Tag Archives: Farm

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It’s In The Air

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Can you feel it?

Fall is on its merry way, and I couldn’t be happier.

I turned 36 this weekend, and I spent the day thinking about how fortunate I am at this point in my life, and I realized that unlike many people I know, I look forward to each birthday.  Maybe it’s the time of year; my birthday means fall is coming.  September is easily one of the most beautiful months.  Or maybe it is the knowing that I got through another year on this crazy planet and came through it (hopefully) another year wiser.  Either way I am happiest when the days get shorter and cooler and when the nights are crisp and long with the smell of fallen leaves and wood fires.

My truck full of rocks came and Paul spread them out over the culvert.

It still looks like a big old mess down by the stream thanks to all the rain we’ve gotten, but he drive the tractor over the new “bridge” several times and it is good and solid.  We’ll be able to drive hay over it soon enough.

I haven’t spent too much time admiring it, though.  Since there is still a large pile of brush in the stream next to it full of frogs I am wary of the snakes that surely infest it.  We spotted one in the mud on Sunday, but couldn’t be sure if it was poisonous or not.  I haven’t been down there since.  Next weekend we’ll finish getting it all cleared out for the fences.

I  ventured out Sunday and bought a couple of bottles of french wine in town and an assortment of cheeses  and had a wonderful evening with the book club ladies.  The perfect way to cap off a beautiful weekend.

My friend Jessie brought me this:

A cake with a Dr. Who Tardis on it, decorated by her very talented husband.  Do they know me or what!

 

Even the weather has been in on the wonderful: it’s been much lower in humidity and temperature, making for lovely fall – ish days and nights.

The mums are blooming.

The persimmon tree is fruiting.

I think it’s about time for a mug of hot apple cider.

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Labor Day Laboring

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While most everyone else we know is barbecuing and relaxing for the holiday weekend we’ve been working our backsides off inside and out.

Paul’s been playing in the mud rescuing the stream from the mangled tree debris that our less than wonderful landscaper piled there, and I’ve been cleaning, working on lesson plans and making pasta.  There was also a brief time out for the new season of Dr Who.  Because we’re still obsessed, y’all.

We had to install this culvert so we could extend some logs and mud over to stream as a land bridge without interfering with the water.

Did I mention that neither of us has any idea how this kind of thing is supposed to get done?  At least Paul is having fun with the backhoe attachment on our friend’s tractor.

Now all we need is more dirt and maybe some gravel to cover over it all.

The side Paul has finished up is flowing nicely again.  We even saw a fairly large crayfish (crawdad for you Southerners) hanging out on the bank.

See all the debris still on this side?  Don’t you love it when you pay someone to do a job for you and then you end up having to re-do it all?

All I know is it’s getting done.  Paul even thinks we may start fencing next weekend.

What a fabulous birthday present for me!

As for inside the house, there is pasta drying in preparation for the freezer.  September is when the basil in the garden has grown into a giant, bushy shrub and must be harvested before the first frost.  My favorite thing to do is make up a huge amount of pesto and make ravioli with it.  I can freeze enough to last all winter if I don’t get sick of making pasta before I’ve used it all.

I use Susan’s pasta recipe – in fact if you click that link you’ll see my hands creating the last big batch of pesto ravioli we made last year at this time.

Sweet heavenly pesto.  I could eat it for every meal.

Little pillows of delightfulness!  I let them dry on a cheesecloth or clean dishtowel for an hour or more (until they are not sticky anymore) and then toss them into a ziploc freezer bag.  They can be tossed in boiling water from frozen or fresh and take very little time to cook.

For my pesto I fill a blender with fresh basil leaves, toss in a handful of cherry tomatoes, a handful of parmesan cheese, a heaping tablespoon of minced garlic, about half a teaspoon of sugar, a handful of pine nuts, and 3 or 4 tablespoons of olive oil.  These are all approximate values, and I adjust according to taste.  Not everyone likes sugar or tomatoes in their pesto, but I find it gives it an extra something.  You can also substitute walnuts if you don’t have pine nuts, but I prefer the pine nuts.

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Happy September!!!!

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I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that it is the first of September.   Not only does this begin my favorite part of the entire year, but this fall promises to be more exciting than most.

Right now there is excavating happening out in our stream, in preparation for a culvert to be placed.  This way we can actually get over the stream with things like hay and feed.

This is the last big push before the fencing goes up.

While Paul digs out the stream I am busy preparing lesson plans and getting everything ready for school to start on Tuesday.  This year we have a new addition to our class: Maddie.  She’ll be joining us as a student and working hard to get ready for college next year.    She’ll be bunking with Neve in the former playroom, and I am looking forward to having an extra set of helping hands around!

 

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Quiet Morning Knitting

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With school starting in a week there is an awful lot on my plate that needs attention.  Lesson plans have to be finished, the garden has to be readied for fall, chicken coops will soon need their seasonal clean – out, as will the freezer and pantry.  It’s time to finish up the summer sewing, harvest every last bit of basil to make pesto ravioli for the freezer, enjoy the pool one last time before the weather turns.

There’s also a culvert to be dug so we can easily cross the stream to bring hay and feed and water to the animals that soon will reside there.

There’s excitement all around as everyone senses the soon to come change in season.  Apple picking will come before we know it and the house will be full of the heady scents of cinnamon and ginger and cloves.

 

But for now I am enjoying those rare late – summer mornings when I am the only one awake.  I can enjoy my coffee and work on a sock while enjoying the view out of my new craft – room’s window.  That’s where the morning glories have started to bloom.  This year there are purple, white and fuschia flowers.  Every year they really take off right around this time, telling me it’s almost my birthday.  It’s almost our favorite time of the year.

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Somebody’s 5!!!!

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We’re back from Orlando!

The bigger new, however, is that Oona has turned 5.  5!!!

SO much about my life has changed in 5 years – it is so different and so much better in so many ways.  And yet it seems that Oona has gotten to be this age in the blink of an eye.

She had a spectacular 5th birthday.  And how can you not, when you are celebrating at Disney?

But first we HAD to go to Hogwarts.

The world of Harry Potter at Universal in Orlando is pretty impressive.  It’s really a must – see destination for all Potter fans.  Although I will say that my friend Jessie and her family went to the Harry Potter attraction in London this summer and saw all of the actual sets used in the movies.  That certainly beat out our experience, but we still enjoyed our fill of Butterbeer, Pumpkin Juice and roasted chicken.  This was the all around favorite of the bigger girls for the whole trip.

Disney was not quite as easy to navigate and the weather was not quite as nice.

I will say this about Disney, though: some things they do very, very right.  We had Oona wear her Cinderella dress to the Magic Kingdom on her birthday.  To that, we got a button from a shop just inside the park that had her name and announced her birthday.  EVERY “cast member” (employee) all day long greeted her with “Happy Birthday Princess!”.  It made her millenium.

There was also plenty of meet and greets throughout the day.

Followed by the famous fireworks spectacular at the castle that night.

There is no way we will ever beat that as a birthday experience.

As for me, I found myself having the most fun at the Animal Kingdom.

Since it was meant to look like parts of both Asia and Africa there was much more plant – life (and shade!).  There were animals everywhere of course, and we were all very excited to see their petting zoo, which promised “Exotic animals of many species”.

Well.

What they had were sheep, goats, pigs and a llama.

That was a total bust.  That was the opposite of exotic.

Fortunately, the safari ride we took more than made up for it.

We didn’t have to touch any of the animals to thoroughly enjoy them.

Now we are back to reality.  Back to planning for the school year which will start in just about a week and a half. Back to digging a culvert so we can make a bridge over the stream.  Back to getting fencing set in.

Because y’all, my birthday is coming up.  And you know getting my animals home is the one and only thing left for me to be completely content.

🙂

 

 

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Early Harvest

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Here it is barely August and my garden has officially given up for the season.  The only plants that are still producing are a few of the heirloom tomato plants, the basil, and the potatoes I have yet to dig up.

This weekend I will go out and lightly till the dead and rotting vines back into the soil and set about getting the fall plantings ready.

The biggest challenge this year hasn’t necessarily been the heat.  It’s true that the overly warm night time temperatures slowed production, but the plants all did, eventually bear fruit.

The lack of bees (remember I was supposed to have bees this year?  You can thank the uber slow progress of the landscaping for that not happening) didn’t seem to slow pollination any; there were bumblebees aplenty buzzing all around.

What really hurt this year was the epic number of pests.  Squash bugs.  Cucumber beetles. Blister beetles.  Caterpillars. Cabbage moths. Slugs.  You name it, we had it, and in hordes.  The blister beetles took my entire wisteria vine down to nothing OVERNIGHT.  Literally. One day it was there, the next, gone.

So, it was a disappointing growing season, but I am not letting it get to me too much.  I had enough tomatoes to make a batch of salsa.  We had so many summer squash and zucchini it felt like they were never stop.  The cucumbers even managed to hold their own long enough for us to put up dozens of jars of pickles.  Not to mention the mini sour gherkins – those tiny little garden workhorses.  They are still producing, seemingly invulnerable to the pestilence around them.

I have also formulated plans to improve things for next year – that’s the silver lining of garden failures. You learn from them.  Next year I’ll be buying plenty of Neem oil and organic and natural pest controls.  I will have bees.  I will also move the squash and pumpkins to their own garden – they overtook everything and drowned out my peppers and watermelon, killing them off.
And if I can find a way to eradicate my land of the blasted Virginia Creeper that invades everything, my beans and peas might stand a chance.

All in all, if I can manage a decent fall planting (beets, cabbages, greens, a few root veg) I’ll be pretty happy.

And speaking of fall, I made an early harvest that has everyone trying to fight off the autumn-y mood they create:

Bunches of sugar pie pumpkins, a Connecticut Field pumpkin or two, and some Jack Be Littles.

Check out this Jarrahdale Blue pumpkin!  Now if the two big Musquee de Provence pumpkins would hurry up and ripen before they fall prey to the zillions of squash bugs surrounding them, I will be happy!

 

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Tractor Vs. Tractor

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Around here when we are talking about “tractors” chances are good we are talking about portable chicken pens.  It’s a way to keep chickens safe and give them access to fresh grass.

Since we are raising chickens for meat right now Paul has been busy building new tractors for them to live in.  We wanted to feed them a combined diet of standard chicken feed and pasture.  We also wanted them to have plenty of space to move around and stretch their wings and play.  In other words, we wanted happy chickens, since they are going to be feeding us.  We can at least return the favor by making sure they are happy and healthy leading up to freezer camp.

Originally Paul was going to build 3 of these triangle – shaped tractors.  They are very basic, very sturdy, and light-weight enough for either me or the kids to move around easily.

Problem was, I didn’t think that they’d be big enough for fifty birds to have room to roam around.

When they were still fairly small we put them all in this one tractor.  It was roomy enough for them, but it wouldn’t be for long.

So Paul stepped outside the box and built them a new tractor.

From an old trampoline.

They now have a ton of room to move around and not be on top of each other.

As they reach their peak size we won’t have to worry about overcrowding.  We move it every two days or so – and they do quite a job mowing down all the grass in there.  They have a waterer that Paul put a float valve in so that they are never without water.  They get fresh air and shade.

As for the original tractor, there is a new family living in there for now.

Fleur and her babies have taken up residence there.  They’ll stay until the babies are old enough to be introduced to the flock at large (in other words, big enough to defend themselves from the inevitable bullying of the newbies).

 

 

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Finally Clear!

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Today we have some cause to celebrate –  the loggers officially finished clearing out the remaining trees to be felled.  This means that all that is left is for us to clean up a bit and fence it all in!

Paul and I walked all the way back to the very back edge of our property – something we have never been able to do in the summer before – and marveled at just how much more land we have than we thought we did and how nice it will be for the animals.  There’s plenty of trees left in the back portion for shade, and plenty of wide open space in the middle.  The landscaper expressed concern with all the underbrush that is left out there but I told him to leave it – the goats will make very short work of it.

This is standing at the back edge, looking toward the house.  See the grey in the very center of the photo?  That’s our roof.

I love that there are still some big old trees to provide shade on these hot days we’ve been getting, but there’s still enough sun filtering through that grass shouldn’t have any trouble growing.

Gully had fun running around like a mad dog and flying off the tree stumps.

The next step will be fencing, and hopefully that will go smoother than the clearing did!

To celebrate I made some peach jam from Marisa McClellans’ Food in Jars.

It tastes like the filling of a peach pie.

In other words, divine!

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In the Garden: Cucumbers

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Lately I am having a heck of a time keeping up with the tremendous output of cucumbers in the garden.  Somehow, despite the onslaught of squash bugs and cucumber beetles that have been plaguing us for weeks, the cukes have done pretty well.  Only now are they starting to show signs of the bacterial wilt transmitted by those pests, which all of my other squash plants have fallen prey to.

Growing an organic garden is a challenge. Even in a good year, when pests aren’t that awful, it is a chore.  Every evening you’ll find me out among the squash, smashing squash bug eggs and their adult counterparts in an effort to pare down the population.  Japanese beetles get collected in a mason jar every night, shaken well (to stun them so they don’t fly away) and fed to the chickens.

But this year.  This year has been something else.  I knew it would be bad; the warm winter we had meant that bugs would be numerous.  Even so, I was unprepared for the epidemic that we’ve suffered.

Basically, I’ve given up on the squash.  If I had known just how bad it was going to be I’d have invested in some Neem oil,
but I’ve had such success in past years by simply picking off eggs and bugs that I hadn’t bothered.  They are just so incredibly out of control, and it has been in the 100’s here for a few weeks so I was unable to spend as much time as I’d like to keeping them in check.

The good news is we’ve gotten quite a substantial crop of cucumbers despite the bugs.  We’ve also had a bumper crop of surprising little things called “Mexican Sour Gherkins”.  These are tiny sour – tasting cucumbers that look like mini watermelons.

They are terrific for snacking and for salads.  I may even pickle them, which is what I have been doing in mass batches with the bigger cukes.

My favorite pickles are refrigerator pickles, and my favorite recipe for them is adapted from Jam it, Pickle it, Cure it by Karen Solomon.

I slice up my cukes however I want them (I like to do some jars bread and butter style, some spears, some halves).  I stuff each jar with cukes, a spoonful of minced or crushed garlic, a dash of ground cinnamon (the recipe calls for one cinnamon stick per pint jar) , a teaspoon each of yellow mustard seeds and brown mustard seeds, a tablespoon or better of dill, a teaspoon or better of red pepper flakes (more if you like heat), a couple grinds of black pepper, and a few teaspoons of kosher salt.  Exact science, right?  You’ll get to know how to adjust these for taste after your first jar or two. Since you’re not canning it the recipe doesn’t have to be perfect.  It is more important that you end up with the taste you want.

 

Then I fill up half the jar with vinegar (generally you use white vinegar, but I’ve used apple cider vinegar to great success.  I imagine champagne vinegar works nicely as well) and the rest with water.  Then seal and let it sit in the fridge for 48 hours before eating.

They are supposed to last in the fridge for about a month – but let me tell you, we generally eat them all before that.  I’ve had a couple of stray jars hidden in the back of the fridge that go unnoticed for around three months and were still just fine.

 

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Chicks!

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Remember Fleur, the unfortunate hen I had to perform surgery on a few months ago?

Well, she’s doing great. Not only has she been back to scratching around and clucking about with her friends, she recently went broody (she began to sit on a nest of eggs).

This past week she has hatched three new chicks.  Emily has named them Widget, Butterbeer and Tsukiko.

Fleur is an excellent mama, and has proved herself to be more fierce when it comes to her babies than any previous mama hen we’ve had.  I am guessing her near death experience has something to do with it!

She’s more than ready to attack you if you try to grab those babies.

Fortunately Emily is pretty adept when it comes to chicken management, so we were able to check over all the babies and they are perfect!

Emily is pretty excited about the new babies she gets to care for.

I wasn’t actually planning on hatching out any more babies; the chances of getting more roosters is too high and we have far too many already.  But, I have 50 meat chicks I am currently caring for until they go to freezer camp in August and Emily hasn’t been too happy with me about it.  Having her own little babies to care for has been a nice distraction so she hasn’t been focused on the fate of the other chicks.  And with any luck they will all be hens, and help replenish the population of egg layers that we lost to predation in the spring.  And, since they were hatched out of blue eggs, hopefully they will lay fun – colored eggs as well.