Turkeys Arrive

We have embarked on a new adventure here at St. Brigid Farm....

Turkeys!

We've never had such an adventure here although we have always wanted to. I, for one, am very excited to watch these cuties grow into a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner.  

 I went to the feed store to get chick starter for my little gals, and I ended up "rescuing" 7 loan leftover turkeys. They really aren't the breed I wanted, I wanted a heritage breed, but for the first efforts at raising turkeys, these will have to do. 

 I say rescue because they are a few weeks old, one is 5 weeks, and a few of them have some wounds due to living in too close of quarters. At least that is what they said at the feed store. The wounds aren't open wounds but rather scabbed over.

 I do have some concerns for their health because of these wounds. I've already begun applying some herbal salve to them.  My salve has calendula, garlic and tea tree oil (plus carrier oil).  We'll see if that helps them heal. 

  If the problem was indeed crowded living space then their new home should help.  They are currently in a large hutch but hopefully in a week or 2 I can allow them to go outside.

Come back often to see how they grow!

June 12

I have spent a great deal of time this winter and spring on a big project in the garden.  

I have been covering the paths with cardboard, scrap cloth and mulch.  I have a lot of mulch hauling to do yet but all the paths are covered with the cardboard or cloth.  This has been something I've wanted to do for years.  There used to be grass there. It was obnoxious during the height of growing season.  I was constantly fighting the grass out of the beds.  

Here is a picture from a couple years ago to give you an idea of what I'm talking about. The grass surrounding this bed is how the whole garden was.  

But I have finally won the grass battle!

 

Here are 2 pics of aisles...without grass.  One has the mulch on it and other just cardboard and shredded paper. You'll also notice in the pictures the other thing I have been doing with the beds...bordering them. You can see in the picture above that they didn't have borders either, which is probably the main reason the grass was such a hard battle.  My goal is to border them completely with wine bottles.  It is a fantastic way to recycle those wine bottles!  I get plenty from church.

 

 I have learned that you can cover lawn and grow a garden.  This bean bed (on the right, below) was just a bed of grass 3 months ago.  

I laid down thick cardboard, mulch, dirt and more mulch.  Put a border on it and planted some bean seeds.  Look at them grow.

 
I have one more bed to create.  It used to be a strawberry bed.  But remember that battle with grass, it won over the strawberry bed.  Now I have the tools to win it back.  After I'm done with everything else in here I'll remove this black plastic and build a bed.  Maybe I'll try strawberries again.

Well, here is what's growing in my garden today as of June 12th.

Garlic and cilantro. In the bare area I'm TRYING to grow asparagus.  I've been having a very difficult time of it.  I bought 1 year roots.  Only one grew.  My uncle sent me seed.  A few have sprouted.  I'm planting more.  We'll see.

Here is my bean bed.  This is one of the beds that I've completely lined with wine bottles.  I love it!

Spaghetti Squash.  I really hope it does well. We eat it all the time!

Snap peas for salads and stir fry.

Echinacea

Hops reaching for the sky.

Herb garden.  I have slowly developed this little area and I have more I want to do to make it better.  There is sage, mint, rosemary, lavender, calendula, thyme and oregano.

Here is a close-up of the calendula.  It's one of my favorites.  It is essential for use in salves for any skin ailment.

Tomatoes.  I grow in pots against the house.  They do best this way.

So far it has been a very productive spring.  I'm incredibly grateful for the delightfully warm weather we have had.  I know this may be bad for later but I won't let that darken the joy now.  

Losing Sight

Five years ago we started a new adventure. We bought 2 1/2 acres and left the city lot we owned to start learning how to be more self-sufficient, raise our own food and animals and to have room to roam. It's been quite the experience but I've also on many occasions for long stretches lost the vision of my dreams. So the learning has been slow and the progress stagnant as of late. Much of it is due to the MANY responsibilities that pile my plate but also much of it is due to procrastination.
I'm a procrastinator! I have ambitious dreams but they remain dreams. I like what Abbot Tryphon says in that post about procrastination..."Procrastination only has power over our lives if we let it. Taking steps to curb the habit of slothfulness must begin with a decision that today, with God's help, will be the day that I leave laziness and procrastination aside, and move forward with action."
I've had these dreams forever! Why do I continue to let procrastination rule over my life. I have the power and ability to accomplish anything! I must decide to do so!
My garden grows each year. My new favorite crop is garlic! I grew garlic fo the first time last year and it was so fun and so easy and so delicious! The fresher garlic is the more oil/juice you get out of it. I was astonished when I first pressed a garlic clove straight from the garden! Last year I planted 40 cloves of garlic and harvested about 35 bulbs. Did you know you plant garlic in the fall? This year I planted 54 cloves and I wish I had planted more! I use garlic copious amounts of garlic in just about everything I cook. The health benefits are abundant.
I grew lots of cool weather crops for the first time last year as well. Things like kale and chard. So delicious. I am still working on getting the garden put to bed for the winter. Hopefully once school break begins (one more week) I can get out to the garden again to finish the clean up.
In no time at all I will be able to start seeds in the house!

Dreams! Well, it's time to stop procrastinating and following my dreams!

Barn Hoppin'

We've had a busy week. I've worked hard in the garden this week, determined to make it bigger than I have before. I was truly inspired after reading so many wonderful homesteading blogs linked to Homestead Revival's Barn Hop over the last couple of weeks. I've always loved to garden and have always had the goal to be able to support our family from the garden but my vigor has been renewed! One of the posts I read from Proverbs 31 Woman, really inspired me to make use of every space possible to grow food. So I've gotten out pots and buckets (which I get free from local bakeries and drill holes in the bottom) and planted seeds and starts and am setting them out all around the garden. I think I might even try potatoes in large buckets or small trash cans.

These are my 6 tomato plants (I've given up trying to raise tomatoes to can, near impossible here) that will grow in these buckets. I will move them to a tented area later this week. They need a tent in order to really do well here in Western WA.

In these buckets and pots I have purple cabbage starts. I also planted some mint and cilantro seeds.

Here is my bed of cabbage and chives. In the pots I have pepper plants under cover in their little mini-greenhouses.

I just loved this picture of the bumblebee hiding under the chive flower while it drizzled out. There were a couple others like this too.

These are my pole beans. I need to get the rest of the trellis up before too long. I also planted a row of carrots down the center.

Another thing that has recently inspired me a great deal is a show I watched recently with my family. We watched PBS Frontier House. Three families went back and lived like those lived in 1880's Montana frontier. One of the goals was to raise enough food to make it through the winter. These people had to garden as if their life depended on it. I believe that we need that mentality. Sure we have grocery stores not, but if I truly wanted to make a difference on my wallet, eat non-gmo, organic produce and become self-sufficient, I'd grow a garden like my life depended on it.

We also been working on the inside of the house. I'm preparing for a rummage sale that will take place on July 8^th and 9^th. A few weeks a go I started going through the house room by room and really analyzing it's functions and needs. I've culled a LOT!

I've also been able to hang quite a few clothes out on the line this week. I absolutely love hanging clothes out on the line. It's been a slow start to that this year due to such a wet spring. Once this winter I hung clothes out on the line. It was crisp and cold, but sunny and breezy. It was fantastic. I remember reading in The Long Winter (Laura Ingalls Wilder) about how they had to hang the clothes outside in the winter and they'd freeze-dry.

My goals this week are to continue filling pots and continue decluttering the house.