late August update, photos

The summer’s growth has crested into harvest. We’ve been trying to keep up. Here’s a bit of what’s happening.This was a great year for garlic; our new flower beds are showy as all get out; spending late nights processing junky, split and buggy tomatoes; our kale grex is ready to get out into the field.

We have two hives now, Pipi Longstocking and Heidi, both wild swarms, they are doing great; the herb beds are all bBbzzZZzzzy with native pollinators; and we have a hummingbird!! (a female ruby throated hummingbird, we’ve seen her regularly for 3 weeks now).

Hops are ready for harvest; a welcome light rain and double rainbow during chores this morning; the pasture management committee is hard at work and ruminating.

The lambs are followed by a chicken tractor: fresh grass, sheepshit, and bugs make for happy birds; our young birds from Sand Hill are growing up, with rose combs and hairy legs; seed saving is on full swing, and we’re already totally stoked about Spearfish’s second annual Seed Swap (stay tuned, next February).

The CSA is going well. We’ve had beets in the shares and strawberries! SO GOOD. Our CSA members are such an incredible group of local food enthusiasts, we’re immensely grateful. Thank you, CSA, for sharing the season with us, for your bright smiles each week during pick-up and your courageous kitchen wizardry as we experiment with things like celtuce, fava greens, and sprouts. (If you’re interested, our weekly CSA newsletters are posted online here.)

We have been learning heaps. On the syllabus this summer: livestock and pasture management, blight and orchard care, experiments with row crop farming and flood irrigation, marketing meat birds, increasing production for our CSA, tax incentives for, and the difficulties of, encouraging ag land preservation, farm insurance. And time management, we’re learning about time management.

One of the absolute highlights this summer has been getting to host Abigail, a BHSU student intern from their Sustainability Program.

Also, lastly, Radish and Jeremy are working on a new trick now that mocha is down (J: how do you want your mocha this morning, Radish? R: with whipcream and a double shot.) Radish has, believe it nor not, harnessed even more lust for life now that we have a freezer full of dehydrated chicken hearts and gizzards.