Blue Sky Blues

October 13, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Are we in for another dry summer?

We had our first “dry southerly” today—a storm that is forecast to bring rain, but doesn’t. I fear it is a harbinger of the season to come.

Our rain comes primarily from southerly storms rolling in off the ocean. When the wind shifts to the south, we expect rain.

But during the summer, those southerly shifts often arrive without rain. The weatherman might forecast showers, but they never materialise.

A dry southerly at this time of year is not unheard of, but it’s not particularly common, either. With a dry year behind us, I worry about what an early dry southerly means for the spring and summer ahead.

A strong El Nino is predicted for this year. For us that means a parched summer. If we start off dry…well, there’s the grumpy farmer in me talking.

But I’m thankful to have the new water tank full. All I can do beyond that is mulch well, water while I can, and pray for rain.

Bienestar

October 11, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

The day’s wind has died

Dust rises from my hoe

And falls in place.

The body is tired,

But at peace

In the rhythm of work,

In the calm setting of the sun

In the midges wafting like ghosts

Through the silence.

Heat gives way to cool air

And the scent of the sea.

Purple clouds glow orange

At the edges

In a turquoise sky.

I pause to rest,

To listen

To breathe

The smell of my garden.

I should stop,

Go inside,

Wash the dirt off my arms and legs.

One more minute.

A few more weeds.

Then one last gaze.

The peas glow in the gold

Of the evening sun.

The onions stand proud.

The lettuces reach up in supplication.

I see it

And declare it good.

A Real Farmer

October 10, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / 2 Comments

It said it right on the form, right where I signed: Farmer’s name.

And at that moment, I felt like a farmer.

I’d just spent hours with a goat as she tried and failed to deliver a kid. I was covered in blood and dirt, and at the end of my midwifing skills.

The emergency after-hours vet—Olivia was on call yesterday evening—did a lovely job, but even she struggled to extract the huge dead buck stuck like a cork in my little Toggenburg doe.

While Olivia washed up, I deposited the dead kid in a bucket and wearily trudged out of the paddock with it, leaving my doe toked up on painkillers and antibiotics. I thanked the vet, smiled, and apologised for dragging her out on a Friday evening. I made small-talk as she filled out the paperwork. I signed the form.

All the while, what I wanted to do was cry. Out of exhaustion, out of compassion for what my doe had endured, out of sadness for the loss of a kid.

A real farmer.

Fennel Salad

October 7, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment

In the course of clearing the winter weeds from the garden every spring, I always find some volunteer fennel that’s perfect for the picking.

With our summery weather this week, I decided to make a simple fennel salad with my find. It was perfect with a light pasta for a hot day, but would also be excellent as a side dish to lighten a heavy winter gratin.

4 fennel bulbs, plus a few fronds

4-5 sprigs flat-leaf parsley

1 ½ Tbsp each olive oil and white wine vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

Slice the fennel as thinly as possible, and coarsely chop a small amount of the frond. Pull the leaves off the parsley. Whisk together the oil and vinegar, and add salt and pepper to taste. Toss the fennel and parsley with the oil and vinegar.

Dust bowl

October 4, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

On a relatively clear day, we can see the Southern Alps.

Sustained winds of 63 kph (39 mph) today, with gusts to 150 kph (93 mph). That’s not unheard of here, but it is severe. Though it is warm and sunny, we are largely spending the day indoors—it’s just not very pleasant out there!

Today, we can barely make out the neighbour’s hedge.

I watered the garden well before the wind picked up, to give it the best possible chance to survive the day, and I added an extra tether to the greenhouse, lest it blow away entirely. So far, most everything seems to be holding up.

It’s really the dust that’s most bothersome. Visibility is poor—even the neighbour’s house looks vague and hazy. Indoors, a fine grit settles on everything. My mouth feels gritty, and I find myself wiping off the computer keyboard every few minutes. It’s nothing like the dust storm we had late last summer—the ground is relatively moist still—but it’s an impressive show, nonetheless.

Garden Update—2 October 2015

October 2, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

The spring school holidays are always a crazy time in the garden. There’s so much work to be done, and the clock is ticking down the weeks to “plant out” day, when the whole garden is finally filled with vegetables.

I spent two days this week weeding the strawberries and re-establishing paths through the strawberry patch. The plants are blooming, and we should have our first berries in a month. The early potatoes are in the ground, as are the onions, spinach, lettuce, peas, beets and chard. I planted out parsley, celery, celeriac, cilantro, dill and fennel this morning, and seeded in my carrots. And the tomato and basil plants have graduated from my office to the unheated greenhouse.

Most importantly, today I planned out the garden tasks for the next six weeks. It’s the only way to ensure that I pace myself, getting everything done, without stressing about whether it will all be done in time. The schedule is always daunting, but having a plan makes it manageable.

Of course, the house is unlikely to get much cleaning in the next six weeks—that doesn’t make it onto the list at this time of year!

Garden Gloves

September 27, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Less than two months.

That’s how long a pair of garden gloves lasts me in the warmer half of the year. I wear through the tips of the fingers. Once the finger tips are gone, they don’t do much good. I buy a new pair almost every time I’m in the gardening section at Bunnings, just because I know I’ll need one sooner rather than later.

I used to garden without gloves. When my kids were born, my mom bought me a pair, “So that you can garden, and just take the gloves off when you need clean hands to deal with the baby.”

Made sense, so I started wearing them.

I can’t remember if they helped at all with the baby, but they did help with my hands. Until I had gloves, I never realised that the itchy welts I seemed to always have on my fingers were a form of eczema caused by contact with plants (any plants, not just poison ivy; tomatoes are one of the worst). Once I started wearing gloves, those itchy welts all but disappeared.

Now I’ll hardly go into the garden without my gloves.

And since I wear through them so quickly, it’s probably a good thing. Think if I were wearing through my skin that fast!

Wisdom

September 25, 2015September 25, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Not strong enough…

It was a mistake. I should have known better. But the day was going to be a busy one, and I’d already forgotten to unload the sack of grain from the car the day before.

But it was early in the morning. I hadn’t had breakfast yet and was feeling hungry and not terribly strong. My body hadn’t yet warmed up.

So when I hefted the 40 kg sack of goat feed into the shed, I lifted it poorly, relying too much on my back and too little on my arms and legs.

I will be sore for days…possibly weeks. The result of pushing too hard.

Two weeks ago I was determined to get my pea trellises up. Instead of asking for help, I tried to do it myself. The trellises aren’t heavy, but they are tall. To move them, I have to stretch as high as I can and walk on tiptoe. Of course, I dropped one, cracking one of the supports in half.

I get frustrated with the limitations of my own body—how short and weak I am, how quickly I tire. I know I shouldn’t. Compared with many women my age, I have the strength and stamina of a workhorse. And, of course, there is nothing I can do about my height. Still, my plans are always bigger than myself, and I am regularly frustrated by my weaknesses.

But frustration isn’t all bad. Having big dreams and pushing ourselves to achieve them is what helps us grow. I am stronger and more efficient in my work than I was ten years ago. In spite of age and a lot of grey hair, I can accomplish more in a day now than I could in the past.

But ten years ago, if I lifted a sack of grain poorly, I wouldn’t have paid so dearly for it—a minor twinge in the back, perhaps—not days of pain and stiffness. The body isn’t so resilient as it once was. Perhaps this is where wisdom is born.

When our bodies can no longer live up to our dreams, we learn to expect less, ask for help, work smarter.

I sure hope so…my back would appreciate a little more wisdom.

No Eggs

September 15, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / 2 Comments

Photo: Eric Weiss

All day, I dreamed of tofu meatballs with spaghetti. I drove home this afternoon thinking of them. As I did my afternoon chores, I picked the ingredients I needed. I watched the time—meatballs take a bit of extra preparation, and I’d have to start cooking dinner earlier than usual.

The time came, and I washed the vegetables and started to chop them.

And realised I didn’t have any eggs.

I couldn’t make meatballs without eggs—they’d never hold together.

It’s not a problem I usually have. I usually have more eggs than we can eat, and I have to come up with creative ways to use them.

But the chickens are on strike–my lovely hyline chickens that are supposed to lay for years…but only managed about 18 months before they were done. I thought, well, they’re just moulting…they’ll start laying again. Then I thought, well, it’s the middle of winter…they’ll start laying in spring. But, no, they are not going to lay again. They’ve retired already, much to my disappointment.

I have mostly had brown shavers before, and they are productive, but short-lived birds, and I was tired of “disposable” livestock. My attempts with heritage breeds died with the three expensive birds I bought years ago that came riddled with disease and died within weeks. So I was thrilled with the idea of the hylines—a ‘new’ breed with a longer lifespan than the shavers.

Ha. My last brown shaver laid eggs until she was 4 years old, but none of the hylines are still laying.

I have been trying to contact the local brown shaver breeder, but have had no luck, so I still don’t have a young flock on the way to point-of-lay.

And I still have no eggs.

I bagged the vegetables I had prepared and put them in the fridge. I went out to the garden and picked a different set of ingredients, and we had a lovely Indian charcharis instead.

And tomorrow I’m going to try calling another breeder. I may have to drive an hour to get my birds, but I need some new birds. Now.

Springtime pests

September 13, 2015 / Robinne Weiss / 4 Comments

Netting covering newly-planted pea seedlings

Pests are always a concern for me—rats and mice get into my animal feed, hedgehogs eat my cucumbers, brush-tailed possums strip the bark off trees, slugs devour the strawberries, aphids infest the lettuce—but springtime is the worst season for pests.

And English sparrows are perhaps the worst pest I deal with.

Sparrows are a problem year round. In autumn and winter, they roost in the sheds, covering everything with their droppings. They rummage through the compost pile, spreading kitchen scraps everywhere. In spring and summer, they nest in the gutters, causing rainwater to back up into the house instead of going down the drains. Or they nest the sheds, where they make an even bigger mess than they did roosting there all winter.

But the most annoying thing the sparrows do is eat seedlings. They sit in the trees and watch as I plant out my peas and lettuces, then descend upon the garden and gobble them up as soon as my back is turned. Nothing is safe from them until it is at least 30 cm tall.

Until a few years ago, the damage was minimal. The neighbour used to poison the sparrows, and their population was relatively small. Since he retired and sold his farm, however, the sparrow population has increased dramatically. The new owner doesn’t poison the birds…which I’m happy about on one hand, because it is not a humane death (I hated finding dying birds on the property–horrible to watch). On the other hand, the sparrow population has reached plague proportions.

Which means spring planting is an exercise in pest control.

Everything I plant has to be covered with bird netting for a few weeks or it is eaten to the ground. And once I remove the netting, I’m sure to lose some plants as the birds strip half the leaves within a day of the covers coming off.

I suppose I should take the Panamanian approach to planting—three seeds in each hole—one for me, one for God, and one for the pests.

Robinne Weiss

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