Week 5

Monday again. This is the 5th week of delivering garden produce to my CSA customers (it should be the 8th week but thanks to our wonderful wet weather here in the NW the garden was a little slow at starting). It's amazing thinking back to last Oct or so when I discovered what a CSA was to today 5 weeks into deliveries of my own CSA. I've got to tell you it has been one helluva trip too. 


This weeks challenge. Making strawberry and cherry preserves (which I was spose to do last week but never got out to get the pectin), clean off the dinning room table (it was my green house this year and starting seeds has come to an end), at least 4 days on my new cleaning routine (thanks to flylady.net my house is looking a little more kept) and brew some rootbeer for the kids (this is something I've yet to learn but have the kit waiting for a time when I feel very ambitious).   


Thinking of ambition I better get another cup of coffee and get my day started. Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and tons of salad stuff to pick and get packed in the next hour or so. 


Have a good one!

ants, rain, chevre and more chickies...

Of all the 5yrs I've been in this house I've never had a problem with ants. I mean sure you get the occasional ant wandering around the kitchen counter but they never stick around. Well I think they must see my house as a safe haven in all this rain because they're everywhere. The bathrooms, bedrooms, living room, kitchen. It's annoying. Last night I did a late night vacuuming because I couldn't bring myself to go to bed with the thought of walking on ants when I head to the bathroom in the middle of the night. They're not after anything in particular just escaping the rain. I'm sure all their homes are waterlogged by now. The news this morning said this afternoon is suppose to dry up and it'll be sunny for awhile. It's about time but I'm not holding my breath. It's June and it feels like the beginning of spring.

I made a big batch of chevre last night. You really don't get much cheese for the amount of milk it takes. I only used half a gallon of milk and got about 2 cups of cheese out of it. I sprinkled it with sea salt and herbs and it's very good. It's very dry but I imagine it'll make some really good lasagna or pizza. It'll be good on salad with some balsamic vinegar too. I brought a whole gallon of milk up last night just to make the cheese and restock my buttermilk. I have come to really love buttermilk, it makes everything taste so... um.. yummy! Now to learn to make sour dough and I'll be set. That and find myself a fridge to start aging cheese. I don't dare age cheese in my fridge, I'm sure it'd suck in some funky flavors and wouldn't be very good. My fridge isn't nearly big enough anyways. I do have more space now that I'm picking salad just for each meal instead of having to buy a weeks worth.

This morning I there were 14 chicks hatched out. I have 24 eggs due to hatch so I'll give them a couple of days and see how they did. All the other chicks hatching in previous batches made a bit of a mess of these eggs so I don't expect a high number and the humidity and temperature has changed dramatically with the past chicks. 14 isn't too bad though. So far I've only lost one of the previous hatched chicks so that'll give us 22 chicks to grow. Hopefully most of them are hens.

Elizabeth is napping next to me, which is ok, it gives me an excuse to sit still. There's not alot to do besides domestic chores with all this rain. A little more gardening inside. With all this indoor gardening I should be getting better at it.

I think I'll shampoo my carpets. Maybe that'll discourage the ants. Wet outside and wet inside. Sounds almost cruel huh?

Hope you're day is dryer than mine!

Bring on the rain....

Yea, you guess it. It's raining. Still. Geez. I mean really. This morning my alarm clock went off at 4AM and I got up and did the usual. Opened up the door, it was so wet and chilly I went back to bed. I keep meaning to start milking the goats twice a day again to up the supply for the incoming demand. They're doing great with just once a day, a whole 1 1/2 gallons every day. I mean that's pretty dang good. I've taught my oldest the fine art of being a smartass. The other day I had the bucket and jars ready to go and she says "Time to go to the grocery store?" That's what we've deemed the barn, The Grocery Store. Just 9 short weeks ago you'd hear me say about 3 times a week "We need to go to the grocery store for milk." I think I just missed saying it or my oldest missed hearing me say it. Anyways.

So I went back to bed. The twice a day milking will happen when it's not so soggy and wet in the morning. I hate being sick and I'm not going to tempt fate again. The 2yr old and I have been taking advantage of the fact we're stuck inside. Well more me than her, I think she caught my bug. Poor baby. I fixed my old Kirby and got the floors vacuumed. It stopped working a couple years ago and I wasn't feeling ambitious enough to figure out why and so the journey of vacuum cleaners begun. The quest of finding a cheap vacuum that lasted more than 6 months. For some reason, may it be my long hair, or the straw or all the clumps of dirt or even all the little toys that end up being sucked up, vacuums just don't have a very long life in my house. I've successfully killed a few. They end up sitting in the corner of the kitchen because I keep hoping that I might be able to plug one in and it'll magically work again. Hasn't happened yet. Or atleast not long enough to call that chore done. So I dragged the Kirby out and figured out what was ailing it. This vacuum was bought by my mom about 14yrs ago and has worked lovely ever since. Only I could kill a vacuum as nice as a Kirby.

That wasn't my only feat today. I gardened. Indoors. A thought crossed my mind today watching all the rain come down and wondering if it was ever going to be dry enough to plant seeds outside before July. I've been a little worried about the gap in my gardening. It's amazing how wet it's been. Yea, I know. I said that already like a million times. So I started two flats of corn. I think tomorrow I will do melons and some winter squash, because otherwise I don't think anything is going to be put into the ground. I know maybe I'm being impatient or a little worried about July this growing gap in gardening. Next year I think I'll try one of those hoop houses, get the ground working in my favor even if the weather isn't going to. But then the way it was last year and the way it is this I can only imagine what next will look like. Probably be in the 70's by March. Just wait.

The normal chores got done too. Dough is rising and will be ready to be put in the oven when we're done milking. I turned the rest of the chicken from last week into a nice sandwich stuffing. I wish the cucumbers were ready, I've been craving fresh pickles. You know the kind you soak for half the day in the fridge and then devour at will. For some reason the idea of chicken sandwiches with crunchy pickles on it makes my mouth water. I'll have to compromise with lots of lettuce instead. I think I might have some store bought bread n butter pickles in the fridge that just might have to do.

Sometimes I have a pause, when I think about how different life (my life, not the general form of a normal life) is now compared to just a few years ago. Today I wondered if the mayonnaise would still be good and decided to make a new batch (yea make it), when I think of pickles it's the kind I cut from my garden and decide if I want to add a pepper to the mixture to make them zesty or just extra dill, the only thing I've been to the grocery store in the past 3 weeks for is cereal for the kids. That use to be a weekly venture. Grocery shopping. Funny how the little tid bits of independence add up. I even fixed my vacuum cleaner. :)

I've been sprucing up my blog site too. I have too much time on my hands with all this rain. I should take up a new hobby. Quilting or something. Hmmm....

Oh our last batch of chicks are hatching in the incubator. 8 out of 24 so far today.

I got the bad news today that I'm losing my renter at the end of July. That's kind of a scary thought. No one likes a pay cut. I'm not exactly excited about having to find a new one. I might see how the summer holds up before deciding. Hopefully the geese, turkeys, goats, chickens and garden will be profitable. You might keep us in your prayers though. Should be an interesting chapter to write about.

All this rain is SOOOO depressing...

How do you get out of a slump when it's caused by the weather? The last two mornings I slept through my alarm. That's how down all this rain has got me. I started milking the goats twice a day this week which means with missing mornings it's once a day in the evening instead of twice a day. But what do you do? The volume on my alarm is at it's highest. I'm sure it's just all this weather that has me down (couldn't have been the disaster of a date I had Saturday night). I'm completely unmotivated. Even my Monday morning cleaning routine got skipped. Tuesday saw me doing laundry and dishes which I didn't do Monday. Sometimes I hate being the only adult in this house. That's depressing too. Do you see the theme here?

Farm chores do continue though. There was a gathering of hands in the barn last night for milking, which I am really thankful for.

My oldest saves me sometimes. She's such a blessing to have around. She's only 8 but she begs to help with milking every single day. I've let her try a few squirts in the past but today I handed over the goat to her. She made it about half way through before she handed her back. We only take half a gallon of milk up to the house every day so we milk that into quart jars and then milk the baby goats milk into the pail. The goat on the stand is Georgia, this is her first year milking and she gave us a single doe kid. She's very patient.

Another blurry shot. My aunt Nina came over. She's also someone who saves me. When I was growing up she was the only real parent I had and although she didn't really know what to do as a parent she made me go to church 3x's a week. I'm thankful for that. Anyways. So she came over to watch Elizabeth while Michelle and I caught the roosters. She came while we were milking and so I encouraged her to get in touch with her childhood. Her family had cows which when the electricity went out she got to help milk. Two old pros on the stand. The goat on the stand is Icy, she gave me the triplets and a gallon of milk every time I milk her. She's been very forgiving of my newness. She also has teats on her that cramp my hands every time I milk.

My garden is slowly growing. Slowly. No I don't have any pictures of it because I'd be too embarrassed to show them anyways. My chinese cabbage has bolted (I mentioned that before) and now has beautiful yellow flowers on it. It's a rather attractive plant and taste great too. I keep meaning to get out and plant corn and more lettuce but it's so wet and muddy I think the seeds would just get moldy. I'm half debating putting off my garden customers one more week because I can't imagine the weather being any different by Monday. I guess  it could be worse. It could be snowing or hailing or a tornado could take away my entire garden. Now that would be a good excuse to put off my garden customers. :)

Oh and the roosters. All but three are gone. 9 birds and I'm sure they were atleast 50lbs of poultry. I only picked up one crate from the butcher because the note said it'd hold about 10. Well they fit but it was a tight squeeze. When I took the crate back I took a look at some of the other crates full of birds and I am now pretty sure I should have grabbed two crates because all the other chickens were half the size of the roosters I took in. I guess that's what I get for keeping them for a year. I might try to fire up the bbq and grill chicken tonight. Or I could cook one whole in the oven, I don't think it'd fit in the crock pot. I'll have fresh chicken stock for cooking. Oh chicken salad. Now I'm hungry. I'm going to make a loaf of dill rye bread so I have something to put chicken salad on tomorrow for lunch. I should talk about food more often it just raised my spirits. :) Think I'll be sick of chicken by the end of summer? Maybe by the end of June. Ah June. May really didn't leave much room for anything. I hope June isn't the same.

Anyways. I need to find some vita B or something. Maybe a nap. I need some sunshine.

Anyways. Have a great week!

Gardening...

We've all heard of square foot gardening. I'm taking gardening to a new level (pun intended) well actually three levels.

My little farm is hardly mentionable as a farm because I only have 2.18 acres. Usually when someone thinks of a farm they're thinking a little more footage than 2 acres. So I've been a little restricted on what I could do with my little farm. I've also been poring over the books on small acreage farming, alternative farming, etc. This is the primary reason why alpacas work so well here, they require such a small amount of space. This also why I'm limiting the number of Garden Share customers to such a small number.

With a little intensive, succession and companion gardening I can squeeze about 40 customers out of one acre. That's not a bad number considering I'm just one person and do the majority of the work myself; an acre of garden will keep me pretty busy 9 months of the year.

Now to explain 3 layer gardening. Picture this: a 4x10 bed of lettuce, radishes, beets, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, turnips, onions and broccoli. Above this is a low sided raised bed on wheels, the bottom of the raised bed would be about 18" off the ground leaving room for the bottom crops to grow as well as providing shade and cool below it (the wagon is about 4x5 and the wheels allows for it to be rolled off the growing bed below to gain access). Inside this wagon will be planted tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, Brussels sprouts, artichokes, zucchini, and any other slightly tall bushy plant.

Above each garden bed would be a wooden frame about 9ft off the ground, from this would be a hanging basket type planters or even a window box type container. In these boxes would be planted trailing crops such as cucumbers, peas, pole beans, melons, lufas, peanuts, etc., anything that grows on a vine that could trail over the side of the container.

So here you have a 4x10 garden bed with low growing crops, a 4x5 wheeled middle layer with bushy crops providing shade for the bottom crops, and a 2x10 box along the length of the bed up on a frame cascading with trailing crops. Can you picture that?

That 40sqft of garden just turned into 80sqft of garden all within easy reach for picking.

So yea, you can see I'm a little eccentric because this is what I lay awake thinking about at night and takes up most of my brain space during the day. Is that sad a 30yr old single mom trying to optimize my little 2 acre piece of earth? Too bad I couldn't grow livestock in layers. Hmm... maybe I could rabbits, chickens, piglets, oh my!

Back to house chores. My kitchen is begging for attention. My kitchen is spotless for about 30 minutes twice a week. I haven't figured out how to keep it spotless for longer than that. Twice a week I clean it top to bottom but then when it's clean I start making bread, marinating meat for dinner, and all the other fun stuff a kitchen is made for. Ya know what I mean? I guess maybe I should just clean it more often. Hmm... what a concept!

I'll see what I can do about pictures of what my brain has been pondering about. I feel a book coming on. Woo hoo the newest craze in gardening.