First snows at the Farmhouse

Ander and I went on a day-trip to Olympia on Friday, and when we returned the next day we were driving past Seattle and on towards the Canadian border when we saw that the trees on the side of the curvy road looked weirdly lit. Then we realized that they were covered in snow.

When we got back to the Farmhouse, the entire garden was covered over with snow. It's still covered with snow. Actually, it is currently dumping even more snow on it from the sky.

Garden status update: The kale, chinese greens, and other leafy greens everywhere are sadly frozen solid. The broccoli and brussel sprouts we have a little more hope for unthawing, and if not we'll just eat them. The grains that we hadn't finished harvesting yet (amaranth and flax) are ruined, I assume. Two beds had already gotten sheet-mulched, but the rest were still going so well that we didn't want to pull everything up. I don't know a lot about sheet-mulching yet, but I bet we're just going to mulch over everything once the snow melts.

I sure hope the snow melts. It can't snow straight from now until March, can it?

Our newest roommate Willow moved in on Monday, and we now have a full house.

The greenhouse generally stays above freezing. There's some kale babies in there right now, I know, and a basil plant that we rescued before the snow. We'll be trying to sprout some winter peas, cabbage, and other hardy plants soon enough. Ander and I have already filled the trays with some good dirt, and now we just have to find a warmer place for the trays to sit for germination. (The greenhouse is warmer than the outside, but not that warm.) Maybe we will do this soon, because it'll get the seedling project out of the processing kitchen.

The Farmhouse has two kitchens. They're both pretty standard (fridge, oven, stove, countertops, sink), but the upstairs one is more frequently used. The downstairs kitchen was covered in junk because the basement flooded and Sara's furniture was still in the kitchen until her room was re-carpeted. Well, happy day, that was yesterday, and now I think I will spend today getting that kitchen into better shape.

Whyyy, you may ask! Well, the downstairs kitchen is where we can process our harvests and other big projects. Our next big project, which we have just finished gathering equipment for, is wine-making from fruit. (Grapes, pears, apples... you could make Apple-Jalapeño Wine, if you were so inclined.)

Tonight we will obtain enough fruit to get started on the wine. It was supposed to be today, but yesterday was a bust. That's not true: I did get a wine corker from a very nice pair of Swiss men who gave me recommendations about how to distill wine without a still and told me stories about their many landlords. And I drove two composters over to Ander's cafe. But still, we need more fruit.

Also planned for tomorrow, the pickling of green beans and perhaps beets. Mmmm, pickled beets.

Life in the Farmhouse

Firstly, I have a horrible cold with a hacking congested wheezing sort of cough that I really wish would go away. Anyway...


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Here is where we may be living until February!

The Farmhouse doesn't actually look like that anymore: Many plants are gone for the winter, and the grass/concrete sidewalk business has been replaced with an INFINITE AMOUNT OF WOOD CHIPS. Excess wood chips are still chilling out in the backyard. They are also just starting up their blog; you can tell from the single entry.

The Farmhouse consists of Sara, Ander, Dan, and now Patrick, Tomko, myself, and soon another person named Willow that no one has ever met before. The collective house has existed for five years or more. "We are here to garden this fucking place, not destroy it," a sign in the kitchen says. We make mostly-vegetarian/vegan meals, as much out of the garden as we can muster at this late stage. We're going to be putting winter seedlings out into the greenhouse soon. I've been painting and cleaning out the shed. Maybe we will make wine in the basement over the winter. We could do all sorts of things.

Our future plan, which doesn't have much solidity at this point, involves Mary Tully leaving Baltimore in February, Patience's poor little engine being rebuilt this winter, and Latin America. In preparation for this plan, Tomko and I are trying to find jobs in Vancouver to make some money over the winter. Tomorrow, everyone has the day off except Patrick and the household is going on an adventure to Pender Island to pick up Byzantium and hang out on the ferries.