melting problems.

"Warm temperatures" (we're talking 50's) have helped everything melt fast.

16 inches of snow melted in just a few days, thanks to the sun shining now until around 10pm.

We needed to get the truck back into a field in the middle of the woods where we grow Carrots and Potatoes. The mud was looking like trouble.

Soon we were stuck, high-center stuck. So what to do, go get the tractor.

After quite a battle, we finally pushed 'er loose.

The typical Spruce.

Melting Day

I went for a hike up into the mountains behind the farm.

Greenhouse update 1

I am going to try to post a weekly greenhouse update. I hope it to be a chance to see everything grow, week to week. This is my second week on the farm now, and changes are already apparent. We spend most Mondays seeding new trays and by weeks end most have already given their first sprouts of life.

Tomato fruit from the tomato plants in the top of the greenhouse.

Hanging flower baskets will be one of the first things to be taken to the Anchorage Farmers market which starts this first Saturday in May.

Basil has been transplanted directly into the beds on the ground of the greenhouse.

Rows of Basil with some onions in between.

Up a latter brings you to gutters filled with lettuces.

This is our lovely shower, with these voyeur tomato plants.

The gangway at the top of the greenhouse.

Fresh Sprouts

Then there was snow.

16 inches of fresh heavy snow. Saturday morning. As I write this, things are dripping, and dropping, and melting quick, we hope.

The bunkhouse as the snow started Friday morning.

The interns and I spend the entire day mixing fertilizer. The snow started to fall soon after starting work which made things complicated as it cannot get wet. We mixed fishmeal, fish bone, green sand, and k-mag. They all come in 50 pound bags. We loaded them into a cement mixer and then into bags. The final bags weigh well over 100 pounds. We then moved the finished bags over to a storage area about 100 feet away. We made 70 batches. My rough estimate puts our total day at over 7000 pounds of fertilizer. It was very dusty, and VERY smelly. Fishmeal, and bone smell gets into everything. Dust masks were a must. We worked from 8am until 730pm. We decided to push through it all day so we didn't have to get fishy again, for the rest of the season! After we got done we headed into town to get showers and do laundry. (on the farm we have a solar shower in the greenhouse, not quite enough to get the fish smell off of the skin) When all was said and done, we were happy farmers.

The field - midmorning.

River aided us in getting off the farm to get into town to get showers by plowing the drive out of the farm with the tractor.

A few up the Matanuska River in the snow.

Firewood

Today was firewood day. The interns and River went up the sheep mountain to cut down some standing dead trees. They are very dry and are already being put to use in the wood stoves in the greenhouses to keep them warm at night. We also bucked up some large birch that were just cut down to make way for a new bike path! They were green and VERY heavy.

River and Allen hacking away at the downed birch.

Pile of dry spruce rounds, before i split them. Bees in the background.

Growth

Poc Choi

Tomatoes

Freshly Seeded Trays

Basil

Apple Tree Grafting

The Bees Are Home

the hives.

field.. still frozen

The bees are in the hive. they seem unsure what to do right now with nothing to pollinate. They will be fed sugar water until they have some natural food to eat. We mix refined sugar and water 1:1. The reason for the refined sugar, and not natural sugar is that the molasses is toxic to the bees. so for now, in Sarah's words, we have "junk food bees."

Patrick, one of the two interns on the farm, prepairing beds in the greenhouse for seeding.

Mud

The field is still frozen; fresh snow fell in the past week. One of the signs that springs arrival and the fields thawing is the arrival of the geese. They gather in the hundreds in last years hay fields. We saw a few geese today..



River picks up the honey bees for this summer. 3 hives with 3 queens. He hopes to produce 50 pounds of honey per hive. I am eagerly awaiting their production. The bees are also crucial to the farms success. Without the bees pollination, most of the berry and fruit crops would be dramatically lower. We will be picking up bumble bees for for the greenhouse soon.



Bees in their travel cage.



the goats



babys