Prairie Cold

Tortuga Thursday

In 2012, on the plains of Northern Arizona, two families joined forces and began the trials and tribulations of building a small family farm with nothing in the bank but love.

A couple of nights ago, an amazing full moon went down over the greenhouse. Wish I had a camera that would do it justice. The skies are so clear and bright here, far away from city lights. I'm usually in awe when I look up to the stars.

It's been cold for such a long spell. We do have sunshine that cuts that cold a bit during the day but with the regular wind, it doesn't always help. Nights are in the twenties so the greenhouse plants are not doing so great. They look alive and green but are stunted in growth. We don't have the finances to equip the structure with proper heating and airflow so we wait. Either they'll grow once the temps go up or they die. No sense planting anything more until we have a continuous upswing on nighttime temps.

Lance did a drastic trim on the orchard. From the looks of the trees, they'd never been properly trimmed. Since we didn't get any fruit this last summer, he decided it couldn't hurt to cut them back. It may be a year or two before we see any fruit again. They look so thin and everything is so dead right now, I wonder if they'll ever come back. Our microclimate is death on fruit anyway. Not sure why the prior owners bothered to plant so many fruit trees.

Frank and Rusty did the clean up on the limbs. At least we'll have firewood now.

No new news on the pickle business. We are waiting for the certificate from the county before we can schedule some farmers markets. Down in the valley they run until May so we have time. Once we have the health certificate, we need insurance and food handlers licenses. Add studying for the license to my list of to-dos.