The frost we had last week did major damage to the local wine crop. We had some loss, but fortunately most of our crops in the ground survived. The nice warm weather that we have now is helping them.
Marvin spent Saturday cleaning up the roads. On a farm, this is a never ending job. When we get rains, it only takes a slight lack of traction to make ruts. When he finished that, he went to work preparing the ground to plant the various vegetable seeds we just received. We are trying lots of different varieties to see what grows best in our area and in which types of soil.
My mom and step dad came out for the day on Saturday. Cliff is 84 and has a cottage industry. He takes my egg cartons home and separates them. They are clear plastic and packed so tightly that you have to work to get them apart. Then he puts HZ Harvest labels on them and packs them in big garbage bags for me. He charges me a very fair price - I just have to appreciate him which I do! He loves to come out and collect eggs and he helped me catch some baby chicks and move them to other pens. I made lunch for them and then got to beat them at a game of Hand and Foot (card game). It was really a nice day.
Marvin's mom and step dad came out on their way to the lake. Howard is a great mechanic and stopped to fix our 4-wheeler which needed some part replaced. During the week, the Kabota is working in the fields and I don't always have something to run around on, so this will be really nice to have it operational again.
Marvin has a love/hate relationship with my horses. I have 2 horses - a mustang named Buck and a paint named Sophie. Buck is very smart and very mischievous. On Friday, Marvin noticed a big spray of water coming from the new water line that was put in crossing the bottom acreage. He was afraid that the cattle had stepped on the valve and broken it. When he went to investigate, he found that Buck had taken his teeth and turned the large handle on top. Needless to say, the valves are all getting covers!
Sunday has been a "lazy day" for us. This means that we spend the day taking care of the animals and produce but at a much slower pace and doing "personal chores".
We have one section of fence that will be getting a gate soon. Right now, we just have some electric fence tape running across the opening to keep the cows on their side of the property. The didn't listen and we had half our herd in the barley field this morning. They were very content. After rounding them up with the Kabota, we sent them back to their field and redid the tape.
We have been developing the gate at the south end of the property. It is up on flat with plenty of straight road in either direction. Marvin is making the entry very wide to accommodate all the expected summer boat traffic. The egg stand will be moved to this entrance and we will expand it when vegetables become ready.
I received a phone call this afternoon from a very nice lady who was down at our egg stand. She wanted some eggs, but we were all out, so I took more down and had a nice chat with her. She lives about 10 miles down the road and comes by to buy our yummy fresh eggs. A little later, I found a note from some family friends from Half Moon Bay that were traveling through and stopped for eggs.
We are looking forward to having the Bradley School come visit in early June for a field trip. I will touch bases with them this week to find out how much information we will be providing and how much they already have planned. We will BBQ lunch for the group and have a fun time I'm sure.
Baby chicks should be shipping from Missouri tomorrow in the US mail, so I will make another trip to the post office in Paso to pick them up. There will be 100 cockerels (all males) to be raised for meat chickens. The chicks we received a few weeks ago are getting soooo big. They have graduated to "big boy pens". Marvin built some new outdoor cages to house them until they are large enough to go free range.
Another week begins, so we will be talking soon!!
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