Monday Barn Hop...one day late

We certainly had a busy week.
We had some gorgeous weather, finally making it into the 70's for a couple of days and seeing the sun bright and beautiful. The garden loved this! The grass loves this!
(And I can't keep up with it.)

I spent Friday mowing and weeding the garden. I have grass that grows between the paths and all around where there aren't beds. My goal is to eventually get rid of that by putting mulch paths down but I haven't gotten that far yet.

Saturday was our big homesteading day. We decided to finally get the old flock of chickens into the freezer. This would save money in 2 ways. I can now cut down on my feed bill and I put meat in the freezer! I first went to the farmer's market to get my tomato starts and then came home and set up the assembly line. We told our 4 children that they were all to help and that they would be rewarded! We also had our 10 year old niece here for the weekend and she was ready to help out as well. We got a great assembly line going and the kids were real troopers! I was so proud of all their help. We processed 19 hens in 4 hours. Most of the time the 3 girls did the plucking with a little help every now and again from the 2 boys. I did the eviscerating.
This picture is awesome. My husband took it with his phone. This is towards the ends after at least 2-3 hours of work and they are still smiling. I love this picture too, because of the plucked chicken sitting there waiting for me to eviscerate! Nicholas is also plucking here, but you can only see his little blue-gloved hand. He's behind Charissa.
It felt so good to get so many hens in the freezer. I've been wanting to cut this old flock out for months. I'm very thankful for the meat. Yes, it's stewing meat, but meat nonetheless.

Thanks for stopping by!! Have a great week!

Barn Hoppin' Time

What have we been up to over the last week?
Mostly finishing up the school year, but you can't help but get out and dig in the dirt as well.

Most of our homesteading work took place on Memorial Day, which is why I didn't post anything yesterday. Other days were just too busy with school and Church.
Earlier in the week I did plant 1/2 of my pole beans, and yesterday I planted the rest. Pole beans are our biggest crop because it is our favorite and they usually do well. It is also one of the few that does do well in our short summer. This comic strip pretty much says it all regarding our weather. Especially the last several years.
Besides beans, I planted crooked-neck squash, zucchini, spaghetti squash (which I'm not sure will have enough time to finish), acorn squash and sugar pumpkin. I also planted lemon cucumbers, slicing cucumbers and pickling cucumbers. I weeded several beds, including the strawberries which are looking very nice! I just planted this bed last year and am really excited about how well the plants are doing and how full of blooms they are!
My husband spent the afternoon creating the very tall trellis for his 3 hops plants. One of them we've had several years and definitely needed taller support. The other 2 we planted this year and won't be as big.
I have a bed of bok choy and kale that is ready to pick and the bok choy is ready to bolt if I don't grab. Once that bed is harvested I'll plant something else there. I think potatoes. I know I should have planted those weeks and weeks ago, but I didn't think I was going to grow them until just last week. I'd also like to figure out where I can plant some more kale and bok choy to use through summer, but it has to be a partially shady area to block from the intense heat we just might get in July.
Well, another week is upon us. My homesteading efforts are headed indoors for some of this week as I cull and clean to get ready for a rummage sale.
Have a great week!

Homestead Revival Barn Hop

I am hoping to revive this blog a bit by joining The Barn Hop! I happened upon this blog "Homestead Revival" and find it truly inspiring. She, along with a couple other gals" created "Homestead Barn Hop: Cultivating the Homestead Community" which is done every Monday. Today, is my first post.




We've had a busy week and have even gotten to see the sun for several days. Well, it is actually what has allowed us to work on outdoor projects. I feel a change in the weather and it is wonderful. Saturday morning I walked outside and it actually felt warm. Not like WARM warm but the air was different, there was no crispness to it and I thought to myself...spring is finally here.
Last week we prepared more of the garden beds for planting, did lots of weeding and mowing (harvesting grass for poultry) and bucked up a tree that fell a couple months ago in preparation for next winter.

One of my favorite things in the whole world is gardening. Digging my hands into the dirt, transforming gardens by weeding, sowing seeds and watching them grow. Then being able to prepare a wholesome meal from the fruits of those labors. Nothing like it in the world. Last year I revamped all my beds to create raised beds (no built sides, but just mounds of dirt) using the "no dig method" of gardening. Each year you just continue to add mulch and compost never disturbing the ecosystem within the soil. There is lots of information out there on this..just google it. It's also known as "Lasagna Gardening". This is my second year on this method. Last year we had the cold spring possible and this year we are following suite so I have been struggling to get things to grow. Not only has it been cold, but it has been SO wet! We are approximately 5 inches above normal for rainfall since 1/1. For the season (which is recorded since 10/1/10) we are over 10 inches above normal.


Kelsey is planting onions here. Behind her we have peas and spinach. Even the greens that I have planted (kale, chard, choy, spinach) are all struggling, not because the cold but because it is so wet!

The peas are about the only thing that is doing well right now!

I spent a couple afternoons weeding the raspberries. They were so overgrown and thick with grass that there were even mushrooms growing in a big clump in one section. I'm still learning about how to take care of this fruit. It was here when we moved in 5 years ago and I still haven't figured out the whole pruning method for them. I know it involves 1st year and 2nd year canes and whatnot.

Kelsey and I worked together to get two beds ready and planted. We planted 10 rows of onion, 10 rows of broccoli, 6 rows of leeks and 6 rows of beets.

As I mentioned earlier I did lots of mowing. I take all the grass I mow and throw it to the chickens. They are not technically "free-range" due to the number of dogs that roam the area, my own included. They have a big fenced area where they've created a moonscape. So during the winter we throw them alfalfa hay from time to time and in the summer they eat the grass.

Last but not least we spent Saturday hauling these rounds ( and more) out of the forest behind our house. We had 2 big trees go down this winter from storms and so we took God's blessings and started the stockpile for next winter. This was hard work because we couldn't get the truck back to where they were.

Thanks for Do-Sa-Doing with me. See you next week!

Wine

I enjoy a good glass of wine. It really is a nice finish to a busy day.
With our desire to learn to become self-sufficient as best we can and with a source for free grapes (bushels in the fall), we thought, what better way to put them up than to try our hand at wine.
This fall we tried our hand at making wine. Tonight we bottled our 2nd batch of 10 gallons. The first batch we did right before Christmas and gave wine to a lot of people for Christmas; 1st Annual St. Brigid Farm Winter Wine. It was fairly good.
Tonight we bottled 10 gallons into 35 bottles of wine (standard size wine bottle- 750ml) and 11 smaller wine bottles (500ml). This is a sweet wine and very tasty. I love a good Reisling and this is very comparable. Maybe a little sweeter even.
I figure on the cheaper end of wine we have nearly $300 worth of wine here that I won't have to buy.
We recycled bottles and the grapes were free so there was very little cost in making and bottling this wine.
It feels good to learn how to support ourselves in this avenue. James also makes his own beer now.

January 2011

It's been way too long since I've posted any news here. I really don't know why. Seems like time gets away with me. Lots has happened on our little farm over the last many weeks and months.

This past Saturday we began the butchering of our old flock of chickens. There were 20 something is all I knew, but now that we've butchered 8 and I can count better it seems that there were more than I thought. I still have 22 to go. These are chickens ranging in age from 2 1/2-4 1/2 years old. They haven't been laying eggs in over a month or longer. I can no longer afford to feed them. We butchered 8 and then I cut my finger pretty good so we stopped. I hope to continue VERY soon. I wish we could continue each Saturday until they were gone but alas life is full of other things.
I have decided to get rid of the other flock as well. They aren't earning their keep as well. We put this huge flock in the old barn a year and a half ago and we now only have maybe 50 left, if that. The problem is, the barn is not rat/mouse proof. And now that winter is with us, they are everywhere. They eat the feed right out of the bins during the day and they are now stealing eggs from the nests. This is totally unacceptable!
I've decided the barn is just not a good place for chickens. We will eliminate this flock as well. Clean everything out and start new. Putting the new chicks in the smaller rat/mouse proof coop.
I read somewhere that mice detest the odor of peppermint. As soon as I'm done here I am going to go out and sprinkle peppermint leaf in the nests of the barn and around the feed and down in the holes. I read that if you get essential oil and put it on cotton balls and drop them in their holes and around their paths that they literally will vacate. Apparently professional rat control people actually do this. Until I get the essential oil I'm going to try the peppermint leaf. I have a huge bag of it and I opened it up to see if it was still potent and whew! It sure was!

I'm thinking ahead now about gardening. I would like to start seeds indoors some time next month. I'm very excited about it this year, as usual. I found a place online called Victory Seeds that I think I am going to order from. They are a small family owned seed company selling only heirloom and gmo-free seeds. I've come to appreciate the importance of trying to grow heirloom and gmo-free seeds and really want to try and stick with that this year. If you want to learn more about this check out their website, but also do a little research. Especially check out the evils of Monsanto and their gmo patented seeds. Terrible stuff. (The name Monsanto was actually in my spell check. ) Also, check out the documentary "The Future of Food". Very good!

My garden seems to change each year and seems to get better, depending on weather. One of the most difficult places to garden, in my opinion, is here in Western WA. It seems as if the season should be nice and long, but it just doesn't get hot enough for long enough. Yeah, we have a long span without freezing, but the temperatures and sunshine are essential and we just don't get that here. So I'm changing things to focus more on cooler weather crops or shorter season things.

Our wood supply is very short this year. Nobody's fault but our own, but we've been working hard on being ready for next winter already. To help us through this winter we are dressing warmer, using the electric heat periodically, collecting pallets to burn and buying Northland Firelogs to supplement. They burn really well and for a really long time! I can put a log in before bed and it's still there in the morning. But we will be ready for next winter. Pretty much nearly are already. But I want to keep bringing in the trees even if we think we are ready for another winter because I don't think you can have too many!

I hope you and yours are fairing well this hard LaNina winter. (Well, at least some places are having a hard winter.)

Here are 2 pictures of the girls helping pluck chickens. This is a first time for Kelsey's friend Emma and really a first for Kelsey. She's never really stuck it out for a whole chicken before.
Kelsey is on the right, Emma in the middle and Charissa on the right in red.

Please Pray!!!

Back in August I wrote about our trip to MN/WI and our visit to my cousins farm.
Today I found out that the barn with all the cows in it (the one pictured in that post), burned down! No one was hurt, but they've lost everything...this was their livelihood!
Please pray for Dave & Judy Zesiger and their family as they work through this. May God be with them, guiding them and comforting them.

fall

Fall is here and well on its way out the door.
With its arrival it brought incredible busyness.
This is actually nothing new.
What fall brings here to the farm...
beautiful color and than deep darkness,
lush harvest and then barrenness,
over abundance of production and than not enough.
We look forward to the light that will enter the world once again.
We take the time now to reflect, to dream and to plan.
Once again, very soon, the earth will bring forth abundant color and provisions.
My prayer and dream is that it will be far better than the past year.