Vacation Coming to an End - 2016 January 14

Well, I was supposed to head back to the big city today, my vacation complete. But the gas truck didn't come on Friday so I need to extend by one day. It's nice to have the ability to change plans so easily. Hopefully, they will show up tomorrow, however, as I do need to get back to the city.

I will be splitting my time between the two places while we get the city house ready for sale. We just need a small house there for trips to see family and such. While I'm gone from the farm, I will be posting about various things from the past several years, as well as updates on current activities.

Before I leave, here's an update on the last few days. The seed orders were finished last night. There are several other things that need to be ordered but weren't available from the main companies I use. Who would have thought that comfrey is not something readily available? And why don't they have sunchoke roots? They were readily available last year when there was no place for them in the garden yet. Why in the world would they only have white, purple and yellow sweet potato slips? I tried growing my own slips last year following another bloggers technique but without much luck. So I guess I'll be having another try only this time using the time honored tradition of suspending a sweet potato from the grocery in a glass of water.

But I did find Good King Henry, a perennial type of spinach that I'm going to try. Did you know there is a type of celery that is supposed to be very easy to grow? It's called Golden Self Blanching Celery, worth a try. And King of the Garden Lima beans which are supposed to be what we call butter beans. Apparently, there is no plant species for butter bean. They are just white/yellow limas. Who knew?

Tomorrow is supposed to be the coldest day of the season. Hopefully, there won't be any more snow. Stay warm until the next post and dream about warmer days to come.

A Beautiful Day - 2016 January 14

It was beautiful here today! Not sure what the high was but it was still 56* at 5pm. The sky was clear and the snow was quickly melting. I found some very strange prints in the snow on the driveway. Maybe one of you can figure out what they are.

Not sure what these are. 

And a picture out the back door only shows a smattering of snow now.

 
Since the drive way was safe to travel, I headed into town to check out the Genealogy museum. Picked up a few tidbits but the hoped for large box of family related material was not to be found. Still hoping I'll find the mother lode.


But I did find that my 4th GGparents (GGrandma's maternal line) lived in a little town very near our farm.  And some of them are buried just off of the main road nearby in a couple little cemeteries. I'll have to check out the censuses to see if Grandma lived there.

All in all, an interesting and beautiful day. Weather tomorrow is still supposed to be warm before we drop back into more seasonal temps.

Snow & Seed Catalogs - 2016 January 12

After a very mild fall and early winter, our typical weather has found us. It is a chilly 15* outside tonight. The low is predicted to be 7 with just a -4 windchill. Still not too bad for mid-January. For a while today, the wind was blowing the snow sideways. First from the West and then from the North. However, by Thursday & Friday, Weatherbug is predicting we'll be back into the mid-40's. Anyway, after the blowing stopped, I took a couple pictures out the back & front windows, too comfy to even open the door to get a better shot. The sky has been amazing for the last several days.

Looking South & West out the back window toward the back of the property. 

Looking North out the front window toward the barn.

These back & forth temps have ticked off my left hip, a problem that first showed up 40 years ago when I was pregnant with our daughter. As my mother-in-law would say, "Old Arthur has come to visit again".  And since I need to be off my feet today, what better time than now to begin looking at the seed catalogs.

The catalogs begin showing up in the mail just before Christmas. Their siren song distracts me from all that needs to be done before the first of the year. Better than any Sears Catalog remembered from my childhood. It takes real willpower to just stack them in a corner until a day like today presents itself to make a cup of tea and just indulge myself.

First,  I decided to checked out some reviews. This is something I've never done before but this year's mail brought many new catalogs to browse. It turns out the ones I normally use (with the exception of Burpee) have some of the best ratings. And I use Burpee less and less as I find better companies with more organic and non-GMO seeds. Baker's Creek (http://www.rareseeds.com) and Bountiful Gardens (https://www.bountifulgardens.org) are my current favorites. They have scads of seeds in many different categories and I always learn something from their catalogs.

I use all kinds of excuses to purchase seeds I may not get planted this year. For example, I NEED something to plant in the orchard that will help get the trees strongly established. And gluten free flour is so expensive, wouldn't it be nice to grow my own gluten free grain to mill? And I've never been able to grow Brussels sprouts and broccoli successfully. Surely there must be a variety that will grow well here. And wouldn't it be nice to grow my own butter beans because we can only find them canned in the grocery store about 1/2 the time, and how can I make Kansas Prairie Beans without them? 

The most difficult part will be pacing myself, remembering that I have so many seeds already. Especially as I saved some seeds from last year. In fact, seeds are the only reason last years garden wasn't a complete bust. I'm sure I'll be writing about seeds again before I finish my orders. And of course there's that giant order for the orchard that needs to be placed with Stark Bros. But that will need to wait until another day.

Water Update - 2016 January 11

Papa finally arrived last night around 10pm.  Upon getting to the well house, he found that the heat lamp bulb had burned out and a fuse had been blown. Since I've not been to the well house after he finished winter proofing it last fall, it is unlikely I would have been able to find the issue by myself. It was so great that he could come down and rescue me. The dog, Summer, enjoyed the trip and was pleased to see me.

When it was time to head back to the city this morning, Summer was not very happy. She loves it down here. She spent quite some time with her nose buried in the snow following some animal's trail through the yard. So she and Papa loaded up the truck and headed back to the city leaving me in the quiet.

A good part of the morning was spent looking for bargains on Ebay, Craigslist & Amazon without success. There are so many things we need before we can have animals here - fencing, water containers, food troughs, shelter. We are thinking seriously about getting some American Guinea Hogs this spring. They are a heritage breed that doesn't get very large - 250-300 #s. Not only would it be nice to raise our own meat and knowing what is used to grow it, but it's bacon. And sausage. And ham. And pork chops. And ribs. And pork tenderloin. And...Who can argue with that?





http://guineahogs.org/

We have multiple fields that need to be brought back to productivity. We had a local farmer over to see if they were interested in harvesting for us. They said they were too full of weeds. Their suggestion was to saturate it with Round Up and replant. They would be willing to do that for us and then share the hay. Papa thinks I'm crazy but that just can't be healthy. This is the hay we would use in our garden and to bed our animals in. So I've been researching better ways to get them back in shape.

One of the most interesting ones I've read about is to use your animals, pigs & fowl, to eat the weeds and root out the seeds and roots. It's so turned over by time they're done that the ground is ready for planting without even having to plow. I'd like to start with a part of the South field behind the house and see how quickly it would be cleared. Guinea Hogs are ready to butcher at about 18 months. If you get them at 6 - 8 weeks, that is still over a year to get them in the freezer. If we get 3-4, I wonder how much land they could clear in one spring/summer. We hope to contact a  farmer in a nearby town who raises them to get his take on doing this and to see if he'll have any piglets this spring.

The rest of the day was spent reading up on Organic Orcharding. I'm hoping to get a small one started yet this spring. So now I'm pulling out the Stark Bros and the seed catalogs. Some women want designer shoes and clothes. Some want to travel the world. Some want jewels and fancy cars. These days, I want seeds, bushes and trees. Lots of kinds of seeds. I want to see which ones are easy and which ones are hard to grow. I want to see what they look like in the yard and garden. I want to taste their produce to see which ones taste best. And at 3 - 5 dollars a package, I get to indulge myself. A lot. And I like that.

The Farm Has a Blog - 2016 January 10

For many years, Papa & I have dreamed of owning a small piece of property in rural Indiana. Although  our house sits on 2 1/2 acres, we've dreamed of being out where there are few or no restrictions on the property. We finally realized our dream 3 years ago. Now we want to be able to document what we're doing. For several years, I have dreamed of having enough time to work on our farm while also having enough time to blog about it. I've tried to satisfy my desire by posting on facebook but it's hard to go back and review what I've written. I thought a log would be an excellent way of keeping family and friends up-to-date on what we are doing. And it would be a wonderful way of documenting our progress on our goals and easily reviewing that progress. So often, we work hard toward goals without ever acknowledging our progress. In order to prevent this from happening, today I am finally starting our blog. It helps, of course, that just 2 days ago I officially retired.

Here's a little history. After viewing a lot of different properties, we purchased our little farm 3 years ago in December 2012. . As funny as it may sound, from the time we stepped out of the truck, it just felt right. It was late fall and everything was very overgrown. There was no house on the property, which was one of our must haves. There was also no septic. The driveway was very steep and washed out. The pond was empty and the barn roof leaked. Had there been snow on the ground, we would not have made it up to the end of the drive. After walking around the property for about 30 minutes, we headed back home while discussing why we shouldn't buy it. Two hours later, we were home and I was convinced we had found our retirement "home". We made an offer the next day and closed on 12/31/12.

Over the past 3 years, we've made enormous progress in some areas while making very little progress in others. I'll be blogging about our current adventures while also trying to capture all that has happened over the past 3 years. We've traded the camper and outhouse for a "house" and real bathrooms. We have working mowers/tractors and a fairly well developed garden spot. We have a reworked drive that still is mostly impossible to get up in snow and ice. But we're making progress and the farm is now a very pleasant, comfortable place to stay. Overall, an amazing place.


View from the guest room window this morning


View from the back door this evening

Oh, and the adventure/unpredictability/excitement of a farm is always with us. While I sit here starting this blog, I'm waiting for Papa to arrive because the water is once again frozen. Last winter, many of our pipes broke so he worked extensively on the water system this past fall getting it ready for winter. Not sure where the issue is located tonight because there are so many possible areas of failure. At least for now, I'm sitting in the warm house while it is 5* outside, snowy & windy.

Welcome to our farm. It's a challenge, an aggravation and our little piece of heaven all rolled into one.