August 20, 2009 - Recap II

August 20, 2009 – Recap II
I have gotten increasingly busier as week after week. The poetic part of living in the country is still alive, just the time to register in writing is a bit more complicated. Every morning, specially before 7:00 am, the fresh air, the rising sun among the clouds are spectacular. In the afternoon, the scent of white flower in bloom can be caught in the garden. White flowers are special. They are lime, orange, “cow’s feet”, pitanga, acerola, and even white and purple orchids bloomed before the rain.
It rained hard the last two days. The house is again under the leakage. My father working on harvesting the coffee didn’t have time to rainproof the roof. We are again wearing jackets and boots. But I can’t wait to see my vegetable garden and the fruit trees recently planted grow stronger.
I have been harvesting arugula, parsley, cilantro, green onions, collard greens, salad bowl lettuce for some time. They seem to go for a little longer. I have eaten up all radishes, daikon, beets, and most of the carrots. Tomatoes, brocolli, cauliflower are going to be next to yield. Only zucchini e most of mustard greens got attacked by pests. To control them, I tried to interplant marigolds, parsley, hot peppers, besides spraying the leaves with nehem leaves juice and store bought organic fertilizer. I still have not had courage to use our biofertilizer made of chicken manure, as it smells so strong. And it looks horrifying. I may use it only in trees, not in edible leaves.
It has been a lot of work, but also much pleasure to take care of the garden. At first, I felt lazy to kneel to pluck weeds. This job is not longer a nuisance. It is love.
From the classes I have been taking, the Rural Enterprenership is over. I left with a feasable project of implanting a milk farm. At the same time, I started to attend a course on Pro-Milk, which teaches how-to’s. This is the program I am planning to bring on my farm next year. For that, I am running after Jersey cows and other details in order to get a bank financing for it. I am looking ahead also to start perhaps a small ice cream factory, creamery style. It may be better than cheese factory.