Another Varmint Down

In a previous post I mentioned that one of my jobs around the farm is de-predation. Last night I was picking corn from the market garden, some for our dinner and some for the CSA members. Walking back to the house I noticed a groundhog munching on some grass, just on the other side of one of our fences. I quickly hustled into the house and grabbed my .22 rifle. The dogs were out in the barnyard, separated from the groundhog by the field fence and obviously unaware of his presence. After telling the dogs to sit and stay, so as not to spook the groundhog, I started creeping over to see if he was still out. At first I didn't see him since he was on the other side of a burn pile and by the time I located him, he spotted me and made a quick retreat to the hedgerow. Determined not to give up, and knowing that groundhogs are curious and often come back out to see whats going on I setup at the fence line to wait. After ten minutes or so I was about to give up, when I realized he was sitting just at the edge of the hedgerow in some tall grass. I slowly took aim and squeezed the trigger. After walking up and around the fence line I found the groundhog dead having made it only half way back into his hole.

Early in the season we had a problem with a groundhog tunneling into our kitchen garden. I shot "at" one but did not recover the body. The tunneling into our garden stopped so I assumed I had gotten him but he had managed to get back to his burrow. This groundhog was shot in the same spot, but whether it is the same one or another that took over the empty burrow I have no way of knowing. What I do know for sure though is that he will not be digging holes in our garden or eating any of our vegetables.

CSA Deliveries

As part of our CSA, on Wednesdays I deliver some shares to members at work. Normally I bring in two shares, but today due to some surplus and other arrangements there were four. Danielle, who does the vast majority of all CSA related work -- I am in charge of corn and potatoes -- picks the shares Wednesday morning before I go to work so that everything is as fresh as possible. This morning when my alarm goes off at 5:45 AM I look out the bedroom window to see a headlamp in the garden. The shortening days mean that Danielle is often out in the dark picking produce so that I can beat the traffic. The fact that there were four shares to pick and the drizzling rain did not make this endeavor any easier on her. The produce looked so good all laid out on the kitchen table right before she packed it into the coolers.



Danielle puts a tremendous amount of work into the CSA and our farm in general, all so that we can eat the healthiest most sustainable food possible. I try to make sure that I acknowledge all her hard work and thank her for all the great food we get to eat, but since I am sure I don't do it enough I thought I would say it again here.

I love you honey!

Market Garden -- Update #3

Here is what the market garden looked like last night. We were lucky enough to get over an inch of rain last Thursday on top of the half inch or so we received over the last two weeks. Thanks to the rain things are finally starting to green up a little. We are still in drought conditions but at least the plants are growing some and the pastures are starting to recover. The rain also has the weeds growing again, so we need to get on top of them before they start to take over.

The first two plantings of corn had good yields, however the corn worm pressure is increasing so we will have to try to stave them off to save the last couple of plantings. We are leaving the stalks in place until they dry out, then we will harvest them and put them up in the barn for winter feed. I have hand dug most of the Yukon Gold potatoes and while they still taste great their yield has been abysmal. I need to get the tractor in with the potato plow to get the rest this weekend.



For comparison here are the photos from July 21^st



July 3^rd



and June 19^th