I have to buy at the grocery store the better, and there is just something special about eating seasonally. Everything tastes so good! And fresh produce preserved in season runs a close second.

RG grows lots of different veggies and fruit, so my stops are predicated by what other locals have that we don’t. One farm grows wonderful kiwi; it’s on my list from November through till February. Another place grows delicious organic cherries. In early summer as soon as their ‘Cherries for Sale’ sign goes up, they get a visit from me. The cherries always sell out completely in less than a week. I usually stop at Dan’s Farm Market too, he grows a wide variety of unsprayed food, if we’ve eaten all our broccoli for example, or our lettuce has bolted and turned bitter, I can get some there.

Then there is the little table at the end of a long driveway on Oldfield, steel cash can welded to its side, that in July and August proudly carries a selection of good sized mixed bouquets tied with twine, for the ridiculously cheap price of, (I kid you not) a TWOONIE! These twoonie bouquets always sell out before noon. I try to buy two.

Also starting in July each year, Wednesday becomes corn pickup day, right through until the crop is done. Resident Gardener grows sweet corn each summer, she has a nice patch growing now, but she doesn’t grow near enough to keep us in corn for the whole year. Luckily sweet corn grows incredibly well on our peninsula so it’s easy to get. There’s a place on my route that offers a baker’s dozen of peaches and cream corn picked that morning for twelve bucks, and worth every penny.

I buy enough on my Wednesday trips to see us through till next summer, and freeze it. It’s worth the trouble. Home frozen corn tastes about a million times better than store bought, and it’s so easy to do. We all love to sit down to a nice feed of summer sweet corn in the middle of winter!

This also means of course that Wednesdays are corn-on-the-cob days, which Dear Husband likes very much. I cook up a couple cobs for us to butter, salt, and gnaw on, and in the same pot of boiling water I blanch the rest of my bakers dozen for 3-4 minutes, plunging them into ice water to cool quickly. After dinner I stand each blanched, cooled ear in my trusty Angel-food cake pan, and slice off the kernels. If I had a table with a hole in it, I could just set my pan above it, push the cobs through, and the kernels would effortlessly strip off, like you see on the internet, but I don’t. Maybe one day.

From there its into a freezer bag and then the freezer. All in all it takes about twenty minutes each week to process my bakers dozen. I used to spread the kernels carefully on cookie sheets and then bag when frozen, to keep each separate, but I’ve learned that if I just reach into the freezer and shake up the bag a few times while it’s freezing up I can cut the cookie sheet step out entirely.

By October my freezer is bursting with corn and lots of other homegrown and local food that we usually manage to finish over the winter. The bits and pieces we don’t get through by the time the season rolls around again go to lucky chickens. But they never get any sweet corn, it’s so darned tasty it’s usually all gone by May.

The Chores Equinoxes

03 Wednesday Mar 2021

Posted by Jodi in Farm Life, Seasons

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Spring is just around the corner, March 20 to be exact. Here in our muddy valley, the first chores equinox of the year, which took place yesterday, is a sure harbinger of spring.
Chores equinox happens twice a year; it is the first and last days that the evening chores, which must be done at dusk, are done after one sits down to dinner.
I love both the spring and the fall chores equinoxes. This time of year, I look forward to all the long evenings I can spend outside after dinner. In the fall, I look forward to chores being the last outside job of the day, followed by dinner and a snug evening indoors.
It felt a little strange walking out there with a full tummy last night, rather than an appetite!

A South-facing Barn

17 Wednesday Feb 2021

Posted by Jodi in Equines, Farm Improvements, Seasons, Weather

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In my experience, nothing beats a south-facing barn. On cold sunny winter days like today, with the snow blue and crunchy and the mud frozen into hard ridges underfoot, the morning sun rises at just the right angle to flood both stalls with sunshine right to the back wall. Lucky equines, to be snug and dry and munching breakfast while sunbathing.

In the summer the sun tracks much higher in the sky, and except in the very early morning the stalls, thanks to the roof’s overhang, are plunged into deep shade, a cool retreat from the heat of the day.

Our prevailing south westerlies and winter northerlies are well blocked by the barn’s design. In stormy weather, the big sliding barn doors may sway a bit in the wind, but they never slam open, or shut. The rain never blows inside the open stalls either. It’s the height of mud season right now, and except where our little desert flower donks have peed the stall floors remain dry as a bone. Resourceful and fastidious donks have set up their own temporary “indoor” pee spot, about 2 x 2 feet, which they use carefully and exclusively, so they can avoid putting even one dainty hoof on that horrible white stuff. They have a separate small spot where they deposit their manure. Good donks, this makes them easy to clean up after.

The loft stores upwards of 250 bales of hay and thanks to our new roof vent keeps it dry and mold-free year round – an impressive achievement in our wet west coast climate and a real money saver, since we can buy enough hay for the whole year at the peak of haying season and at its best price.

I don’t know if the builders were barn design experts, or if our barn’s functionality was just a happy accident, but either way, the almost fifty year old building still does its job beautifully. Over the past few years, it’s needed some restoration work, as well as a new roof, and it’s been money well spent and a job well done by our soon to be son-in-law. This morning, as I hung out enjoying the sunshine and listening to the equines contentedly munching their hay (such a peaceful sound), I once again quietly thanked whoever designed and built it. Form and function, this humble barn has it all.

West Coast Snow Dayz

15 Monday Feb 2021

Posted by Jodi in Chickens, Equines, Seasons, Weather

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With more than a foot of snow falling over the last couple days, getting around the barnyard has been a trial. Especially hauling full water buckets. RG came home today from a weekend at her boyfriend’s (it’s ok, covid safety is important to our family, he’s in her bubble) and promptly shoveled all the hundreds of feet of trails I had stomped through the drifts while doing chores, right down to bare ground. She also texted me a few times as she worked, to warn of particularly slippery areas. ❤️

DH cleared the whole driveway, multiple times. And worked on our road along with the other neighbourhood guys and their tractors. A narrow lane really, that dead ends not far past our place, the municipal plows don’t exactly prioritize it. He also carefully filled the back of my truck with snow, packed and levelled for safety, in case I need to go anywhere. We have a fairly large parking area and drive, his snowbanks are now taller than his tractor. ❤️

Chores were so much easier this morning, even though I had some fence repair to do. George had once again knocked down the electric line between him and the donks, in a fit of pique about the weather I’m sure. I can tell it was him and not the donks because a) he is the one with the temper; and b) the donkeys have not set foot outside their stall since the ground turned white. I had to move their water inside, when I realized about twelve hours in (!) they had not gone for a drink since it started. The chickens don’t like it either. All the barnyard crew are getting fed up with this white stuff, they tell me so every time I go out to see them. Except the ducks who love to eat it, puddle around in it, and turn it into a soggy poopy mess, much like they do bare ground.

I am getting fed up with it too. I don’t know how my prairie relatives manage their version of our Canadian winter. Better than us west coasters handle this snow I’m sure…

Rain Again

03 Sunday Jan 2021

Posted by Jodi in Farm Life, Seasons, Weather

≈ 1 Comment

Oh the rain we had yesterday! Our little workhorse of a creek swelled up enormously as she digested her floodwater meal, gulping down every bit of it with her usual aplomb.

My neighbour up on the hill to the NW of us checked in at one point, reporting waterfalls gushing down from the heights above, down to form a “new” pond at the bottom of their place and then across the road and into the valley bottom along which our little Goward Spring Creek runs.

We were watching our creek carefully, as is prudent for those of us who live beside any waterway in stormy weather. As her crest passed around five pm, we still enjoyed a clear foot of space below our permanent bridges, phew! Again I quietly thanked those who put our house where they did, mere inches from the water’s edge and yet safe and dry for many years now.

  • We pulled this little footbridge off the creek entirely, it would have been gone otherwise
  • For scale, that veggie garden in the background is 40 x 60 feet…

Fingers crossed our luck holds. Last January we had 262 mm, the highest monthly total in more than ten years but still well off the hundred year high of 358 mm set in January 1953. Our place was built in 1972, so who knows what will happen if another hundred year record breaker comes along. Hopefully we won’t find out!

Measuring the gap

Requiem for a Hawthorn Tree

22 Tuesday Dec 2020

Posted by Jodi in Farm Life, Gardening, Seasons, Weather

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Our big side-yard hawthorn (Crataegus Oxycantha), British expat and lovable invasive species, has finally succumbed. She had been visibly failing since October and probably long before. Her capitulation was precipitated by the heavy snow load Mother Nature delivered yesterday on the first day of winter.

Always a pleasant neighbour, Ms. Hawthorn graced our side yard for many years. She made herself useful, as both trees and the British tend to do. 

Each May saw her don her trademark white-tinged-with-pink floral dress for ten days or so, before flinging it off all at once as the weather warmed. We always enjoyed the resulting petal-storm, so much gentler than yesterday’s frigid blast. 

She was a steadfast summer helpmeet too, her hundreds of thousands of tiny shiny serrated leaves collaborating to shield us from the hot sun, as she dabbled her toes in the cool creek, rejuvinating her green frock. In this shady role Ms. Hawthorn silently chaperoned dear C’s graduation celebration, dear K’s wedding shower, and many teen parties and get-togethers over the years. 

Every September she produced bountiful shiny clusters of the reddest of red berries, edible, but not very palatable, admired by passers by and relied upon by our local wild bird population.

Her roots must have been imperceptibly loosening as the fall rains softened the bank she stood on because she began to tip over into the yard, managing a full forty five degrees from her traditional upright stance before we noticed that she was losing her grip and moved the hammock out of the way.

We decided to keep clear and let her come down on her own, for safety, worried that if we began sawing, the release of the strain she was under would snap us straight to kingdom come. I expected her to collapse within days of our discovery, but she doggedly hung on, long past Halloween, right through November and a series of heavy deluges, and indeed almost through December, until yesterday.

Presciently, I had taken a quick photo of her as I slogged by on my way back from the barnyard and the lunchtime feed. She was heavy with wet snow as was our whole valley. I had divested myself of my sopping snowy outerwear, poured myself a bowl of hot soup and settled down at my desk to read email when a text came in from Resident Gardener, “that hawthorn broke”. 

“Just now?” I asked. 

“The one we thought would come down soon” she continued, our conversation following the usual frustratingly disjointed cadence of my texting sessions.

“Ya heard it crack when I was outside just now” RG then observed.

By now I had made it to the bathroom window where I could indeed see that my dear Ms. Hawthorn was no longer peeking over the shop roof, and the adjoining trees’ branches still wobbling with the shock of it all.

 “Wow” I excitedly exclaimed to RG, having by then switched over to a voice call. “I just took a picture of her! Should have stood there and waited I guess.”

I ran downstairs and outside, slid into my boots and made my way carefully down the slushy path past the shop until I could see her in all her recumbent glory. I took another quick shot or two, then retreated back into the house and my warm office.

The end of a lovely tree, another casualty of 2020. RIP Ms. Hawthorne. I take solace from the fact that we can look forward to your many inevitable heirs sprouting in your place. May they grow as tall and as buxom and as indefatigably as you grew, until 2020’s latest weather bomb got the best of you.

Stomping in Puddles

22 Sunday Nov 2020

Posted by Jodi in Chickens, Farm Life, Gardening, Seasons, Weather

≈ 1 Comment

As a havoc-filled 2020 continues to unfold in all its dismal glory, I am, like everyone else I suppose, doing my best to keep calm and carry on. Pandemic and lockdowns, a crazy president refusing to admit he lost, climate change breathing down our necks, ridiculous conspiracy theories deluding millions. 2020 will surely be a year for the history books, and we’ll all be able to say “yep, I was there…” and have a story or two to tell, hopefully stories where everything turns out ok.

I find that keeping busy helps, and so I do, falling asleep each night planning projects and spending my weekends accomplishing them. There’s work too, to fill my days, and chores, and once or twice a week there’s errands off the farm. It’s thankfully easy to keep busy around our muddy valley.

Yesterday after some deep coop cleaning in the barnyard, I finished tucking in the garlic bed for winter with a thick blanket of leaves; going forward I will focus on raking leaves for chicken pens. I wish the leaves would dry up a bit, the birds enjoy scratching through dry, crackly leaves so much more than damp ones. But it is November after all, so I’m not holding my breath.

November as usual has been cold, and wet, and dark, and yet I love it so much. One of my favourite months, November provides plentiful opportunities for savouring the chill alongside warmth’s sweet contrast; for labouring in the crisp air until I must peel off first one layer and then another to cool myself; for long quiet evenings in front of a crackling fire, listening to the rain tapping on the skylight. One dusky, slightly surreal day last week, heavy clouds dimmed the light so dramatically from sunrise right through to sunset that it felt like a day long eclipse. There’s just so much potential for cozy in November.

November was my mother’s least favourite month. A prairie girl born and bred, she much preferred the sunny winters of her youth. Our rain forest weather was hard on her at times, although she loved living on the coast. Mom’s been gone for many Novembers now, nine to be exact, but of course I think of her often. Like the other day, as I was traversing the soggy, slippery northeast field dragging my empty wheelbarrow pony-cart style, having just spread another load of leaves on the garlic beds. 

There was this perfect little puddle, you see. Not a run-of-the-mill mud puddle, rimed with muck and no bottom visible, this was one of those short lived mudless puddles that briefly appear in low spots after a heavy rain. A crystal clear miniature watery valley, a freshwater tidal pool, each blade of grass and bit of colourful leaf litter suspended as if in glass; silent, peaceful, still. It looked to be just perfect for stomping in, so I gave in to my childish impulse. Dropping the wheelbarrow handles, I went all in, swishing the water over the toes of my boots, rinsing a layer of mud away and stirring up the depths into a most satisfactory squishy, muddy stew. Take that, 2020! And then my inner voice spoke up, “For goodness’ sake you silly old woman, you’re almost 59! What are you doing?” 

Stomping in puddles is what I was doing, like a little kid. What an idiot I am at times. As shamefulness began to creep over me on its sharp little claws, a stray thought came too, a gift from my mom that made everything ok again. The memory of her advice, given in the toast she made at my 21st birthday party, “Value your inner child, don’t ever grow all the way up. Hold on to her magic because you will need her sometimes.” Yes mama, I will. I do. Love you. Thank you.

Planting Garlic Again

18 Sunday Oct 2020

Posted by Jodi in Farm Life, Farm Produce, Gardening, Seasons

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I smiled with satisfaction at the rain’s soft pattering on skylight. Right on schedule. How sweet of Mother Nature to water in the thousand cloves of garlic I had just spent most of the morning sowing, one pointy clove at a time.

We always plant lots of garlic, it’s so easy to grow it’s almost ridiculous, and we use it all up every year so why not? This year though, we have increased our garlic patch by about 50%. Planting against an uncertain future increases my sense of control. 

Our 2020 crop was so good that we had plenty of really stellar heads to choose our seed from. Plus lots to supply all our four households, and to share.  Organic local garlic goes for five bucks a head around here, making last years’ crop worth a cool $3,140. My seed garlic would have cost me $750, if I’d had to pay for it. Not bad. In fact, with its minimal effort and cost inputs, garlic is by far our most lucrative crop.

Growing garlic is one of the few farm activities all our residents play roles in, which is nice too. Even Dear Husband, a tinkerer not a farmer who prefers to spend his hobby time on taking apart and putting together vehicles, or computers, or various other items with moving parts, does his bit. I know he likes to be a part of the garlic effort.

He tinkers with the tractor, gets the rototiller attached, his pocketful of shear bolts ready (those critically important sacrificial bits of steel that snap instead of the rototiller tines when he unearths rocks), his fluids topped up and lube points lubed. Resident Gardener and I (with opinions from avid non-gardener DH 😉) finalize the spot. Where to plant the garlic this year is always a topic of much serious discussion and pondering for several weeks prior to plowing day. To avoid disease, garlic needs to be planted on fresh ground on a minimum three year rotation. There needs to be not too much, and not too little, moisture; we save our limited irrigating for the veggie gardens. We need enough sun too. Luckily we have the space for options. Our muddy valley bottom is also blessed with a couple-foot thick layer of dark loam above clay, above bedrock ten feet down. Drainage can be an issue, but fertility is great. 

This year we settled on the north east field. It’s the first time this corner of the place has been used for anything but grazing in more than 20 years, if ever. It pleases me that we are bringing a fallow area of our little hobby farm into active production; we didn’t even get the equines on it this year. RG cut the long grass, marked four corners with bamboo stakes topped with (recycled) pink plastic strips, and then DH climbed on the tractor, where he spent the next few hours coaxing his rototiller through virgin pasture, keeping a sharp lookout for rocks. His rototiller (and about seven shear bolts) discovered less than a wheelbarrow load of potato-sized beauties in the whole 1500 foot square patch. 

A few days later, It was RG’s turn to climb on the tractor so she could bring many loader scoops of well rotted chicken/horse/donkey manure compost blend over. She spread the compost and raked the patch into four rectangular raised beds at least a foot deep, with nice wide paths between.

And yesterday, with all the hard work done, it was my turn to majestically stride out there, give the beds a quick surface rake to level them, and plant my garlic. It’s great sometimes, being the matriarch.

I prised open all 150 tight heads, separating each clove, a task that had my fingernails aching by the end. Anyone who has hand peeled garlic for dinner can imagine what I’m talking about here. After years of planting garlic, I have learned to do this job all at once at the start, sitting comfortably rather than bent over in planting position. 

I count the cloves I plant for record keeping, and I always have trouble with this deceptively simple task. Planting garlic is a contemplative activity for me, as explained in previous posts, therefore I often lose track of my numbers and have to start over. So for a change this year, I counted each clove as it went into my yellow planting bucket rather than as it went into the ground. It was easier to keep track of them going into the bucket for sure. Then I was free to let my mind wander, and by the time the bucket was empty, another 300 cloves had been planted. Problem solved.

Our last task before winter will be to bury the garlic beds in their thick leaf blankets, but we must work with the trees’ schedule on that one. Not many leaves have even turned colour yet, much less fallen. It’s been a slow fall so far in 2020. How apropos.

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