Summers End

Today is a perfect blogging day!
The air is holding the damp chill that comes on a drizzly autumn day. Its a good day to dig out the slippers and get some things done inside.

Its been a while since I have posted and for some good reasons too!

For one thing, we have been totally crazy busy:

and another reason:

We are thrilled to have a new little farmer on the way!
Not that that means I haven't been able to blog, but it has definitely changed my summer a lot!

So what have we been up to?
I will share some pictures of our last little while on the farm.

Our washing station got a fabulous upgrade. This is our new tent and we have said over and over how we can't imagine not having it. Trust me, washing veggies all day in the rain is not very nice, and when you add wet and cold little farmers its pretty miserable! This tent is amazing!

Our view from the harvesting station

Red Russian Garlic. So, so, so, good! I am a lover of garlic, but I never knew just how good garlic could be until I had it fresh and juicy from the garden. Wow.



Matt harvesting our heirloom Petrowski Turnips. We are really very pleased with these. We had to bring the seed up from Missouri but we will definitely be growing them again.

Bunched Multiplier Onions ready to ship out.

Some of our heirloom rainbow carrots, Atomic red and Yellowstone.

Rainbow carrots ready for bagging. Yum! 

We have been harvesting steadily through the summer and are learning a ton! So far we are really happy with the quality we have been able to grow, but there is a lot of room for improvement in the efficiency area. We are slowly gathering ideas and plans for next year.

Me and little farm girl have managed for carve out a bit of time for horsing around!

And, she has been eating her very own watermelons this summer. I have never liked watermelon until I tried these. They are really sweet!

Little farm boy is always up for a truck ride!

Matt bringing the tractor home from haying. The bale spike he built worked awesome!

Happy piggies (Star, Anna Rose Rosie-ella, and Black ear) looking for a treat. They have recycled so much of our garden waste!

The hay at home. It was a big job but Matt enjoyed it so much! 

I thought this was cute. My machine parked next to Matt's. I had to make some repairs to the tent so I brought it out to the man zone.

And I have to admit, I have been moaning about the last couple days, quite badly. Like worse than Matt was last winter when we didn't get enough snow for snowmobiling.

With another little farmer on the way I knew Charlie would have to sit for another year. He is an awesome little horse and loves to work. I felt like with all the time off he would have, I should see if there was someone out there that he would be a perfect match for.



It was a very hard decision to even list him, but I really wasn't sure if he would sell, especially with hay prices so high right now, so I felt a little better posting him.
I put a cute little video of him up. It turns out he is the dream horse for lots of people and after a few days he had 17 people lined up to look at him.
So, yesterday he went off to a really wonderful new home. I feel really good about where he went, but I still feel like I lost a good friend.



But it turns out, a drizzly fall day is a good day to have a pity party too...

Busy Season!

Things are pretty crazy busy!
I know its been a while since I have posted, but I will still just make this a quick update because I have lots to do on the farm today!

Lets see, since my last post we have been up to a lot.

Our kittens went off to their new homes. I was able to resist keeping them which was hard because they were so sweet!

We lost all the chicks we were raising for ourselves to a coyote. That was a pretty sad day for everyone. Farming sure has its ups and downs.

Matt has been haying like crazy. We finished our property and he is halfway through some fields we leased. It has been a lot of work. He would leave early in the morning and come home well after dark. Its been going pretty well. I think there are 60 acres left to go, so next stretch of good weather we should be able to finish for the year.

The pigs are out on in the pig jungle now. I absolutely love being able to see them from the kitchen window.

They just love it out there too!

 



 

They make pretty quick work of the grass!

Chores have changes around here. There is no more pulling them along in wagons or carrying in backpacks. They have got their bikes and its me struggling to keep up!



I send them out to pick some food for supper in the evenings. Sometimes they forget to come back. Little farm boy carried my garlic around like this the whole time he picked berries.

But the berries are pretty exquisite this time of year. I can hardly blame them!

This is little farm girls pride and joy! Sometimes she waters it for breakfast and lunch. 

And the garden is coming along really well. I have spent so much time out there that I joke about becoming part of the earth. The grasshoppers and flies all sit on me while I work and I stopped brushing them off a while ago. Still I was pretty surprised the other day when a bird landed on my arm!

I think their must be some mice or something in the green manures. The cats and dog spend lots of time hunting in there.

I didn't even see the spiderweb in this picture until I put it on the computer.

The wheelbarrow truck is parked by the garden with our new harvesting station in the back. When we get some spare time (haha!) we will put it up.



And, our certification is finally finalized AND I finally finished a snazzy farm logo for us!
Both were a bit of a work in progress and I am glad to have it finished. This picture is taken from our new produce labels!

It took me quite a while to put a logo together. It seems like it would be fun and easy but I really wavered over how to define our farm in an image. Our products have been changing slowly over time as we learn what works for us and the micro climate of our farm, so I didn't want to chose a particular product we are growing or raising.

This logo is actually quite dear to my heart and I will try to quickly explain why.
When Matt and I met we were working on a farm, or more of an acreage. I worked in the barn and I just loved to watch the barn swallows nesting and raising babies together. My favourite was when they would sit on the edge of their nest together, so close that their ruffled feathers would intertwine. They would just chatter and chatter in a way that seemed so content and companionable. As a teenager that was my dream for the future. God has blessed me so much more than I ever could have imagined then!

Summer Days

Its officially summer on the farm, and things are wonderful!



Yesterday little farm girl found some deliciously ripe strawberries all warmed in the sunshine, and when she put the first one in her mouth she said "I think God made these to show how much he loves me!"
I feel like that about the farm lots of days.



Here is our garden. Its feels like it is coming along painfully slowly. Mainly just because we were way ahead of this last year.



We have discovered an absolute love for flame weeding. I weeded carrots for hours and hours yesterday and last night we did a quick comparison between the row I was weeding that didn't get flame weeded, and the following rows which did get flame weeded. What a crazy difference! Matt suggested we rip everything out and start again with flame weeding. We won't actually do it, but the difference in the amount of weeding to be done brought that thought to mind!



Beside the garden we have tilled and planted green manures to improve next years garden expansion. That hay is coming in nicely along side it. Those thick spots are where we pastured our layers last fall. Weather permitting we will cut hay over the weekend.



Here are the Oats and Peas coming up. They will add organic matter and nitrogen to the soil. All together I think its an acre and a half we have planned for next year.



Peas coming up!



Here are some greenhouse pictures. I am a bit frustrated with how slow everything is going in there too. I lost everything to frost in the spring and had to start again.



I was even starting to doubt if I would get anything but this morning I noticed flowers on some tomato plants and a few peppers.



This pepper plant on the left was one of the few frost survivors. Its has some flowers on it now. The one on the right was from the second planting.

And some of the sights around the farm.



The chicks running around. I love watching them catch flies. They flatten down those awkward little bodies and dart around the lawn, and suddenly there is a fly in their beaks! That starts a game of keep away, which is another whole show in itself!
 


And on the opposite end of the productivity scale is the pigs. I caught this little girl (called Black Ear) trying to combine rooting and napping. After some very drowsy shovels with her nose she sunk down into a little heap.



And the horses. I am climbing up on them every chance I get and it sure feels good. Whenever I get a minute they are game to play with me.



Matt's Grandparents came to visit and Grandpa, who is an amazing horseman and has bred and shown draft horses all over the country, gave me a quick harness lesson with Charlie. I have a harness that is not quite complete and he was able to go over it with me and show me exactly what was missing.  

And our good-as-gold farm dog. We are in the market for another good farm dog. If only I could just double her!



And this is how we spend our evenings. Weeding away. The work can be a bit tedious but the view and the company is amazing!

Not a bad way to spend an evening...