Happy New Year!
It's January, and there is still a lot happening in the high tunnel.
Moving day for worms
I’m new to vermiculture, raising worms that is. I got started last March, thanks to a friend willing to part with some of her worms, thanks Lib. At this point my bin has too many worms, so I hope to gift some soon.
This is how the bins normally look, stacked one inside the other. The top bin is for worms and fresh food, always covered, worms are shy and don't care for light.
Most of the time the middle bin is empty, but now I'm moving the top bin to the middle, worms and all. The old middle bin, now empty, moves to the top position, and gets fresh food. The top and middle bins have holes in the bottom to let the worms climb up to get the fresh food, and the holes let the worm juice flow through to the bottom bin. In a few months most of the worms will have migrated to the top bin, I'll harvest the worm castings, and the middle bin will be empty again.
The bottom bin is the sump for the worm juice.
More than five gallons of undiluted worm juice. Good job worms!
Fresh eats for the red wigglers.
Buttonhooks
Buttonhooks are handy tools. Yesterday, my old cow Gert (Gert is the brown cow in the photo below) got a piece of wire wrapped around her hoof. I’m not sure when or how this wire ended up in the pasture, but it must have been some time ago. The wire ran around her ankle twice, went under the wraps and down between her toes, under the hoof and up the back of the hoof, looping again through the wire around the ankle. I was amazed it could get that way on its own, and it was not going to come off easily. My squeeze chute is currently at its other home, so I had to crowd the cows into a pen, and get Gert locked in an alley. Of course the leg with the wire was on the inside of the alley, and I had to get down on the ground and work from under the fence boards. After she got tired of kicking each time I touched her hoof, I was able to work the wire loose, and unwrap it with the buttonhook.
Happy Winter Solstice!
I'm looking forward to longer, and warmer days. We had a low of 16 degrees inside the high tunnel this morning, but the vegetables stayed warm enough under their row covers.
Here's a warmer shot taken late last summer. Our bull Nabisco is spending some quality time with the Longhorn cows next door. I think there may be some belted Longhorns running around the pasture next spring.
Six-Row Seeder Update, Carrots and Spinach
Carrots were my first attempt with the six-row seeder, and I think it worked out okay, but just okay. I need to do better with the starts and stops.
Spinach was my second use of the seeder, and I still had problems at the end of the row. I'm still getting growth in the high tunnel, despite the short days and cold nights. These pictures were taken a little over a week ago.
Fall Greens from the High Tunnel
Today was another snow day, but the snow is not sticking around long. Cows and sheep are extra hungry in the cold weather, and they’re greedily tearing into their evening meal of green, leafy alfalfa. Earlier this afternoon Susan and I picked the last of the outside romaine, and the first of the collards and Brussels sprouts; those sprouts have been in the garden for seven months, and the greenhouse before that, that’s an awfully long garden space commitment. The greenhouse had tomatoes and basil, and in the high tunnel we picked a variety of greens. Looks like another nice dinner that could not be more locally produced.
Lamb's Neck
We butchered lambs a couple days ago, always a sad day so enough said about that. I think I'll put up some old lambing posts; they're more interesting anyway.
Today I'm spending 10 hours cooking a lamb's neck, and, so far, things are looking and smelling great.
Here it is after 4 hours on the grill at 260 degrees. I intended to cook it at 250, but the old Kamado wanted to sit at 260, and there was no point in fighting about 10 degrees. I rubbed the lamb's neck with avocado oil, and a little salt and pepper.
Now we're ready to put it in the oven for another 5 or 6 hours at 250 with some herbs, fingerling potatoes, carrots, beets and onion. And, Susan's homemade lamb stock, of course.
Four or five more hours to cook, hope it's good.
Salmon Run on the Shasta River
Yesterday was not a particularly productive day on the farm, but it was a fun day.
We took a short drive to the Shasta Big Springs Ranch, and walked for a couple hours around the Shasta River, above Big Springs Creek, checking out the Chinook and enjoying the warm day. Later in the afternoon it was back to the ranch for a wine and Asian greens tasting in the high tunnel. Who wounldn’t enjoy that! We sampled Mizuna, Japanese Turnip, Torasan Komatsuna, Shunkyo, and that sort of thing. While Mizuna goes well with a light Pinot Noir, I think the Komatsuna needs something with a bit more body. 
