Sunday, it was about dark. Ellie was at church practicing for the Good Friday play and Levi was playing video games in the basement. I barked at him from the top of the stairs “EGGS”. He went and gathered them and then came back and started writing . I thought it was a reminder to remember to gather eggs or an apology for forgetting to gather eggs. Nope. This is what it said.

Dear Mommy + Daddy, I’ve decided to go to the greenhouse until someone comes over and convince me to come back. p.s. It is about the stupid eggs! sincerely, your son Levi

I gave him a 1/2 hour and went over to the greenhouse. Told him I understood, cleaning eggs sucks. Boring work. I offered that he could help us in the garden for two hours each day as soon as he got off the bus. He declined. I said, well, you can tote two 5 gallon buckets of feed each to the pullets and laying hens each day. He said he was not strong enough. A bucket of feed weighs 30 lbs so two would weigh almost as much as Levi. I told him that was not a problem, he could use multiple buckets and make 5-6 trips. He decided that he would stick with gathering and cleaning eggs because it was something he was kind of good at…

Last Wednesday, as we were getting close to finishing garlic planting, I reminded Levi that he had a bunch of onion sets to plant.

David of Renfrow’s Hardware in Matthews gave his old stock of red and white onions, along with some shallots from last fall to Levi to plant and make some money. Some were dried out and a few were moldy, but most were in great shape.

Levi was not too keen on the idea until I ran the numbers and told Levi he could make a couple 100 dollars if he planted the onions and took care of them.

Levi hopped of the couch with dollar signs in his head. I showed him what to do and he planted the onion sets with mechanical precision. I was impressed.

I asked Ellie if she wanted to be involved with this venture and she declined and informed me she will be growing zinnias and sunflowers to sell.

Although Ellie is only 10, this will be her 4th year selling flowers.

Gathering Eggs on a Saturday Afternoon In the Rain

After the normal frowning and whining, Ellie and Levi went to gather eggs in the rain. I was messing around in the greenhouse when I heard them coming back from the chickens and and both of them were counting. I had to go see why. They were counting the earthworms crossing the driveway in the rain. 142 of them in about a 50 yard stretch.

Greenhouse Raised Beds

We do not heat our greenhouse but it is a micro-climate. Even on a 40 degree day, it will heat up and the fans are set to come on at 85 degrees, and they do.

Last week, we built three 80 foot long by 3 foot wide beds in the greenhouse amended with well-rotted horse manure, greensand, volcanic rock dust, and a complete organic fertilizer.

Monday and Tuesday, we filled up those beds with transplants. The transplants were supposed to go outside, but the recent rains changed that. We planted Red Russian and Tuscan kale in one bed, spicy greens in another, and arugula and pac choi in the 3rd bed.

The fourth bed is a mess. It is only two foot wide because it is against the east wall of the greenhouse and is invaded with bermuda grass creeping in from outside of the greenhouse. It also had plenty of curly dock.

I detest bermuda grass but I don’t mind the curly dock. I don’t appreciate it in the greenhouse but it serves a purpose. It has has a huge tap roots that reaches down into the subsoil and pulls up nutrients.

I saved all the dock I dug up to add to the compost pile.

While shoveling up the curly dock, I came across a small toad hibernating about 4 inches deep in the ground. He was shell-shocked to say the least. We had a two gallon clay pot sitting around and I knocked out a chunk of the lip of the pot to make an entrance and turned the pot upside down for a toad house next to Levi’s cabbage.

All the 3rd graders at Ellie and Levi’s school got a cabbage plant from Bonnie Plant Farm in Alabama. Levi planted his at the end of one of the beds in the greenhouse.

Goose Eggs

Our lone goose Gretchen started laying eggs this week. So far, she has laid two. We don’t know if they are fertile or not though because our two ganders, Frick & Festus, the Clampett brothers don’t seem to pay her much attention. They spend most of their time honking and hissing and strutting about. If they had taxes they had forgot to pay, they would be a shoe-in for Congress.

A new local small family farm showed up last Saturday with eggs. Carricker Farm from Peachland, NC. Give them your support.