the herb farm

Dante has been taking a new pottery class in Andover, which is just a hop, skip and a jump from Caprilands Herb Farm in Coventry. So we headed over to check it out while he was in class. The grounds are beautiful, tho in need of some care.

The scottish blackface sheep are a little overdue for a haircut. But so excited to get some grain they were leaping with joy (or surprise at our presence) as they passed by.

Lulu, delighted to be holding this 3 day old lamb!

The lamb had gotten separated from it's mother (who was fortunate to have gotten sheared), and we watched them calling for each other until the mother came running over to where the baby was. When the lamb nurses and is latched on and getting milk, the little tail waggles adorably.

they're here...

Remember the praying mantis egg case that helped us choose our xmas tree? Well, it hatched Friday morning. Hopefully we'll get some better pictures this weekend. We escorted the first batch of hatched mantis' out to the front garden bed, and released them under a hostal, so hopefully we'll find another adult again this year.

prospectin' fer diamonds

For Father's Day, the kids wanted to take Luke camping at the Herkimer Diamond Mines in New York. We'd planned a trip here last year, but it ended up pouring for those 2 days we'd planned to go so we never made it.

Basically, they use huge machinery to slice off pieces of the hill, and dump it here for us to scuttle through, looking for the diamonds. These crystals are unique in that they form without "growing" out of something else, so they have 2 points at either end. We found some perfect tiny ones lying on the ground, but you could also chisel or split rocks to expose some bigger ones.

the many stages of the pea

poking around lake pocotopaug

more from jersey

Pat sent us these pics she took:

Joseph is watching one of the squirrels they caught on Dante's havahart trap while Dante arms himself.

Double landscaping foul: standing simultaneously on the rock wall AND on the bushes.

a visit to emerald woods

Luke's brother Mark and his family came up to New Jersey this past weekend, so we went down for a visit. The kids were delighted to find that this duck had laid a batch of eggs (7 at last count) right beneath the kitchen window. She was usually gone for most of the day, but came back enough for Dante to grab some close up pictures.



The girls built a tent in the basement with Nonno. I think Porter was the primary motivator for construction, but Lucia was happy to tag along.

Getting ready for bed in the tent Sis brought for them. Dante jumped in here with the snake for reasons beyond me.

Inspired by Porter's example, Dante and Luke built a big boat in the basement. More pics to come when it's finished.

soccer

Lucia snapped this would-be-great photo of Dante with the ball. Bummer the focus didn't kick in.

Dragonfly

Dante spent hours last week working on figure four traps for himself and as gifts.

planting more

Last year, in late winter, I laid out newspaper in a circle and piled soil, compost, manure and leaves on it. The pile quickly flattened to about 4 inches high, but even so, later we grew quite a bit on it: morning glories, pole beans, bottleneck gourds, cherry tomatoes. Not super yields, but a lot better than I'd expected, since this soil was pretty much dust.

This year, feelizing lazy, I decided to do an experiment. On one half of the circle, I loosened the soil and took out most of the weeds, and dumped on a thick layer of compost. On the other half, I scooped out a lot of the soil, added compost to it, mixing it in by hand, and covering it all with an inch or two of compost. I was feeling overwhelmed by all the digging, so I worked on a foot or two of space at a time and it felt more manageable. Hypothetically, the soil here will be much looser and richer than the other half, so the plants should do better.


All filled in and planted. This year we have: Boston Pickling cuke, thai loofah, heirloom zucchini and crookneck squash, bottleneck gourd, tomatoes, morning glories, sweet peas, nasturtiums and arugla. I might stick some scarlet runner beans in if I can find where I put the seeds. I misplaced a bunch of things I want to plant now -- grrr.

Hard to see a difference yet -- I put in some herbs to soften the borders. Mostly oregano and chives from the herb bed near the deck, but also some corsican, spear- and peppermints, several types of thyme, sage, rosemary, with basil and parsley interplanted with the tomatoes and peppers.
The lettuce is pretty much shot. We'll harvest one more time and turn it under. And plant those seeds I lost -- carrots, red russian kale, collards, head lettuce, spinach, etc.

worms, glorious worms

A couple of weeks ago, we popped over to our friend Claire's. We'd split 5# of worms (red wigglers from Happy D ranch), and they'd been delivered. What a bonus -- we got to peek at her ducklings, with their sweet little waggling tails.


Once again, the livestock arrives before the housing is even begun. So we put this worm bin together in a hurry while the poor worms sat in a cardboard box in the kitchen.

We cut 4 pieces of 6" wide board into 2 1/2 foot pieces. Nailed them together, and nailed on some hardware cloth. Lulu's assistance was instrumental, as always.

We flipped it over onto a piece of plywood, and filled it with shredded paper. These were old bills and statements, but I don't think I would use those again. They just don't seem to absorb or hold water very well. Newspaper holds much better, but I think this fall, I will add a bin to the compost area for shredded leaves. I would like that for their carbon bedding better than newspaper.

The blue and green buckets hold compost tea. I had to move them off the deck once we started using the bubblers because I figured that the constant vibration would drive the worms nuts.

To the shredded paper, Dante added the leaf-mold compost delivered by Jessica's Garden to give it an infusion of microbes that will help decompose the scraps faster.

On top of the compost, we added a few spadefuls of soil for more local microbes and to provide the worms with grit. And on top of that, the worms and the bedding they were shipped in.


More shredded paper and newspaper, topped by a damp cardboard box. And then topped with a sheet of plywood. So we take our scraps (I'm either chopping stuff up a little or using table scraps

Once we grow and mow the buckwheat or alfafa, I'd like to try that out as a mulch on top to keep things below moist instead of the cardboard. And I have to find some similar wood to build the next few trays. I'll stack them all through the summer and possibly move them into the basement for the winter. That's the plan, we'll see how it goes. If we get the bunnies in the fall, I might also see if I can insulate a satellite location with hay bales or something under the bunny bin. Evidently the worms love the bunny manure, and the castings are one of the best plant/soil foods around.

two wild and tasty foods

Our resident wild food forager didn't have to look far for some spring favorites -- stinging nettles (cluttering a corner of the garden until I insisted it all get harvested) and ramps, or wild leeks.

Gotta love the gloves. Can't say I blame him.

Ramps are abundant in the woods up here, including those behind our house.

more from boot camp

Never put these up, but more cool climbing stuff the kids had fun with at Camp Ingersol in Portland back in April. First up, they had to walk on the wire, using the ropes to keep their balance.