These pictures look calm. Right?
They may look calm but yesterday as we tackled the odd jobs around the farm we worked in loud gale force winds.
So loud R and I were shouting to each other so we could be heard.
We cleaned out the stock trailer. So naturally Tima lay in the doorway to collect maximum pats and Boo lay beside her to make sure she did not get up to anything bad.
The chickens were also helpful. Making sure the old straw was well mixed in with the old compost.
The old compost will now seed the new offerings with a good bacteria called actinomycetes. These are the silvery streaks you see in compost. A type of beneficial bacteria that looks like fungi. And is essential to the nutrient cycling in compost.
I think the compost will have time to begin working before winter comes. There is a bit to do yet to get the heap ready for the winter.
Leaves and the debris from the fields will be added to the compost this week.
The gale force winds delivered us piles of corn stalk leaves straight from the fields.
All along the winds path you can see leaves plastered against the fences. Adhering to the fence through the sheer force of the wind.
Now that the white chickens and their food bowls and the plonkers and their food bowls have left the farm, the Pops can come out to play.
Once they had said their polite good mornings to the elders they scampered off to play in the field with the cows for a while.
Tima was feeling old yesterday and spent most of her day in a corner out of the wind. It was a hot wind creating fire watch warnings. So she lay down by a bale of hay and had a fat pig snooze.
But then in the night it rained. Lovely steady rain. And after a few cold days there might be more rain.
There are piles of leaves on the ground now – after the wind then the rain and most of them will be raked in under the trees and into the kitchen gardens as winter mulch and will stay there – I let nature handle it after that. Some leaves go into the hen house and some onto the compost.
We never ever burn leaves. They are literally gold leaf from the heights. Little slivers of carbon perfectly prepared and packaged, floating down to decompose and sink into the soil. Let us not interrupt that most excellent plan. We want the carbon in the soil not released as carbon dioxide into the air through burning.
We don’t need MORE pollution. We need more carbon sunk into our good earth.
Have a lovely day
Celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
16 responses to “Tackling Farm Tasks in a Gale”
Aside from the corn stalks and leaves on the fence, you’d think all was calm on the Farmy!
It is so much quieter without those squabbling hogs. Gosh those Durocs are noisy.
Just the sweet little pigs now 😉
It seems that everyone found a way to help with chores, except for Tima, who appears to be taking over the matriarch position very well. I have a bit of memory from childhood of so many people in the neighborhood raking up leaves and burning them in big metal drums out back in their yards. Walking to school the air was filled with the smell of burning leaves. If we only knew then…as the saying goes.
I’m wondering if you chop the leaves a bit before putting them in the hen house? We haven’t done this before, mainly using pine chips on the floor. Leaves would certainly be more economical as we have billions of them here! 🙂
Lots of wind here in eastern IA. Fire conditions all over. The welcome rains, nearly 2″, will help lower the risks.
We don’t burn either! EVER!!! Just for that reason! BUT—there are farmers around here who always burn in in the Spring (sigh)
That gale just left here a couple of days ago. It’s a hard one to work in.
When I was a kid, my father had a huge compost pile in our backyard. (He was ahead of his time.) And in the fall, he would spread leaves all over our front lawn for the same reason you do. But I was so embarrassed by it. I miss the smell of burning leaves in autumn but that’s been outlawed here for many years.
We racked 30 bags of leaves yesterday. I looked out the window this morning. I can’t tell we did a thing. The chickens will be happy.
The lovely Tima! How old is she now? She has such character. It’s nice when the wind helps you with your gleaning of corn stalks. It’s nearly 80 here today, I’d better get outside and enjoy it. All the best! Patti
Very windy here the last couple days. Brat spent a lot of time yesterday at the window wanting to catch the leaves blowing past. The wind is stronger today and he decided to sleep instead of watching the leaves blow past, they’re going much faster than yesterday. The rain on the roof last night was lovely. It’s colder today. I’m not looking forward to winter. The ground hog was waddling around the back yard Tuesday, looking for food. It’s a nice big, fat ground hog, with a luxurious coat. Our squirrels have been very busy with the acorns and walnuts. There was a family of eastern bluebirds around last week, but gone now. I hadn’t seen blue birds in something like 60 years.
The neighbor to the west just started blowing his leaves in his yard. They’ve mostly gone airborne and are flying far in the wind into the yard here and those further east. Lots of trees here, mostly oaks, and lots of leaves. There were a few cornstalks or corn leaves I saw flying on the wind from west of town. The town will send a vacuum truck to suck up leaves if they’re raked to the curb, In Chicago they use a front loader and big dump truck to pick up the leaves when people just rake them to the street instead of bagging them. Sometimes the front loader would take the bagged leaves too instead of the garbage trucks, but they all end up in the same landfill.
When I zoomed in Tima looks like she is smiling at the Pops. 😄
Your gale force winds have reached us today. The poor little trick-or-treaters are almost being blown away.
And I’m with you on not burning leaves!
Rain envy…. I can’t quite believe Tima is a mature matron. I clearly remember photos of the tiny kunekune piglet you cradled in your arms, who had such ridiculously endearing eyelashes and wonderfully spotty coat. I’m feeling rather old myself!
My leaves went into my compost bin now that they are nice and dried, after all summer we need that brown layer in there.
Haven’t burned anything in a long time, and we have a lot of fuel load from all the leaves and branches that come down. We are constantly moving the tree line back from the house a little each year, giving us a defensive perimeter here in the fire lands of Northern CA. The leaves go in a huge pile on a back corner of the 4 acres, and all the branches and small trees get chipped up every other year of so and they make great mulch. The bigger trunks of pine that you can’t even give away for firewood go into a huge pile that will probably be there until 2100 or longer. We call it the “sequester” pile.