Twin Oaks Farm - Dec 12, 2009

Thursday Dec. 10, 2009 - This morning is cold and gray but the heavy weather has cleared out, around mid morning the clouds break up and the rest of the day is nice, cool and sunny. The first new task after breakfast is to spread another layer of compost material. Since last weeks processing we have been storing the chicken remains and the veggie clippings from the kitchen have been accumulating, plus we have the peelings from all the mandarin and about two gallons of chicken guano. All need to be added to the compost pile. I pile everything into the trailer of the riding lawnmower, grab two pitch forks and a shovel (just one shovel Richard) and we head out to the compost piles. Since we don't have that much material to add we will just work with the larger of the piles. When we arrive I notice that the pile has shrunk, the decomposition has resulted in the pile shrinking a good 6 inches ... where does it all go I think to myself? We remove the plastic cover and uncover what looks like just a pile of wet leaves which I think is normal since we have been getting so much rain lately. A closer look reveals some mold in one area and a hole with a small burrow next to it. Some small creature has been visiting the pile for some reason, perhaps to eat or to keep warm down within the pile, but they are long gone at this point. We spread out all the various material over the pile, again we don't have that much and it doesn't take long, then replace the cover and move on.
I fill out the remainder of the morning by cleaning eggs, then the noon feeding and we are ready for lunch. All morning Renee has been thawing out large amounts of frozen fruit to make preserves, peach, blueberries, fig, pear and of course we have the mandarin. For the rest of the afternoon she will be busy working inside while I clean out all the buckets and pails that had been holding the chicken remains and other compost material. All the containers need to be cleaned thoroughly with warm soapy water and then sanitized with a 2% chlorine solution, yuck I think, more cleaning, but at least the sun is out to keep me somewhat warm. After a couple of hours everything is cleaned and put away. Now it's 3:00 and time for the afternoon feeding. We had been feeding in the evening at 5:00 but this is right at sunset and the birds stop eating when the sun goes down, so we have moved up the afternoon feeding from 5:00 to 3:00 in an attempt to give them more daylight to eat. Hopefully this will result in heavier broilers and more eggs from the layers. I also collect the chicken eggs for the day and clean them when I get back to the kitchen, we want to get ahead of the game as much as possible because Friday is usually rushed to get everything done and get the van set up for the market on Saturday. Around 5:30 Renee notices that the commercial fridge in the garage isn't keeping temperature so I go outside and stand near the compressor to see what is happening. Sure enough the compressor comes on for about ten seconds and then goes off for about 20 seconds and keeps repeating this cycle continuously. She calls the AC repair company and they are tied up on some emergency for the night and agree to come by in the morning to take a look. Renee moves all the chicken from that fridge to other freezers in the house. I'm thinking this is a big deal but she doesn't seem very worried. I ask her why she even uses the big one since we only have about half of it full at any given time and a couple of good energy star domestic fridges would result in a huge savings in electricity. She agrees but says the problem is a domestic fridge won't hold a temperature down to 34 degrees, that they are only good for around 40 degrees and the difference is very important when keeping the chickens fresh without actually freezing them. I'm scratching my head thinking I should look into this but she assures me she has considered it in depth and if it was possible she would have done it already. Dinner is vegetable soup and a frittata with left over veggies from the other night and duck eggs.

Friday Dec. 11, 2009 - Overnight I peek out the window and see there's not a cloud in the sky, stars everywhere, but when I wake up in the morning the clouds have returned and again it's overall gray and very cold. Like, is this Florida? I feel somewhat closer to the arctic circle than I need to be but I can see all the green trees, so apparently the arctic circle has come to Florida. After breakfast we do the morning feeding and then move each of the coups to their new positions on fresh pasture which will be good until Monday when we move the square. The rest of the day is easy and indoors. Renee has canned an incredible amount of preserves and is behind on the labels, plus she has a special feature for the holidays. She has a simple folded gift tag with the Twin Oaks Farm logo and inside it shows Santa pulling a little sleigh. A cute little extra that she hopes her clients will love. My job is to cut out the printed tags with a cutting knife, fold and then punch a hole in the upper left corner so she can tie each one to a jar of preserves. So that's how I fill my morning and afternoon on top of the feedings. Around 10:00 the AC repairman shows up and takes a quick look at the cooler. It turns out this is a recurring problem in the refrigerant lines connecting the compressor to the evaporator, there's a small pinhole size leak or crack or something .. somewhere .. and ultimately the copper lines will have to be replaced, but that will take down the refrigerator for a day or so which requires the stars to align in a certain way which is yet to happen. The work around is to recharge the system with refrigerant and get it back in service for a couple more weeks or months and work on getting those stars to align. Ten minutes later the fridge is back in service. After lunch I just have to load the van with all the stuff needed for the farmers market so in the morning all Renee has to do is load up the coolers and head out. Short day. After everything is set I'm loaded up and on my way to Tallahassee.