fourth of july

The dew soaked my feet before I even got to the turkey feed this morning. The sun was bright but it was cool enough for a jacket. The ducks filled their bills with all the mash they could fit before running to the creek to wash it all down and take their morning bath. The meat goats were happily laying under the shade of a bark stripped locust tree, lounging around eating their morning grain. I picked the summer squash while the sheep impatiently yelled at me for their morning meal and the pigs weren't even up when I threw their feed in.

It has been a tough week with the loss of the best cat who thought he was a dog and the best sheep who loved people. The pigs were running crazy and getting my grandma yelled at (what kind of jerk yells at a sweet old woman) and the goats were mischevious as ever. The next day, we lost our first fainting goat kid before we even realized it was born. So heartbreaking. In the middle of the week I was completely frustrated and tired and about ready to just move to a giant city and eat food shipped thousands of miles and not think about it.

... but I guess that's when you really just put your head down, one foot in front of the other and tackle each problem one at a time until everything is back in balance.

I moved the pigs behind the chicken house and gave them an electric fence of their own. I tied the alpacas to a tree so that they could graze, put the meat goat in a nice fence Travis built behind my house, checked online to see what could cause a miscarriage in a goat and what we can do about it next time, weed eated the trees that are growing in the cabbage... and slowly before long everything seemed to hit equilibrium again.

This morning was a sigh of relief, a sun bathed scene of beautiful fields with ducks preening themselves, geese flapping their wings for a morning stretch, sheep bounding and jumping at the sight of their breakfast, pigs sleepily waking up and plowing nose first into a giant bucket of slop, and pepper the heeler sitting back to survey her flock and make sure everyone is in line.

After blue berry pancakes and a big pile of eggs, I feel much better. And now, with one eye open to the problems at hand, today I am going to try to sit back and enjoy this independance day, eating straight out of the garden and grilling up some home grown hamburgers.

It's CSA season!

There is nothing like the sit down at the end of the day, especially after running around all day. The first pickup day is always very exciting, with all of us running around through the berry patch, pulling root veggies out of the ground, deciding what lettuce heads to cut and which to keep for next week... all the while thinking - do we have enough? or do we have too much? how will i remember everyone's names?
So when 8 o'clock starts drawing near and the chickens are just starting to roost, it's amazing how your feet feel when you finally give them a break. With an extremely pleasant new signup rounding out the end of the pickup day, we were all happy to crack open a beer, giggle at the ducks and geese chasing bugs, and sit down to assess the first pickup day.

My sister looked a bit incredulous at me when it was all said and done and said "you do that every week?!" Eh, it gets easier as the season goes on though. It is so odd to think -- yes, I am planting this today but it won't be ready to eat until.... three months from now or four months from now or five weeks from now. After last year, I threw out the calculations going by the back of the seed packs (seed companies are terrible liars with high promises of huge yields in little or no time at all) and we have gone for the gung ho - plant as much as you can whenever you get the chance - approach. With the extra help this year, the gardens filled up quickly and we started looking for more land that we could use. Travis is the best for that. He can prepare a bed where there was nothing before (or where the pigs used to live, hehe) and things just start growing from there. I am trying not to worry, but I can tell it is going to be a wild ride as we battle the bugs, grow through a rather rainy summer so far, and try to stop the deer from eating our tomatoes in the back garden. They think we planted just for them. Wouldn't you know that as soon as I got the groundhogs under control, something else would think the garden looks delicious.

Anyway, as I promised this year to Jason, we cut back on signups so that our family can eat out of the gardens, a luxury we didn't have this year. I looove the radish recipe from the baskets this week and we are going to have grilled asparagus, lamb chops, and steamed on the grill radishes with a light short cake with a couple tiny strawberries on top.

I forgot over the winter how nice it is to cook straight out of the gardens.

summer salads and the first lightning bug

I feel so lucky today. Perhaps it was sleeping in on a warm summer Sunday or maybe it was the hours playing in the garden and then jumping in freezing cold water to wash off the sweat and dirt. I am very happy with the pace of how the gardens are planted this year and I am incredibly happy that we didn't start the CSA as early as we did last year. I just keep thinking, geez, we'd be on week two already last year!
I am happy this way because it is allowing the lettuce to head instead of all be loose leaf. Sure, we will only catch the waning end of the asparagus and strawberry season but I think that the best is yet to come. The war on the weeds is on and Scout, my dad's white german shepherd suddenly figured out that his call in life was to hunt groundhogs... which is good news for us. There has only been one squash bug sighting so far and I haven't seen a cabbage moth all year yet. The peas are in full flower, the squash is putting on new green leaves, and the trees have settled into their new leaves quite nicely, turning the chartreuse into a rich, chlorophyll green of summertime.

I saw my first lightning bug today! It was at dusk and I was walking out to the sheep as the tree frogs were warming up for their nightly song when the ground started blinking at me. It is so funny how the early lightning bugs are supercharged, blinking so fast it seems like they are confused with their power to illuminate. Once settled in within the next few weeks, I'm looking forward to their nightly show as the bats fly overhead eating hundreds of mosquitoes.

I feel lucky today. Not that I am going to play the lotto or win money or narrowly escape catastrophe, more just glad to be in this moment at this time. Everything is growing, blooming, fruiting, and baa-ing. It's summer salad time!

carrots, kohlrabi, cabbage, and peas

The peas are up, the garlic is almost knee high, the onions are poking out of the ground as we throw mulch to cover their bare shoulders. In the ground, waiting for germination to catapult them into happily growing are colored carrots, purple kohlrabi, cylindrical cabbage, white radishes, golden beets, swiss chard, arugula, two types of kale, and all types of heading and loose leaf lettuces.
The broccoli, cauliflower and celery are happily soaking up today's rain and I'm cursing the plum tree who foolishly burst into bloom the first warm spring day, leaving it vulnerable as always to those last inevitable spring frosts.

This is the time of so much anticipation. This is the first flush of chartreuse in the grass and a bit under the trees. The apple trees have a little green on their tips and the lilac has what looks like baby grape clusters coming on. There is a sweet smell in the air, combined with the rain turning everything into mud means that spring is certainly here.

Spring!

The first day of spring is always so exciting. Each year, the season begins with a flurry of work after the nip in the air subsides a bit and this year proved to be no different.

My list of things to do is getting whittled down slowly and I feel like we're really on top of our game this year. I've recently taken up employment at a local vineyard and budding winery. I'm learning so much and playing outside all day. Every day I soak up more information from older, more experienced farmers and now I'm learning all about the best butchers around, when to spread manure and till in cover crops, advanced animal husbandry (they also have a beef operation), and the basics of making hay.

With all the excitement of budding grapevines, I am still keeping up with everything at home as well. This weekend was a tilling frenzy as we rented the Baretto from Leppo Rentals and increased the front garden by 1/3rd along with preparing the beds scattered at all four corners of the property.
We also have increased the livestock around here by 1/3rd as well. We now have 4 pigs of all colors with spots and stripes. Two bottle baby lambs follow my sister and her husband wherever they go and we finally found a fainter buck to start breeding these genetic anomolies. There's also two boer goats living with a giant white rabbit as I've never really had goat meat or rabbit meat for that matter and the conversion of feed to meat is amazing. And of course there are 25 little peeps ready to take their place in the hen house as soon as it gets warm enough and all their feathers come in.

I am up to date and on track for the organic orchard spray regimen. Pepper is doing much better with herding and keeping everyone in order. The seeds are growing at a nice rate and I'm holding back not putting everything in the ground too soon.

Set aside April 4th for our seed swap. That also happens to be the weekend of the Mount Hope exotic animal auction so you never know what else we might have by then!

Think Spring!

dust bunny and lamb meat

I realize that most of my blogs are just a reflection about how fast time is flying. That's probably because whenever I sit down to write, I think - geez, is it 2/20 already? Holy crap! Spring is just around the corner.

Although right now, you would not believe that bright sunny days in the balmy 50 degree rainy spring could be anytime soon, these 20 degree-wind chilling through to the bone- days aren't going to last much longer... well, I hope.
We are keeping busy around here inside, but Pepper the puppy is really stir crazy with the winter blues.
The first dormant oil spray has been laid down on the apples, peaches, pears, and plums and I'm hoping that we'll have another mild and late frost-free spring like last year, although I'm not holding my breath.
Our seedlings are about ready for bigger pots as watering seems to never ending now and planting in the ground seems like a far off dream. I ordered a greenhouse online, a dream of mine to have a tropical oasis to hold me over through the terrible Ohio winters, but one day after putting it together, a terrible wind storm came by and put it in the neighbors field. I guess three inch stakes into not really frozen ground is not a good idea? Geez. The directions should have said that...

Rebuilding in progress.

A few of the garlic cloves heaved out of the soil during the two days of 60 degree weather and they have little roots growing in and a little green stalk poking through.

I am getting pretty antsy for this year's pigs. We had a lot of fun with them last year and they are completely and utterly delicious. The sausage cooks up perfectly for breakfast, the ribs slathered in grandma's bbq sauce were to die for, and the pork chops and bacon are divine. We cooked a ham in a cider glaze from our cider pressing frenzy and I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.
I also recently discovered a love for lamb meat as well. Believing firmly in the -try before you buy- theory, I decided to try a couple lamb steaks just to see if it was worth it to get some grass fed lamb this year.
The answer is easily YES as the sweet meat just melted into deliciousness with every bite. The question now is what breed to choose. Poor Crystal our lonely Jacob sheep has a new fear look in her eye as I just picture rack of lamb... although weighing in at about 40 lbs she probably will not end of up a dinner table anytime soon. We are working on spinning her wool and with a new Angora bunny from DustBunni English Angoras.

Now I am curious about goat meat and while Jason swears that we can't eat anything that we've already named, I'm wondering if it's an acquired taste or have I deliciously overlooked it like lamb, but nowhere around here sells just one goat steak. The butcher offered to sell me a whole goat to which I replied, no thanks I already have one.

We did recently pick up a fainting goat buck from NW Ohio. He is black and tan with a big beard and no horns. We named him Omar and he's still learning where the electric fence is and how it works. Every time he gets it wrong and leaves the pasture, Pepper is more than happy to put him back in his place. I did see him stiffen up once from excitement and we're hoping for some great kids with marbled blue eyes and delicious goat milk and cheese coming up soon.

My house is aliiiiive

It's hard to sleep now. Spring is rushing towards us at an alarming rate. The rain was patting the ice off the roof early this morning and the first step outside just squished in the mud. I love the smell of fresh mud after the rain and it seems like the grass takes a beating from which it will never recover from in between the frost every morning and the barrage of moisture from snow melts and spring rains.

My house makes noises at night. It's alive now with beer bubbling, rabbits drinking, quail hatching, and seedlings sprouting. My morning rituals are getting more involved now with spraying down the flats of basil sprouting in every window of the house and turning the eggs slowly warmed in the incubator. We added an angora rabbit to the mix just recently and we hope to have some of the best scarves by next winter... or at least some fiber to spin to get through the long dark days of January.

The sun is stretching across the horizon, the goats are fully utilizing their fenced off pasture and pepper is barking and chasing around everything that moves.

I know it's still February but with 60 degree days it's really hard not to think that spring is in the air.