This week that phrase is being uttered around the farm both sincerely and sarcastically.
Empty bed, where lettuce had been!
Tuesday morning Andrew was greeted by some major gaps in the hoophouse plantings. An entire 10 ft section of Rouge d’Hiver lettuce plants had been harvested to the ground. This wasn’t the work of some eager colleagues, but rather, “our little rodent friends”, were filling their coffers, apparently they like the red lettuce best. But they aren’t that picky, they did start in on the green leaf lettuce before they got stopped by either exhaustion or Andrew’s arrival.
Lettuce leaves stashed near the exit
A fairly neat pile of lettuce leaves were left near the newest tunnel they had built under our hoophouse edge. I guess they ran out of time to move them to their little underground fridge. All winter Andrew has been diligently keeping critters at bay, but with the thawed ground the word apparently spread like wildfire among the shrews and voles that our lettuce is tender and lovely. Fortunately lots of other greens are untouched, but a bit of a set back for the lettuce.
The whole scene, green leaf lettuce left, the stashed pile of green leaves and the vacant section that had been Rouge d’Hiver lettuce.
On the positive side, the first batch of chicks of the year just arrived! They are cute little balls of chirping fluff. These little friends are a bit scared of us right now, we do seem like big monsters I guess, and given the words we have had for the rodentia family, we may even sometimes sound like monsters. But soon they will learn that we bring food and fresh pasture.
Uno studying the new chicks
And milking queen Grace Kelly, a not so little friend, got her 5 minutes of fame on Sunday as Dexter Rowe broadcasted live from the farm on Norwich’s Dog River Radio (WNUB) as part of NOFA-VT’s CSA Open House Day. She is now considering a career shift to radio. Perhaps it can be her retirement plan.
Grace, the radio star