meanwhile, back at the farm...

Spring is well underway, and we here at the farm are deeply in thrall. Davey and I both have become obsessed with planting and growing. He spent the last week tilling up a massive area for growing corn and pumpkins. And then he made the mistake of letting me have a hand in the planting, so now it's also got squash and zucchini and cucumbers and pole beans. (But I swear, I'm measuring this time!! I will NOT overcrowd! Scout's honor!) Tonight we're putting in a row of scallions and tomatoes, and even though it's really too late in the season, I'm thinking of planting some beets. Oh, and canteloup.. and.. and.. See what I mean?
We also got our pasture mowed by Davey's dad, and the whole place looks so great. We really need to get a tractor, but we're trying (HA!) to save for one and pay cash, and not go into debt. In the meantime, we're having to rely on the help of family to keep this place from getting out of hand. I kind of like that it's a community effort.
Up here at the house I'm having loads of fun puttering around in my little vegetable garden, planting flowers, and sorting my ridiculously large collection of herb seeds, trying to figure out how I can possibly make enough space up here to plant them all. I have a secret obsession with herbs, whether for culinary or medicinal use... I just find them freakin' intoxicating. Seeds in general appeal to my love of collecting little things - like beads and rocks and shells. I may never get them all planted, but you can bet I had a jolly good time sorting them into piles and dreaming of growing them. It's the simple things. Really it is.

Oh, and we also got some new critters over the weekend - turkeys! We picked up 2 turkey poults at the animal market, a Bronze and a Royal Palm, which I named Thanksgiving and Christmas, respectively. They're going to be delicious! But right now they're just tiny little things, and kinda cute. Thanky is especially friendly, too. He runs up to say hi every time I open the door to the coop. The little guy is fearless. This does not help my resolve to eat him in about 6 months. Oh dear.
We got a couple of quail as well, and again, tiny and cute!! It's kind of ironic that I don't want to eat things that are cute, but I also don't want to eat things that are ugly either... Oh dear.
We're also seriously considering how we can raise goats, both meat and dairy... especially with regards to containment, since goats are notoriously talented escape artists, and the local dogs are notoriously fond of goat for dinner. We're also looking into rabbits. I've never eaten goat, or rabbit, but I'm interested in anything that will reduce the grocery bill and our reliance on packaged food. And I've heard from fairly reliable sources that both are quite tasty. Of course, I heard the same thing about squirrel, and I found that to be VERY untrue. Oh dear.

We also decided over the weekend that worm farming seems pretty straightforward. Poop + rotten hay = earthworms. HUGE earthworms. Hundreds of earthworms. Anybody wanna go fishing? :)

of rain and cow poop

Rain wears a different dress for me now. Used to be that I only saw rain as a beach-day spoiler, at least for the 20 minutes it took to blow through (ah, summer afteroon thundershowers!). Now I find myself grateful for rain, even hopeful for it, because it means that my garden will be getting much-needed water (this is made even more imortant by the fact that we don't have cold water that actually runs, but that's another story for another time). Admittedly, I don't like it when our front pasture looks like this:

but I do love a nice spring shower. I even find myself planning my endeavors around the weather, not in hopes that it won't rain, but that it will. Yesterday I spent the day transplanting some flowers from my mom's garden to mine, knowing that sometime today we were due some rain, which would help all my transplants thrive. It's nice to look out the window and get a little thrill of joy when raindrops start to fall. I can't wait for flowers to bloom and tomatoes to grow. All my little seedlings are happy today, and so am I.

My mom and I had a similar conversation yesterday about poop. I mean, who ever thought that cow dookie would be so exciting?! I love being able to say, "Oh, you need compost? I've got all the compost you need, just bring a shovel!" Seriously, I get downright giddy thinking of scooping all the poop our cow generates and putting it in my garden (I got a pitchfork and a wheelbarrow for Christmas!). Black Gold, indeed.

The new baby chicks are here, and they are so, so cute. I'm pretty excited about these little guys (or girls - they're all straight run so we won't know what we've got for at least a month or two). We found a lady breeding and selling locally, and she had some varieties that I've been wanting to get, like Welsummers and Cuckoo Marans. This means that we'll get some DARK brown eggs. Got more Ameracaunas, too, so I'm trying again for blue/green egg layers. We also got a Sicilian Buttercup, which I've been told is extremely rare. I'm thinking that Buttercup is not for eating. Since we don't have any full size chickens left, we're brooding them out in the coop, and they seem very happy with the setup. I have very high hopes for this batch of chicks. Now we just need to get the chicken run all fixed up and doggy-proofed for them.

I'm also getting really excited about the garden this year (not so much today, since it's pouring rain. Looks like my brilliant plan to put the seedlings in the ground before the storm was supposed to hit tonight is kaput.)
Davey and I spent the weekend creating two more beds to plant in, so I'll be able to grow a lot more this year. I'm notorious for trying to crowd too much into my garden beds anyway. I'm trying really hard to control that impulse, because it makes harvesting so much more difficult when you have to hack your way thru a jungle of tomato vines to get anywhere. I'm pretty hyped about the prospect of growing pickling cucumbers and cantaloupes on a trellis. Amazing what a girl can accomplish when she's not pregnant and puking all the time! Also, it looks like I will finally get my herb garden I've been wanting so badly. I'd love to be able to quit buying most of them from the store and just use fresh. It's always been my goal to eliminate supermarket shopping as much as possible. If I could get everything we can't grow from the Mennonite market, I'd be a happy girl. Still, little by little, I'm learning how to eliminate unnecessary stuff. The house is getting cleaner, we are happier for it, and life, overall, is good. I wouldn't trade this simpler life for anything... even if I do sometimes dream of hardwood floors and cold water that acutally runs. (I truly believe that God is using this house to teach me some humility.) After all, I get to wake up every morning to this:

And I know that my girls are going to get to grow up doing things I always wanted to as a kid: raising chickens and cows and (hopefully) goats and bunnies and things. Farming, gardening, learning how to really be self-sufficient and not so materialistic. I hope that we can teach them that life is about experiences, not things.


(Oh, and for the record: Toad at the Bijou Theatre was AWESOME. So was my Woodruff Downtown Nut-brown ale :) Yay for grown-up time!)

bye bye birdies

So. I've been working up to being able to write this for the last 4 days or so now, but first I had to filter through the outrage, the anger, and the terrible sadness. Friday morning our chicken flock was wiped out by some neighborhood dogs. We no longer have an egg problem. Friday morning I got up and started getting the girls up for the day, and I heard a howl from the side of the house the chicken coop is on, and looked out the window in time to see two dogs coming out of the chicken coop. Not good. I ran out to the coop, but it was too late. They had obviously had quite a bit of fun tossing the chickens around. At first glance, all of them were dead. It was horrible. I chased the dogs out of the coop and tried to assess the damage, but I was crying too hard at that point. So I went inside and called Davey and semi-coherently tried to sob out what had happened. I think all he managed to understand was that something had happened to the chickens. (Clearly I am not a calm person in a crisis. I should work on that.) I went out to the coop a little while later, after having a good cry, and reassessed the damage. Of 22 chickens, there were 9 still breathing and in various states of shock and injury. As of today, only 3 of those 9 are still alive, with one still questionable. My 4 baby Ameracaunas that I was so excited about were in the 19 killed. So was Pretty Girl, my pet Speckled Sussex. I understand that (with the exception of Pretty Girl, who was NOT for eating) all of these chickens were going to die at some point. And I was ok with them eventually ending up in the soup pot. And we've lost chickens to dogs before. But something about this massive slaughter just felt too awful. I guess because the chickens were in their home, where they should have been safe. The coop and the attached chicken run were intended to protect them from things like this, and clearly failed to do so (it looks like the dogs dug their way into the run). Plus, I'm all mommy-fied and soft now, with the hormonal need to protect everything I can remotely imagine needs mothering and nurturing. Maybe putting chickens in the soup pot is going to be harder than I thought. One thing is for sure. Since moving to the farm, we've become a lot more familiar with death. Ducks, chickens, a cow, even pets. And so far, none of them have died to feed us, except for a couple of squirrels, which didn't feed us much, and I sincerely hope will never have to feed us again. Blech. Anyway. I hope that this gets easier. And I hope that we get better at this whole farming thing. It feels like we've got a lot to learn. That we learn it at the expense of animals' lives makes the lessons costly, but ultimately memorable. For example, we now know that baby cows need wormer; and that ducks have a much better survival rate when you've got a mean ol' African Grey goose around to defend them. And I have a feeling we'll be learning a better way to build a chicken run really soon. So. Now we get to begin rebuilding our flock. We wanted to sort of mix the flock up a bit, and bring in some different breeds, we just intended to eat the chickens we culled out. And maybe take our time with it. For better or worse, the job was done for us. So, once we fix up the chicken run, it's time to start buying some new chicks. Fortunately the Mennonite Animal Market in Delano is at the end of this month. Something to look forward to!

Homemade goodness!

So, last month I mentioned how one of my goals for the near future was to conquer baking my own bread. I tried bread baking once, when I was about 13, with some help from dear ol' Mom. I don't know if I did something wrong, or if it just wasn't time yet, but what came out of the oven was not the fluffy deliciousness I was hoping for. It was more akin to a brick that a Pharaoh could be proud of. And since (even at 13) I believed that if I couldn't bake it, it just couldn't be baked, I turned my back on bread for 17 years. You know, until I had a 10 month old baby and another one on the way and the attention span of a toddler with ADD. I'm a genius like that.

I got inspired to try bread again after reading another friend's post about baking her own; and, in light of my whole quest to make delicious food on my own instead of buying crap at the grocery store, this was kind of a natural progression, dontcha think? It also didn't hurt that my wonderful husband bought me a KitchenAid for Christmas a few years ago. There is now no dough that could frighten me. I think.

Anyhow, I decided to tackle this amazing-sounding light wheat bread recipe. It sounds so very simple, what could go wrong?

Truthfully - the first loaf didn't turn out all that bad. It was still VERY heavy.. kinda chewy and dense and nothing at all like the recipe promised. But it was tasty, and I am still crazy optimistic, and determined (when I want to be). So, I gave it another go the following week. And it was better, really it was. (I'm still not passing the windowpane test; but frankly, I think that's just an urban legend) But it still wasn't right. So, right after I got done making the first batch of dough, I hopped on the internet and researched mixing bread dough in a KitchenAid mixer, and found out that, duh, you don't add all the flour at once. And this time, THIS TIME!!!! I got it right! a fluffy delicious loaf of bready goodness! Take that, 13-year-old me!

The loaf on the left is my second attempt. Still a lil bit funny looking.. though it was AMAZING for breakfast with some blueberry preserves smeared on top, if I do say so myself (and I do).

The one on the right.. that, my friends, is my first-ever successful loaf of bread. Nothing can stop me now!!!

Truth be told, there are still a few adjustments to make... I think it could still be a wee bit fluffier, and when it's sliced you can still see where it was rolled up before being put in the pan for the final round of proofing, but these are minor details. The point is, I'll never buy sandwich bread again. For realz.

Speaking of... here's another thing we'll never have to buy again:

Yep, that's right. The ladies have started laying. Now we just have to figure out what to do with 19 eggs a day. Especially considering that I've not been a fan of eggs this pregnancy. I guess this means I need to bake a lot. Err.. a LOT. Seriously. Anybody need some eggs?

P.S. I almost forgot: meet the newest additions to the farm! We got ourselves 7 muscovy ducks (yes, they're the kind we used to call 'ugly ducks' in Florida, but they're bigger and meaner than your average duck, and we're hoping the dogs will think twice) and a goose named Bill. I'm starting to think that Bill might be a girl.

And, just because:

farm life

So I just looked at my blog and realized that my last post was in April, and this is freakin' JUNE already. And it's not like I can use pregnancy as an excuse, because the truth is that I've felt pretty awesome this time around. Which is nice for a change. No, I don't miss puking my brains out. Thanks.

Of course, all that means that I'm actually able to get out and DO stuff again, like work in my garden, which is lookin' totally sweet right now, if I do say so myself (which I do, so there.). Only problem is there's these pesky green caterpillars raining death and destruction on my greens. Collards - gone. Turnips - nothing but stems. Now they've moved on to my kale, and I'm not too happy about it. I'm trying to do this garden all organic-like and stuff, but I'm really not sure what to do about these caterpillars. So far I've just been pulling them off by hand and feeding them to the chickens. Fun times.
Speaking of the chickens, we should start getting some eggs here soon. I can't wait to cook my first saturday breakfast using our very own eggs. Awesomeness. I also got me some fancy new chickens that lay blue eggs (or will, when they get big enough). Call me a dork, but I find that totally exciting.

So, life on the farm is good. We're slowly trying to accumulate more understanding about things we all should know already, like how to grow our own vegetables, and how to be less consumer-driven. Hopefully all of this will be a big help when I quit work in the fall, because we're gonna have to start cutting back on our spending in a major way. Self-imposed "poverty." Yeah, baby, yeah!

big changes on the farm

So this past month has been kinda crazy-like. We went thru about a week and a half where critters were dying on us. First we lost a chick - he figured out he was small enough to hop out of the fenced-in chicken run, and the dogs figured out that he made one tasty little snack. (The dogs also got a lesson in not eating the chickens, one which I hope they learned well.) Then we lost Steak to causes unknown. Just woke up one morning and he was a goner. THEN we lost a duck when they tunneled (totally 'Great Escape' style - I think they had little WWII helmets and everything) out of their enclosure and made their way down to the pond. We were planning to move them to the pond anyway, they just got a wee bit ahead of us, and now there is only one. Still -so cute to watch him? her? paddling around the pond in the morning. I named him Plucky. Plucky is NOT for eating.
But, we learned some lessons in all of this. Like - we need more ducks. Ducks are fun. And chicks are way smarter than we gave them credit for. And one cow cannot possibly keep our front pasture under control alone. We either need another cow, or some goats or llamas or something. For realz.
We also found out this month that there will be a new baby critter added to the farm sometime this winter. Of the human persuasion. Wait. Didn't we just do that? Oh yeah. Here we go again.
So funny how the reaction to this announcement differs from the first one. My parents: "Are you kidding me? What are you going to do?" My brother-in-law (to Davey): "Way to go, dumbass."
Me: "Oh no. Again? All summer? You've GOT to be kidding me." and then to Davey: "This is all your fault!!! I was going to go KAYAKING, dammit!!!"
Seriously, though, it is a good and happy thing, even if it's waaaaaay sooner than I would have planned. I just hope these kids are at least a year apart (I'll find out for sure on May 11th). If this one is born before Punkin's first birthday, that's like whoa of Neo proportions. I just cannot deal.

Now, if I can just stop puking long enough, it's time to get the garden going. I built a couple of small raised beds a few weeks ago before the icky-fest of pregnancy sidelined me. Hopefully this weekend I'll be getting a few things started in them, and getting a few other beds built. Last time gardening and pregnancy totally did not work for me, but I'm hoping that this time will be different, and I won't be sick for 8 or 9 months straight. Hope springs eternal, and all that.

Speaking of - that's what we decided to name the farm- Hope Springs Farm. Hope is kind of a big thing for Davey and me, so it seems like the perfect fit.

chickenhaaaawk!!!

(I just love me some WDVX in the morning.)





We got our chicks from the co-op last night, and they are so cute! Thirteen pullets (that's girl chicks) and one lonely rooster. Hopefully when he gets bigger he'll protect the ladies from the aforementioned chickenhawks. It just so happens that we have a pair of hawks that have a nest on our land, so we'll have to be extra vigilant. Although, I don't know if they're chickenhawks or not. I figure any hawk would think these little gals would be a tasty snack.

Even at this very young age (3 or 4 days old) they show all the stereotypical characteristics of hens, pecking and clucking (well, more like peeping right now) and then picking up their skirts and running to the corner when they're even the slightest bit scared. So cute to watch.

Right now they are living in our guest bedroom in a brooder box we built out of a plastic bin:

It was pretty simple to make, just cut the top out and then we put a piece of chicken wire on top, secured with craft wire (so I got to practice my rusty wireworking skillz a little) to keep the kitties out and let some fresh air in. Speaking of the cats, they've set up a base camp outside the bedroom door and are currently plotting the best way to get into this strange and magical box with all that tasty goodness inside. Dream on, suckahs.

Once they're big enough and/or the weather is warm enough, we'll move them (the chickens, that is) out to the coop to enjoy the fresh air and sunshine, and hopefully start getting their egg laying on.

I still can't believe we have chickens. It's waaaaay crazy. But in a good way.