Dropstone Farms » projects

Save the vines! Volunteers needed for a Bainbridge crop mob

Lauren — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 03:49:12 +0000

I grabbed this little flyer the other day at the market, and repost with Betsey’s permission:

Volunteers needed June 11 & 12!
Betsey Wittick needs your help to preserve 8 acres of Bainbridge Island wine grape vines!

Saturday 6/11 1:00pm-5:00pm
Sunday 6/12 9:00am-1:00pm
Sunday 6/12 1:00pm-5:00pm

To join the crop mob, contact Heather Burger at BILocavore@comcast.net.

I am volunteering/working for potatoes and learnings for Betsey a half day to a day a week, and last week she had me doing what the crop mob will be doing, which is thinning new growth on the grape vines so that they aren’t too crowded and the vines left behind will be able to thrive. It was totally easy and even with just me and one of her interns/apprentices in the field, it was fun and companionable, and nice to be out working and hanging out.

So — come to the farm this weekend! Bring your friends and family! The vineyard is struggling through this cold, wet spring, after just barely hanging on through last year’s cold, wet summer, and it could use your help!

Things I learned

Lauren — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 03:54:00 +0000

I learned about the Henry Milker (hard not to read as Henry Miller) which is designed for fast, easy, clean milking of goats primarily. (I really want some dairy goats. This requires changing up our work schedules, which may actually be feasible …) Plus it milks straight into a mason jar! I love mason jars.

And in perusing seed catalogs, I learned that my luffa from last year, from which I carefully saved seed, is an F1 hybrid, and so the seeds will not breed true. I am sad! Especially because these are the only luffa seeds I’ve seen, like, ever, so I don’t know where I’ll find open pollinated (OP) seeds for them. I loved growing them, and love having the scrubbers around, so want to do them again next year for sure. Anyone know where to get OP luffa/loofa seeds?

Record-keeping

Lauren — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 06:29:50 +0000

I’m not really one for resolutions, but I did get a nice Moleskine calendar notebook with room to write some basic notes on each day. I’m hoping to take notes each day about what went on — what was planted, what was harvested, how many eggs, etc. I forgot to do it the past couple of days but today I noted down 2 duck eggs and one chicken egg when Garth went out in the morning, and two more when I put them to bed when we got home from Seattle. Also, Stripes and one of the reds have bald butts for some reason; their butt fuzz has apparently fallen out. But today I noticed that Stripes’ butt fuzz feathers are coming back, so I wrote that down too. (Red was facing the wrong direction on the perch and I didn’t want to crawl around in the dark and freak the ducks out. I’ll check her butt tomorrow.)

Anyway, I don’t figure I’ll transfer the daily notes here, but on the other hand it may provide a handy outline for quick weekly updates, or ideas for bigger posts, etc.

Chicken bunker yay!

Lauren — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 02:35:34 +0000

We made a lot of progress on the expanded chicken coop this weekend! Its name is now Chicken Bunker, on account of how cozy and built-into-the-hill it is. All that’s left to do is get the roof on and wire up the sides, which is only a few more hours of work. The old coop will need mucked out and composted, and the whole thing re-lined with hay, and then we can deploy the chickens! We are well ahead of schedule to have it finished before we go to the Tilth conference; now I don’t feel bad about asking the neighbors to check on the critters, as they will all be in one place and will not need to be let out and put away.

Chicken bunker in progress, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.

Last weekend I broke my glasses, but I got new ones!

Nose Tomato models my new glasses, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.