June 20, 2013
Must
be mid June..the 12 hour farm days are really stacking up. After lots
of wet weather and soggy gardens and fields, we're finally getting more
plants in the ground and young animals on pasture. Almost done with the
new high tunnel and a couple new portable poultry cops in process.
We have chicks,
turkeys, ducklings, piglets, lambs and calves. There are lots of mouths to feed,
good thing for grass. We're going 100% organic grain this year. We're
all done with you Monsanto and your Round Up arsenal of chemical
warfare. The Kiwis are flowering! Plants and seeds are going in the
ground, the new greenhouse is going up...polycultural, deeprooted, nutrient
accumulating, spreading, building, flowing, eating, growing. If this is
life. Monsanto must be...death.
A friend saw a big coyote just about 100 yrs down the road with a fawn in its mouth today...makes me a little
worried for our piglets in the woods and all our other little animals.
We can't always be top dog. I already live trapped a skunk couple days
ago that was eating some of my meat birds...took it way out into the
woods and didn't get sprayed till I tripped on a rock and fell on the
trap. That was a surprise! Got her released though and we went on our
ways.
photo by Sonia Keiner
Camp set up at The Orchard School is in full force this week as well. I've got
good help. We're building a new outdoor teaching patio off the back of
the school, among other things. The circus tents are raised.
Tomorrow night I go into camp staff training for the weekend and then my
teen leadership camp is next week "Our Earth, Our Voice, Our Choice".
Gonna build a tree house, plant rice, hill potatoes, make herb teas,
work with knives, carve, team and communication building, eat good food,
determine our assets, take back the power...strength in the youth.
Tired now. Happy Solstice. Peace.
In : News and Updates
Tags:
"summer solstice" "wet weather" "vegetable gardens" "pastured raised animals" coyotes skunks "summer camps" "teen leadership"
Marty grew his first potato when he was 12 year old on a worn out piece of ground behind his parents’ house. He’s been attracted to the idea of growing food ever since. He started growing seriously in 2001 with his wife Ellen’s guidance and has worked on several organic farms prior to moving to Orchard Hill. His passion is in integrating all aspects of the farm; the gardens, animals, buildings, water systems and so on. Marty has been raising heritage farm animals since 2003, and started training his young oxen Boss and Chez to do some of the farm work in the winter of 2012. Marty graduated from Antioch University New England with an MS in Environmental Studies and currently teaches Farmers & Foragers and summer camps at The Orchard School, as well as Permaculture Design Courses at Orchard Hill.
