Writing with a heavy heart tonight

We're looking forward to our annual family camping trip and, in preparing to board our dogs, we took them to the vet for shots.  While we were there we discussed some new concerns about our blue heeler boarder collie mix, Lacey.  We ran some standard lab tests and got the news yesterday that she has Cushing's Disease caused by hormones gone awry and maybe a tumor on one of several glands among other things.  Our vet has been wonderful in explaining our options and for now we are in a holding pattern.  We'll watch her gradual progression and most likely in a matter of months we need to decide when her quality of life has degraded enough to put her down.

When you have dogs on a farm, you never know how long they'll live.  There are so many ways they can be injured or fatally wounded.  We're grateful to have had this sweet dog for almost 11 years.  Yesterday Lacey and I had a talk, I cried and she licked away my tears.  Dogs are great that way!  So no more tears, just unconditional love.

Too cold for turkey chicks in the PNW!

I wonder when Spring will really come. Maybe we're skipping it and going straight to summer.  In any case, we have too many turkey chicks and the weather is making it difficult to put them outside.  Chicks hatched 6 and 4 weeks ago are under the satellite dish brooder which is outside but has two heat lamps going 24 hours a day.  Two week old chicks are inside with a heat lamp.  New chicks are hatching today - there's another heat lamp.  ACK!! The electric bill is going to be high this month.

It's Memorial Day weekend and time to remember those who have died in the service of our country protecting our personal freedoms.  No matter how I feel about the current conflicts of our government, the men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice are to be honored.  In my mother's day, it was called Decoration Day as it is the day to decorate the graves of deceased veterans.  Please take a moment to explain to your kids what this day means.  The freedoms that we take for granted were paid for with blood.  We all owe a debt of gratitude to those who went before us, and we all have an obligation to serve and protect those freedoms.

"Who am I?" asks the farmer's wife.

The calendar points to the middle of March but it feels like December.  We had snow again yesterday and freezing temperatures overnight.  I wonder if the earthquake in Japan has affected our weather.  Not that I'm worried about radiation but a shift in the earth's axis is pretty dramatic.  No event is without it's consequences.

I wonder how I got to be the woman I am.  If you had asked me when I was 18 if I would end up 40 years later as a farmer, I would've laughed out loud.  I come from farmer stock so it shouldn't be surprising that I would end up here but so much has happened to me and our world since then.  I don't reject technology but I do reject the fast paced world that my grandsons are growing up in.  I reject mega business that tries to control the world.  I reject the thinking that we can't do anything about the big problems.

I understand quiet and a slower pace.  I understand that I might miss something really important if I hurry.  I don't seem to be as afraid of the world as other people.  I think that's the legacy of a gardener. 
You can't plant in the dead of winter with the expectation of harvesting in Fall if you're afraid.  That's optimism.  Something good is going to happen.  That's joy.  There'll be bends in the road but around each curve I look for something positive to cling to.

The turkey hens are looking for lovely nesting sites.  Turkey toms are reminding them that they are fine studly partners.  The young chickens are laying beautiful little eggs.   Cool weather crops are thriving and garlic has poked through the snow.  Our aging dogs are slowing down but always hoping for a little treat or pat on the head.  I look forward to a world where folks take notice of their surroundings.  Winter or summer, there's always something happening, things that calm our spirits if we let them.

Just a Little Reminder that Winter Is Still Here

Brrr, baby it's cold outside!  14 degrees this morning.  Not a record but still very cold.  I don't worry much about poultry as long as their water is thawed.  They have a huge inside coop to hang out in if they're so inclined.  Bear rabbit seems to enjoy the cold but temps were predicted to be in the single digits so I moved him inside for a couple of days.  We're pretty much reduced to Spring planning and watching the show that the little birds put on at the feeders outside our front windows.

The cold weather causes all the poultry to eat a lot from the feeders, partly from boredom and the chickens to lay fewer eggs.  We go out frequently to collect the eggs so they don't eat them (I suspect a rooster is our egg eater!) One of the new hens has started to lay and that little girl has the most perfect eggs, whites are thick without excess water and the golden yellow yolks stand up tall.

Yesterday I put the tomato seeds planted almost two weeks ago in a little greenhouse on a heater to warm up the soil and this morning 3 little seedlings have germinated!  Now, that's a promise of warmer weather to come.  Here's a wish that you'll find something growing in your life that makes you feel optimistic.

Where's Winter?

I can't believe I have neglected this blog for so long.  I get excited after the New Year and can't wait for spring to arrive, then we get so busy that time flies by.  Before I know it, the year is over and life has a way of moving along whether or not you are ready for it.

We sold 20 turkeys over Thanksgiving.  I feel so responsible for every family's holiday dinner and want their birds to be the best they've ever tasted.  While much depends on the cook, I know our birds are quality meat with great flavor but sales are a little nerve racking.  We butchered one day and I delivered the next day which was a nice change in our process.

Hog butchering finally took place in late November after a series of mishaps that delayed our getting the hogs to the processor.  Those were big pigs and we have one chest freezer and a smaller freezer full of piggy parts.  I tried to get as much of the pig as I thought I could handle, not quite nose to tail but just about.  It does no honor to the pig to waste parts just because they are unfamiliar to our palates.  I also rendered several gallons of the best lard pieces for cooking and baking.

Winter pruning took place in January along with a dormant spray.  I never seem to get the three applications of dormant oil over the winter but we are pleased with the pruning as their shapes are starting to look very nice with big open centers and branches we can reach for picking fruit.  I hold fond memories of my oldest grandsons coming to the farm last September for apple picking.

There's another forecast for lots of snow the end of this week but these storms haven't delivered much of a punch on our farm since Thanksgiving week.  I am having such a hard time containing my urge to plant seeds.  Last week I took a baby step and planted one variety of tomatoes.  The artichoke plants are doing well in a window that I started in January but the greens I put in a raised bed have stalled.  They liked it indoors and night time freezing temps make for slow growing.  In the past I have overwintered greens so that I could take cuttings by now.  Perennial rhubarb and chives are pushing up as well as a number of garlic varieties.

So I'm about the turn a page on the calendar to March and wait with anticipation for warmer temperatures and the opportunity to spend all my days outside.  I hope you'll meet me back here more regularly.  Finding joy in the day!

Farmers Market Tomorrow

Temps are still a little low for summer but I'll take 'em!  Our corn is over 7' tall and throwing tassels.  Toms, cucs and peppers are forming fruit, and potatoes are about ready to dig.  Best of all, 13 garlic varieties are dug, hung, cured, cleaned and stored in big wire baskets so I'm looking forward to selling tomorrow at the Hood River Thursday Night Farmers Market.  Hope to see you there!  I haven't decided on our recipe of the week as I've collected a number of unusual and yummy recipes over the winter.  The first week is usually a basic roasted garlic and I'll probably start there with tomato garlic chutney slated for the second week.


Sunday was my birthday and a turkey hen presented us with 6 new chicks, all still doing well.  She's a young mama and not upset at all about us taking her babies.  The turkey hen "queen" is doing her part to teach the young ones, clucking a warning cluck when we come around and announcing when the young mama let the babies come out from the nest into the sun.  Turkeys have such interesting personalities.  The young mama was very ready to join the rest of the flock after 28 days of sitting but the flock had to re-establish their pecking order the minute she entered the yard.  Such fighting and puffing up and submitting for a few minutes; then, the coop was quiet again.  Sounds like most households with kids ;o)  Happy Summer!

Garlic's out of the ground

All our garlic is out of the ground, hung and curing!  We expect to be at the Gorge Grown Farmers Market starting Thursday, August 5th.  Still trying to decide what to make for our first recipe of the week.  Hope to see you there and bring your friends. 

Hot, hot, hot

I know I've hinted at it before, but I really do think summer has finally arrived!  Our temp should be over 100 degrees today so I was up at 5:00 a.m. to water the veggies before I left for work.   I pulled all the lettuce before it bolted this afternoon.  The warm weather veggies have been slow to sprout and I think it's too late to replant the dry beans.  The short-season corn is about a foot tall and a few tomatoes are coming on but the cucumber plants are only about 2" tall.  I might have to buy some transplants to fill in where the beans didn't come up.

We have more new baby turkeys and still have two hens sitting.  There's a skunk that has raided the one mama who made her nest in the flower bed next to the house (that was a good spot when the weather was cool) so Ron surrounded her with a metal fence that he opens up in the morning so she can leave if she needs water.  We know when the skunk has arrived in the middle of the night as the dogs bark.

Speaking of barking dogs, someone in our neighborhood sent out an email to everybody complaining about the barking dogs now that the weather is warm and windows are open at night.  I hope he'll come to understand that farm dogs are just doing their job when they bark at night as they're telling us that there are strangers or dangers in the area.  I can tell by Lacey's bark whether it's a deer eating plants or skunks stealing eggs or raccoons killing chickens.  When she and Bonnie both start in, the problem wildlife are close by the house.  When they wake us up with their barking, we go outside and investigate.  We thank them for doing their job and tell them it's time to be quiet.  They're pretty good listeners and, if they keep barking, it's for a reason.

Not everyone should move to farm country, especially if their expectations are of an idealized existence.  All livestock have their noisy times.  Separate a calf or kid from their mama, and the bawling begins.   All 35 or so chickens announce when they've laid an egg, and turkey hens noisily warn when anyone is in the area. Roosters crow in anticipation of the sun coming up and they crow to roosters down the road.  Sometimes we can hear our neighbor's mules bray two properties over when the coyotes are teaching their young how to hunt.  Our neighborhood is in a canyon and sounds travel for miles.  I don't mean this in a flip or disrespectful way but I think this neighbor would be happier if he invested in a good pair of ear plugs!

We're going to do a test dig this weekend on the garlic.  I dug a few bulbs 2 weeks ago and those varieties were right on track for harvest.  We could be at the Gorge Grown Farmers market on August 5th - I'm getting excited! 

Dirty fingernail season

It's that time of year when my nails never seem to get clean and I don't really mind because that means my hands are in the warm, fine soil.  Ron finished renovating our raised beds this weekend and refilled them with soil and lovely compost.  I planted the usual veggies and some new ones for us - white carrots, artichokes, and a short season corn.  The lettuces are ready for the outer leaves to be harvested for salad, and the garlic - oh, the beautiful garlic! - is growing to beat the band.  Today we're blessed with a soft, constant drizzle so we turned off the sprinklers and we can almost hear the seeds germinating.

I work in an Extension Office and I wish my grandsons were here to witness our office bug war, so cool!  Clients bring in samples of problems they're having in the home gardens and yesterday we got peach tree leaves full of aphids in the rolled up leaves and a cherry leaf sample with a cluster of teeny black bugs that we first thought were black aphids.  Under the microscope we could see that they were just hatched lady beetle larva so we put the two samples together last night in a zip top bag.  Today, the black lady beetle larva are eating the aphids!  This is a lucky client as she has the most natural battle going on in her garden, bad bugs v.s. good bugs.  I've never found lady beetle larva in my garden even though we have lots of lady bugs.  I'll have to look a little closer.

We've worked out a system for battling bad bugs in our garden and orchard.  It's Ron's job to let me know at the first hint of an infestation.  He's very detail oriented and spots them much faster than I will.  Then, it's my job to do something about them.  I have a very high tolerance for bug damage and try to wait for the good bugs to do their job.  If I spray right away and get rid of the problem, the good bugs will just move on to the next infested garden.  I like them to stick around and I don't like spraying pesticides, even organic ones, if I can help it.  We don't have many bug problems so something must be working right.

Reminds me of the communities we live in.  The best ones are full of good people who have a way of overpowering the bad ones.  I believe that good always triumphs over evil, although sometimes and in some situations, it takes longer.  My solution is prayer, faith and a little pixie dust.

Still looking for turkey chicks to hatch under the hen that was due on Monday.  Ron found two more nests, one in the woods, one in the flower bed.  One nest down by the barn was raided by skunks.  Our neighbor called to tell us that a hen has been laying by their barn door.  Ron went up to check on her and she's sitting now.  I think our neighbors have adopted her because they named her "peepers" and are watching out for danger.  They're good neighbors.  I hope you find the "good bugs" in your life today.

Little Piggie Round Up

What a fun week it has been as our family is visiting.  There's been fishing, hiking, fun chores on the farm, and our pigs were ready to pick up this weekend.  The piglets are only 5 weeks old, barely weaned, black and white, and brothers.  The little one appears to be a bit smarter while the bigger brother is all brute.  We tucked them into their new quarters yesterday afternoon where they snuggled under a big pile of straw.

This morning was another story as my husband went down to check on them and they were gone!  He looked everywhere, then came up to tell us the news and ask that I send an email to the neighborhood list.  Maybe someone had seen them.  Meanwhile, we all put on our shoes and formed a search party.  What a sight we must've been scouring the oak underbrush and calling "here, pig, pig, pig!" because a neighbor was driving by and he stopped to ask if we were looking for a couple of little piglets.  Thank goodness for kind neighbors and what luck for us as he said they were down in front of the neighbor's barn looking at the black and white heifers (I wonder if the pigs were wondering if these big animals were their mama!)  It was a funny picture. We were able to catch them with the salmon net and load them into our pick up.  We think we know where they got out and my husband's determined it won't happen again so he's spent all day securing the "piggy prison."  I'll attach a picture of them with my little 2 year old grandson - they aren't the cutest pigs we've ever brought home but they are the wiggliest!  

Mother's Day and Farmers Markets

Feels like Mother's Day on our farm as our mama hens have been very "motherly"!  I wrote about the distress one turkey hen displayed; now there's a second mama that just won't give up on finding her lost babies.  She hatched 15 chicks last Friday that my husband gathered up to put under a heat lamp in the garage bathroom.  She was so unhappy that she attacked him and, later went after one of our dogs but no serious injuries. We moved a flock of three week old chicks into a pen with a gate so we let her in with them thinking she might settle down.   She walked around and through all 23 chicks but knew none of them were her babies so she walked out.  I marvel at that maternal instinct.  We'll have to take our neighbor some chicken eggs as an apology for all the noise these turkey hens are making.

The garlic is enjoying the spring weather as the temps are warm mid-day and we've had some drenching rains.  Some plants are over 2' tall but height just depends on the variety.  They will start to separate and bulb pretty soon.  I'm looking forward to selling this summer at the Gorge Grown farmers market as I enjoy seeing returning customers and making new friends.  I've been saving recipes featuring garlic all winter to share as our recipe of the week.  I've had to buy garlic from the supermarket to test the last few as we're all out of our own bulbs.  I'm careful to see where the garlic comes from as most sold is from China but some is from California in our market.  Not too local but closer than China and I hope they're paying a fair wage to their workers.  It's so hard to know the answer to these and many other questions when you can't talk to the farmer so, hurray for farmers markets!  There will be one opening soon near you. Join me in supporting those hard working folks. 

What a Spring, what a rollar coaster!

The temp is finally warm enough to melt last night's snow - yep, snow.  It's not unusual for us to get a killing frost mid to late May but snow is unusual.  The wind has been blowing fiercely for days and it makes me out of sorts.  Being outside is difficult and we have chicks who need to be protected, but the wind has always made me feel cranky.

All but one of the six turkey chicks mama brought down from the woods are doing well. Mama was so distressed for so long after we took them from her that my husband gave her a chick back.  She promptly took it out in the woods and, within a day, came back without it.  At least she's stopped crying, and we had another turkey chick unexpectedly hatch in the incubator.

We also had five chicken eggs hatch and  the chicks seemed to be doing fine in a brooder that is in our living room. We were watching them just because new babies are so cute.  Suddenly, three of them died with 10 minutes of each other.  That's a new one for us.  The other two survived the night and the more time that passes, the more we can feel that they'll do fine.  I'm usually pretty matter of fact about life and death on the farm but these babies are playing on my emotions.

Maybe it's the wind.  My dad passed four months ago and I've also had him on my mind for a couple of days.  It's amazing how many short old handsome gray haired European men look like he did as I "see him" a lot around town.  I miss him.

I'm going to stay out of the wind and try to do some spring cleaning.  Maybe a little organization and vacuuming will restore order to my mind and the farm.

Can't have too many babies!

Happy news tonight as one of our mama turkey hens brought us 6 brand new babies.  Well, it wasn't her intention to bring them to us but, since she was showing them off, we scooped them up and put them in a brooder.  She's very distressed and her calls tug at our hearts but we know from experience that predators will take their toll and she'll lose most of them.  She had her nest up in the woods, stayed with it for four weeks and hatched all but two eggs so she's done a very good job.

The 15 chicks we ordered from the hatchery (plan B) arrived on time.  Those plus the first 3 a turkey hen hatched make 18.  One of the babies died (17), plus these 6 make 23 chicks.  There are still two hens sitting and we think one is in the process of hatching as she's all puffed out instead of sitting tight like the other hen.  Hopefully, we'll have a lot of turkeys to choose from when it's time to butcher in November.

Tomorrow I'm teaching two workshops at the Gorge Grown Food Forum in White Salmon; one on raising backyard poultry and one on canning.  I'd love to take a couple of these chicks to show off but they're just too new to be without a brooder for a whole day.  Besides, they're really noisy calling for their mama!  I was also going to take equipment as an example but that's the last of our extra lamps and feeders.  Pictures in a Powerpoint presentation will have to do.  One interesting note - White Salmon zoning doesn't allow backyard poultry so I've got a little information to help change the city father's  minds if folks are so inclined to ask for a zoning change.  Every backyard ought to have a chicken or two in my opinion!  Happy birthday, baby chicks.

Some boys get put in their place!

It must be Spring as the forsythia has started to bloom!  No more new turkey chicks from our eggs but we expect 15 chicks by mail this week.  Good to have a plan B in place.  We have 4 turkey hens sitting on various nests throughout the property and lots of eggs so we'll look for more babies in 3 or 4 weeks before the predators find them.

We have 6 roosters and that's way too many for our flock of chickens.  Several weeks ago we separated out 3 of the Golden Nugget roosters and penned them up thinking we'd butcher them.  Roosters tend to have favorite hens and will leave all the others alone.  They wear the feathers right off the girls backs with too many mounts in mating.  But we changed our minds about butchering, at least for now as I read about a farmer who said he rotated roosters so that some hens would get a rest and others would become favorites.  That makes sense to me so we let out the condemned and penned up the boys who have "sown their wild oats."

Mixing up the crowd always has an interesting affect because the pecking order changes and has to be reestablished.  The Golden Nuggets didn't challenge each other while the three of them were penned up,  but they felt a burning desire to fight it out once they were free.  Hackles went up and the double-dare-you dance began.  Once they'd figured that out, the turkey tom and top turkey hen had to get in on the act.  I'd forgotten that these roosters never had an ego problem as they would try to mount the turkey hens who were not having any of that!

So we've had a little barnyard drama this afternoon watching pecking orders get back in line.  While the drama is more immediate on the farm, this reminds me of a number of offices I've worked in.  Change one team member and all the team dynamics change.  There are lots of lessons on the farm that can be applied to people situations.  In fact, I once considered writing a Management book using barnyard examples.  One time I went out to the chicken coup with dried corn on the cob and stood in the yard popping off the corn kernels.  There was this one hen who decided all the corn was her's and she spent so much time defending her territory that she never did get to enjoy the corn.  I managed an employee who was just like that - he spent so much time documenting and defending his position that he never really enjoyed the work.

I doubt that book would be a best seller but no matter how sophisticated or modern we think we are, the basic lessons of life are still reflected in the simplest things.  Or maybe what I think of as simple is really a miracle as certain laws of nature seem to consistently repeat throughout our universe. 

Our first turkey chicks of 2010 have hatched!

We have our first two turkey chicks of the year hatch out overnight and are we ever surprised! A hen made her nest in the flower bed and we kept taking her eggs to put in the incubator. We finally left her alone with four eggs as she was determined not to leave. Yesterday morning she was off her nest for the first time in weeks - apparently four weeks - as one of our dogs started to steal an egg. Right away I had her drop it and, when I picked it up, it started peeping. What an exciting sound that is! I scooped up the other three eggs and popped them in the bottom of the incubator as it was a very cold morning and mama hen was no where in sight. Overnight two of the eggs hatched, cutest little things you ever saw. We'll give the other two another day to hatch but 50% hatch rate isn't too bad. We have a bunch of eggs in the incubator with Sunday as their hatch date but it seems we should trust our mama's more.

To make this hatch even sweeter, our two oldest grandsons are visiting over their spring week and they were there to witness all the activity. They're city kids who seem to enjoy the slower pace of the farm and being here without mom and dad. One of our dog's rolled in cow poop on a walk - that was disgusting but fun too as it gave them another farm story to tell.

Eggs truly are the symbol of life. Another one of God's miracles here on the farm.

P.S.  This photo was taken by my 7 year old grandson, Kyle.

We've tested our turkey eggs for fertility in the past few weeks and either the eggs failed to develop completely or they weren't fertile. This is disappointing but we haven't given up and will keep incubating eggs once a week. Our tom is inexperienced and he's not quite connecting, although he's trying so hard. We have ordered chicks from a hatchery but we're were hoping to be able to cancel that order as it's a cost we'd rather not have to pay.

I had the pleasure of talking about our little farm with a group of Master Gardeners this past week. I really enjoyed showing pictures and sharing the sex, drama, violence, miracles and joy of living our lifestyle. Several MG's said they like to talk to me more and I welcome those conversations.

I also had a little skin cancer removed from my face last week. I wasn't concerned about the procedure but it is a warning to all of us who love to live in the sunshine to keep that sunscreen on. I'm pretty sure I'm going to hear my husband ask me several times a week this summer "where's your wide brimmed hat?"

Pocket gophers and pine voles have impacted some of our garlic beds so I ordered a new product that's a granular form of predator urine. Doesn't that sound icky? Fox for gophers and a blend for voles. How do they get that urine, anyway? I'm not going to think too hard about it but I really hope this works.

Snow has fallen here two days in a row but not enough to make any difference, just enough to remind us that winter is still here. I love the warmer afternoons but it's good to have seasons. Find the joy!

The Garlic Is Up!

What a happy, happy day this is as I checked each garlic bed and every one has garlic breaking through the ground except one. The Japanese variety is 3" tall! I like that variety a lot as it kept nicely in my kitchen through January. Hurray!!!!

Time to Prune

There's a new predator in town. Our turkey hens are very broody and doing their best to find a safe, dry place to nest. Bourbon Red turkeys are known for their maternal insticts. Because they're free range, they travel into the oak woods, under the landscape bushes, into the garden cart, and under scrub oaks along the driveway laying eggs. If we spot them going to a nest, we will gather their eggs for future hatching in our incubator. Occasionally the dogs will find an egg and enjoy a little snack. Today I spotted a big ol' raven stealing eggs. She swooped in and landed by the nest, picked up that big turkey egg in her beak and flew off. A few minutes later she was back for another. We'll have to do something about that raven if we want to have any chicks. Last year a raven killed a good number of the babies before we caught her in the act.

We never seem to hit the late winter pruning tasks at just the right time before the trees and vines break their dormant sleep and the sap starts to run towards the sky. This year has been particularly difficult to gauge as the day time temperatures are unusually warm. The fruit trees just need a little trim so being late isn't a problem but the grape vines need over half their stems cut back so that fruit will form on the new growth. We started making cuts and they started weeping, so we stopped to make a decision - to prune or not to prune?

Pruning can be risky when done incorrectly. Sometimes pruning is necessary to prevent disease or to cut out dead weight. Done carefully and with thought, pruning forces new growth and produces more fruit. I feel that way about life. Like plants, people need to prune in their lives. Trouble is, when the weeping starts, we stop to think it over. If I think of this philosophy in terms of my relationships, job, mental and physical health, and priorities, "pruning" can be a very effective way to take control and focus on the joy in life.

The sun is shining this afternoon. I think I'll get out the pruning shears and ignore the weeping. Those grape vines need some tough love!

A Single Sunbeam

My cousin posted a quote on her facebook page that got me thinking about the weather and our moods. The last week has been overcast, foggy, cold and muddy as the snow continues to melt. The dogs have been grumpy, interrupting our sleep at night with their restlessness and the gang of six turkey hens keep insisting on scratching through the only mildly damp bed of leaves that are covering the flower beds next to the house. They make a mess as they scratch the leaves all over the sidewalk to get down to the soil. I can't believe they are finding bugs to eat but they have the instinct to scratch so the flower beds are their best bet.

Back to the quote: “A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.” St. Francis of Assisi. Every now and then the clouds will part and the warm sun is so welcome. I get an energy boost and my mood lightens. It's so obvious that it happens for everybody around me. I think that's true metaphorically as well. How often does an encounter with a cheery person make us feel better? It's easy to be down with the crowd or grumpy with the turkey hens. It's a choice to try to be the sunbeam. Life's too short not to look for the joy in life.

January's Back

Freezing temps and snow have returned to the farm this January afternoon.  I've been thinking about our garlic and how this unusual winter might affect our harvest dates.  We are careful to plant the cloves by Halloween to give their roots a chance to grow before the ground freezes and, then, cover the beds with straw mulch to keep the soil from freezing solid deep for too long a time.  Garlic roots contract underground during the winter, pulling the cloves even deeper for protection from the cold.  If garlic leaves emerge in the fall and freeze during the winter, the plant won't be harmed as garlic leaves grow from the base of the plant unlike other plants that put out growth from the top.  I'm always amazed at how garlic grows and these survival mechanisms seem like a miracle to me.

There are lots of miracles on the farm if you take time to think about it and don't take the farm for granted. Veggies start as seed, grow into plants, put out fruit to reproduce (and to feed the farmer), and when they're done, the plant composts into soil that seeds left behind will grow in.  Hens lay eggs, get broody and sit, then hatch babies.  They will lay their eggs every day for weeks until they think they have enough eggs, sit on the eggs for four weeks and all the eggs will hatch within 24 hours of each other - another miracle.

One of the not so pleasant realities of the farm is dealing with death, either intentional by butchering or the unintentional when an animal dies unexpectedly.  My head understands the physical part but my heart always aches, especially when a death seems senseless.  One year a neighbor's dogs maimed every turkey in that small flock.  There was nothing to do but put them out of their misery.  I was angry and sad at the senseless death of these turkeys.  The dogs weren't hungry, just had an instinct to kill.  When we raise meat chickens, I understand that their death is to feed my family and, while I don't like the process, we make sure the birds have the best life possible until the very last day when we make sure their death is as humane and swift as possible. 

Death is part of life.  Winter is the end and the beginning.  As I sit here watching the snow pile up, there must be 15 seed catalogs piled up on the table and I'm optimistically thinking about starting seeds for the spring garden.