Well, the weather is about to turn around, but it has been enjoyable. Since we were waiting on a tractor part, I did not get to take advantage of this weather to do any field work, but did stay busy.
I visited/worked on two vegetable farms yesterday. These are very well run farms, whose owners are frequently invited to speak at growers conferences. The following is not in any way a criticism of them, but the experience made me realize I am not doing badly. In fact, I’m doing pretty well at veggie growing. They have much nicer facilities, and I got ideas from them to incorporate into a washing station and storage/working areas. And I got ideas for better tracking things (what is where, how much harvested when, etc). I had expected to learn how to harvest faster, but they do it the same as I do, and my speed is right up there. They did use different knives than I do, and I will order a couple of those. And the quality of what I am producing was at least as good as theirs, and sometimes better. It was really encouraging.
The Welsh Harlequin duck started laying in late February, as did the geese. The muscovies finally started laying today, and I think the Golden Cascades may have started also. I have been having hashbrowns (those gorgeous Rehoboth Gold potatoes) and over-easy goose egg for breakfast all week. The goose egg is really sweet. The yolk is huge.
I fed the last of the fall planted veggies from the hoophouse to the birds today. Everything in the hoophouse is new planting – February and earlier this month. Exception – a few carrots I need to dig, and a little spinach I am harvesting until the new gets bigger. It is looking nice. As nice as the farms I was at yesterday (gloat, gloat – it really has encouraged me).
I am avoiding getting back on computer tech support, but have to. My Norton Antivirus was about to run out so I upgraded to Norton Internet Security. Outlook doesn’t like something about it – I can receive email but not send email. I was on the phone/their computer control with them for 2 1/2 hours Monday night with their levels 1 and 2 support. Back Tuesday morning with their “engineering support” from 9 until 12:30, at which point they said to hang up the phone and they’d keep working on it through their computer control. I moved the geese and their shelters, feeders, etc, checking the computer on each trip. They got it working about 4 o’clock. But Wednesday mid-day it did it again. I haven’t had time to devote to either sitting by the phone, checking every half hour if they are working on it without me on the phone, and having my computer tied up. Maybe Sunday afternoon when it is rainy. Since I can get email, I opened a gmail account to send necessary email. Computers save us time, right?
