We have a pair of Canada Geese who made their home on our pond and started a family. We are calling them Henry and Henrietta.
Henry usually swims on the pond, on patrol it seems, while Henrietta guards her nest of eggs – which is right next to our stone bench.
Henry does not like it if we get to close to the nest though, so we have to be
sneaky in order to get a close-up photo. Even up close, it is difficult to see Henrietta on her nest.
Our tree order from the Cumberland County Conservation District arrived today – we had ordered 6 pear trees and 10 White Pine seedlings, but when we went to pick the trees up, they had extras for sale, so we bought 2 additional pear trees and 10 Colorado Spruce seedlings. Anja and Duff had given Jeff 4 of these pear trees as a birthday present and Jens and Grace had given us two peach trees for Easter.
We mowed the field on the road side of the garden and measured two rows, 20 feet apart, then drilled 5 holes in each row – also 20 feet apart…and planted our trees, which are probably 4 feet tall and are dwarfed by the large field. But we’ll call it our orchard despite the tiny trees.
The pine seedlings are still wrapped in newspaper waiting to be planted. But we did plant one pack of Melody spinach seed, which we had forgotten the other day.
Before the blackberry plants arrived, we had already planned the vegetable garden, plowed and disked the soil and put in the cold weather crops. (The picture shows Jeff and Zach in the garden)
Here is what we had planted by April 5:
This evening we also planted 1 lb of Early Frosty hull peas. And Jeff and Lars put down drip irrigation hoses for the vegies. Then we decided this garden was not going to be large enough, and Zach plowed another plot for extra sweet corn.
Well, Duff (in the picture with his wife Anja) came up with the name while we were all brainstorming about what to name the farm. The entire exercise was more difficult than naming a baby. It took a while to sink in how fitting The Long Shot Farm name really is and how flexible and appealing to everyone. Good job Duff!
It turns out that everyone we mentioned this name idea to interpreted the meaning a different way, here is a sampling:
Jeff: “Great, and for our website URL we could use 25.06” (his favorite caliber)
Tina: “You are right, I never thought we’d pull this off and actually get a little farm”
Sam: “I thought it’s because everyone in the family is a really – REALLY – good shot, you know, we are the long shot family”
Zach: “you are not allowed to post anything about me”
Rachel: “As in ‘slim chance of succeeding?'”
Knud: “As in the extra tall shotglasses at a bar? Perfect”
Anja: “I was really surprised to come back from Germany to find out that you named the farm after Duff”s idea – wow”
On a more practical note:
