I woke up on Saturday morning around 7:00 am, got the farm chores out of the way, and then headed out to one of our local farmer's markets with my mother and stepfather. The Countryside Conversancy market was the first one to open this year, so I figured I'd give them a shot - this is my first season of farmer's markets in my new home, so I haven't quite scoped out my favorites yet.
It turned out to be a great market. It was held in a huge field along a State Park, with volunteers directing traffic for parking, and vendors sprawled out along the field in long rows. The atmosphere was casual and friendly, with a live band playing and lots of laughter and chatting to be heard. I brought Bandit along, who thoroughly enjoyed the trip and made lots of new friends. He is a very shy dog, but by the end of the morning, he was actually making a pest of himself, approaching everyone within reach.
We came home with a tote bag full of fresh, grass-fed beef and buffalo hamburger patties, a dozen pastured, free-range eggs, a basket of monster heirloom Brandywine tomatoes, a bunch of spinach, one of the biggest heads of brocolli I've ever seen, a bag full of wonderfully sweet and crisp snap peas, homemade goat's milk fudge, and homemade chevre. There is really nothing like a farmer's market!
When we got back, we grilled up the hamburgers, and had unexpected company drop in for lunch. The hamburgers were absolutely delicious, and the spinach tossed in a homemade sweet-and-sour dressing was terrific too. Of course, everything tastes better when eaten under sunshine, and with good company to boot.
After lunch, we got to work on the new compost bins. I'd been composting all autumn and winter, but the pile that was sprawled out behind the coop was getting unruly, hungrily eating up the lawn as it spread bigger and bigger. Not to mention that turning it daily was a messy job, and just served to make the place look even more disheveled.
To solve the problem, I designed a 3-bin system behind the barn that allows for seperate composting stages: active (adding new material), curing (already full, just letting it cook), and finished (just like it sounds, storage of the finished compost ready to use). My stepfather and I hauled nearly 100 cement paving stones into place to form the base, then built the timber frame on top. The dimensions of the system are 10' long x 8' deep x 4' tall - plenty of space to accomodate lawn clippings, chicken shavings, fall leaves and whatever else might get thrown in there.
The worst part of the job was actually heaving the compost pile from its old location into the bin. I'm sure I lost about 5 pounds in sweat over a two-hour period of shoveling and raking. Byron came out later in the day and planted new grass seed where the pile had been, so hopefully by the end of the week, new green shoots will be poking through once again.
After all this work, I was really, really happy to have a hammock to come home to. Bandit and I just kinda flopped up onto it together, and I think I was out the minute my head hit the ropes. I don't know how long I napped, but by the time I woke up, my family had come back from their own chores, and we spent the night out at the fire pit eating fudge, pretzels, and buffalo jerky.
If only all weekends could be quite this good!
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