Sunday 26 November 2017

Addendum to 2017 year end survey:

Hello customers:

I have included some photos of the lettuce to support questions in the year end survey (part 2, section on lettuces).  Google forms is too stingy to allow me to send the form by email with the photos, so I was obliged to place them here for your reference.  I am only too glad to be using google forms for the very last time this year, and probably EVER!



Here are the types of lettuce that I have specific questions for:





 This is the variety of leaf lettuce called 'Lovelock'.  A predominantly green lettuce with some red.





 This is the variety of mini romaine lettuce called 'Freckles'.  Usually a predominantly green lettuce with red speckles, though sometimes the red coloring dominates.



















The next post - a post in progress...



In mid summer, several events led me to the conclusion that there would need to be some significant changes to the farm if it was going to continue to grow and be a successful business.

In previous years, I had been pretty good at identifying little efficiencies - so good, in fact, that each year my customer base grew, some tasks (such as harvest and delivery) continued to take about the same amount of time to complete.

Other improvements, particularly to the infrastructure (nursery, storage, irrigation, etc.) also allowed the farm to continue growing.

However, the rate of growth was very slow, and many of my business plan targets were falling behind.

Also, it was becoming obvious that the field was taking up more time than was reasonable.  The industry standard for operating a small scale mixed produce farm is one professional farmer for every 2.5 acres under till.  I was putting more time than I could afford into the field, working less than half the amount.  Clearly, something had to change.

I brainstormed many possibilities and drew up a list - everything from how I was going to continue operating the farm on a daily basis to how I would change our roster of crops, different models of delivery, and anything else I could think of.

During our camping trip, while I tended the camp fire in the evening as it burned down to coals, I stared into the embers and considered all of my options for change and the projects I wanted to commit time to.





Projects:



Hoop house:  Long-term, my goal is to take the farm further into the fall season.  Ultimately, I want to be able to serve up salad greens, lettuce, and spinach for the Christmas market.

Several techniques have been adapted by local small scale farms to make portable hoop houses that are affordable enough to make the effort worthwhile and easy enough for two people to build.

The portable houses have the additional benefit of being used to start the growing season early - heirloom tomatoes available in mid June!


Time to try my own.  Arrangements have been made with Dick for a suitable site on the farm, and the plans and materials have all been sourced.






There has been uch said about the relationship between walking and thinking.

Back when I was spending more time playing and writing music (was that my youth?!?!), a long stroll would often untangle a logistical knot or bridge an awkward gap between a verse and a chorus.


A lot of ideas came out of our camping trip.





Hiring:

Howmany times have I suggested that two people can do the same task as one in one third of the time?  Certainly, there are many tasks on te farm where a second pair of hands can make the chores go much quicker.

Also, ther have been many occasions where I needed to be doing two things at once.  The result was usually a rushed job, and sometimes it showed in the quality of the produce.

I confess to have been somewhat wary of taking on an employee or two.  After a lot of thinking (and walking) I came to the frealsisation that when I first put out my first advertisement, I had the same kind of "what if" fear.  Ands I was reminded about the nuberof times I said "...running away from what if's are no way to achieve goals..."

I've known all along that eventually I would need an employee or two.  Now must be the time.



Sunday 19 November 2017

Hey Everyone:

I mentioned during a previous post that the garlic was now sown for next year.  There is plenty of info on this elsewhere in the blog, but for now, some thoughts...

Earlier this season, I knew that I would have to do something different for next year. 

There were many options to choose from, and I wanted time to consider each carefully.


However, seed garlic is only available for a short period in late summer, and the varieties that I prefer sell out quickly.

One of my options included concentrating on high value crops, and garlic is certainly one of these.  It is easy enough to sell due to the high demand, and would fit any of myplans for nest year.

So the work begins...


First, I choose the beds.  In my rotation system, fruits, tubers, bulbs, and flowers occupy the same space, as they have similar fertility requirements.  This narrows down my choices to about one quarter of the field.  

Next, I check my records that no green onions were planted here in the past four years, as I often inter plant these with other crops - usually fruits but there are  exceptions.  




The final consideration is sunlight and water.  I keep my onions and garlic in the sunniest locations to allow for the most growth.  I choose beds that are in well drained areas, particularly during the spring melt, as the garlic (unlike onions) do not tolerate being in a very wet bed for prolonged periods.  .  



Having selected the beds, each are cleaned up and then amended.

I add rock phosphate (the white chalk-like residue on the soil surface, pictured), compost, and leaf mold.  These are worked in with the wheel hoe, and then the bed is raked smooth. 

The last step is to draw my lines (three rows per bed) and then cross lines (one plant every six inches upon each row).







Using a dibble, holes are pressed into the ground to receive the cloves.


Then the cloves are brought out from the barn, where they were sitting out of the sun - garlic is very sensitive to sunlight.  Each is placed next to the holes while I ensure that the best cloves are being used.  If I have any final doubts about their health, now is the time to cull them out.  These are sent to the house, peeled, pared and frozen for personal use. 





The very small cloves are reserved for the green garlic.   These are planted in a different bed, as they will be harvested a lot earlier than the rest of the garlic. 




I use small stones to separate different varieties.  Most of this bed is Fish lake, with a little Puslinch filling out the end. 

After the cloves are patted into the soil, work on the next bed starts. 


One important consideration for placing my garlic (this applies to several other high volume crops as well) is whether to block them together or separate them. 







Separating crops beds helps ensure that if a pathogen or insect gets into one bed, it will not easily spread to the rest of the crop.  However, with onions, green onions, and garlic all growing on a sinagle acre field, it would be impractical to place much distance between these closely related crops. 

I also separate crops for seed saving, but as garlic isn't propagated by pollination, so this is not a consideration.







By placing high volume crops together, harvesting work is a little more efficient, as I will not have to move about the field; it also makes it easier to compare growth rates of different varieties.


The last step is to cover the beds with spelt straw.  This prevents the cloves from freezing in our Eastern Ontario winters.  I usually tot his in two stages.  After the first layer has matted down from some rain, I can see where any thin patches in the covering are

And so we wait for next year, when the increasing warmth and sunlight cue the garlic t o start growing. 


Saturday 18 November 2017

Hey Everyone:

Finally, some time to write. 

Anyone who’s visited the farm knows how much I enjoy describing all of the tasks that need to be done, the reasons for doing them, and how I learned the various tasks from my mentors, research, and trial and error.  So it is not without regret that I have not had enough time this season to write more often. 







As I mentioned in a previous post, and to many of you during our first meeting, I also believe it is important (and maybe fun) to learn about your food as it goes through its various life stages from the ordering of the seed to arriving on your plate.  You appreciate your meal more, and have a better understanding of what a farmer has to do to fill that plate.

I’ll start with some very good news.








When I was an intern, Tom impressed upon us the value of being consistent in our methods.  There are many variables to consider as potential impacts upon produce yields.  By reducing these variables, it is easier to pinpoint why a crop has performed well.  He noted at the time that it is often easier to infer why a crop had done poorly. 










Last year, I planted ten beds of kidney beans: eight light red variety and two dark red variety.  Each snack basket took ¾ of a Lb, and each picnic basket 1 Lb. 
This season I sowed ten beds of light red and two and a half beds of romano beans to reserve for dry bean harvest. 

The romano’s seemed to do ok, but one bed of harvested plants were shucked by the chipmunks.  I left the remaining romano’s in the field to dry on the plant.  




This can be done  too much rain can cause the plants to mould.  In the end, we had a fairly dry September, but there were still losses.  Some pods began to break before the entire bed was ready, and so some beans were lost to the field. 




Today, I finished weighting and packaging the light red kidneys.  The result is ¾ Lb per snack basket and 1 ½ Lb per picnic basket, from a total of seven beds.  Almost a fifty per cent  increase in yield.    

I have gone through all of the possibilities, and can find no explanation as to why the increase was so great. 










Last year’s notes indicate:

-First time growing light red kidney variety, a replacement for light pink which was discontinued as organic seed by our suppliers.

-Less than 5 per cent plants lost to white mold – down from previous seasons owing to keeping better air circulation around plants late in the year as the temperature cools. 

-Four beds planted in the new field, where the soil fertility is weaker. 

-Plant yield fairly uniform throughout the various growing fields, plants with seven or more pods reserved for seed.

-Overall satisfied with per plant yield but need to plant more for same number of customers next season. 



So I spend some time wondering the following:

Was all that rain at the start of the season a factor?  Beans don’t do well if their leaves are wet.

Could the saved seeds (which were chosen from the plants that did best in our soil and growing conditions) have had that big an impact on the overall yield?  Only two and a half beds were planted with last year’s saved seed.  I realize now I should have measured the quantity from these beds separate from the rest. 

My compost and amendment regime has not changed, though the four beds in the new field will have had improved fertility after a second year of amending.

I just don’t know why...

The only decision now is to whether I should reserve some seed from this year.  I selected plants this season based upon number of large pods per plant, and the overall appearance of health. 





As I shucked these for storage, I noticed very quickly that there was considerable variation in the bean color, suggesting that the romano’s might have crossed with the kidneys despite being given as much distance separation as I can in our small field. 




These beans that have crossed might not provide a light red kidney; they could take on any number of characteristics from the romanos, including needing more time to mature or cook. 

I have already purchased a considerable amount of kidney beans for next year, but I know I am still short about four pounds. 

Farming is about thinking, calculating, and inferring. 




And planning for next year...next post to follow shortly...


Sunday 24 September 2017



Earlier in the season, I was taking lunch in the car (I think it was raining) and happened to catch Ed Lawrence on CBC.  He was speaking about the wet, cloudy start of the season, and noted that the weather conditions were delaying a lot of crops such as tomatoes.

This pleased me, as I felt that having a better known expert than me pointing this out would carry a little more weight than just myself (when explaining to customers why their tomatoes were so late).

However, his next statement caused me a little dismay.  He said that the rain would bring about BIG potatoes.  I was in the midst of packing the spring harvest of potatoes, and they were not big.

What determines the size of potatoes?

There are several factors that determine the size of potato tubers - distance between plants, the classification of the seed potato, and soil fertility are three.

Like many other crops, the size of the fruits is directly proportional to the distance between plants. Plants that are close together have to compete with one another for sunlight, water, and soil nutrients.

Typically, potatoes are planted between eight and twelve inches apart.  In most cases, I plant the maximum twelve inches, though a couple of years ago, I planted a late season bed at ten inches due to having too many seed potatoes.  This resulted in a record breaking yield of baby sized potatoes.

As I have written elsewhere on this blog, seed potatoes are produced over several years.  First, a potato seed is sown, which grows into a plant that produces pea-sized tubers.  The best of these are selected and re-sown.  The best and biggest of the subsequent yield are classified as "foundation" potatoes.

These are then either sold to growers such as myself, or replanted to create larger "Elite 2" tubers.  These can be sold to growers, or resown again to create "Elite 3" tubers.  In theory, one could carry on indefinitely, but in most cases, "Elite 4" is the maximum.

Elite 3 or 4 seed potatoes yield what most folks find in the supermarket.  I assume that the potatoes called "Chef size" by wholesalers are grown from Elite 4.

Each generation is a clone of the the parent seed potato.  With each generation, the number of genetic mutations build up, eventually resulting in a weaker plant.  Knowing this, my seed potato supplier has started to focus on selling elite 2 tubers, and in most cases, that is what I purchase from him.

I don't have enough experience growing potatoes yet to have been able to observe a difference, but I think I can accept the opinion of a third generation organic seed potato producer.

Soil fertility is the biggest determinant of any crops growth, be it size, overall plant health, or resistance to insects and disease.

Our field's fertility is a work in progress.  Older, more established farms that have been maintaining and building soil fertility for years have a more advanced and complex soil than I do, but I have the advantage of being on a field that supported organic cattle many years ago.  One clue to the latent fertility within my field's soil is the abundance of stinging nettle.

The biggest determinant for soil fertility  (according to Eliot Coleman and others), is determined by the crop rotation pattern.

In my field, potatoes follow leaf crops and precede either roots or brassica (I treat potatoes as a fruit, as most of my fruits are nightshades, closely related to potatoes).  Potatoes require a moderate amount of nitrogen (why they follow the leaves instead of the nitrogen fixing beans or peas) and a higher amount of phosphorus.

One advantage to placing potatoes before brassica and roots is that brassica and root crops often do not tolerate competition from weeds very well.  The hilling and thick foliage of potatoes tends to suppress weed growth, they are often known as a "cleaning crop.  As well, when harvesting the tubers, a lot of soil is dug up and persistent roots and grass rhizomes can be extracted from the soil.

All fruit beds receive a soil amendment of rock phosphorus the season before they are planted.  This on it's own is not enough, so I often plant buckwheat - which is very good at taking up phosphorus - at some point the following season.  Usually, this happens in the fall, so the potatoes don't get this added benefit - the following season's brassica's and roots do.

The other soil amendment that I apply the season before I sow potatoes is compost.  Fruit, root, and brassica plants tend to do better when their compost is applied the season before.  Roots grown in soil recently amended with compost tend to be covered in lots of tiny rootlets, and fruits tend to grow lots of foliage and less fruit.

So far, so good.  I have the potatoes in a reasonable spot in the rotation pattern, and their soil is amended with phosphorus and compost the season before.

So this is not explaining why the tubers are relatively small - even elite 2 seed potatoes at 12 inches (with lots of rain) should be producing tubers 25 per cent larger than I am getting.

In this instance I know why.

As mentioned above, potatoes are an excellent cleaning crop.

As mentioned in other posts on this blog, two parts of my field are relatively new - they were developed within the past three years.

Potatoes have  to another characteristic that has made them such an important crop.  They are good at scrounging nutrients, even when grown in poor soils.

After developing the two new parts of my filed, I took these three factors into account and decided to concentrate my potatoes in the new beds.  The new beds had a lot of weed seed and quack grass rhizome, and they did not have the advantage of several years of accumulating compost applications.

The alternative would have been to plant fruit crops that require high levels of nutrients, such as tomatoes, in these beds.

So this is he reason why our potatoes are smaller.  For the time being.  In theory, I had concluded that with each passing year, the tubers would gradually reach their natural potential.

This seems to bear out.  Customers who received russet potatoes last year might have noticed that they are larger this season than last.  I will be growing the russets in the next set of beds in the same "new"field, to gauge the increase in fertility.

As I consider what my production plans are for next year, I look at the beds that are going to have potatoes planted in them.  The early leaf crops were cleaned out in time to have a cover crop of buckwheat sown, so I am anticipating another increase in size.

As I have all too often heard since starting to farm...."This is next year's country."

Bob






Sunday 3 September 2017

Hey Everyone:

There is lots of info to catch up on.  It’s been a very busy season.  Too busy. 

Curing onions
One of my observations the past couple of years is that the amount of work required maintaining the growing field interferes with other aspects of the farm, such as keeping customers and other readers up to date and informed; and to see that their money is well spent on my labours.  Regular posts provide an opportunity for customers to learn about their food.  As well, it creates expectation and a bit of drama, which appeals to my sense of showmanship. 






It’s also an opportunity for folks who might be interested in becoming a customer next season to see how the farm is progressing. 

Why is the field taking up so much time?  The industry standard for this type of farm is 2 ½ acres of work per professional.  I am currently working half that. 

Each year, I have found little efficiencies to improve my performance, and improved the infrastructure to provide an accommodating work environment where work flows from the nursery to the field to the prep station to the car to the customer.  Yet these improvements are not enough this season.  

Some of the difficulties are compounded by last year’s spray – several beds were in disarray this spring owing to the fact that their distance to the buffer zone was in question until late last year.  Giving these a hard cleaning in spring (when weeds are growing like crazy and many crops are getting planted) caused me to lose control of other beds...these then needed a hard cleaning to prepare for their crops, which in turn backed up work maintaining other beds...you can see where this is going...




Some of the challenges are ‘built in’.  The farm is essentially a hay barn and converted pasture.  The original fences, the well, electricity source and the barn itself provide a few challenges.  Some challenges are design flaws from when I first set up the field. 

Without going into a lot of detail (I could write a book...), it appears that this farm is reaching its capacity for what I can do with it.  There is room for over forty customers in the growing field, but the infrastructure is very close to capacity. 



When we first started at this location (a year after losing the first farm we found – that was lost 24 hours before signing the lease), the idea was to achieve the eighty customer base in about five or six years, enough to generate an income stream to support the building of a permanent farm. 

This photo and the barn above show the state our farm was on day one.  The barn had no doors, and the field was fenced on just two sides.  





Now this is in doubt; and to increase the urgency, Dick has indicated that at some point, he and Bev will retire and sell the farmland.  I have considered what purchasing this location would entail, but there are a few reasons why this is not the choice for us – too close to the city, with suburbs closing in from three directions being just one reason.



So I have made some novice mistakes building this farm, had a lot of practice building sheds of various shapes and styles, and generally learned a lot about growing vegetables.

One thing in my favor - all of my constructions were built to be dismantled, stowed in a truck, and moved.  








I need time to learn other aspects of farming – how to build high tunnels (for late season growing, my eventual goal being to sell shares that are good well into December), how to manage wood lots, how to grow field crops such as spelt, and how to go about buying land and building large infrastructure, such as a one and a half story production facility with a root cellar or a 900 square foot house.

My current farm is interfering with my development as a farmer.  Something needs to change.

I have considered several options and have come to the conclusion that the most likely course is one of the following:

Option 1:  No shares next season; use the year for farmland searching and career development.  However; rent, organic inspection, the car, and cover crop seeds to maintain the field in a holding pattern all need to be paid for.  Not an option.

Option 2:  Reduce share size next season.  Focus on low maintenance crops (such as winter squash, potatoes and kidney beans); and some high value crops such as tomatoes.  Assuming I can finally get the east field ready, I can experiment with improving the bed set-up, and still have room to grow some spelt.  Delivery season would be short (about mid July to mid September, with additional deliveries as squash, potatoes, etc. are harvested.  The biggest drawback is that I lose sales momentum, and probably a few customers. 

Option 3:  Go for 40 plus shares and hire an employee.  This option has the most appeal and most risk.  I can spend some time away from the farm developing my own career, and have the second pair of hands to increase the amount of work done, while covering my costs.  35 shares would allow for a break-even season, 40 starts to generate additional income for investing in the new farm.  However, hiring entails many risks.




One of my observations when I was an intern was that by early summer, about a third of the interns from our CRAFT farm group were no longer with us, and a further third were gone before summer was up.  Farming is a tough career.   It is very rewarding, but I know that many aspiring farmers change their minds after harvesting basket loads of beans on a wet, cold day. 

Aside - Elmtree Farm went up for sale spring 2016 - had we started a year earlier, we would have been able to buy this...



The federal government has created an internship program that subsidizes the salaries for farmers, but these are typically announced in May – my budget is set in November – and the busiest time of year is in April and May.  So this avenue is out, and does little to mitigate risks mentioned above anyway.



Tornado warning
For the past month, I flipped between option 2 and 3 on an almost daily basis. 

After the request form mess up last week, I lost it, had a bit of a rant, took the day off, and made up my mind - some configuration of option 2.  I’ll lose sales momentum, and a few customers will leave to find a csa that delivers all season.  However, if I do not change course, I will lose all my customers and my reputation, and cease to develop into a whole farmer.  So option 2 it is.  Details to be considered...






Speaking of the request form.  I had hoped that using an online request form would be a bit of a game changer for reducing the amount of time wading through emails the day before harvest and delivery.  It has not worked out that way. 

One reason is that the google form is inadequate (it’s “spreadsheet” is some kind of hybrid between excel and adobe), it lacks a bcc function (I can’t find sarcasm strong enough to express how dumb an oversight that is), and it doesn’t work for all customers.  Perhaps if I were a good (and very quick) coder), I could work on tailoring the form to fit my needs.   There are too many other things to learn...

At the back of my mind, I have a feeling that a request form is a step in a positive direction.  I can envision:

I load in the quantity of food available for the coming delivery, including the estimated or actual amount of options.  The customer logs on and makes their selections, and the form retains this for the customer and myself to review as the summer progresses – even tracking the value of the requests and the total value of food that the farm is delivering to the customer.  Skipped delivery weeks could also be input by the customer. 

This would give me a lot of information that can be viewed on a page or two, avoiding flipping through binders, cutting and pasting data , etc. 



How to get this to work is something that I will have to figure out.  Ideally, I would like to trial something new this season, so that flaws can be found and fixed.






If there are any ideas out there, I will gladly take them.







In other news:

We seemed to have passed our first brush with frost (see previous post, below).

The cabbages appear to growing well, albeit with a few nibbles by whatever gets under the row covers.


A second round of cucumbers seems to have survived the cold, and is covered in flowers.


Generally speaking, I have been quite pleased with how the squashes have progressed this season.  I have doubled my yield of cousa despite growing the same number of plants.  

Weather might be part of the reason, these plants have deep roots and the irrigation tape doesn't seem to help much.  




The new zucchini, cocozelle, has outperformed my expectations, and the fruits from the winter squash were a little more uniform in in size.   


Snap pea success.  My timing for planting fall peas has taken 5 years to get right.  I’ve planted too early, and had plants succumb to heat; and I’ve planted too late, not allowing enough time for pods to develop.  Last year, I had enough peas for about a quarter of the customers, and added snow peas to make up the difference.  However, the snap peas yielded poorly and the snow peas had no resistance to downy mildew – a common fungus that builds up on stressed plants late in the season. 



This year, I found a snap pea variety (called Cascadia) that promised “...ideal for summer planting and downy mildew resistance...”  

Worried about trying an un-trialed variety, I have planted it and now the pods are ready for picking.  

By Wednesday, I will know if the yield is comparable to other peas.  With luck, I should be able to get enough peas for all customers over the next two weeks.









The garlic is a big disappointment for this year.  However, I can top up the shares by adding good cloves.  Many of the bulbs are partly compromised, but still have good cloves in them.  Over the next few weeks, I will be taking apart bad bulbs and salvaging what I can out of them.  This way, everyone can get to experience rocambole garlic.

Garlic types: 

Porcelain - this type of garlic grows best in eastern Ontario.  Garlic’s of this type tend to be hotter and less flavorful, though they tend to last much longer on the shelf.  I find they are best for cooking, particularly slow cooking, to allow the flavour to come out.  Varieties of porcelain I have grown this year include Fish Lake, Leningrad, Yugoslavian, and Majestic.



Grading and sorting
Purple Stripe, or Marbled – Another type with characteristics of both porcelain and rocambole.  Each variety has some variation in heat, flavor, oil, storage capacity, etc.  I grew Persian Star this season from this type, and trialed Russian Red.

Rocambole – Sometimes referred to as French Garlic.  Less heat, more flavor, and lot’s of oil.  Cloves tend to be smaller on some varieties.  Very difficult to grow in the eastern Ontario climate.  To date, French Rocambole is the only variety of this type that has shown good growth at our farm.  I have tried many over the years.



My favorite means of eating rocamboles in food is with light cooking, or even raw.  With such high oil content – the clove sometimes starts oozing oil after being sliced in half.  These are ideal for mincing into a salad, or stirring into cooked pasta, along with parmesan or cottage cheese and parsley.

This is making me hungry, so I have to sign off for lunch...

Talk to you soon.





Hey Everyone:

Our first frost event of the fall season has passed without too much incident.  There are two ways I protect the crops from the frost – row covers and early morning watering.

Judging by the leaf cover on the trees, this is probably an early spring photo.








In the two days leading up to Saturday morning, I pre-positioned the row covers, and set aside time for covering the plants Friday evening.  The row covers hold the daytime heat in the ground, and prevents the moisture from condensing on the leaf surfaces overnight.











Here are the lettuces for te coming weeks (and a small amount of basil).  The red crop next to the lettuce is the spent bed of amaranth.  

The bed in the foreground has finished it's lettuce, and is ready for a round of late fall lettuce.










Ready for the cold.  The lettuce is covered, and the end of the bed with he basil is covered twice.  I doubt the basil will make it, but I'll give it a try considering how the first round of basil was missed.

The amaranth stems will be  turned into the soil to provide some extra organic matter for next years food.









 As well, I set up my hoses so that I could reach most parts of the field in the early hours of the morning.  Frost damages the plants when the sun rises.  During the night, ice crystals form in the plant cells.  When the sun rises, the plants turn toward the light, causing the ice crystals to pierce the cell walls.  Watering down the plants before sunrise warms the plant enough to melt the crystals in the cells.







During my last trip through the field on frost evenings, I rehearse my route (checking the paths for any obstacles), and figure the most efficient way to get each bed.  If by chance I am delayed (One year I was stuck in a 5 am traffic jam behind a road-blocking accident), I determine what the most important beds to water.  This year, it is the red tomatoes, lettuce, and summer squash. 








Not all beds need to be covered or sprayed.  

Brassicas, carrots, fennel, and potatoes are frost tolerant enough to not require protection.  In fact, carrots and brassica’s improve their taste with cold.  Potatoes can take one frost at minus six before the tubers are compromised.  Some crops are so close to being finished that they are disregarded. 










At home, the last two steps to prepare are ensuring that my headlamp is packed, and that the alarm is set for a very early start.

Zzzzzz......Dreaming of long, warm summer days with gentle rain and lots of pollinating.

So Saturday I arrived to find only a small amount of frost around the barn and along the lane way.  Places that were shaded for most of the afternoon, and thus had less ground heat. 



Good rehearsal for the next time...