Ohiofarmgirl's Adventures in The Good Land is largely a fish out of water tale about how I eventually found my footing on a small farm in an Amish town. We are a mostly organic, somewhat self sufficient, sustainable farm in Ohio. There's action and adventure and I'll always tell you the truth about farming.


Monday, April 4, 2016

24* and an Alberta Clipper

Yeah so that whole "winter is over" thing was just a big fake out. After about a week of being in shorts and having the windows open... winter came back.

I was really worried about the peach blossoms. They might be OK. 

Everything was going great until it wasn't. We had a particularly cold morning yesterday. Today it was better but we'll have another round of cold. Luckily we didn't actually get any snow - but I know folks who did.

What about my onions and potatoes? They are fine. But I'm glad that I didn't try and get more planting done. I put in a few peas and they seem to be OK also.

The weird thing was the wind - we have had very high sustained winds for the last couple days. They call this kind of storm an Alberta Clipper. It's when very cold air whooshes down from Canada. It's kind of exciting. And by 'exciting' I mean that everything is blowing all over the yard and all the dogs are nervous. Today we'll have more of the same.

This is an extremely frustrating time of the year - I just want to be outside and get the season going. But nothing I can do outside will matter because the seeds won't start.... and if they did they wouldn't get far. What about the greenhouse? Our over night low of 24* is a pretty hard freeze even for the greenhouse.

So I wait. Impatiently.

What am I doing instead? Working on a ton of annoying cleaning projects inside the house and out in the garage. I'm doing a terrible job but I'm chipping away at it.

When people ask me what I miss about my old life I always say the same thing - I miss my cleaning lady. I loved her so much. So... soooo much....  But now I'm living like a barbarian and have to clean my own house. I'd rather just live outside than have to deal with the detailed cleaning that we need right now. I even had to order some specialty cleaning products... hum... I should tell you about that... maybe tomorrow.

Anyway,  that's what has been going on. Cleaning, cursing the stupid winter that needs to leave, and waiting for spring to really get here.

Happy Monday everyone! Are you still having too-cold-to-garden weather or are you in the clear?


7 comments:

collieguy said...

Today going to steal just enough time from tax prep to put kale, spinach and lettuce in the ground.

collieguy said...

Froze again last night.

Vera said...

You have found my fantasy....and that is to have a cleaning lady so I can get outside more. However...... it is highly likely that I would clean the house before the cleaning lady arrived!

. said...

Same deal here in Pennslytucky. Serious worries for the Farmers to our west- two freezing nights in a row can't be good for the Apple Orchards, and that's mostly what's raised in the foothills of our mountains.

PJ said...

We are having great weather. Working on getting the family garden going out at my brother's. I have some starts going in my greenhouse and a few meat chickens growing in there too. They will get moved out soon as they are bigger.

Ohiofarmgirl said...

CollieGuy - i'm hoping to get stuff planted soon. but i actually have some kale left from last year still growing - can you believe that?

ha! Vera, i never pre-cleaned... i just left more money in relation to how bad the house was - ha! ;-)


" . " - ohmigosh! that puppy face! our apples always seem to be ok. i think it's because they bloom later?

PJ - how are your meats doing?? what do you think of the project so far? are they as stinky as you imagined?

David said...

I was wondering how your peach trees were coping... nothing budding out here yet. Saturday was crazy, 50 mph winds, snow, hail, bright sunshine. Nothing planted yet. Maybe row covers in greenhouse will get you safely by, Coleman says it adds two zones, and perhaps for spinach, and other cold lovers it would work?

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