Greenhouse

Progress!!!! Lots of progress thanks to the help of friends. Let me start out by talking about day one of greenhouse construction. It started out like this: Aaron Di Orio (there may be an apostrophe in there somewhere, and maybe a couple more capitol letters) showed up with his tools and a wealth of skills and knowledge on everything from making cars run on used vegetable oil to constructing and repairing everything under the sun. The first thing Mr. Di Orio did was start pounding on a tape measure with a hammer. Please trust me on this one; I may be famous for exxagerating, but I kid you not, stage one of greenhouse construction was Aaron Di Orio smashing the tape measure we were supposed to be using to square the construction site with. I don't exactly know what happened. I offered him the corkscrew from my pocket knife, not really knowing why, but to my surprise he accepted it and started jabbing the corkscrew into the metal thing at the end of the tape. Apparently it was jammed and the tape measure wouldn't open and the corkscrew didn't work so he started pounding it with a mallet. Then he said, "I have to go." He disappeared for a little while and I heard, from the direction of his truck, loud smashing noises which sounded like the possible destruction of my garage. He calmly returned a little while later holding the tape measure which looked none the worse for the wear and functioned none the better. He tossed it aside and we used another one. We had like three.

I would like to note that at no point did Aaron Di Orio appear frustrated or mystified by the tape measure incident. It was all just a part of the process of consrtucting the greenhouse, and not being a construction person, who was I to argue.

Speaking of the greenhouse, our goal for the day was to square the area where it was to be put up and hammer in the ground stakes. As it happened, we did all of that and put up the rest of the structure. No joke. We put up the entire greenhouse. By that, I mean, all of the poles that I ordered. At the beginning of the day, there was nothing standing, and by the end of the day, it basically looked like a greenhouse without the plastic and I have to tell you everytime I looked at the structure, I was incredibly elated! I can't believe how much we accomplished, and it was a lot of fun! I'm pretty sure what we did in a day would have taken me a long and frustrating month to accomplish on my own, so I can't tell you how grateful I am for the help and guidance and for the fact that the process was enjoyable.

That all happened on Sunday. What was left was to make end walls, which means, to buy lumber and construct some sort of wall and door at each end of the greenhouse. To the rescue came Paul Alward and company--yes, that's the famous Paul Alward, AKA Dr. Landscape, AKA Veritas Farms. All I can say is that him and his helpers put up the endwalls and doors in a day while I tried to help but mostly just stood around and scratched my head in amazement. So, now that's done and all that's left is the plastic, which I actually know how to do on my own though I'm told I'd be crazy to try and do it on my own because it takes more than two hands. So, I won't be crazy. But I'm so thrilled that the greenhouse is up and soon I can start all of my seeds!

The only other thing to say is, when I decided to call this place Muddy Farm, I had no idea how accurate I was. This place is MUDDY! And it's taking a long time for the dirt to dry. That's kind of a funny thing to say since we're expecting two inches of rain today. But, really, I won't be able to till until the dirt's relatively dry because this soil is on the clay side. When soil is more clay than sand and it gets tilled or plowed it tends to dry like cement. It's great soil, overall, and it will probably dry out more quickly in future years after it's been loosened once or twice, but this year it's really really wet. So, planting may be delayed. But, you know, the weather's never gonna' be perfect. It's always either too wet or too dry or too humid or too cold or too hot for this or that or the other thing so I ain't gonna' complain. HA! Of course I'm gonna' complain. But not just yet. Not completely, anyhow.

Farm Update

Tomorrow, Aaron's coming to help me get started putting up the greenhouse! That's big news. My number one priority times ten is to get that greenhouse up. All my seeds have arrived and they're organized into categories of what needs to go in the greenhouse two weeks ago, what needs to go this week, what needs to be started in April, May, etc.! Honestly, I won't feel behind at all if this thing gets up in the next two weeks, and I think that's realistic. Paul--of Veritas Farms (who still hasn't gotten rid of the misleading s) has also graciously volunteered to help, and my gratitude for both of their skillful assistance is enormous!

I also ordered 60 baby hens from a hatchery called Privett, which is in New Mexico. So, get this, the chickens are born and at one day old, they're shipped 2000 miles to Muddy Farm where my goal will be to be sure that life only gets better after their first two days spent in a postal truck. I will most certainly take pictures of them when they get here later in the month. Basically, their home for the first month will be in my chicken coop in a little round pen that is about six feet in diameter. There will be three heat lamps hanging above their heads. The first week, the temperature will hopefully be about 95 degrees, and then, every week from then on I'll subtract about 5 degrees until it levels off at about 70. At this point, I'm planning on getting my food from Lightening Tree Farm, which is a local organic farm that grows and mixes their own chicken food. And yes, once they're old enough, they'll be happy free range hens. I ordered 20 Delaware's, 20 Barred Rocks and 20 Rhode Island Reds, which are my three favorite chicken breeds. First of all, they're nice, which is a big plus. They're also mellow--they don't fly around the neighborhood complaining at the top of their lungs. And, finally, they lay lots of eggs, especially when they get to wander and are happy!

What Else?

• I'm almost done with the fence. I'd have long ago finished if it wasn't for the snow in one section of the field. But I've definitely finished the hard part.

• I'm still waiting for local merchants to start selling air conditioners so I can finish the walk-in cooler. There's no big hurry with that, though. I won't need the cooler until late June, at the earliest.

• I get picked on a lot by farmer types for blogging (including and especially Paul, who has no right to talk because of the s).

• I'm going to be doing the Saugerties Farmer's Market on Saturday and the Rosendale Farmer's Market on Sunday, starting in June. I'm thrilled about doing these two markets.

• Wish me luck on this greenhouse thing.

Frozen Ground

The problem with starting a farm blog in the middle of the winter is that there’s not much new happening and the blogger runs the risk of being all talk. The other problem is that the three people I bribed into reading this thing have all completely forgotten about it due to lack of updates. However, I’ll try to give you an in-depth account of what’s happened, what’s not happened and what needs to happen. I even have a picture!

Greenhouse

I have a greenhouse! It’s in boxes, though. I started to read the assembly instructions and began to have heart palpitations and promptly set the literature in a safe place. Please allow me to repeat this call for help: I have a greenhouse. It is in boxes. I tried to read the instructions and had heart palpitations. I expect every construction proficient person reading this to cause a traffic jam outside my house the moment the ground thaws. I won’t be home. The boxes are in the garage. Thanks ahead of time.

Greens

I plan on growing a lot of greens this season. Sunflower greens and pea shoots can be grown indoors under the cheapest possible fluorescent lights (meaning you don’t need any fancy grow lights, just regular fluorescent tubes). I found a seed source for these two seeds called Ferris Farms (there’s that damn “s” again. Maybe I won’t use their seeds), which is a 250 acre organic farm in Michigan. I like that I can buy the seeds direct from the farm. My test batch, to test this seed source, my system of lights and the organic topsoil I’m using, worked very well. I ate a salad with them the other night and will have another tonight. There's a second batch started. See the picture above!

Overall…

I feel a bit stalled since the ground has mostly been frozen and there’s just enough snow along the tree line, where I’m putting the deer fence, that it doesn’t make sense to put up more of the fence. I’m about a day’s worth of work away from finishing it, but alas…that day will have to wait. It’s storming now and we’re supposed to have 20 below wind chills starting tomorrow, so I don’t think much snow is going to melt in the near future.

Random

I’m drinking tea right now from a recipe a student of mine told me about, and that student got the recipe from Rachel Ray. I guess I embarrassed myself when I asked who Rachel Ray was, but apparently she likes tea. All you do is make whatever tea you like, pour it in a glass jar and cram that glass jar of tea with fresh cut chunks of whatever fruit you want, screw the lid on the jar and shake. It’s good hot or cold. I tend to prefer it luke warm. That’s relevant because fruit is an agricultural product—not one I’m growing—but one that’s grown nonetheless. And it’s really good. The tea, I mean.

Speaking of students…I once tutored this amazing fourth grade student and I refused to teach him any vocabulary words other than anthropomorphize and lugubrious. I was supposed to be teaching him math. Furthermore, I wouldn’t put smiley face stickers on his math papers unless he used each of those words correctly at least twice an hour. This kid had (has) the best sense of humor in the world. Well, I should say, the most generous sense of humor in the world in that he got all of my jokes and at least pretended to think they were funny. As a result of my impractical vocabulary instruction, however, his parents sold me a car that self destructed last Friday.

Okay, the car only self destructed after I ran into a series of trees in an ice storm, which I really shouldn’t be joking about because in reality the car performed incredibly well and probably saved my life. But maybe none of it would have happened had I not insisted on wasting valuable tutoring time cementing the words anthropomorphize and lugubrious into their son’s mind. Carma. (Get it)?

Oh, and by the way…it’s official. I’m going to be doing the Rosendale Farmer’s Market this summer!!!! Woooo Hooooo!!!

Live Wires

When I called Aaron, he was balanced on scaffolding, but he must have had some sort of sixth sense that this was a CALL FOR HELP! So, he answered the phone, and the conversation went like this:
“I’m going to tell you what I’ve just done and you tell me if it’s safe to turn on my electricity.”
“Oh Jeez.”
“Well, you know, I don’t know much about electrical wiring, so I have some questions.”
“Don’t touch it.”
“Already did.”
I then explained, in great detail, what I had just done with the wires hanging from the ceiling of the soon-to-be walk-in cooler. These conversations are difficult when one participant doesn’t know any of the correct terminology and everything spoken of becomes a “Thingy”. But, finally, it was determined that I had done everything correctly and turning on my power was safe. My number one evidence that I correctly capped off the wires is that my computer is not solar powered and when I began typing this entry I did not get electrocuted.

All of this dangling wire business relates to my continuing efforts to turn a strange, hidden room in the corner of my garage into a walk-in cooler. I’m done. Well, other than that hole in the wall (see photo below) is still a hole in the wall. You see, the air conditioning unit that came with this house won’t work with UN Guy’s AC gizmo (http://www.storeitcold.com/). As a result, I found myself calling every hardware store and big box chain store in my area for a suitable air conditioner. Incidentally, it was literally 3 degrees outside when I was making these calls. The four local hardware stores near me explained that at this time of the year they sell heaters but if I call back in the spring they will have air conditioners. The countless big box stores questioned me six times to make sure they heard correctly, were exasperated and told me to go online. As it is, they don’t even sell them online in January.

Progress was made, though, in insulating the little room, and I’ll just have to be patient until spring, unless someone has an 8000 btu LG window air conditioning unit they want to sell me.

Deer Fence and Other Updates

Yesterday I was grateful to be doing something a lot more fun than hanging insulation. All of the snow had melted, the sun was out, and I didn’t have to work my day job—at the nuclear plant—so I had the opportunity to hang the deer fence on all those posts I scrounged around for and bolted together and almost got shot over (see previous entry). Yesterday, with the sun shining, I put up more than half of it and the whole time I was aware that there was nothing I would rather be doing.

The fence is 7.5 feet tall and made of a durable black plastic mesh. It’s going to go around most of the five acres. Deer can jump 12 feet, but they’ll usually only do that if they’re being chased by something, so 7.5 ft. should work most of the time. They can also bash into it and knock it down. Basically, I hope to keep out about 93% of the deer out.

Not only is putting up the fence the kind of task where you can actually see the accomplishment, but every step I make towards turning this place into the small farm I’ve been envisioning is exhilarating. It’s not that I want to quit my day job—feeding nuclear rods into the reactor—but I think starting a small organic farm will be a great compliment to my work in the nuclear industry. I actually think I’ve convinced NOFA, the organic certification organizing for the northeast, that plutonium 6623, which is a by-product of my job, can be a certified organic fertilizer, which is great because I have a garage full of it and the heat it gives off is making the neighbors suspicious since I never have snow on the roof. I can’t wait to work it into the soil!

In final and further news: I’m hopefully going to make my seed order this week. It’s an act of faith to do that…an assumption that everything’s going to fall in place enough that I’ll get to plant the seeds, let alone the even bigger act of faith, that they’ll grow. But I’m a believer, despite my anxiety about whether my field will dry out enough to till it, and whether the tiller will work well enough to actually loosen the soil. But these are all just passing worries. It’ll work out if I have to dry the dirt by wicking moisture with a loofa sponge and loosening it with a pitchfork. Besides, growing food is nothing if not humbling. So, what have I got to fear? If the tiller breaks and the field floods and I plant the wrong kind of lettuce and I accidentally step on it once it starts to grow, I’ll still grow from the experience. And... there’s always more seeds to plant.

I’ll take a picture of the bags of seeds when they get here.

Why Muddy?

After spending months, bordering on a year, obsessing over what to call the soon-to-be farm, I decided to just not name the thing. Seriously, after cycling through every imaginable farm name—from Chili Dog Farm (Chili’s my dog’s name) to Orange Dog Farm (Chili’s orange) to Weed Me Farm (I woke up with that in my mind and cracked up and kept laughing for over ten minutes. After deciding on that name, I forgot why I found it so funny). Oh, and then there was Chainsaw MassAcres, Clear Cut Organics and a few others too dark to mention. So, I came up with Muddy Farm because, after trouncing around the fields here, I realized it’s as default as it gets. There are sandy farms, there are rocky farms and there are muddy farms much in the same way as there are males and females in the plant and animal kingdoms. Calling this adventure Muddy Farm is like calling your son “Human Male” or daughter “Human Female”. I think I may do that if I ever have kids. I hate giving names.

I moved here on October 12, 2007. At that point, the soil was dry. I brush hogged the field, tilled up a plot for the garlic, spread some lime, and then it rained for a day and a half. From that point on, it’s been nothing but mud. Dark, rich, fertile organic mud that, when it dries up next Spring (hopefully), will grow some amazing veggies.

I can’t say I thought of the name myself, which is odd, because there’s really nothing else to call the farm. But, it all happened when I was walking around New Paltz with my brother, Steve, who was visiting from out of town. We were commenting on how there are two coffee shops within a couple blocks from each other with mud in the title. Steve was saying how he liked that so I said, well, that’s what I’ll call my farm. At that point, I had long given up on naming it other than some vague idea of following Prince’s lead, but I couldn’t call it “The Farm Formerly Known As...” because it wasn’t formerly in existence. You can see that I was really in a bind until my brother mentioned his affinity towards mud and of course, Muddy Waters is as good as they get anyways, so there you have it. A farm is named before a vegetable hath been harvested.

About the second word in the farm name: Farm. Why do people call their farm "Farms!" I don't want to name names, but Bradley Farms? Veritas Farms? We all know I adore those two establishments, but where’s the second one? The third? There’s only one! Seriously, I always ask, “Are you a chain? If I buy this bunch of broccoli raab here in Rosendale, NY, can I return it at your location in Waco Texas?” They get mad. But they’re asking for it. So, anyhow, that’s why there’s no S at the end.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Ray Bradley has just informed me that it is Bradley Farm. Apologies to all. I have mislead my reader. It will happen again. Most of the time, you won't even know it.

Fence Post Massacre

The root of the problem is that, anytime I do any kind of project, I always think I have all the supplies I need yet, no matter how simple the task, I end up making three trips to the hardware store. The first thing anybody who wants to grow veggies has to do in this area is keep the deer out. While deer can jump 12 feet if they’re being chased, usually a 7.5 foot fence will keep them out. My deer fence, which isn’t completely up yet--but the hard part is over with--was not a simple task. Honestly, it could have been, but I decided I didn’t want to spend any money on fence posts, and so far I haven’t. The first part was simple. Somebody gave me 50 eight foot fence posts and 50 four footers, which I bolted together, over-lapping them by two feet, so I had a bunch of really strong ten foot posts which I hammered in two feet. Easy. Then, I decided that I was going to salvage every rusty piece of angle-iron surrounding this property. The previous owner had horses and other projects that needed fencing throughout the years, so there were, in some places, several layers of posts, all strung together with rusty wire. I rolled up the wire, pulled up the posts of all different sizes and tried to figure out how to get them to be ten feet tall. Each post seemed to come from a different era of fence making, with different sized holes. How was I to bolt them together to make ten foot posts? I came up with a bolt size that would fit through all of the holes, found it at the hardware store, came home, began bolting and realized they were ALL TOO SHORT! I got the width right, so I went back to the store and just got them twice as long. PERFECT. Then, of course, it started to rain. I should mention that it was late November, at this point, and I was in a hurry to get the posts pounded in before the ground froze. So, after spending days cutting, untangling and rolling up rusty wire, then pulling up rusty iron, much of which was camouflaged by over a decades worth of thorn-filled shrub growth, I was ready for some progress! I then realized that about every seventh post had a hole size just barely too small for the bolts I had purchased. This is when I started swearing. When a guy is putting up a five acre deer fence on the cheap and it's raining, there is nothing unusual or worth noting about a little fit of profanity here and there. But, for whatever reason, I was having a whole curse-filled dialogue with myself and my otherself about how the entire universe had just veered off-course and all was lost and, really, most of the words rattled off I don’t want to mention because this is the internet and the internet police don’t allow profanity (right?). So anyhow, I’m cursing up a storm while also arguing with my otherself who was telling me that while the universe was, as of that afternoon, forever and totally off-kilter, I shouldn’t complain because it was all my fault and whatnot and I, Dave Siegel, had ruined everything for everybody for all of time, but also at the same time I was aware of the sound of a deer walking a very short ways behind me. At some point I decided that this deer was awfully close and sounded nothing like a deer, so I turned around and within ten feet of me was a middle aged man pointing a gun and slowly stalking through the woods looking for the deer I hadn’t been hearing. He was my neighbor I’ve still not formally met, but who was well within hearing distance of me. As I sit here writing this, it occurs to me that possibly I should have feared for my life, but at the time I was only concerned with fact that I had just made a complete ass out of myself in front of someone I will live and work next to for many years to come.

I then quieted down and figured out how to bolt all of the posts together, without making yet another trip to the hardware store.

My neighbor didn’t shoot any deer that day. I had scared them all away. So, we have a happy ending. And also, my otherself was wrong and the universe is not forever off-kilter, and if it is it’s not my fault.

I Cut a Whole in a Wall Today

I’m just now realizing that all of these stories, if told by someone else, would probably be one sentence long. I’m not sure if my need to interject pages worth of drama into everything I do is good or bad. Dear reader, you decide. And let me know.

For example, the above story about the fence, written by a normal person, would probably read like this, “I was trying to bolt together some posts and realized I didn’t have the right sized bolts, started talking to myself and acting like a freak when I realized my new neighbor was hunting just behind me. The end.” As per the story at hand, I really did just cut a whole in a wall today, but I’ve never done that before, so for me this is the height of drama!

Part of me doesn’t want to tell you why I cut a hole in the wall. I want to keep you in suspense, but probably you’ll just stop reading if I don’t start getting to the point a little faster, so here goes: I am making a walk-in cooler. The hole is for the AC unit. There’s this little room in my garage that was already insulated (unlike the rest of the garage), for god knows what reason, and it’s just the right size for my cooler. So, all I have to do is insulate it a little more and put in an AC unit. Here’s where things start to get fancy. There’s this crazy genius type who lives on the other side of the mountains as me and has a position in the United Nations and he’s always inventing things. One thing he invented is a gizmo that you hook to a regular home air conditioning unit that you buy at your local hardware store and it turns it into a high-powered compressor for a walk-in cooler—which usually costs thousands of dollars (http://www.storeitcold.com/). As it happens, not only did this place come with an odd little room in the corner of the garage that was already insulated, it also came with a spare home air conditioning unit. So, after carefully figuring out where the electrical wires were, I began sawing a hole in the wall. Even though I knew I was nowhere near the wires, I decided that maybe there were wires in between the plywood and vinyl siding on the outside of the garage, which makes no sense, but as I’m holding this reciprocating saw that is vibrating the entire garage, shaking the fluorescent light ballast just above my head, causing the bulbs to flicker, I decided that somehow I was gonna’ hit a wire. So, in the interest of safety, I turned off the electricity and cut a hole in the wall--with a sharp power tool I didn’t really know how to use—in the dark. Nice.

Again, another person would have said, “I sawed a hole in the wall for an AC unit that I’m turning into a walk-in cooler compressor by using UN guy’s AC gizmo.” But, I like how I manage to get a tinge of life threatening danger into my day-to-day.