Season updates 2008

February

Max continued her crazy sewing mania. She made several aprons from Mary Jane's Farm catalog's Make Do Apron directions. She took Wink's old shirts, deconstructed and reconstructed them to become pruning aprons in the vineyard. Many napkins, placemats, tablecloths, and aprons later she's moving on to other things.

Wink finished the farm accounts for the year with much unexpected work decoding and complying with the new workers comp requirements and paperwork.

We attended a mid-February Whole Foods Growers Seminar in Denver. Those folks are really enthusiastic! They're talking the right talk about locally grown food and building lasting relationships with [quality] growers. Farmers have been lodged in the most disrespected of all the food groups during the past 30 years or so. Since I'm from a farm family myself, now a farmer, I look forward to testing everybody's ability to walk the talk. — M

January

The weather is perfect wintertime farming weather. Snow blankets the ground. Seriously! The soil won't get colder than 32° because the snow insulates so well. All the roots are happy, snoozing away.

Nighttime temps have been between low teens and zero during January but we are keeping warm. We've suffered bouts of cabin fever, but productive times too.

Wink is hobbling around, post-hernia operation. "It's not so bad," he says. "I just don't want to have to do it again." So now there's no excuse for him not to be working on tax forms instead of skiing. Poor Wink! It's the best ski snow year in recent memory.

Max finished her son's 7 foot quilt in January. The combo of Polish and German eagles represents his ethnic heritage.

Max finished a large quilt that she and her son designed together. Now she's got the bug to sew all kinds of things from curtains for the picker cabins, to aprons for all the tasks and helpers on the farm. She's going to try some original fashions as well.

We attended the Western Colorado Horticultural Society's Annual Conference again this year. Always there's much to think about and discuss. Wink and I learned more about peach trees, how they grow. Dr. DeJong showed a computer model of how a tree distributes carbon through two seasons of growth. Here's a link to L-Peach Modeling.

Another speaker, Jerry Mills of Mills Apple Farm, Marine Illinois, had plenty of stories to tell about his farm's evolution during his 40 years of ownership — from apple orchard to bakery and hayrides. He is also a regular contributor to Fruit Grower News. He's of my father's vintage, must be 80 years old, but he's doing what plenty of farmers are thinking about today — agritourism. Wink and I are thinking about that too.

Now that the Hort Conference is finished, Wink and I are going into "next year" planning mode. We're starting with listing all the things we love to do on the farm. We'll try to eliminate some of the stuff that we don't love so much, and work that into a business plan. Of course "next year" is here on the calendar, but the farm calendar doesn't really start cranking up until next month.

If you haven't gone to Wink's Blog yet, he's feeling a bit left out and needs some comments to fire him up.

In the meantime, we are going to hear Joel Salatin speak at Colorado College and that will probably mean chickens on our farm next year. — M