We have been busy as spring rolls into summer!
Over the past two weeks, we have had four work-day visits from the Tech Center in Barre, helping us get lots of projects completed and new ones underway. The group of 9th and 10th graders spends each morning working at a different site and have spent a lot of time at the Food Bank, the Two Rivers Farm, and Hubbard Park. Among other things, they helped us complete a few ditches to divert water that had been sogging down our pasture, put up the frame of what will be our turkey shelter (turkeys come the third week in June!), revamp the inside of our seed-house to get it ready for tomato planting, and transform our hardening-off area into a useable planting space, among other things. THANK YOU to all the students who came and helped for those four mornings, and thank you to my friend Kaitlin Moran, the Outreach Coordinator, who set it all up!
It took a while to get into the garden area after the week of solid rain, but in between thunderstorms we have been able to get more beds made, transplants in, and weeds out. Last Thursday we had a bonus pick-up of lettuce mix and spinach for the CSA, and it was great to meet new members and get the season started a bit early. On Friday we drove to Applecheek Farm, where we had lived the last two years, and dug up perennials from the garden I started there last summer. Even though we filled up the entire Subaru, we only took a fraction of the perennials that are there. A new couple is moving into our old yurt at Applecheek, and they are interested in taking over the garden. It makes me so happy to think of that plot transforming and being cared for by each set of yurt-dwellers to come!
And last but not least, a quick animal update: the chicks are out of the yurt and in the barn, almost ready to go out on pasture. The piglets are growing well, prefer compost to grain, and are doing a great job of rooting up the bedded pack in barnyard which we will use for a compost pile when they move to their next spot in the pasture. The laying hens are happily moving about the pasture, following the trail of the sheep, who are making their way to the northern part of the pasture and especially enjoying the treeline for its shade and wild raspberries.
Our first official CSA pick-up will be this Thursday, June 6th from 4:00-6:30. It’s not too late to sign up for a share–If you are wanting to check out the farm and say hello, this is a great time to come! Hope to see you then~
