Everything Else

My cousin pointed out yesterday that we don’t post all that much here, and she would like to be able to keep up with what we’re doing at Sunflower River (she is in New York). So I glanced back at the entries we had made, and did my best to remember the things that hadn’t made it into print yet.

We had a big group of people over on Sunday, 3/23 for Ostara. They brought potluck items and shovels, and we planted our first nine fruit trees: 2 peaches, 2 apricots, 1 Jonathan apple, 1 Gala apple, 2 Stella cherries, and 1 Bing cherry. The Stellas will pollinate the Bing, and everyone will bear fruit in time. They are ~5-7′ tall right now, and enjoying their new homes. Planting fruit trees feels to me like investing in the long term more than anything else we’ve done yet. In the fall, we’d like to plant pears and a honeycrisp apple.

We spent a good long while working to improve the soil in the area we have chosen for the vegetable garden. calculated it as 1/5 acre. We have great dirt for making adobe bricks here, which means it’s heavy on the clay. (Making adobe bricks *is*, in fact, on the miles-long to-do list.) So we added compost, and horse manure, and straw-with-mushroom-mycelium that’s the byproduct of our friends’ mushroom-growing business. By the end, the whole field looked like a strange patchwork quilt, all in approximately wheelbarrow load-sized patches. After that, our kind friends at Ironwood Farms agreed to bring their tractor over and plough (till?) the field.

Ah, the tractor. The trailer Ironwood has wasn’t going to work to move the tractor, so if we wanted them to bring it over, we needed to borrow a trailer. and looked around our place, and decided that we really do need a flatbed trailer. Craigslist to the rescue: we are now the proud owners of a 16′ pretty red flatbed trailer. And the field got ploughed. :-)

In the meantime, we’ve been working to start seeds in our new greenhouse. It’s been going slowly, though, because the weather has been warm enough to make the temperature inside the greenhouse too warm during the day. We’ve been working to regulate that.

The chickens are enjoying the spring, and their new gentleman friend, though we haven’t convinced anyone to sit on eggs yet. We’re thinking of getting some chicks to increase our flock.

No bunnies yet. I’ve been having trouble coordinating with the person who said they had extras, so it’s uncertain where we are getting the rabbits. We will get some from somewhere, though. We’re looking at getting angoras, so we can spin their fur. is learning to knit for just that purpose.

We cleared almost all of the remaining 6′ weeds from the property! At our next work party, we will tear down the picturesque old barn that’s falling down. That will clear the space for us to start planning the first building we want to put in, a community-use space for music, parties, and whatever we can think of. I need to stay focused in the idea that, if we just keep doing the next thing that needs to get done, it’s all accomplished.

Well, that’s all the big stuff I can think of from the last couple of weeks. I’ll do my best to keep you posted. :-)