Sunday, June 5, 2011

Better late than never!

Today was spud plantin' day.

Usually we have our potatoes in a lot earlier than this, but, well, we just didn't get them in until today. This year, Dad and Mom decided to plant lots of potatoes, onions and carrots (vegetables that store well) to sell to Mom's clients or our neighbors or whomever. Dad consequently left some room in the field North of our farm to plant these veggies.

Here we have the potatoes loaded and ready to haul out to the field. Mom looks quite excited!
Andrew: "Hmmmm. Is this going to work?"


Dad, checking to see where to start, not wanting to dig out any corn plants!



At the start of a row, some of us would cut a couple bowls full of potatoes so as to have a head-start in that department. Mom and Jacob were our main tater cutters. :)



Andrew was our driver. The first row, Mom and I planted while Jacob cut the potatoes... We're sitting on a "Rock Boat", a heavy metal sled that worked just great for reaching off the side of and sticking the potatoes in the side of the furrow that the plow made! We planted them about a foot and a half apart.



Next row....


For the 2nd, 3rd and 4th rows, Dad and I were the planters and Mom and Jacob cut the potatoes in halves or fourths (depending on the size of the spud) and also kept our piles replenished so we could easily reach them as we went along.



At the end of the row, Andrew turned the pickup around and headed back to the other end of the field. Here Jacob and I are enjoying the dusty ride on our Summer sled. It was a gorgeous day of about 80 degrees, not too windy and not too still.



Once the row was planted, Dad would drive along side with the plow and cover the potatoes with dirt and, in the process would dig the next furrow for us to plant into. Meanwhile, we'd be cutting more potatoes for the next round. We planted 3 different kinds of potatoes this year, 2 red varieties (one early type and one later) and Yukon Golds.


Once we were nearly out of potatoes, we planted a long row of onions until we ran out of them, then we finished that row with the potatoes we had leftover.




Then, Andrew hooked onto our garden row planter with his 4-wheeler and pulled Dad down the field, while Dad steered the planter and added more carrot seeds when needed. They planted several rows of carrots, so we should, Lord willing, have great abundance of soup making material by the end of the harvest!!!



Once all that was finished, there was still room in the field that Dad had left open for the "Field Garden". Andrew went out and worked that area up and Dad planted the rest of his lentil seed there. He hopes to get enough lentils to plant a much larger field next year.




Meanwhile, back at the farmyard, there were other projects being worked on. Mother worked in the house, while the boys helped me outside. Actually, before Dad went out to the field, he pulled out the nearly dead apple tree that was between our house and our garden area. He discovered a colony of ants living inside the tree and we're wondering now if they had anything to do with the tree dying, or did they move in after the tree rotted away? Hmmm...




In place of the tree, the boys helped me set this up: :)


After putting together the tin pieces that came in the kit that I'd purchased early this Spring, the boys and I piled a bunch of dirt (which Jacob got from the field before Dad planted the lentils!) inside the pyramid, on top of some plastic that I laid down to keep the grass down. Then I went and dug out the strawberries from the greenhouse and planted them in their new home! :) The kit came with a little sprinkler system, so Jacob hooked that up for me and we watered them good. I hope they do well!




Somewhere in there, I went across the road with the rider mower and mowed off the weeds in one of the small gardens over there. Andrew later came over with the tiller and worked it up. Mom suggested that I plant my GIANT pumpkins over there, so they can creep and crawl as much as they want. I have the pumpkins growing in the greenhouse currently and it's HIGH time to get them out, as they are maturing very quickly.




We received 2 important phone calls today. The first was with bad news, that being that my Delzer grandpa had a stroke today and we learned later that he is in the ICU in Aberdeen currently. He's pretty weak and can't talk very well. Please join us in praying for him to accept the Lord into his heart before it is too late!




The second phone call was a happy one, it being from the S. family (who visited just a few weeks ago), saying that they also have decided to come to Prairie Days this year! Please also join us in praying for lovely weather for this great event! The Lord has blessed the Dagleys year after year with gorgeous weather, sometimes there being threats of showers, but never anything that lasted for very long.




This evening, after supper and chores were done, Mother soaked in the tub while the rest of us enjoyed the absolutely perfect weather outside. Andrew quickly mowed down a patch of grass in the shape of a large rectangle and dug out the Bocce balls. We played 2 very fun games of Bocce, something we hadn't played in quite some time and, consequently, none of us were very good at it! If you've never heard of Bocce before and would like to know what it is, visit THIS SITE to see a video and to read some rules. We play it a bit differently than they do on the movie (if one of team A's balls is closer to the Pollino ball, then team B has to throw a ball and another and another.... until they get closer or until they're out of balls. We also have "Out of bounds" rules and a center line that you have to get the Pollino over when you throw it, or else the other team gets to throw.) It's really quite a fun game that anyone can play!




And that, my dear friends, was our busy day. It is such a good feeling to truly have the fields all seeded now!




Next project on the agenda: PLANT THE GARDEN!


5 comments:

Miss Linda said...

I do so enjoy reading about your farm activities! It looked like a very busy and tiring day, with many important activities accomplished! I absolutely LOVE the strawberry "pyramid" you planted. I would love to know more about that. May I ask where you purchased it? I've never seen or heard of such a thing. It looks quite nice and I do hope it will yield many delicious strawberries for you.

Carra said...

Lots of work Cora. :) You have a fine family, all working together like that.
We will be praying for your grandpa.
May the Lord Jesus bless you and your family!
Here in SC, we're too late planting our potatoes too... sigh. But we can't plant now. It's time for harvest, and it's just too late.

Anonymous said...

That looks so fun! I'd love to do something like that...I love wide open fields and farm work. :) Thanks for posting and may Jesus bless you and yours.

Anonymous said...

Hi Miss Cora Beth,

That sled you set up behind your truck seems like fun to ride on and work from...work...fun...sort of sounds like an oxymoron!

The Amish have a saying that says "Happiness doesn't come from doing what we like to do, but liking what we have to do." You and your family certainly seem like you are having fun working together.

I hope you and your family have had a great day.

God Bless,
Josh

Cora Beth said...

Dear friends,
Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments! It's so fun to hear from others. :)

Linda~
I wrote you already about the strawberry pyramid, I know, but thought I'd write it here too in case anyone else is interested... I bought mine through "Guerneys Seed Company". It reminds me a lot of the strawberry pyramid my grandparents used to have in their backyard during all my growing up years! That place just sold actually, which we are glad about, for Grandpas' sake.
Oh, and yes, I think "The pyramid" would be very pretty with flowers planted in it too. :)


Carra~
Thank you for your prayers. My grandpa is a little better and is not in ICU anymore, so that's a Praise to our Father!
It seems strange that where you live, it is now time to harvest! We are late in getting our garden in, because of working in the fields first and because we had to wait for that motor to come so Andrew could till up our garden area so we could plant...., but there are many other people who are just planting their gardens now too, due to the inclement weather we've been having!

April~
Thank you again for your comment! I too love wide open spaces, although sometimes I think it would be fun to have a forest in a small part of the wide open space, just so as to go exploring in the damp, mossyness... :)

Josh~
Though it may sound funny, we do have fun while we work, most of the time, which is a very good thing, as there's always so much work to be doing! ;) Sometimes I think about how it would have been nice to have had more siblings, (partly so they could share in the workload), but that was not the Lords' will obviously, as He took many unborn siblings up to be with Him in Heaven.... I am so thankful for my brothers though, and when I hear stories of how some girls' brothers tease them and play tricks on them, I'm even more glad that I have NICE brothers! :) True, nobody is perfect (even if we do our very best to be, we never will be quite perfect on this earth--like what your mom wrote about today!), but they're very good to me!

I liked that quote too!

Thanks again everyone and God bless,
~Cora