First Night on the Farm

I spent my first night out at the farm this week :) I haven't moved in yet, I was just camping for the night, but it was still very exciting! We stayed in the trailer though, which is still floor-less on one side, but on the other side, it's pretty nice... just a bit dirty... but for camping it's great!

I stayed out there this week because we were building the hoop houses for the tomatoes and were trying to get three built in four days (which we accomplished but it was a lot of work!) We worked until 8 at night and then were up and working again by 8 in the morning. They turned out great!

Staying the night let me experience things that you really can't during the day. We were working until it started getting dark but thankfully we stopped in time to fully experience the sun set. I was so entranced by it that I completely forgot about taking pictures, for which I am now kicking myself! We got to walk down to the lake and watch the sunlight reflecting off of the water, and in that beautiful lake we saw beavers! We had been trying to keep an eye out for them sense last week when we spotted some chewed up branches and beaver channels in the tall grass. A beaver channel is where they dig out a path so they can get to food sources more easily. Here's a nifty video about beavers if you're interested :) My partner is really into using beavers to restore ecosystems, so I've been learning a lot about all the awesome stuff they do. Their dams create an incredibly diverse habitat that acts as a nursery for lots of different species and can help regulate rivers so they flow steadily all year round. They're basically amazing, so getting to see them at the farm was pretty darn cool.

When we were all getting ready to get to sleep (in the trailer all locked up) we heard a pack of coyotes! That was exciting! At first I couldn't tell for sure if they were coyotes or screaming children, they have a high pitched screech, but then they started barking so that was easy to tell. We were pretty certain that there were two packs or a pack and a single coyote that were on opposite sides of the lack and trying to get to each other. They barked and howled back and forth across the water getting closer and closer to us until they met up and headed back away. It was good to learn early on that they like hanging around the valley at night, so I'll have to be careful. That will probably be easy though with no electricity so once it gets dark, there really wont be any reason to stay awake. Late night bathroom runs will be tricky...