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Winter Drops In
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December 8, 2009

Winter Drops In

Greetings Friends of the Farm,

The pecan trees dropped most of their leaves during market on Saturday. The extreme cold (20 degrees) loosened their grip on twigs. Down they floated on the chilly air, carpeting the pathways and all the area around the farm house. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen them fall so suddenly, so fast, without the slightest breeze. It was as if they finally, softly, in enormous unison, realized that they’d had enough. Enough of the terrible drought and heat of the past summer. It was enough even to make the pecan crop a very small one, as if the trees thought, oh yeah, it’s a “pecan year,” but then they immediately reconsidered bringing too many potential saplings into this crazy climate.

And with fall leaves finally on the soil, it is now winter.

While the drop was in progress, back in the frigid farm stand, the culinary leaves we’d harvested the morning prior to the freeze were relinquishing their overnight perkiness. Cilantro, Brussels greens, and dandelions began darkening in the first stage of freezing solid. Escarole and endive sighed in dejection, their optimism depleted. We’ve experienced water in the greens tubs developing a skin of ice in previous winters, but this time, the water stayed liquid while the leaves gave in to the cold.

We moved them, of course, to reside near the big heater. They liked it and revived enough to go home to folks’ comparatively warmer refrigerators. And, the market turned out ok, although re-harvesting was impossible, as the crops were frozen past 10 AM.

Thursday and Friday, we had covered as much as we could, concentrating on the most valuable crops, those that are very popular such as Dinosaur kale, and crops that are now or very soon coming into their harvest. Deciding which of the crops would get the covering was not easy. There’s never enough to go around, and the first hard freeze is always a tumultuous event.
 

Rebar arcs had to be plunged into the ground to hover over shorter, delicate plants, to support the rather heavy polyester fabric. Huge swaths had to be pulled along 200-foot rows, and then “walked across” bed after bed of new broccolis and kales.  Kale and broccoli leaves will blanch out under a cold such as Saturday morning’s. Blanched leaves are not what you want, so we were driven to prevent future disappointment. But even under the cover, high-reaching broccoli leaves burned where the row cover rubbed. Oh well, broccoli plants have a lot of leaves, so we can lose some. (Sure hate to though!)

Meanwhile, back in the Hen House, the chickens dined on broccoli leaves from the earlier crop, which was over, so it didn’t need covering. I hauled a couple of armloads of big leaves to the hens and set out lots of scratch to fortify them for the night to come. Larry had installed two red heat lamps above the perches on the adolescents’ side of the Hen House, and Jesus draped row cover behind the perches and along one side to calm any wind.

That night, the chicks were mystified and worried when the saw their bedroom “on fire.” Most wanted nothing to do with sleeping in a furnace. Tootie J. Tootum, aunt to 70 something chicks, investigated the phenomenon, and found it to be strange but not dangerous.  She took to her normal spot and clucked to the chicks to come on up. Finally the intrepid ones did, but Larry and I had to round up 30 or 40 and install them on the perches. The next night, I wised up and kept the fires off until all the chicks were in bed.Then I flipped the switch.


Well, even though they wanted to, it was too dark elsewhere for them to dare fly away from the “flames”....The chicks did like the premature dawn the next morning as the fires lighted their way down to the eating areas so their work could begin, much earlier than usual.


Meanwhile, moments past dawn, as the sun’s orange light lit the trees on the edges of the field, the carrots’ tops bent, crystalline, under the weight of the frost. Here and there, some  chard managed to peek out from under the row cover. Exposed, it melted to the ground.  But we would find out later, after the thaw, most of the crops made if fine through the freeze, except of course, those summer crops whose departure time was past due.


The afternoon warmed enough that even the tiny chicks, Boss Chick and her Babes, could spend some time romping outside in their temporary pen. And Sunday, while the Babes enjoyed themselves once more, Larry and I took the row covers off all the crops, as, since this is winter in Texas, the next big freeze will be ....sometime later.

Carol Ann

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