Farm Friday, July 21st, 2023
Manifesting broken tractors
So last week I mentioned that all the tractors were in working order. I should never say something like that. Never.
On Wednesday, I did some mowing in the orchard. As I was almost finished I heard a screeching noise and the tractor died and there was smoke coming from under the mower. Oops. I hit something! I hate it when things get left out in the grass because soon enough the grass grows up around anything left on the ground. Fenceposts, garden tools, hoses, rolls of wire fencing, rocks, firewood, tennis balls, bocce balls, soccer balls, frisbees. This is an incomplete list of items I have hit with the mower. So Wednesday was no exceptional day when I ran over a cleverly hidden roll of woven wire and popped a tire. Oh well.
Then I was using the tiller on the other tractor and when I parked it I heard a hissing sound and I looked to find antifreeze gushing out of a hole in the line. I need to fix that line and I hope the tractor didn’t sustain any damage to the engine. Grr.
Otherwise, the garden is looking good. We got a small rain that in no way alleviated the drought but perhaps staved off the worst effects. We started the garlic harvest. We mulched the blueberries and apple trees. Making progress.
In writing news, I wrote a genealogy column for my local paper. The topic is sex outside of marriage and infidelity. It was fun to write and I will rework for Medium soon. I also wrote a one-page essay for our school publication about why we have a farm. I will include a reworked version of that one here, too.
Harvesting this week: Garlic, onions, swiss chard, radishes, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, basil, sage, thyme, parsley, cut flowers, kale, bok choy, and some wild raspberries.