Holiday Weekend Does Not Equal Vacation

Don't let the cover photo fool you, things were quite busy the last few days here on the farm. We are two days into the 'arctic apocalypse' that the weather man predicted. So far the temps haven't dropped into the 20's as predicted, and this morning they are hovering right at 30 degrees. We don't normally get temps in the 20's for several days in a row, so with the help of some friends I managed to remain proactive and do a few things to protect the crops from the impending doom that still hasn't arrived.

The biggest of those things was to move all my fabric pots into the greenhouse. I say biggest because it is the one that involved the largest amount of labor. Between my friend who brought two of his daughters with him, my wife, and my tractor, we were able to move everything into the greenhouse in a couple of hours.

For the last two evenings a 53,000 BTU kerosene heater has been all that is required to keep my 600 square foot greenhouse above freezing. The only thing I dislike about this hear is that being new my OCD tendencies has gotten me up several times during the night and wee hours of the morning to check on it. It's working flawlessly by the way.

Other major projects involved building a lean to greenhouse for the vertical aquaponics system, and adding a cover to the lettuce grow bed of my main aquaponics system. I'll cover those projects in their own posts.

Finally there was the eating. It wouldn't be New Years without my wife's traditional greens and black eyed peas. What a wonderful reward for all the hard work over the holiday. I truly love that woman! The coolest thing about the meal? Well, the greens were picked fresh minutes before they went into the pot, and the green tomato casserole use up the last of the green tomatoes we picked a couple weeks ago when the unexpected snow put an end to our tomato season.

I'll have to say, the icing on the cake for the whole weekend was last night's super moon. It was absolutely freezing out last night for this Texan, but boy was it a pretty sight. Nothing more amazing than witnessing the hand of God at work on this little blue dot we call home.

Happy New Year to all!