June 25

Because of the impending bad weather, Ginger went into town today instead of tomorrow. That meant that she had to prepare to leave and I had to gather a list of things to do while she was gone. Ginger and I were able to vacuum package the salmon before she left but after that she was on her way to town (and after spending a good amount of time trying to find her keys). 

Vacuum packager with a fillet of salmon inside.

The first thing I did was pick oregano leaves off the stem to dry and hang some oregano to dry as well. This was a simple but time-consuming task that took until noon. I also crushed up dried egg shells and then placed them around the tomatoes as a source of calcium.  After lunch I took down my laundry, a boring but necessary task. 

In the afternoon Jordan and I finished the guano catcher. This consisted of assembling the supports, taking down the old line, mounting the supports, putting in the copper pole, securing the tin on the top, and then retying the line onto the copper pole. The end product looks great and soon we will have bat guano to use as a nitrogen source for the garden. 

During this time I also watered one of the greenhouses, a pain in the butt to do because the sprinkler doesn’t cover the whole house so I have to move it every two hours. 

After the guano catcher was done I went to clean the chicken station. The station was covered in chicken poop because the chickens roost on a branch hanging over the feed station. Following the cleaning I created a chicken poop catcher out of a piece of tin that can be placed on the food prep table so the table stays clean and the poop can be harvested for a fertilizer in the compost pile. I realize now that today was full of poop collecting projects…interesting. 
 

Completed chicken poop catcher.

I spent a few minutes fixing my honey bucket sign that had broken a few days ago and then went up to the house for dinner. Following dinner, I started a batch of water kefir and added fruit juice for a second fermentation in the other water kefir batch. Water kefir is made of tiny grains that ferment sugar water to make a fizzy drink full of probiotics that’s good for your gut. Today was long but I felt very accomplished.