To Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the News of the Farm, click Here.

 

Archive of Past News of the Farm:

Burial Details May 11, 2010
News of the Farm >>

Taste Advisory (possibly disturbing image)

Greetings Friends of the Farm,

We haven’t had rain in several weeks, and the heat seems permanent. We are now back in irrigation mode, installing drip tape -- much of it old --  fixing leaks as we go, and replacing dripping faucets, made ornery by the past winter’s very cold weather.

Last fall, we installed irrigation tape on all our fall plantings and then never had to use it. Drifting shocked, but happily, through a dream world, we received “Oregon rains” twice a week...rains that were gentle and, gasp! reliable. The drip tape in the field became a forgotten and maligned tool, ensnared by weeds, stabbed by spading forks, cut by cultivating hoes. Frustrated in her drive to harvest the huge carrot crop -- hampered by the pesky tapes -- root-harvester Andrea would sling them away from the carrot beds and they would hibernate in torment, unattended, crimped by our neglect. Winds blew them into spaghetti tangles. We were too busy preparing for freezes to do more than notice them.

As we planted newly vacated beds for late winter, we finally bundled the spaghetti tapes into sibling sets, those tapes of equal length, that had shared the same bed, and tied them with bits of twine. Invariably as we laid them down in untraveled foot paths, along with their untreated wounds, they crinked here and there, and every bend fostered a tiny new pin-point leak that waited out the winter to wreak retribution upon us in our soon to be dry moments. Those moments are Now. We are dry. We need them.

There is no good way to store expensive drip tapes. They vary in length, once we’ve cut them from their spool home, from 150 feet to 225 feet, to fit our varying lengths of planting beds. When they are not needed, we’ve tied them to fences, draped them over weeds, wound them on wooden cable spools....but nothing really works. They crink and spring holes, and generally work themselves into a state of worthlessness. Furthermore, the hard winter further compromised the idle drip tapes, and some I thought usable are found to be so much garbage.

We’ve asked other farmers how they resolve the storage/preservation dilemma, and most shrug their shoulders. Once, I read about a farmer who rolled them into a gigantic ball, six feet in diameter, like a ball of string, like he was going for a world record. A plastic memorial in honor of their good side (conservation of water) and their bad side (non-recyclable, after a few years, they wind up in the land field.)

But now that the rains have stopped -- suddenly, without warning, a mini or major drought is taking root -- there is an urgency to put the salvageable tapes to use. They reside under the new tomato plants, snake their way beneath the cucumbers and slink between rows of green beans. Many wait for header pipes to be installed, so that water can flow into them and reveal their frailties. Squirting the valuable water into the air, they beg for our immediate attention, and they get it. We use special plastic connections that bridge the good parts on each side of the leak. We also use sticks, especially when all the official connections are in use. A little stick stuck into the unwanted hole swells with water and plugs the wound. I’ve one tape that has had the same stick in the same hole for three years. I haven’t named the stick, but I should, as it has proved itself. I saw it just yesterday, as I fitted the tape to the Principe Borghese grape tomatoes. Three more leaks revealed themselves, and they too got sticks.

We work with the tapes every day, installing and repairing, turning them off and on, while begging for rain. We have had ground moisture for a while, but today I found out that it is lower than I thought.

A hen died. A Welsummer who, in her day, laid rich brown eggs, with the darkest shell of all the brown eggs. But she was old, with spurs on her elderly legs (many hens take on masculine characteristics in the end -- including not laying any eggs.) Spotting her lying unnaturally on her side in the Hen House, I pronounced her dead, fetched the shovel, and went to the cemetery on the other side of the rain water tank (which banks well water, as there is no rain nor a roof to direct any promises of rain to the tank.)

Toesey, the little red hen who, as a chick, lost a toe tip and a toe up to the first knuckle on one foot in a cage accident, was digging as best as she could with her little stubs in the mulched dry soil near the “woods.”  I wanted to dig the hole prior to bringing the deceased Wellie to her final dust bath, and as I stuck the shovel into the soil, it was soon obvious that this would be a hard dig. No soil moisture at all.

Toesey noticed my work and came over to help. Soon she was in the hole, riding the shovel, or on top of the growing pile of excavated soil, her little feet slinging dry clods as she worked. So excited at first, she was soon disappointed at the lack of worms. They’ve all gone deeper, to wherever there is moisture. But how deep the dryness persisted, I couldn’t find out, as in its aridity, the soil became too hard to dig past a depth of 12 inches.


I prefer to bury a hen in a hole two-feet deep, but this would have to be a shallow grave. I retrieved Wellie and laid her in the grave. Toesey was a bit astonished at this development, as she was still in the hole, working. After a good look, she decided that she’d struck out and should move on to a more promising dig. I covered Wellie with the worm-less soil, thinking that soon enough she would be visited by the meals Toesey didn’t find. And to ensure that Toesey and the other hens wouldn’t try, innocently of course, to re-excavate the grave, in search of those worms, I placed a couple of rotten stumps atop it. Not that they would stop a raccoon or dog, but they would distract the hens.

Perhaps I misplace my opinion of the sacredness of a grave and the deceased upon the hens, for Toesey merely looked perplexed. Maybe she wondered why I would plop down a bunch of feathers in the midst of her industry. For all she knew, Wellie was in Hen House Heaven, where daily Oregon rains insure that worm digging will be easy and rewarding. But before she gains that prize herself, Toesey must run her little nubs through these dry clods and beak up what grains and minerals she can find, while begging for rain. With rains, or irrigation, come the worms. Without rain, without the worms, Toesey will face continued disappointment, and Wellie will be a desiccating pile of feathers for a long time....

Carol Ann

Back