Quarter Year

Azure dancing in a field of shit.

Luckily, Azure and I were there to help shovel the chicken shit that fertilized the potato bed. We probably helped them catch up by a full day or two (it was a lot of shit – six inches deep over about 1000 square feet), and once the manure was on the ground they were ready to plant.

Azure also followed up to help cover the accidentally exposed potatoes.

Didier drove the tractor while the three oldest kids planted. The thing they were sitting on would split the row, the kids would drop the potato into a little shaft (all at the same time, so the rows would be neat), then another piece of the equipment would cover the row back up.

Leon covering the potatoes.

Because the manure was mixed with hay, sometimes the machine wasn’t able to push the soil back over the potatoes completely. Leon, one of the twins, followed behind and did quality control by hand.

They were pretty focused on this task. It’s important to do it right – Gabriel said they get 1.5 TONS of potatoes every year.

Riding.

Didier wants to get horses or oxen or something to pull the equipment so they don’t have to rely on oil to farm. The only opposition I have to large families is that there’s already too many people on this planet and our modern lives are already seriously straining the natural systems. But this family of ELEVEN – combined – puts a much smaller strain on the environment than even one person living in the modern fashion.

Alice always managed to find the sunlight.

When all was said & done, it didn’t take them long at all to do the actual planting – well under half a day. It was the manure that took the longest. Suzanne said that if it bothers you to work with manure then you can’t be a successful farmer – it’s the most important link in the cycle.