It has been quite a year so far. 2023, as we knew would be the case, has been busy beyond busy. As I’ve written in previous posts, this year was to be the year of powering down a bit. The winter of 2022 – 23 really kicked our collective butts. We lost our donkey Donovan on New Year’s day to bladder stones. The snow started last November and really never stopped. It was seriously cold so the accumulations never really melted off. We were out in blizzards and sub-zero cold hauling buckets of feed and warm water all over the place for the animals. We didn’t so much get ourselves over-extended as we got blind sided. We had pigs that needed to go to the processor, but, of course, the trailer had a flat and was buried in a foot and a half of snow so we couldn’t take them. We had turkeys we wanted to send to freezer camp in November. Before we could get to it it snowed and never stopped. Its hard to butcher birds when the hoses are frozen. Roosters too. We hatch our own layer hens which means that naturally, half will be roosters. We had a dozen of them that were kept way too long and pretty much abused the hens. Also, If you have ever been around roosters, you will know that it is unwise to turn your back on them. That too made feeding something of a trick, I’m always leary about getting jumped by those little Velociraptors. It was quite a season feeding animals that were never intended to be around this long. The pigs were the big deal. Not only did we have nine through the winter, we had some prison breaks where the boars got in with the girls. Over the course of the first month or so of spring, we had some 30 babies! Sorry, its a farm. They didn’t all find happy homes…. although some did. We had decided to get rid of our breeding pairs. Some things in life imagine better than they live. Given our glorious economy, feed prices sky-rocketed just like groceries. Nine good sized pigs will eat you out of house and home. We were going through more than a ton and a half of feed every 4-5 months at a cost of almost $800.00 a ton! That’s worse than the increase in meat prices in the store. I don’t care how good it is compared to factory raised pork, that is some expensive bacon!! So currently we have 450 lbs. of pork from the boars (Guinea Hog boar meat doesn’t taint like heritage breeds do. In fact, it has been amazing). We have 45 meat birds in another freezer and the roosters are now called soup and stew.

We thought that we would get a reprieve from all the unusual weather come the spring. The universe simply said, “Here, hold my beer!” We went straight into the wettest and muddiest spring I have ever seen here. We waded through 6 inches of water for weeks to get to the barn to feed the girl goats and the turkeys. The ATV got stuck in the mud when the dogs ran off and needed a tow truck to be retrieved. The pigs now had to be fed in the mud, and I gave up on the rain gauge when it got to be over a foot. We had gotten to the place where we were hating the place. It was so much unrelenting work. Now city folk, save me the platitudes again by stowing the, “Well that’s life on a farm!” Like you’d know. This was an unending marathon. When your mindset is a looking forward to simpler times, it was like the boss saying, “This ought to be a light day” and then it turns into the Bataan Death March. The thought had crossed my mind of just shooting the critters from the front door and going back down to the wood stove. There were a lot of mental gymnastics involved with getting through all of this.

Now, to be fair, with all of this wetness there were pluses and minuses. Minuses: We live on the edge of the desert. It is the semi-arid high plains. Prior to this year I hadn’t had to mow more than once or twice in the past 3 years. As of this writing, I have had to mow down the “yard” – 5 acres – 4 times. I have had to mow down a five acre pasture so the goats could actually see where they were going and the weeds simply took the garden. It almost seemed that the weeds were growing a foot a day. Fortunately, the vegetables liked the free water as well, so we didn’t get skunked. However, it added boatloads of additional work. The flooding around the area was amazing and we had sandy, dried up creek beds, flowing to the point that it was taking out roads. There were a couple of instances of cars getting washed away and drowning the drivers.

The weeds owned us! I was mowing down Kochia plants (they become tumbleweeds) and Lamb’s Quarter the size of saplings. Often it had to be done twice just to get the things cut down to a respectable level. Some of the garden beds never got planted because the weeds were threatening to eat us!

The pluses: As I mentioned, the actual garden plants really appreciated the free water as well. Up until this month I really hadn’t needed to water. Now, of course, we are back to good old Colorado summer weather and all those weeds are now turning into potential torches. Fire warnings are being posted just about daily. The other thing was just how fast the flowering plants of the plains popped up. Where there were clearer areas from the tall weeds, the flowers popped up everywhere. Folks with allergies didn’t care for it, but it was really pretty.

The big construction project of the year, other than auto and tractor repairs was the re-skinning of the greenhouse. The wind, in the spring of 2022, finally overcame the plastic sheeting. Out here, the UV degrades everything and we have winds and hail worthy of the Wizard of Oz. This was really hanging over my head. I’m not really ladder worthy anymore and the roof at its peak is about 11 feet. The sheeting is 12 feet by 3 feet and really needs two people at a minimum to hang them. As with every project out here, I fret and fret and fret about it until I get to a solution. This time it was Zina to the rescue. I’m pretty much absent from social media except for Instagram. She found a combination father and 2 son team on Facebook that do odd jobs when their other jobs slow down. We had them come out and they were actually eager for the work as they had spent the majority of the time this year mowing down other people’s weeds. The 2 young kids were like monkeys scurrying up and down the ladders. At that moment (they were 20 somethings) I realized just what an old fart I had become. Even the father, who was more than 10 years younger than me, was just the materials handler, handing things up the boys as needed. Keep in mind, I started building this place at age 50. Aaron and I put the greenhouse up initially. The 50 year old father of the team wouldn’t do ladders. I think that makes me Hercules!

I did some modifications to the old greenhouse design. I had them put on a metal ridge cap to create more of an anchor for the plastic sheets. We also put tin along the bottom for more rigidity and so we can weed whip around it without damage the plastic siding. Personally, I think the thing looks better than it did when it was new. It has already stood up to the wind and it doesn’t leak! Here is to it lasting another 10 years. Next to my basement seedling room, this is my favorite place on the farm.

As you can see, this powering down year has proven itself to be every inch of the crazy work we knew it would be. Because of the greenhouse fix, we didn’t plant as diverse of a garden as we are used to. The repair crew was told that it was better to smash the plants to get the thing fixed, than to worry if the lettuce survived. Wouldn’t you know, those monkeys didn’t touch a plant. Everything, except for a cabbage worm infestation on the Kale, is doing great! – Even, and especially, the weeds! We didn’t plant sunflowers this year. They just planted themselves. I hung some shade cloth to begin a Raspberry and Elderberry bed. If you have ever wanted to drill holes through T posts I would recommend against it. They are insanely hard steel. I needed 10 holes and it cost me 7 steel cutting drill bits and some pretty sore shoulders!

So we are working the JAZ Farm plan. All who know me be advised, next year will be the first time since we found this money pit that I will be able to devote most of my time to the gardens and to weaving. Don’t expect much from me for it is high time for me to be able to play. I don’t know many people who had to work this hard to build their retirement dream but here it is! Yes, I am crazy proud of it, but if I never see a power tool again, I will be a very happy farmer indeed! I don’t care what anyone else thinks: JAZ Farm is insanely cool!