Off-Grid in West Virginia

Sunday

Linda

Its that time of year again. Time to sweep off the dowdy cobwebs of winter and swing into the season of renewed life. The daffodils are ready to pop open and the trees are just starting to form buds. The farm is recovering from the last flood and is in need of a drastic makeover.

Yesterday morning we ventured outside wearing coats but shed them within an hour. The sun had warmed our blood and drew it up like the sap of a maple tree.

On Saturday Sonny helped Bill plow up his garden for the first time. Its going to be so exciting to watch thier new property turn into a little farm and watch as they become more self sustainable. Bill returned the favor yesterday and came over to help Sonny get our garden plowed.

We planned to extend our garden this year so the first thing they did was remove both ends of the fencing. While they were working on that I started raking up the debris and rocks that washed into the yard. The farm definitely needs a lot of cleanup.

Rake and Stones

Sonny still had the scraper blade attached to the tractor. He had been trying to smooth out some of the water damage in the driveway. I could hear the sounds of beating and banging down at the pole barn as he and Bill tried to loosen the pins to remove it. Sometimes its a job to remove one piece of equipment off the tractor and put on another one. With the plow now attached Sonny was now off to plow the garden.

Changing out the scraper blade for the plow.

Sonny plowing.

First Swipe.

We extended the garden out toward the house a couple of yards and also plowed another small area up close to the house. We hope to put in more potatoes than last year and I would like to try to grow a few melons as well as our usual array of vegetables.

I called Paula and Nellie to come over and have lunch with us. I made homemade pizza and salad. The day was so beautiful that we set the table up on the porch and enjoyed our lunch outside. Good friends, sunshine, hard work and good food. The simple things in life that make it worth living.

Sap update:

Last week we dropped off 115 gallons of sap to TwoLynn’s Farm. Yesterday we collected another 81 gallons. I would imagine this will be just about the last for the season as it is beginning to warm up.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 12th, 2012 at 8:27 am and is filed under Off-Grid. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.