Cabbage!

Our cabbage experiment - direct seeded in the field - worked pretty well.  Next year I'll go back to transplanting seedlings, but since we were moving year during seedling starting time we put them straight into the field. 

We are dreaming of homemade kraut.

House Update

The house construction is moving along.  The basement and crawl space walls have been repaired, tuck pointed and/or re-poured and all have been sprayed with structural foam.  The basement floor has also been repoured - after Bill and some helpers dug down an additional 10" in the basement and hauled it up and out.  Tomorrow brings a crew of carpenters to help Bill pull off the old roof, reframe and prepare for the new roof.  This week also brings the excavator to dig the foundation for the addition (a/k/a the new house where we will live) - we hope the foundation will be poured early next week.

 The gray is the exterior foam which is structural.  The yellow are interior foundation walls which only need insulating

Interior shot.  The space where the ladder is going down will be the commercial kitchen (at grade) and a basement underneath

Labor Day found us seeding cover crops.  Bill cultivated with the tractor on Fields 1, 2, 4, 9 and 11.  I followed behind with the hand seeder.  1 and 2 got white clover while 4, 9, and 11 got a mixture of peas, oats, vetch, winter rye, and crimson clover; which will be tilled in next spring.  Fields 1 and 2 will be replanted with garlic in - yikes - 6 weeks.

The drought has claimed a fair number of our orchard trees, planted this spring.  We anticipate a 50% survival rate.

The barn cats are settling in nicely. 

All 4 sleeping

(Left to right:  Sylvia, Mr. White, Oscar, Thomas)