Down and Dirty

Having ventured into non-agricultural prose for a few entries now, I realize that it's high time to get back to what's going on at the farm, so here's an update on the aronia berries.

After getting them all in the ground, we spent the next few weekends walking the berries. We were a bit chagrined to find out that the cohabitants of our land, namely the deer, are curious creatures. They like to pull out the tiny plants and then drop them near where they were so nicely planted. They don't eat them. They don't like them. They're just mischievous little devils.

Fortunately, once replanted, the little seedlings are not much the worse for wear. The only problem is when we can't find the little seedlings. Imagine trying to find a brown stick about five inches long with a root ball about the size of a golf ball on the dirt ground among the dead weeds from the past summer. Ugh!

We estimated that we had about a 5% loss the first weekend. The next weekend, things were similar, but not as bad as the first weekend. The berries have now lost their leaves and the deer have probably had their curiosity satisfied.

So, the next big chore is to mulch between the berries to keep the weeds down next spring. We use hay from our organic fields and consider it our secret weapon in the fight against weeds. It works splendidly for the garlic because the new garlic shoots just push right up through it in the spring. With the berries, however, we have to leave the little shoot exposed to the sun and mulch around each one...a much more labor-intensive proposal. So, as Andre gathers hay bales and delivers them to the rows, I am on my hands and knees spreading hay between plants.

And guess what? You see a lot more from this position, at least when we're discussing the earth. It seems when we walked the berries, we weren't close enough to the actual plants to be sure of what we saw. As I commune with them at their level, I see a short shoot more easily than when I was standing. It turns out our estimate of 5% loss is quite high! Maybe farming isn't so hard after all. (Read: she's fooling herself again here.)

After hefting 50-pound bales of hay, breaking them apart, spreading them on the ground, doing my best inchworm imitation for a couple of hours this past weekend, I am aware of muscles I didn't know I had, only because they are burning in pain.

And only about 20% of the job is done.

Ah, but Thanksgiving is coming up and there will be offspring to help!

Yeah, right.