Autumn begins in New Mexico

Wild Chickens of New Mexico

Fall is beginning here in New Mexico. I can feel the chill in the air in the morning and on one cloudy day I felt it in the middle of the afternoon. There is a potential for a frost in a couple of weeks. We are harvesting like crazy and trying can as much as possible. We have also been selling produce at the Pojaque Valley farmer's market and making a little extra cash.

I am planning on staying here through the winter and probably next summer as well. This winter I'll be helping with seed cleaning and learning a lot about seed saving. I also have plans for a permanent chicken coop and brewing my own biodiesel for our tractor. Next summer will be the start of a new era on the Seeds of Change research farm. As a group we are determined to make sure this farm looks like and functions as a sustainable, community-based farm. One of the main reasons that I want to stay here is because I have the oppurtunity to live on this farm and treat my job as a lifestyle choice rather than just a job.

It finally got too hot!

It finally got so hot here on the farm that I decided to remove my facial hair. I promised that I would document the process, so here are the results. First, I tried mutten chops. It looked slightly outdated though so I kept on cutting.

WARNING: For those of you who met me in the last 3 years the following picture might be shocking!

It feels very weird to have no hair on my face. Actually, I had to leave a little bit because I couldn't bring myself to cut it all off.

New Pictures

Bees

The chickens are here

Yesterday morning I got a call from the post office letting me know that the baby chicks I had ordered arrived. Twenty-eight baby chicks, less than a week old, arrived from central NM in a box smaller than a shoe box. It was a long and scary ride but most of them made it through in good shape. Right now they are living in our basement on a bed of wood shavings under a heat lamp. They are destined to live on the farm and graze in the fields, the good life for a chicken. I plan is to have a mobile chicken coop built for them within a few weeks.

Journal entry, May 12

Sitting outside on the farm, watching and listening to the night begin. It is the darkest part of dusk, but the day has not yet ended. There is still light to see across the fields. The day ends with a roll call of all the creatures up and down the Rio Grande. The dogs and coyotes start it and today it travelled north past me just before I saw the first bat come out. Along the way guineas, roosters, and anything else that feels like it chimes in. I think they are proclaiming their territory.
Then the first star comes out and the night begins...