September: Working Together

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.  -Buddha

With the start of the school year, getting organized, and home school planning, many of the items on the farm to-do list have been either postponed or neglected.  This past weekend was the perfect time for us to host another community work party.  The feeling of so much productivity and being able to check almost everything off our list was extremely satisfying.  Our group has been wonderful, helpful, supportive, and super hard working!   

   Before the work party we harvested a lot of the
squash to make room for new seedlings.  

As our co-op has evolved, all the participating house holds have learned that so many hands working together can go through way more tasks than anticipated.  Hence, the ambitious to-do list below. We accomplished almost everything, and we are especially grateful that all the hard jobs are done!  Like moving the huge truckloads of manure and mulch all over the property.  

We all broke up into groups and one crew had the sweet job of picking all the ripe tomatoes.  Maybe not so sweet, since we have had no time to keep up the tomato patch and it was completely overgrown with the cages falling over (a favorite hideout spot for renegade chickens who want to hatch their eggs).

The harvest was made up of such beautiful colors...soon to become sauce and salsa.  

The crew who moved most of the manure had the hardest job.  (We didn't get any pictures of their sweaty faces because we were too busy being sweaty ourselves.)  Our hugelkulture bed in the front garden now only needs a layer of soil/compost before we can plant.  We are thinking of planting a mixture of lettuce and more purple tree collards--you can NEVER have too many of those, by the way.  

And some new semi-sheet mulched beds in the backyard kitchen garden are now filled and waiting for rain to compost them down.  

Oh, and we can't forget some of the best helpers of all- the children! They did a superb job of shelling favas for fall cover crops and painting garden signs.  

Some friends stayed for the after party and added a much needed new layer of cob to our oven.  After weathering the last winter without a roof, it needed some attention.  We added something new to the bottom, the arabic word Haq,(حق) meaning Truth.  

An end of the day trade looking gorgeous in the basket, staples of farm fresh bread, milk, and eggs.  We must never forget how truly blessed we all are.  Thank you to all who came to help and who added their special touch to our farm.  Much Love!

Work Party Co-op

"What is success?  

I think it is a mixture of having a flair for the thing 

that you are doing; knowing that is not enough, that you 

have got to have hard work and a certain sense of purpose."

-Margaret Thatcher

In April we hosted our first local work party co-op meeting.  Our goal is to keep it simple and to be consistent.  Six households are participating, all of us live within an approximate 5 mile radius of one another.  We plan to meet one Sunday every month at a different person's home.  For three hours we all work together on whatever project the host has ready for us.  

hilling potatoes

Our first meeting...weeding and preparing beds for planting.  (A huge task, covering our overgrown hillside.)  Wow, it was surprising how much ten people could get done in a few hours.  

We successfully cleared ALL the beds, mulched pathways, cleared all the seed flats and planted the starts, mulched the planted beds with straw, hilled potatoes, harvested beets, and had a delicious potluck lunch.

I'm telling ya folks, if you have lingering projects that you want help with this is the way to do it.  Great company, interesting conversation, creating community.  This is what it's all about.  

Thanks everyone who pitched in.  We are grateful and ready to get our hands dirty again in a few more weeks.

Photos by Lori Eanes

Magic of Many Hands

"The softest thing in the universe overcomes

the hardest thing in the universe."

-Tao Te Ching

This week we had a little garden work party.  Only our second but I am still amazed at how fast work gets done with more help.  A few friends built raised beds in the former location of the chicken coop with hog fencing, filling them with composted manure, straw and soil.  Meanwhile many little hands (about 8 kidos) weeded the garden, thinned carrots, and played hide and seek.  We concluded with a meal and lots of laughter.  What can be better than that?  Thanks again you guys!

The pumpkin patch is now complete, we just have to decide what to plant in the new beds.  More potatoes?

Random Thoughts

Bella in action

I discovered a website last night that I absolutlely love.  All about permaculture and this post specifically about the art of composting and a European permaculture method called hugelkulturing that we are excited to try.  (Here is a demo of the hugelkulture method.)
http://student.vfs.com/~dd07simon/flash_t2/preloader.html

 Even if you have been composting for many years I guarentee you will learn something new from this guy. He thoughtfully, and intentionally uses everything around him that might be considered waste. Beautiful pictures, I am truly inspired.

http://podcollective.com/fora/viewtopic.php?t=628&sid=afba4dede9841c6b2a0d32812977080c

It's almost a new year and we can't think of a better way to spend the first day of 2011 than by having our first work party.  Behind the hand and down the hill we will prepare beds for spring.  The consensus around here is that we will try sheet mulching  two 4' x 20' beds and double digging two 4' x 20' beds.  We shall see who's method works better.  No it is not a competition:). 

Also came across these pics of our chickens when we first got them...sooo cute and fluffy. 

It won't be too long before it's time to get more.  Spring is just around the corner.

Stay tuned for lots of pics and info from the work party.  I hope it doesn't rain...............