I'm so tired. My body is so sore. My brain is so fried. I am not supposed to be in this state as I intentionally tried to grow less this year. Nearing 5400 pounds is insane for an acre of land and a single person... Holy balls this is feeling crazy to me. Trying to try less has made me obtain more... but where is that tipping point. Where does it go from productivity to lazy and is that an easy or hard line to trod? For some it is easy but for me it is not, I have a deep seated need to be productive so most any down time can make me feel lazy. Perspective I guess.
So onto my day yesterday.
First task was to cleanup the area around the coop and to get the tank heaters in the waters and plugged in. That meant I had to pull the extension cord from the greenhouse.
I turned the cooler off and got the small heater setup I have in on the floor. I set the temp down a ways but during the day it was still a bit too warm. Even this morning the Coolbot is reading too high of a temp, I want it around 40F and it is closer to 45F. The whole point is that the cooler doesn't become a freezer.
I left the house about 9:45 and got to my client's house to shut down the irrigation and the water feature. It is not a terribly long or hard job so I don't mind the twice a year work.
Once home I opened the garden fence and backed my truck in.
The row of lacinto kale and the chard all got tossed into the bed.
The first load dumped into the sheep pen.
Next on the docket was the peppers. I picked each type and bagged them up.
4.5 lbs Nardello
3.5 mini red bells
1.25 King of North
3.75 Gold
3.75 Orange
2.5 Green
3.5 Ancho
For a total of 22.75 pounds of peppers.
The last of the cabbage got picked which amounted to only 5 pounds. The heads were largely secondary growth from ones I had topped earlier in the year so they are not as dense.
The rains were skirting us to the south for much of the day and kept at bay until after dark. I got up on the roofs to sweep the needles off before we get snow.
The chard roots are incredible. They are really big and heavy and I have no clue if they are edible, but they sure look like they should be.
The row of beets only had a handful of each left. I tossed them with the chard roots and the lot weighed at 25 pounds. This puts me at 5362 pounds harvested ytd.
At noon Man Utd came on and the match ended up being really competitive with surprisingly Utd coming out with a win, by the skin of their teeth.
I cut down the last of my plants and got it hanging, barely able to fit it in the shed. It will all be getting shifted to warmer environs to dry. With it down I was able to remove the fence and posts to open the space for winter.
With the freezes coming I had to make sure to remove all the fence posts that I will want out now. Removing them from frozen ground is awful.
I was flitting back and forth from the match to the garden. During the half time I was able to pull two rows of beans and load them into my truck which I backed into the sheep pen and dumped them out.
I then took a bit of a break to watch the match, eat, and then go pick the boys up from school. Once back I used the wheelbarrow to load up the cabbage plants which I dumped in the pen.
I had parked the truck by the garden after picking the boys up and soon had it loaded with the next 2 rows of bean plants. The load then got dumped in the pen like the others.
It takes months to grow but only seconds to remove each plant. Before too long I had the third set of rows of beans pulled and in the truck.
The alpaca dove in head first and rolled around in the piles of plants.
The plastic got gathered and then piled at the top of the rows while the irrigation lines all got coiled.
It was after 5pm and I was able to get one of the two rows in the pole garden pulled from the plants then coiled. The last row fought me like crazy and the wires DID NOT want to come out of the mass of vines. I gave up on it and called it good for the day.
The Kraken played Detroit last night and got super lucky on a call that then lead to their goal. They then pissed away the lead and only managed to eek out the win in overtime. Still a win is a win. I was out to soak by 7:30 and seriously needed it, the muscle relaxers helped some and really helped overnight as I didn't wake up constantly in massive pain.
It's not snowing this morning but I kinda figured the clouds would keep the temps up, plus the weather is pulling from the OR/CA border so the air is warmer... for now. At least this means that I will be able to finish the gardens off today. It may be wet but at least it won't be freezing yet, that comes tonight/tomorrow most likely.
So today the boys have a half day then conferences this afternoon which screws with my day a lot, and they have skate night in town after. I have to harvest then remove the tronchuda kale, dig potatoes, remove the massive marigold plants, harvest celery, pull the plastic, coil irrigation lines, finish the pole garden, and I don't know what else at the moment as it's dark still and I can't see the farm yet.
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