Gardening in the rain
Yesterday it rained. I am trying very hard not to make sarcastic comments like ” Rain? Really? You’re kidding.” More rain. Amanda was Kitchen Mama which meant I had hours to spend in the garden and it was raining but I just worked in the rain. All day I was sopping wet. But happy. A whole day in the garden. Joy indeed.
However Camera House was unhappy so this is why there is only one picture. My hands were too dirty for him.
I dug and planted and sowed seeds in the cold drizzle. And weeded and trimmed. If I wait for the rain to stop I am never going to get any gardening done. Naomi was very attentive at her play time and the piglets are still beautiful and Lady Astor is still milking very well but not too much. She can have her calf back (at night) until this weekend then I will shift Queenie’s Bobby and Naomi Across the Way. Aunty Del will stay this side with me for a while.
But we are dripping wet. I feel like we are caught in some kind of science fiction movie where it rains forever and I have no idea how to lift the spell. We had such a lovely week last week and I honestly thought we were going to able to dry out. But the rain is back. Sheila and Manu live outside in their huts and they need new straw but no local farmers can get out to bale straw let alone harvest the wheat – so there is none to buy yet. I am using hay for bedding. My hay field is all flowers. We are not going to be getting on that field anytime soon. I am worried that we may be short of hay this winter. There are a number of rain days ahead. How can so much rain fall from the sky?
But there I am complaining. It is a great year for trees! Maybe I will plant some more willow cuttings they will love all this rain. And a good year for ducks, they are literally floating in the fields.
I have to go out now and load fifty-two chickens ( a good number are roosters) into their travelling boxes.
At least this time I have Jake and the boys to help me with the transport of the birds, in previous years this has been a nightmare. We have quite the team this year. And it is great.
Amanda and I are already settling into an easily sustainable rhythm. She has chicken eggs in the incubator, and seeds in the ground and has already taken over all the satellite flocks. Today I am Kitchen Mama and she will run the farm and gardens apart from Poppy and the cows.
I hope you have a lovely day. Maybe today it will be drier and Camera House will come out to play.
Love your friend on the farm,
celi
36 Comments on “Gardening in the rain”
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thekitchensgarden 
I hope the rain stops – it must be a real PITA when you have so much to do 😉
I hate even thinking about a hay shortage, and I am only feeding goats… you have to feed all those lovely cows! Fingers crossed for a drying time. My husband is squeaking out some mulch hay this week, we have a few days with now rain right now.
I too often work in the garden in the rain – just so long as I don’t get too cold, I love it.
Have a wonderful day C.
🙂 Mandy xo
It’s so weird hearing that you have feeding problems because of too much water, when here we are having feeding problems because of too little. Same problem, different cause. I pray you dry out soon, that the sun shoves some goodness into all your crops, that the animals all thrive, multiply and prosper and that Camera House agrees to show some beauty tomorrow. 🙂
I just love those sunflower rows, thanks 🙂 Rain for too many days in a row gets me down, and then I don’t have to worry about hay for feeding animals. Hope you dry out really soon. Laura
Yes, the rain. We have it too. I’m finding myself so mentally fatigued by the idea of dealing with more wet sloshy mud and the garden having been flooded for so long that the leaves have fallen off of everything but the corn, and yet more rain is forecast. We are burning up the calendar of our “summer” stuck under this dark cloud and I hate to think how long next winter will feel for our lack of sunshine…but, yes, the trees are happy! Daisy duck is happy. The grass is super green. And, well…that’s all I’ve got. Hang in there Girlie, we feel your pain.
We got a tiny taste of what you are experiencing. I know what a 500lb tortoise can do to his field. I imagine a cow is even worse! I hope it dries up soon!
i use a fish net on a long handle,i got in fishing department,like they use to get big fish into boat, to catch chickens.less stress on me and chickens
Even with all the rain your gardens look wonderful! It’s so nice to see gardens without fences around them. That is inconceivable here in the Ozarks, as no fences mean the deer gobble up all the plants and thus no garden!
May I have a drop or two of that rain, please? I hate to water my garden but my strawberries are going very seedy!
I hope you’re drying out now. Lovely to have turns at not being Kitchen Mama – I find cooking really tiring these days. Straw may be short, but you may get a third hay crop if it ever stops raining.
Keep cheerful,
love,
ViV xox
I feel as if a soapbox is needed about now, to stand on and complain and shout and rant to all the weather gods as well as humans in general who refuse to see how our climates are all going wonky and changing and shifting. You are drowning. We are burning up. Both un-natural events in our respective worlds, and patterns that are happening around the world. Let’s try some magic MIss C… I will send warm and dry sun rays eastward toward you, and you push some of those rain clouds to the west. Happy days for all 🙂
But the one picture is lovely. Sunflowers make me happy. You should have one more day of rain, and then dry out a bit. I see the few farmers left here struggling, get half their fields baled before the rains start coming again.
I Barbados it is called Liquid Sunshine…but I guess you are not in Barbados….I shall pray for sunshine and dry days for you
Love working in the rain, running in the rain, walking in the rain – some people just get wet, others feel the rain.
Oh, Celi. More rain. Not good. – Brings sorrows for the future. Your thoughts remind me to the old times, where the dependency on the wheather was so much a matter of life and death. Wheather was so essential for the farmers and for all. You experience this for a while now. And your words tell me, that it can get hard, very hard for the animals and therewith for you too. As it was in the old times. Just because of the wheather. Oh no. Let the sun and the warmth return!
I’ve read a proverb: You can’t get blood from a stone. Maybe you know it. Want to say, you can’t buy a piece of nature or just pay for to get it. Where no straw is…….. A bitter realisation. – But lets hope for the better! It’s kind of a lesson in confidence and trust. And in seeing the good things.
Here it is awful too now: Cold, in the morning we had 10°C! Now it’s better, it went from 15 to 18, but still uncomfortable.
Hope you have a good day today!
I hate thinking of all that standing water, breeding those damn biting bugs. I’m curious to know how you harvest the sunflower seeds.
Maybe there’s a machine for?
Chop their heads off when they are dry and stack to feed to the animals over winter..
Oh, as I did with mine. I just laid them as a hole for my wild birds to feed. It looked as if I’d prepared a nice plate for them.
Are neighbors nearby enough that Naomi’s distress calls to her momma will worry them? I’m guessing Queenie’s Bobby will pose any harm to little Naomi?
Prayers and wishes that the rain stops!!
Queenie’s Bobby spends a lot of time communing with naomi through the fence, don’t worry it is all over in a day.. c
Celi, you ask “How can so much rain fall from the sky?” I have the answer … It stopped raining in Ireland … in the corner that isn’t! Hope your land dries out soon and the skies hairdryer (sunshine) takes over to dry out the excess water.
Will Daisy’s Bobby be enough company for Naomi? No Auntie Del for her?
The one picture, by the way, is picture perfect. Everything so neat and well-ordered. Not messy. And impossible not to smile when you see a sunflower. I was in Germany 45 years ago and came upon a whole field of sunflowers at sunset, an image I will never forget.
Naomi will try to drink from Aunty Dels empty udder, which would be bad, it is better this way and not for long, she will be back in a few weeks.. c
I hope you have rainless days…you need them. We needed some rainy days and got them. COME ON SUN!
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
There may just be one photo for today but it is really a great winner! Everything appears so lush, rich and bountiful. I suppose things must dry out somewhat in order to realize the bounty. The sunflowers are wonderful but need the sun (or the sky’s hairdryer — ty Grannymar!) in order to turn their heads into it. A summer rain is a wonderful thing. Most often we are out in the rain alone so that our capacities of reflection expand and our deepest thoughts come to the surface. Mind you, if it is cold too, which you have indicated you’re feeling, then we just want to get the job done and escape back indoors to dry out… lol
I don’t understand enough about weather, I think. With prevailing westerly winds, it makes me wonder why California would be suffering so much with drought; why aren’t the winds picking up Pacific humidity and dropping it down when they hit land on the west coast? And, similarly, why haven’t the skies been emptied by the time those winds reach your neck of the woods? Is this all due to the climate change we hear so much about or is there some other factor screwing up the weather patterns?
As much as I look forward each morning to reading your blog, I also love reading all the comments that everyone leaves; it is like two separate, but related, activities joined by common thoughts. This is an extraordinary spot you’ve created, thank you! ~ Mame 🙂
we are finally getting some much needed rain- send more please! Have a great day- in the kitchen and hopefully things dry out for you and everyone else back there. all the best!
I’ve always had visions of huge, silverish looking pipes, nice and fat and round, up in the sky where bluebirds and crows can sit on them and chat, and whatever excess of snow or water is happening, say in Indiana, could be scooped up and transported, with as little noise as possible, over to our arid parts.
I think humans are terrifically resilient. Who in this vast land could figure out how to keep the whole nation balanced. Shouting and protesting doesn’t do it. Israel I think is good in water management, and they are a desert;. Maybe some uber wealthy person can sponsor a public works, science contest for solutions. Creativity would fly right, and naysayers can go talk to the worms on the east coast, of which I am sure there is an abundance. Toodles; love your blog to pieces.
The one picture you were able to grab is magic. Verdant! And magic because it in no way suggests the talent & toil that went into creating the bucolic landscape. Voilà!
As to the rain… burger, bugger and bugger… like many before us we look at the skies and ask whhyyyyy. It will stop, and life will go on. It always does 🙂
How busy you are and how green and lush everything is. Better than a drought, even though it seems it will never end. But it will of course.
Do you use sileage at all in the States to feed animals? Farmers in NZ seem to use it more than they use hay, at least most of the farms around our area have huge sileage mounds, maybe the hay stacks are hidden out of sight somewhere else! I wonder can you make sileage from wet grass? Or maybe it’s a different type of crop altogether. I’m no farmer so I wouldn’t know!
Reblogged this on Sarah's Attic Of Treasures ( Will Include Posts From Our Neck Of The Woods) and commented:
This is a very short piece, You will love the names here. They will make you smile.
I grew up on a small farm in Grafton Illinois. My sister and hubby live on the family farm. Yes, IT is WET THERE.
Even wetter than it has been here in Our Neck Of The Woods in Florida. We have had over 6 inches in 3 days. It’s been a wet year. The state park has been flooded (In certain areas) most of the year.
I am enjoying your blog. I have just discovered it.
Have a wonderful weekend. Hope you get some SUN.
Sarah
WoW. To this garden. To what you’ve done over the years with this farm!
When the rain interferes with pictures, it has gone too far! 😉