Just Another “Day Off” on the Farm

It is Saturday, not just any Saturday but a Saturday that I have entirely off.  I usually work my “off farm” job on Saturdays and very seldom get it off. But it is the 4^th of July holiday weekend, and everyone has had plans so here I am on a Saturday with the day off.

Except I live on a farm, and when a person has a day job and owns a farm, a day off your day job means you can spend it working on the farm. That is the reality of farm life. 

So, what did I do today on my “day off?” I spent the day cleaning up the strawberry patch. You see, some strawberries send out little streamers or stems that look like tiny vines and those vines have tiny strawberry plants searching for dirt to hang on to. Well, my patch is in a raised bed and those streamers went over the walls of the bed and embedded strawberry plants into the grass between the beds. Now that has caused a couple of problems. First of all, I didn’t want to mow between the beds until I got those little plants out of there. (Free strawberry plants anyone? Yes, ma’am I want free plants).

However, I have been so busy at my day job that it wasn’t until now that I could pull these baby strawberry plants out and the grass between my beds is waist high. So now we must find those plants among the grass.

strawberries in the weeds

My husband and I dug up those suckers and then I replanted them into pots so I could have more strawberry plants.

strawberries transplanted into pots

But during the process we heard a noise, and a momma bird flew out of the tall grass. What do you think was in the tall grass? Yep, baby birds so now we couldn’t disturb them so we could only do the one strawberry bed because we don’t want to disturb the baby birds. I am now stuck with two beds with large weeds and grass between them because we must wait for the baby birds to grow up. Frustrating, but cool at the same time. This is what having a small farm is like. Just when you think you are getting something done something gets in the way of finishing the project.

It can be as simple as not having the right part to finish the project or a baby bird nest you don’t want to disturb.

I, however, would not want it any other way.  Life is too short to fuss about small delays. It is just life. I just move on to another project that probably won’t be finished because something will cause me to stop or delay it. Oh well, here’s to unfinished projects and a beautiful messy life. Happy 4th of July week

Vivian