Perspiration and Inspiration

  It has been a full two months since I posted and I have been wondering if anyone following our blog has wondered if the blogging is over and we have admitted defeat in our urban farming effort. I often refer the moons in my posts as they have a certain relevance to hunters and farmers. To put things in perspective the full worm, full pink and full strawberry moons have passed and the full buck moon is just ten days away. The full buck moon is when the male deer start growing their antlers in response to fall and the coming rut and when hunters start scouting and planning the next harvest of meat for the coming winter. It seems winter has just left and summer not yet arrived, the spring was cold and dry and the gardens have suffered as a result of our fickle New England weather. Fall and winter are on the minds of those who hunt, trap and grow things for food and they are coming. Trappers are already taking inventory of their supplies and dying traps for the coming season, hunters are scouting for the perfect spot to place a deer stand and I am aware as I transplant our brussel spout seedlings that they are small for this time of year.
   This year has been difficult and I have had many more orders for rabbits than I have had rabbits. The unyielding cold of winter gave way to a dry spring, I planted over one hundred onion sets and twenty-five sweet potato slips but less than twenty-five percent survived. We lost rabbit kits to unusually cold spring nights and have questioned whether it's worth the effort but we after all have decided to be farmers. To say I have had more perspiration than inspiration is an understatement. Things have not gone as I envisioned them going and it has been a struggle but I started this blog so you could follow our successes and failures and so now I have shared them both.
    Things have taken a turn for the better and we have had several litters of kits since the misses of two months ago. I have just about given up on keeping alive the line of Chase our first buck and now have two bucks vying to replace him. I loved that guy,which may have been a downfall in recognizing a faulty line but now I have two great looking bucks to sire future generations of rabbits. We harvested only a bit of asparagus and let the rest go but it was a step in the right direction. The remaining sweet potato slips are growing well and if they continue we still may harvest seventy pounds of sweet potatoes this year. The kale is gang-busters along with green peppers and squash. The chickens arrived a month ago and while we are still waiting for eggs they have provided a source of entertainment on our little farm. Things are beginning to click on the farm, we are making adjustments which we are learning is what farming is all about, but we we persist. Perspiration and inspiration almost feel like the same thing at this point, keep following us because we are dedicated to this mission and we will have what we set out to have, the best meat, eggs and produce the one little 1/10 of an acre patch can produce.