At the end of May, I (Linc) flew to Boston and drove up Rt 95 to Maine, then onto Rt 1 along the coast to The Medomak River area to attend his mother's internment ceremony with family. The ceremony brought up more familiar feelings of grief and loss experienced over the last year or two, while at the same time, being with family again stimulated a lot of happiness and healing. The drive up the coast, on a beautiful spring day, smelling the ocean again, and stopping to re-experience familiar sights, sounds and smells, was intoxicating. The following two youtube videos might convey the sense of wonder I felt at the lushness and beauty of the mid-coast region.
The first is of a small stream that flows into a salt water tidal pool off of the Medomak River in Waldoboro, Maine. A few years back, Jeanne and I kayaked up into this pool at high tide during a two day sea kayak exploration of the tidal portion of the Medomak River, part of Muscongus Bay. We're still eating the last of the seaweed that we harvested and dried on that trip!
https://youtu.be/hdbB_kGhpNs
The second is a view out onto a portion of Muscongus Bay from Martin's Point, in Friendship, Maine. The strangely shaped rock in the foreground is known as Lobster Rock (see the resemblance?), the small island offshore is Ram Island, one of many islands that are open to camping as part of the Maine Island Trail, the land across the bay is a two mile-long island called Frienship Long Island, and the white cottage across the road is the Vannah cottage that my family spent summer vacations when we were kids.
https://youtu.be/Cq2kWwYvkwI
The day after Mom's burial, the weather turned to rain, and it rained fairly steadily for the remaining 3 days of the five day trip. That was a good reminder of what led us to move back out to Colorado, and it felt good to get home to the dry, sunny west. Here's our garden in June. We started all of our squash in the cabin greenhouse this year to try to give them a headstart after being decimated by grasshoppers the year before, and they handled the transplanting really well
.
Also, in an effort to keep the slugs, pillbugs and grasshoppers in the garden under control, we introduced ducks and turkeys to the farm this year. The turkeys were spectacular at grasshopper control. The ducks seemed too young to have much of an impact yet, but they sure did enjoy our irrigation reservoir pool whenever we could manage to catch them all and toss them in there (they could walk out on a wooden plank when they wanted, but tended to stay in the pool all day unless we shoo'd them out.
We use a ton of hay mulch in our garden, and get much of it from used goat bedding, but have been realizing that we can always use more, and that someday we might try to grow and put up our own winter hay. Linc bought an old side bar sickle mower, used it to mow a section of field, then borrowed a friend's antique dump rake to try and rake it up into a pile. We started out with the dump rake behind the Toyota pickup, with Linc driving and Gerald in the back pulling the dump cord to drop the raked hay where we wanted it. It must have looked pretty comical t see us driving around the field with Gerald in the back yanking on the dump cord, with the rake clanking, leaving piles of hay scattered around.
While this worked, it seemed really inefficient somehow, so the next step was to try pulling the rake behind our friend Ryan's tractor. That worked better, more maneuverable, and one person could do the job.
But, at best, then we had several big piles of hay that were difficult to move, and we decided to keep our eye out for a more modern setup.
Linc ended up finding a package deal, with a 1950's vintage Massey Ferguson tractor, a ten year old wheel rake, and a 1970's vintage John Deere baler. The tractor needed (and still does) some work, and we have no idea how all of this will work together, but if we have time this coming year, we'll give it all a try. I don't seem to have photos of the rake or baler, but this one below shows a range of technology (1950's tractor, 1960's tractor, and new millenium solar PV.
The first is of a small stream that flows into a salt water tidal pool off of the Medomak River in Waldoboro, Maine. A few years back, Jeanne and I kayaked up into this pool at high tide during a two day sea kayak exploration of the tidal portion of the Medomak River, part of Muscongus Bay. We're still eating the last of the seaweed that we harvested and dried on that trip!
https://youtu.be/hdbB_kGhpNs
The second is a view out onto a portion of Muscongus Bay from Martin's Point, in Friendship, Maine. The strangely shaped rock in the foreground is known as Lobster Rock (see the resemblance?), the small island offshore is Ram Island, one of many islands that are open to camping as part of the Maine Island Trail, the land across the bay is a two mile-long island called Frienship Long Island, and the white cottage across the road is the Vannah cottage that my family spent summer vacations when we were kids.
https://youtu.be/Cq2kWwYvkwI
The day after Mom's burial, the weather turned to rain, and it rained fairly steadily for the remaining 3 days of the five day trip. That was a good reminder of what led us to move back out to Colorado, and it felt good to get home to the dry, sunny west. Here's our garden in June. We started all of our squash in the cabin greenhouse this year to try to give them a headstart after being decimated by grasshoppers the year before, and they handled the transplanting really well
.
Also, in an effort to keep the slugs, pillbugs and grasshoppers in the garden under control, we introduced ducks and turkeys to the farm this year. The turkeys were spectacular at grasshopper control. The ducks seemed too young to have much of an impact yet, but they sure did enjoy our irrigation reservoir pool whenever we could manage to catch them all and toss them in there (they could walk out on a wooden plank when they wanted, but tended to stay in the pool all day unless we shoo'd them out.
We use a ton of hay mulch in our garden, and get much of it from used goat bedding, but have been realizing that we can always use more, and that someday we might try to grow and put up our own winter hay. Linc bought an old side bar sickle mower, used it to mow a section of field, then borrowed a friend's antique dump rake to try and rake it up into a pile. We started out with the dump rake behind the Toyota pickup, with Linc driving and Gerald in the back pulling the dump cord to drop the raked hay where we wanted it. It must have looked pretty comical t see us driving around the field with Gerald in the back yanking on the dump cord, with the rake clanking, leaving piles of hay scattered around.
While this worked, it seemed really inefficient somehow, so the next step was to try pulling the rake behind our friend Ryan's tractor. That worked better, more maneuverable, and one person could do the job.
But, at best, then we had several big piles of hay that were difficult to move, and we decided to keep our eye out for a more modern setup.
Linc ended up finding a package deal, with a 1950's vintage Massey Ferguson tractor, a ten year old wheel rake, and a 1970's vintage John Deere baler. The tractor needed (and still does) some work, and we have no idea how all of this will work together, but if we have time this coming year, we'll give it all a try. I don't seem to have photos of the rake or baler, but this one below shows a range of technology (1950's tractor, 1960's tractor, and new millenium solar PV.
No comments:
Post a Comment