The early morning quiet of the Palermo countryside is disrupted by the low rumbling of an engine.  Growling like Kingdom Come, the juggernaut crests the hill.  Is it an Abram’s?  A Panzer?  It is a Ford F350 from the Great American Pump Company bringing in our new 3000 gallon tank.  I am as giddy as a tweenager at a Hannah Montana concert.

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Dustin and Daniel do a great job making the pad and hooking up the new tank to our existing irrigation system.  They also gave us the time to work on our starts and insulation in the field shed.  This is work I don’t mind outsourcing.

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After they left we started refilling the line.  The water was coming out slow.  I reasoned that it was because I did not have a vent at the head of the main irrigation line and the last manifold where air could leave the system was still about 40 or 50 feet below the tank.  So any remaining air would have to fight past hundreds of gallons of water in the line and the tank to leave and be replaced by water.

I could build a “T” at the point where the tank line meets the irrigation line to create a vent.  I could put a valve on this vent to let the air escape there instead of past the water in the tank.  The upward stretching pipe would need to be taller than the waterline in the tank or it wouldn’t do any good (It would fill with water from the tank.).  That means I would either need a pretty tall pipe for my vent, which would be vulnerable unless I braced it a lot, or did my venting when the tank was low.

As much fun as all of this is (I often call our farm “20 acres of math problems”), I know I won’t be bleeding our system very often.  I can simply disconnect the tank line from the irrigation main and let the water pour in like water from a ewer (Crossword puzzle word!).  It takes about 10 to 15 minutes.  Work on the mindfulness.

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The insulation in the field shed is made from recycled blue jeans.  Aside from being more sustainable, it is much easier to work with.  We camp in the field shed so we can have longer work days in  tougher weather.  This stuff is making it more comfortable.

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The trees would cut capers on the forecastle if they could.  They are loving the cycle of rain and warm, rain and warm, and we get another one coming up this week.  We had planned four workdays to take care of the tank along with our other work, but with it done we can start the rabbit fence earlier.

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Last year we built a deer fence from 80 pound test fishing line.  It worked.  We were very happy with that.  The rabbits are another issue.  Cursing at them does not seem to work.  We’ll be building a fence for them.

I got an email from our CCOF inspector.  She’ll be out in the area half past April and wants to do our inspection then.  I thought the CCOF process would take longer and we would have produce sooner, but was wrong on both counts.  It’s a business decision to keep the certification current instead of letting it lapse and start again.

Angela, the tomatoes survived!  I wouldn’t recommend what we did as a Best Practice, but there might be something to part of it.

This is our daughter, Robin.  In addition to being a 4H All-star and wunderkind, she’s a checker at the local organic food store.  We are so proud (sniff!).  And we get a discount!

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It’s the little things that make you happy most often.   But sometimes a big thing will do it too. We have a 600’main irrigation line that runs down the middle of our growing field with manifolds every 60 feet.  We built it in the wet season of 2007/2008.  By built I mean we dug the trench by hand, laid the pipe, tested, fixed, and buried it again.  It was good work to do while it was too wet to stuff on the straw bale field shed.  And boy, are we glad to have it now! … Read the rest of this article »

This past Wednesday, in the middle of an irrigation cycle, I turned around and noticed that the sprinklers were no longer running.  This led to instant panic, as I ran back and forth between the well and the meter searching for the cause.  I’ve been up on my utility bills, so I had no reason to suspect a shut-off, but after a prompt service visit from Don Watson of Abbey Water Well, this was the conclusion. I called PG&E that evening, and it turns out that when I switched the service… Read the rest of this article »

A couple of months ago I had written a post about the onion patch, describing how I was still figuring out the water holding of my soil and had under-watered my main spring-planted onion crop in the weeks after transplanting.  Well, we’re now at the time of year that I should be harvesting these onions, and most of them have barely formed bulbs.   Onions are day length sensitive, and need to begin swelling bulbs while the days are still getting longer.  While they definitely put on more… Read the rest of this article »

We have a Heat Advisory in effect for Palermo until early next week.  That means we won’t be on ladders working on the field shed this Saturday.  I’m helping my dad move from Colusa (106 degrees.  Why would he want to leave?) to Forbestown, so I can still swing by and fill the water tank on my way back to the Bay Area. Okay.  A few things: I love the Bay Area.  I am one of a comparatively small number of people who was actually born in San Francisco and my love for… Read the rest of this article »

Today was a hard day in general: low moral, hot temperatures, issues with the water.  We were thinning the parsnips and noticed that water wasn’t coming out of our irrigation system all that well.  So we hiked up the hill and checked on our pond.  The pond is fed by a spring, and it looked pretty good although the wall was a bit broken down in one spot.  We mucked it out a bit, and went back down.  This resulted in some sediment in the piping, which was irritating. Anyway, we talked today… Read the rest of this article »

Test fields are not fun.  Here is why: 1. They are little.  If they go well, you wish you planted more.  If they do poorly you end up telling yourself, “I could kill a hydrogen atom!  What am I doing with my life?” 2. They are little.  Your peers say, “We just made our first shipment of 24 varieties to Africa!  The famine is over!  President Obama is here to thank us, so I have to go.  We are so excited!”  You say, “We have radishes!  Oh,… Read the rest of this article »

Like all good things in life, I will tell this to my son, you must wait to reap the harvest. This is good advice, dad.  But geeze, 8 months?  is anything worth it.  I like the celery that I am eating now.  I seeded it in the greenhouse in mid-January (actually, Andrea did), planted it out in April.  You know, I wonder if I could have sped up its maturity with tons of water and fertilizer for those first few months, to have celery at the later part of June?  I know for sure that I didn’t… Read the rest of this article »

We have a great opportunity now to protect and restore our waterways - rivers, creeks, streams, lakes and irrigation ways - to pristine, crystaline form. For many years now our society has encouraged building, development, and industry on our waterways.  Now, the time is changing. I have had water issues at the farm this year.  We are irrigating from a well that has reduced its output, and the consequences of not having enough water are real and devastating.  From 1 acre of production, I am now… Read the rest of this article »