Today, Jeff plowed nearly another acre, right below the first Chambourcin grape patch. He plowed all the way down to where the “wetlands” start, near the little pond. The plan is to plant sweet corn, followed by a cover crop and then – hopefully – planting more grapes next year. For right now this means that we have a lot less grass to mow. After the ground dries out a bit, Jeff can start disking the new field.
Chronicles of the Long Shot Farm
Farm
Tree Stump Removal
Today we had someone come with a small backhoe on a skidloader to help remove 6 large tree stumps. We had tried to see if our tractor could make the stumps budge – but there was no chance of that. After the stumps were removed, Jeff used his grader attachment to smooth out the holes and to grade the slope from the road. The reason for doing all this is to get safer access from the road into our grape fields. It will make it much easier to pull off the road before making the turn into the field. Not just for the tractor and the four-wheeler but also for a car. Definitely a safety improvement! We’ll get a load of gravel next to finish this off.
More Useable Space Outside
It only took 2 hours for Jeff, Zach, Lars and the tractor to annihilate the last messy, overgrown corner of our property. Zach thinks we gained half an acre (it is probably more like a quarter of an acre), but most of all it looks CLEAN! This has been nagging at me for some time and I am so excited the “boys” tackled this project today.
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| Before |
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| After |
Since the back corner is now clean, I got very motivated to improve the area around the yellow bench by the pond. I decided to move three juniper bushes, which were growing alongside the house and had gotten way too large for that spot, and planted them behind the bench. This provided a sort of backdrop for the bench, which is bordered by a cornfield. Now I just need to fix the missing board, give it a fresh coat of pain and then I can start planting flowers…
It’s Snowing!
What a beautiful sight – right at Christmas time too – snow falling softly, blanketing our farm in white.
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| Herbs in the snow |
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| Leif’s first sledride |
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| Snow Barn |
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| Snowy Chambourcin |
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| Snowy Neill Family |
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| Snow-covered tree by pond |
Another Fence Row Cleaned Out
Took advantage of unseasonably warm weather and worked on the upper fence row of the 3 acre field. Jens and Zach both came (with their chain saws) and Lars was the “brush runner”. Some of the limbs were large enough for firewood, but mostly we pulled out thorny bushes, vines and small trees.
Completely took out an old electric fence row and “reclaimed” about 12 feet of extra space behind it, toward our border with the neighbor’s field. This will definitely allow us to extend our grape vine rows 🙂We ended up with quite a brush pile to burn on the next rainy, non-windy day.
