Life and times of a new farmer/homesteader
My weekend, in some detail {
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Wednesday, March 21, 2007
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It was a great weekend, even though I went to the big city for part of it.Friday afternoon, I went to Portland to see my family. This seems to be becoming a regular thing. I am committed to going there every other week for a while, to help my parents rebuild their old house on the river. It was also the house I spent my three years as a hermit in, so I have something to do with the need to rebuild it. It is in a rainforest, and that has more to do with it than anything. Things rot really quickly in a rainforest. If you don't keep up with them, and if no one lives there for about two years, nothing gets done. Now, things have gotten to the point that major rework is necessary. It was the house I grew up in. It is the house my father built. It is worth saving. On the off weekends (like this one,) I seem to end up going to Portland anyway. Something is always going on. This weekend, it was something special. A few things, as it ended up. Friday, I mostly just hung out with my parents. My son had something planned, so my folks and I hung out and talked. Good conversation. I get along very well with my parents. We had a Mexican style salad for dinner, and my parents had a few glasses of wine so they loosened up a bit. I had horchata to drink. It's like a spiced rice milk, and one of my favorite drinks. One thing I have realized since quitting drinking is how much fun it is to hang out with people who are drinking, and being aware enough not to forget everything in the morning. Tipsy people can be a lot of fun to be around. My parents exemplify that. Mom went to bed early, as she was tired. Friday is both of their big days. Both of theirs big day? Ack. English can be difficult for even a native speaker. Anyways, Friday is freight day for both of their hardware stores. Mom gets her freight at 5:30 a.m. Dad gets his about an hour later. Mom, as well as getting up to go to work at 4:30 a.m., gets off work at 6:00 p.m. It makes for a long day. Dad gets off work much earlier, as he really only works a couple half-days a week since "retiring." I spent the few hours that they were awake talking to them about their plans, their aspirations, my plans, my aspirations, and all sorts of good stuff. After my mom went to bed, my father and I talked about poker and world events for a couple hours. We also talked about our "big day" on Saturday. I found out my son wasn't going to come with us. He wanted to stay home, so when my daughter got there there would be someone she could hang out with. My mom had a baby shower she had committed to in the afternoon, and a city planning meeting she wanted to go to in the morning. My son staying home helped make this feasible. Plus he had some homework to do, and he thought it would be a good use of his time. Good boy! Even if it meant he missed out on the plant workshops dad and I were going to. It's nice that he is showing some responsibility, both toward his school work and his sister. If she had come into town the day before, she probably would have come with us. She didn't want to get up when her mom did. That, I suppose, is her choice. She's only 14, and she doesn't always think of others first. Other than that, she makes good choices. The next morning, my dad and I got up at 6:30 a.m. and headed north to Morton, Washington, for the Raintree Nursery Open House. We had a great breakfast on the way. When we got there at 9:00 a.m., we went to a mushroom growing seminar. It was pretty cool. We didn't learn much science that we didn't already know, but we did learn some practical advice, and we got to see some of the things we knew as theory put into practice. We also met some good mycophile contacts. Dad bought some shiitake mushroom spawn for plugging some of the maple logs we brought home a few weeks back, and learned how to use them. At ten, we split up, and I went to a "selecting fruit plants for the maritime northwest" seminar while he went to a "Berries; Blue, black, rasp, straw, and goose" class. Once again, we both met some great resources, and came away with some great ideas. At eleven, we both went to the "Pests and Diseases" workshop, and learned some good organic methods to use, along with some chemical methods we may never use. We also learned what various diseases and pests look like. There are a couple fungal problems I now recognise in my apple trees, and I now know how to deal with them organically. Really good information all around. Noon was supposed to be lunch, but since we had breakfast right before we got there, neither of us were hungry. We ended up choosing scion wood and looking over the book selections offered. We bought a few books, some grafting bands, and dad bought some rootstock. I got apple scions to graft to my existing trees. Dad got some asian pear scions, and dwarfing rootstock for them. I called a couple people (mom and grandma,) and dad read through one of his books. After lunch, we went our seperate ways again. I went to a wine grapes for the maritime northwest symposium and dad went to an espallier class. A word of explanation. I don't drink. Most, if not all, of you know that. I do, however, really enjoy making wine, beer, cider, mead, and other alcoholic beverages. All in all, I really enjoy zymurgical persuits, from making alcohol, to making bread, to making yoghurt and cheese, to making vinegar, to making saurkraut and pickles. I like playing with bacterial fermentation. It's one of my wierd little quirks. While I will smell taste my home made alcohol, I won't swallow it, and most of it goes to cooking, food preservation, barter, or making custom vinegars. As such, I like to make the best alcoholic beverages I can, even if I never actually do so for the alcohol. These fermentations can dramatically change the flavor and character of the base material, often improving it in some amazing ways. To make a truly great vinegar, you need to start with a great alcohol. When I did drink, I drank wine for the most part. When I make alcohol, I have the most difficulty with making wine. Grape wine. As such, I still have a great deal of interest in doing so well. I also have an interest in growing my own grapes for wine, so that I can truly get the flavor of my land, my terroir. As it happens, I learned a great deal about growing great wine grapes in the maritime northwest. I plan on putting that knowledge to use, next year. I also learned what I need to do to my land this year to insure a successful vineyard in the years to come, and what sort of yields I can expect from the vines I plan on planting. This lets me know how many vines to plant, for the batches of wine I tend to make. However, I don't think I left that lecture with anything near the enthusiasm my father left his espallier class with. My father lives in the city, and his options for planting trees are quite limited. He had been planning on planting his asian pears here on my farm. Now, he has other plans. He is going to create a fence bordering his property using methods he learned there. I would not be surprised if someday he had an entire orchard on his city lot of small, artistically formed fruit and nut trees. He was always into bonsai. Espallier fits well into his mindset. Our last class for the day was on pruning fruit trees. We went to this one together. I learned a ton. I also learned I have been doing things a bit wrong. You aren't supposed to look at a fruit tree with what you are going to take away in mind, you should look at it with what you are going to *keep* in mind. I learned some of the science behind the techniques I have learned in the past. I also learned a great deal on how to save trees I would have thought were unsavable before. That is a great gift to receive. I love trees. Being able to add several years of life to a useful tree that I might have otherwise considered a loss is wonderful. After the classes, we went to the nursery proper. It is really in the middle of nowhere. It is also a beautiful grounds, with examples of many of the techniques we learned in our classes. My father spent much time looking over the espallier garden, and I perused the greenhouses. He bought a dwarf apple with three or four different varieties grafted to it in such a way that it would make an easy espallier. He also bought a couple huckleberry bushes. I bought two filbert trees and three fruit bushes. My father gave me a bit of a hard time on my choice of nuts. "We live in the heart of hazelnut country and you get filberts," I believe were his words. One is a contorted variety, and already quite gnarly. The other will pollinate it, and is disease resistant. What can I say? I love hazelnuts, but it can be hard to find filberts here. They are related, and quite similar, if you are unfamiliar with either nut. Filberts can be a bit more oily. I like using them for pie crust. Well, that was my big day and what led up to it in a "nutshell." Pun intended. Pax Raymond { Last Page } { Page 9 of 181 } { Next Page } |
