asparagus / fruit trees / garden / garlic / onions / peas / potatoes / sunday stroll / updates

Sunday Stroll: Garden Update

I have been taking a stroll around my yard every morning and evening lately. There is a lot of activity to keep up with! All of these pictures are from the garden today. I thought I would combine the garden update and Sunday Stroll this week to keep things simple. Plus, I have a lot of other things to post about this coming week. Potatoes are finally up! Yay!! I have picked and picked, eaten and shared, and yet till – the asparagus is going to seed. The first row of peas is really growing. The second row is up and about 1-2″ tall. My little bitty lettuce. This was one of the first things I planted. It is growing very slowly but I’m just glad it lived. The onions have doing great all along. The garlic is huge! I saved the best for last. Check out the blossoms on our new pear tree! This is the one that I just planted a few weeks ago. The pear tree that I planted last year has a lot more leaves but no blossoms yet. I can see this little blossoming tree from my window. See who else is strolling on Sunday

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building / chickens / eggmobile / fence / fire

Building An Eggmobile: Part 2

This is a follow up post to Building An Eggmobile: Part 1. I apologize for not taking pictures of each step this time. We were both wore out and just wanted the thing done! Tall side: We went with a chicken wire front here for ventilation with intentions of a roll down tarp to cover the front if needed. The door is split with a small door at the bottom. This was easier than making separate little doors for the chickens. One end: You can see the black soot from the fire. We salvaged all the siding from the shed that burned. The front end with the hitch. We’ll use the four wheeler to move it around and prop it up so it will sit level. The rear aspect: This is our favorite part!! No more squatting down to reach for eggs while Mr. Rooster plans his attack on your hind end. The egg door opens downward so you don’t have to hold it up while gathering eggs. I put a little straw in the boxes for now but would like to switch to washable mats. Umm…a little privacy please!? Here’s what is left to do:Secure a board across the

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building / chickens / eggmobile / farming / garden / mulch

The Chickens Have Moved In!

The hens seem to love their new nest boxes!! As soon as I put straw in them they were all about it. There were 3 1/2 hens in one box at one point. Overall, we’re both thrilled with how it turned out, at least so far. I’m not going to post many details tonight because I’m exhausted! Brian and I haven’t been in the house before 10 o’clock since Tuesday night, thus the lack of posts since then. We worked on the eggmobile Wednesday and Thursday nights. Tonight he worked ground while I mulched the garden and cleaned out the old coop. I’ll let it air out tonight and move the new chicks out there in the morning. Have a good one! 🙂

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asparagus / milk

My “Fast Food” Dinner

Brian picked himself up some fast food for dinner. I was working late. When I talked to him he told me he already ate so maybe I should get myself something in town too. I drove that way home but nothing sounded good and I didn’t stop anywhere. I got home and tried to make some butter in the food processor with the raw milk. It didn’t really work but I probably wasn’t patient enough. The milk did get really foamy like when you start to whip real cream. I didn’t want to pour it back in the jug so instead… I added one envelope of chocolate Carnation Instant Breakfast to it. I had the stuff in the cupboard and have pretty much quit drinking it so this was a good way to use it up. Oh my goodness – it was great! Like a cross between a milkshake and chocolate mousse. I drank that and ate a half dozen raw pieces of asparagus that I picked on my nightly walk through the garden. Maybe someday I’ll have fresh home grown berries to have with whipped milk. Mine was maybe not the most complete meal, but I did get a

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fruit trees / sunday stroll / wheat

Sunday Stroll

This pear tree came through the winter just fine! Four new Heritage Raspberry canes. You can’t see it in the picture but they are getting little leaves. I think this is a flowering cherry tree. It is in the island between the driveways and gets these gorgeous blossoms every year. I have never found one speck of fruit there. The wheat is growing tall! It won’t be long before we’ll see blossoms! Here’s a view of the back pastures from where I was working on the fence yesterday. Off to the right is the wheat field. See who else took a stroll today over at Quiet Country House. Have a great Monday everyone! 🙂

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chickens / dogs / dreams

Chick City and a Rough Night

Well, Becker Farms is now the proud home of 99 Colored Range chicks! They arrived Friday and I was able to get them home from the post office and settled before going to work. I took the above video that morning. Aren’t they fun to watch! I’m thrilled with how vigorous they are. I didn’t have to show them how to eat or drink, they just jumped right in. They do need a bigger space so I’m going to work on the eggmobile today. Right now the chicks are in our basement. Once the big chickens are out the old coop is going to be our brooding space. We did have one fatality yesterday, it was very weird and I still don’t know why it happened. The chick had a bum leg and a sore on it’s belly. Honestly, it looked like a little piece of intestine had come out and wrapped around the leg. It was horrible and I hope it doesn’t happen again! On the plus side, the rest are doing great! Apparently I was super worried about the chicks last night. The night went something like this: 9 PM – Hubby takes a shower, I start to

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cattle / local / milk / organic

Real Milk?

Remember all the times I’ve mentioned that we mostly just buy dairy products from the store now? Well that might change. I looked in to a cow share program a while back. I gave it some thought and then put it out of my mind. Then out of the blue the program coordinator e-mailed me again just to make sure that she had indeed responded to my first e-mail (she did). That same week a new intern started at my workplace. We got to talking and it came up that she is part of the same cow share program. Her family loves the milk and doesn’t plan on switching back. I am still a little leery about the whole thing, to be honest. The milk comes straight out of the bulk tank on the farm. It is from Certified Organic cows. It is not pasteurized. I know there is a huge debate over whether or not pasteurizing is important. I think it is safe to say that if the cows are healthy there is no life-threatening risk involved. Still, there are recommendations that pregnant women not drink unpasteurized milk. God willing, that will apply to me one day (far away).

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dogs

Meet Bear

I’m still in a little bit of an unmotivated mood like I was on Sunday. So here’s my post. Meet Bear, our 125 pound baby. You’ve seen enough pictures of his little blond sister. We call him Eeyore because that is exactly who he acts like. Brian already had Bear when we met. Bear and I had some issues to work through back then. Brian went away for the weekend and Bear wouldn’t get off the couch. I mean really, he refused. I pulled on him, he curled his lip. Then I got smart and pulled the cushion out from under him. Still, he wouldn’t move. I finally put the cushion on the floor next to the couch and coaxed him on to it. Then, I slid the cushion across the wood floor to the doorway. Picture the big lug on an iceberg, that’s what it looked like. In fact, he still will hardly touch the floor. He’s scared to death of it. Too slippery I guess. He actually walks on his tiptoes to get to the couch. As I type, he sleeps next to me, curled up on his couch cushion. Since we got the new (used) furniture awhile

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garden / growing challenge / updates

Growing Challenge Check In

Here’s what I’m growing so far: Seedlings under light:Amish Paste TomatoesGreen Zebra TomatoesWaltham 29 BroccoliPing Tung EggplantLong Purple Eggplant In the garden:Red pioneer potatoes- 10# – plantedRed onions – 2-3″ tallDwarf GreySugar Peas (hybrid) – 1 20′ row – just upAsparagus – up and growingBlack seeded simpson lettuce – 1 20′ row – some upBlack seeded simpson lettuce – 1 20′ row planted 4/27Sugar Ann snap pea – 1 20′ row planted 4/27Victoria Rhubarb – approx. 25 seeds planted 4/27 Around the farm:Heritage Raspberry – 4 canes planted 4/26Strawberry – nice and greenGooseberry and Currants – 2 of each – planted last year – doing great!2 Red Haven Peach trees – planted1 Harrow pear tree – planted1 Bartlett pear tree – planted1 Montmorency Cherry tree – planted1 Gala apple tree – planted1 Golden Delicious apple tree – planted4 blueberry bushes – planted last year – still alive

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asparagus / garden / garlic / onions / peas / sunday stroll

Sunday Stroll… Sort of

I just really didn’t feel like doing much today. Yesterday Brian cut up our old rabbit cage so I could have 2 pieces of plywood for our new farm sign. I painted them this morning. Then we went to breakfast with Brian’s Grandpa. I’m pretty sure he turned 93 this year! After breakfast I put on a second coat of paint. We watched King Corn. I was really disappointed! I guess it might make a bigger impact on people who don’t farm but it really didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. I was hoping the film would help Brian to see why corn in everything is a bad thing, but it wasn’t too convincing. After the movie Brian worked out in the shop for awhile. It was pretty rainy and cold today so I didn’t go out. I’ve been working on our website like crazy and it is almost done!! Get ready, I’m going to want everyone’s opinions of it once it is done! 🙂 Then I worked on tracing our logo on to the farm sign. I’ve got one piece almost done, then I can paint it. Anyway, since I’d really like to get back in to

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