Life on an organic farm is…. Rainy, rainy, rainy.

Those hot days of summer weeding have gone on hiatus, and forced us into another ever so comfortable condition, weeding in the rain. Eric and I spent a good portion of our afternoon weeding in the garden, only to find that the snap peas we were so careful to uncover actually needed the weeds! They give the plants support and which produces a bigger pea pod. It’s hard to resist eating all the snap peas as you go through weeding; they’re so delicious!

Since the pole beans have begun to stretch out over the ground, going well beyond their small seedling stature, Eric and I posted up long sticks in a tee-pee like formation around the beans. These beans were planted in circles, and will need the sticks to twine up around when they really start to grow. This type of vertical gardening if you will, is a great way to produce a lot without taking up space in your yard. So all you bean lovers out there should give it a try! And once the sticks are completely covered with the bean plants, it’ll look like kind of like a Christmas tree! And really, who doesn’t want one of those in their yard?

On a more morbid note, Eric the intern found 5 dead chickens when he went to go feed them yesterday morning. We were unsure of the cause until Eric the farmer caught a raccoon in the coop when he went to close it up last night. It’s more than likely the raccoon played a role in the massacre, but still, chickens were pecking at their dead peers…. When I let them out this morning, instead of flocking right to their food, as they usually do, most strutted right over to where left over feathers sat on the ground…. Also, I noticed more food left over this afternoon… So yea, some funny business goin’ on with the chickens, maybe there’s more food because there’s less of them now, or perhaps it’s because their too full after eating their dead sisters? Who really knows…