Ness Farm & Anonymous

(Chickens shown above are the Ness’.  Ours are still at David’s property and doing fine there).

Today the garden I have at the Ness farm was planted.  After all of the older girls were off to school we headed over the farm.  Anonymous was already there planting.  Anonymous is a blog follower who offered to plant the Ness farm for me back in January.  He meant what he said and arrived yesterday evening and drove me out to the garden.  I introduced him to Lance, we went over what I wanted to go into the garden, and he measured the area still available (Lance planted 8 rows of corn on the north and south side the day before it started raining ….. a week ago) for what I wanted in the ground.

Patti, baby Vi, Piper and I arrived around 10 am.  This was about 3 hours after Anonymous had arrived, being that he told me he would get there at 7 am, leaving his brother’s home where he was spending the night around 6 am.

Anonymous had already put in 8 rows of seeds.  Lance had tilled the garden right before the run of rain had started the other week.  Anonymous re-tilled it as he planted rows due to all of the tiny seedling weeds which had emerged since Lance went over it with his tractor.

Patti let Baby Vi explore, while following, through the field wildflowers and dandelions.  This is her first summer being mobile, and it is nice to take her somewhere she can pretty much go wherever she wants to go.  Piper had a good time too.  She stays within eyesight, and happily hunts rodents and birds.

The blue chair you can see on the far left side of this photo is where I would plunk down my butt when I could not handle standing or kneeling any more and needed a break.

This structure is pretty much the extent of what I was able to do.  I took a pruner down into the swale you can see in the background and cut willow poles, trimmed off the green, built two teepees with a connecting pole, and planted the area underneath with Abenaki Pole Beans.  The area you can see behind me, all the way to the end, was planted by Lance (corn) and Anonymous(everything else).  So, about 50 square feet by me, and 6000 planted by those two.  It was at or a bit above my physical limit.  It also took me 4 hours (with breaks) to get done what I did.

Maybe this is a better example of how paltry my efforts were in comparison to Lance and Anonymous’.  Where I am standing is the mid-point of the garden.  To the right side of the photo is the half the Ness’ do for themselves now, the left side is what we do.  Mine has popcorn, flour corn, beans, cowpeas, beets, rutabaga, carrots, cabbages, squashes and melons.

And it felt good to finally, for the first time, really get soiled working.  Hands were dry, with dirt crammed up under the fingernails, and my fingers are sore.  The multiple trips to the swale, and time spent on my knees planting maybe 100 seeds, really took me to my physical pain limit.

I cannot express in words, adequately, how much I appreciate the work Anonymous did.    Probably 2000 linear feet of cabbage, beans, cowpeas, carrots, beets, and rutabagas, followed by 8 hills of German squash (C. Maxima), 34 hills of Baby Vi squash (C. Mochata), 6 hills of Thelma Sanders squash (C. Pepo), a half dozen hills of Arikara watermelon, and a dozen hills of the seeds from the best tasting of the cantaloupe I had in my grow out last year (see the blog posts from last year regarding that if you are interested in more details).

Not the variety I had last year, but it was what performed the best last year, with a few experimental bean varieties shared with me by Michelle Grannes.  Most of those only a dozen seeds of each, to see how well they do and increase seeds.  Red Calypso is the most interesting of those to me.  Fun to have so many different colors and markings on them.

Anyway, I am utterly exhausted from my exertions.  Once I am physically capable of doing everything, it is going to be a long haul getting my body back into shape.  I am losing weight, and I know that most of what I am losing now is muscle mass.  It just is what it is.  I just need to keep forefront in my mind to not lift anything over 10 pounds, not to twist, and to accept all help that is offered.  I need to not injure myself while still making sure that everything that needs doing, gets done.

Oh, and as a side note:  Both of my bee hives died over the winter.  They did not starve due to the late arrival of warm weather.  Both hives still had honey.  <sigh>  Disease, environmental stresses, whatever.  The bottom super of both hives was just full of dead bees.  Nothing I can do about it now, and I cannot deal with hives on my own anyway, but starting new ones will have to wait for next year when I can lift things again.