We have a culvert by our house where a seasonal waterway flows, usually only in the spring and occasionally in a wet fall. The kids and I have investigated it a number of times, and we’re pretty sure the headwaters of our “stream” are a beaver dam north of us in the woods.
The culvert, like many things on the farm, marks the passing of time and seasons, and this year it is a measure of how much rain we continue to get. In the springtime, we can hear the first murmurs of meltwater as the first thaw channels its way through the ice in the culvert. Then the murmur grows until that first night when we open the windows and hear the familiar sound of spring rushing through the culvert. With the flow of spring water come the first sunny days and the irresistible combination of running water, sand and dirt, and bare feet.
Just about the time summer is getting hot enough that we wish we had a swimming option really close to home, the culvert dwindles from its nighttime gurgle to a summer drip, and eventually, it’s completely dry. Some years, the drainage is so dry that when the cattle graze, their hooves barely leave a mark.
However, this year, the rain has been constant. Just when we thought we’d seen the wettest times behind us and a week of sun and warmth allowed most farmers in the area to cut hay, we returned to the usual pattern of heavy rain this week. We had 2.3 inches of rain this week, with some heavy storms, and the culvert is singing like it is spring.
After one particularly vigorous storm and a power outage, we discovered that our fence energizer, which generates the zap on all our electric fences, was no longer working. Pigs are the most curious of the animal groups, and they were the first to find their fences were much more flexible than the day before. We did some shuffling of fence energizers from one side of the road to another, got the pigs back where they belong, and I made a few calls to some places that can repair such things. Can you see the burnt parts of the circuit board above? Something fried it so much you can see large scorched sections. I want to know, was it lightning that fried it by hitting the fence? Or a power surge that came in through the plug? A better detective than I will hopefully shed some light on the matter.
In what I think was an unrelated event, our farm store refrigerator also died. That fridge was a $100 purchase from a neighbor in 2014 who was cleaning out the basement, so I’m impressed it lasted as long as it did. After a few days with no refrigerator, some friends and neighbors lent us a spare fridge they happened to have! Thank you for the loaner, Bridget and Alyx.
Freezer Update
The big freezer, who has yet to find a name better than “the big freezer,” is finally up and running! After weeks of delays, false starts, bad wiring, faulty start capacitors, undersized contactors, and more, we have a freezer with shelves that is ready to be filled and organized. This week, we will consolidate our inventory from storage and two other smaller freezers into one big freezer. Hurray! I am excited to share how it goes.
The freezer will help us manage inventory to make sure we can fill the orders we say we can fill and not have to call and apologize for not having what you ordered, possibly making a substitution. We will be able to visually see inventory, rather than relying on spreadsheets, and we will have much more storage, allowing us to keep more products in stock year-round.
We know fall is coming in our house when we have cabbage and yogurt crepes for dinner 🙂
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