Comment/Response? 
Daily activities of the owner of a 20 acre Organic
Farm plus
observations, notes, and comments on a wide variety of topics.
| 1 | Hauled bags of leaves to our fields. I switched off the Extra Large size of Sunflower Seed Heads from our Web page as all we had sold out. |
| 2 | Started opening and dumping bags of leaves. |
| 3 | Cut and hauled firewood. Dumped more leaf bags. |
| 4 | Dumped more leaves. |
| 5 | Ordered the seeds for starting the first week in January. I start onions, lavender, and rosemary in early January using fluorescent light in a basement greenhouse. |
| 6 | Got some snow so I did some writing in the Web log. |
| 7 | Plowed out the driveway from heavy snow and did more Web log writing. |
| 8 | |
| 9 | After another 8" of snow (about 14" on the ground), I did some more plowing of our driveway. Did some more writing in the Web log. |
| 10 | Bought a new chainsaw to
help out with farm chores - got a Poulan as my Craftsman was just worn out. Abandoned Shopping Carts |
| 11 | I cut a 20ft maple tree sapling and modified it for use as broom handle. I bought a soft bristle broom and wanted to use it to keep snow off the roof of the greenhouse. The 20ft broom turned out to be a bit too long, so I cut it down to 16ft where it works quite nicely. |
| 12 | Took a couple 16ft roof cleats off of the greenhouse roof that were holding back snow. The plastic greenhouse roof has a tendency to clean itself but the 2x4 roof cleats were creating a dam (damn!). I had set the cleats on the roof for footing when I closed the vents in the fall. |
| 13 | Condaleeza and Torture I think it pays to listen carefully to politicians - for the words they use - and also the words they don't use. Condaleeza Rice is in the news claiming that the USA does not support "torture of combatant prisoners." She made this statement a number of times and it was strange that she didn't just say we are against the torture of ALL prisoners. It seems that official USA policy is to object to ONLY the torture of COMBATANT prisoners. What about all the other prisoners? Is it ok to torture them (guess so)? Consider for a minute that most of the people that the USA has under custody probably don't fit the Geneva Convention definition of a "combatant" - probably couldn't afford a uniform or anything like that. So the bottom line must be that the USA supports the torture of ALL prisoners EXCEPT those who meet the Geneva Convention of being a combatant. It doesn't exactly fill me with pride in being a USA citizen - how about you? |
| 14 | |
| 15 | Dumped leaf bags on the fields. |
| 16 | Avoid Colds/Flu By Selective Breathing I'm a firm supporter of most of the traditional preventive measures to avoid catching colds and the flu but I have one of my own that seems to work. Selective breathing. I visualize the flu and cold germs in the air being more concentrated around infected people and then being even more concentrated in closed environments (like elevators). I also envision these germs entering my body by breathing them in - and I think they have a better chance of "getting me" the deeper they penetrate my body. So as I encounter groups of people, I try to momentarily hold my breath until I get past them. In an elevator, or other situations where I can't hold my breath long enough - I practice shallow breathing - not breathing any deep breaths that would draw germs deep into my lungs - but just brief, shallow puffs. Of course I don't have any clinical measures of the effectiveness of my technique, on the other hand it won't cost you a dime to give it a try. |
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| 19 | Went cross country skiing on our farm. |
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| 21 | |
| 22 | Cleaned sunflower seed heads
saved from this year's crop for planting in the spring. I made up some Christmas gift packets of the jumbo sunflower seeds to share with family members. |
| 23 | Finished dumping leaves on tomatoes. |
| 24 | Dumped leaf bags. |
| 25 | Urban Anxiety Disorder I think I have something that I call Urban Anxiety Disorder. Actually, I do quite well in urban settings - get to where I need to go and don't have anything resembling a panic attack. On the other hand, I enjoy life in rural settings so much - most of my time in urban environments is spent longing to be back on the farm - and wondering how people can stand to live in the whole urban rat race. Maybe my condition isn't so much an Urban Anxiety as it is an affinity for rural areas. "Rural Affinity" doesn't have a very good "ring" to it and I'm not sure it's really a disorder. But I most certainly have a BAD case of it! |
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| 28 | With melting snow and rain we finally got a trickle flow of water in some of the field drain pipes. |
| 29 | Dumped more leaf bags. Farm ponds are starting to refill. |
| 30 | Dumped more leaf bags. |
| 31 | Finished dumping leaves in the Grapes Fields - raked to level the leaf piles out and disked the leaves into the field dirt. |
Comment/Response? 