Lots of weeds, planting like crazy and tractor blow-up!

Photos - The Garlic Fields, Goose Parade, and Planting Lettuce....


So I think I mentioned this blog would chronicle the "trials and tribulations" of Willowood Farm. This past week has definitely been one of those! This time of year, Farmer Georgie (yeah, that's me, cheesy I know but it fits), has been getting a little "frantic" about #1 the HUGE amount of weeds that are threatening to take over our hard fought for plantings and #2 the HUGE amount of planting still left to do!
Started with great plants to tackle all issues and the first thing that happened - TRACTOR BLOW-UP! This almost always tends to happen when my number one employee and mechanic (my father) leaves on his sailboat (to get away from me, I think, and my endless amount of chores for him!). I was able to figure out how to get off the broken part - hydraulic hose, "blew a gasket" - literally - and determine I will have to go on some convoluted tractor part search in the greater Mount Vernon area to have it replaced...And that's as far as I got. Ended up "punting" and using my other tractor rigged a bit unusually with some field prep tools and, viola, was able to get the field ready for planting after all! Meanwhile, the upside of this, since I couldn't get my team busy planting I put them to weeding! (Always SOMETHING to do on the farm)...
And, because they are in this for the long haul, they agreed to humor me on my "late-night" planting push and we spent Thursday evening (6 to 8:30), getting in the lettuce starts.
End of week tally? 4,250 row feet planted including nearly 2000 lettuce starts and about 3000 row feet weeded plus food picked and delivered.
So, not so bad in the end afterall. Now just have to keep it up - until December!