Jun 23, 2010
Snowbound Farms Needs Your Opinion (Updated with a working poll)
Snowbound Farms needs help deciding the new breed of chicken to add to the farm. You may see this poll in more than one place but we ask that if you do to be fair you only vote once. I will tally the votes and order the chickens on Monday. You can see the results then on our Fan Page. Be sure to check back and see if your breed won, and if your not a fan already like our page.
Thank You, and God Bless.
Thank You, and God Bless.
May 7, 2010
Spring Chores
Hello everyone,
The winds have changed and while they are gusting as hard as ever they are of the milder variety rather than the deep arctic chill we get during early fall through late spring. Now that the weather is steadily warming we can expect maybe another snow squall, or a few more hard frosts but over all we should see daytime highs stay above 40 at least until next August.
Getting spring fever and keeping the warming temperatures in mind we started a new, albeit small project, making a new clothes line so that I can start to hang the laundry outside and save some of our hard earned money from the rising cost of electricity. (Thank You Pres. Obama and your Climate Change Bill... but I digress)
Now most of you out there are probably laughing saying to yourself that you make a clothes line by stringing a rope between two trees and call it a day, that's not a project right? Well in most areas of the country you would be right, but up here in northern Maine most of the trees are pine trees and they are not exactly conducive to clothes hanging on a line, that is of course unless you like your clothes to stand up on their own.
So here we have to construct free standing clothes lines. You can buy a metal free standing clothes line at just about any discount department store out there for around $75. But doing so would not be very homesteading survivalist friendly now would it? So being people who practice what we preach we headed back to our back 80 and searched out some acceptable tamarack to use for out building material. Tamarack is a wonderful tree that is a cousin to the cedar and therefore will probably outlast me in longevity. We're cutting some more tamarack down for fencing the front 10 acres in near our road, but that's a whole other story.
If I were really ambitious I suppose I could have went down to the creek and took some reeds and braided a rope to hang the clothes from and my husband could have took the time to shape wooden spikes to hold the whole thing together but instead we took the easy road and bought the rope from Walmart and we found some old screws hanging around the house to use. So we'll say the clothes line cost less than $10 total to make it, and it holds about four loads of laundry at a time.
So we started by getting the tamarack poles.
And then digging the holes where we want the poles to go, and placing them in.
We cut out notches so the poles would go together and have enough strength to hold even the heaviest wettest blankets. It also helped us to make the structure level.
We screwed in the cross braces and drilled holes for the line to go through.
Simple, rustic, and not all together to terrible to look at as far as clothes lines go. We're proud of it and we applied our homesteading principles to doing it, so all in all a win win for the weekend.
Hopefully my next post will be showing us put in the new garden step by step from breaking ground to planting seed. Until then,
Thank You, and God Bless.
The winds have changed and while they are gusting as hard as ever they are of the milder variety rather than the deep arctic chill we get during early fall through late spring. Now that the weather is steadily warming we can expect maybe another snow squall, or a few more hard frosts but over all we should see daytime highs stay above 40 at least until next August.
Getting spring fever and keeping the warming temperatures in mind we started a new, albeit small project, making a new clothes line so that I can start to hang the laundry outside and save some of our hard earned money from the rising cost of electricity. (Thank You Pres. Obama and your Climate Change Bill... but I digress)
Now most of you out there are probably laughing saying to yourself that you make a clothes line by stringing a rope between two trees and call it a day, that's not a project right? Well in most areas of the country you would be right, but up here in northern Maine most of the trees are pine trees and they are not exactly conducive to clothes hanging on a line, that is of course unless you like your clothes to stand up on their own.
So here we have to construct free standing clothes lines. You can buy a metal free standing clothes line at just about any discount department store out there for around $75. But doing so would not be very homesteading survivalist friendly now would it? So being people who practice what we preach we headed back to our back 80 and searched out some acceptable tamarack to use for out building material. Tamarack is a wonderful tree that is a cousin to the cedar and therefore will probably outlast me in longevity. We're cutting some more tamarack down for fencing the front 10 acres in near our road, but that's a whole other story.
If I were really ambitious I suppose I could have went down to the creek and took some reeds and braided a rope to hang the clothes from and my husband could have took the time to shape wooden spikes to hold the whole thing together but instead we took the easy road and bought the rope from Walmart and we found some old screws hanging around the house to use. So we'll say the clothes line cost less than $10 total to make it, and it holds about four loads of laundry at a time.
So we started by getting the tamarack poles.
And then digging the holes where we want the poles to go, and placing them in.
We cut out notches so the poles would go together and have enough strength to hold even the heaviest wettest blankets. It also helped us to make the structure level.
We screwed in the cross braces and drilled holes for the line to go through.
Simple, rustic, and not all together to terrible to look at as far as clothes lines go. We're proud of it and we applied our homesteading principles to doing it, so all in all a win win for the weekend.
Hopefully my next post will be showing us put in the new garden step by step from breaking ground to planting seed. Until then,
Thank You, and God Bless.
Apr 27, 2010
Rotational Gardening
Hello Everyone,
So this morning it snowed. Not a lot of snow just a squall. Enough to coat the grass and remind us that no matter how nice the weather gets during the day it is still April in northern Maine and our last frost date is June 15 regardless how early the flowers blossom or the trees don leaves.
One good thing about the unexpected nice early nice weather this year is that we are implementing rotational gardening this year. When we first came to this property there was no vegetable garden at all. The farm had been used for commercial potato farming years ago and had been planted in hay and clover to improve it's soil quality before it was foreclosed on. So what we bought was a farm who's fields were in total dismay from not being worked for years. We've been slowly reclaiming those fields one half acre at a time.
So upon arriving on the property I proudly proclaimed that our vegetable garden was going to go behind the house and promptly began marking it out. Next was to till all that nice green turf and turn over the ground and start making a garden out of the space. Of course I knew next to nothing about gardening at the time. If i did I would have walked myself up the hill to my front field and made the garden there instead of in my back yard.
In one way it was a good thing because we actually got a yield out of the garden our first year. That in it's self shows the kind of determination we have to make this work. Vegetables do grow out of grass just not well, and no matter how many rocks you pick up when starting a garden there will always be thousands more that still need to be picked up. Our first year here we got so much rain that the extra grass we had in our garden that we just couldn't get rid of no matter how hard we tried helped soak up a lot of that excess water and actually gave us a better tomato harvest than most of our neighbors.
The second year however was a different story. We not only had the excess grass to contend with but we also started to get out of control with the weeds not to mention our soil quality was lacking since the plot used to be lawn not garden. We had a lot going against us but we still managed to sell some vegies and put up a harvest large enough for the year and to give away to friends and reletives. It just wasn't pretty to look at that's for sure.
Also during the second year we began to get more and more bugs throughout the season. This was discouraging because I refuse to start spraying chemicals in my garden. A little soap here and there fine but store bought pesticides no way. All the farmers and neighbors around here use the chemicals so they could offer no help. So I did what any good homesteader does and hit the books. Of course these were the same books that showed depictions of people digging up lawns and starting gardens that look like they belong in a Better Homes and Gardens magazine their first year, but none the less where else could I turn?
That's when I read about rotational gardening as a means to improve soil quality and as a form of pest control. The more I read the more I knew this was for us. It implaments the practices of soil conservation and amendment and it takes care of the excess bugs without using chemical pesticides. So this year we are bidding our 150'x100' current garden goodbye... at least for the next two years, and are instead penning the chicken there for the next two years. There the chickens will dig, scratch and kill all the pesky grass that just keeps coming back for us. Then they will eat all the bugs in each life-cycle form while providing my poor soil with rich free fertilizer. So when I come back to this garden spot two years from now it will be greatly improved and in need of some rock clearing but not much else. The chickens will then move to the garden spot that we will be making this year next to the apple orchard in actual farm soil.
We never documented the creation of our first garden for the website so this time I plan to take pictures and show what we are doing. Now that I won't have the competition of growing grass maybe I'll even get the time to take some more pictures of the garden growing. All in all I think this year will be a better year for the garden and I'll be keeping everyone up on how the rotational gardening is going. Now if it would only stop snowing :)
So this morning it snowed. Not a lot of snow just a squall. Enough to coat the grass and remind us that no matter how nice the weather gets during the day it is still April in northern Maine and our last frost date is June 15 regardless how early the flowers blossom or the trees don leaves.
One good thing about the unexpected nice early nice weather this year is that we are implementing rotational gardening this year. When we first came to this property there was no vegetable garden at all. The farm had been used for commercial potato farming years ago and had been planted in hay and clover to improve it's soil quality before it was foreclosed on. So what we bought was a farm who's fields were in total dismay from not being worked for years. We've been slowly reclaiming those fields one half acre at a time.
So upon arriving on the property I proudly proclaimed that our vegetable garden was going to go behind the house and promptly began marking it out. Next was to till all that nice green turf and turn over the ground and start making a garden out of the space. Of course I knew next to nothing about gardening at the time. If i did I would have walked myself up the hill to my front field and made the garden there instead of in my back yard.
In one way it was a good thing because we actually got a yield out of the garden our first year. That in it's self shows the kind of determination we have to make this work. Vegetables do grow out of grass just not well, and no matter how many rocks you pick up when starting a garden there will always be thousands more that still need to be picked up. Our first year here we got so much rain that the extra grass we had in our garden that we just couldn't get rid of no matter how hard we tried helped soak up a lot of that excess water and actually gave us a better tomato harvest than most of our neighbors.
The second year however was a different story. We not only had the excess grass to contend with but we also started to get out of control with the weeds not to mention our soil quality was lacking since the plot used to be lawn not garden. We had a lot going against us but we still managed to sell some vegies and put up a harvest large enough for the year and to give away to friends and reletives. It just wasn't pretty to look at that's for sure.
Also during the second year we began to get more and more bugs throughout the season. This was discouraging because I refuse to start spraying chemicals in my garden. A little soap here and there fine but store bought pesticides no way. All the farmers and neighbors around here use the chemicals so they could offer no help. So I did what any good homesteader does and hit the books. Of course these were the same books that showed depictions of people digging up lawns and starting gardens that look like they belong in a Better Homes and Gardens magazine their first year, but none the less where else could I turn?
That's when I read about rotational gardening as a means to improve soil quality and as a form of pest control. The more I read the more I knew this was for us. It implaments the practices of soil conservation and amendment and it takes care of the excess bugs without using chemical pesticides. So this year we are bidding our 150'x100' current garden goodbye... at least for the next two years, and are instead penning the chicken there for the next two years. There the chickens will dig, scratch and kill all the pesky grass that just keeps coming back for us. Then they will eat all the bugs in each life-cycle form while providing my poor soil with rich free fertilizer. So when I come back to this garden spot two years from now it will be greatly improved and in need of some rock clearing but not much else. The chickens will then move to the garden spot that we will be making this year next to the apple orchard in actual farm soil.
We never documented the creation of our first garden for the website so this time I plan to take pictures and show what we are doing. Now that I won't have the competition of growing grass maybe I'll even get the time to take some more pictures of the garden growing. All in all I think this year will be a better year for the garden and I'll be keeping everyone up on how the rotational gardening is going. Now if it would only stop snowing :)
Apr 24, 2010
A Hard Month
Spring has come early here on our farm and we have been especially busy because of it. We spent the last weekend in March participating in the Agri-Business fair to try to drum up business for our property maintenance company Night and Day Property Services. The fair was a success and we handed out well over 500 business cards to interested parties, and we've begun to do some jobs generated from the venture.
We acquired a new dog for our farm. He is a Great Dane, Saint Bernard, English mastiff mix so he's going to be a big boy when he's full grown. He's super cute and friendly and his coloring is that of a Harlequin Great Dane. We named him Argos from Homer's epic poem The Odyssey. In the story the main character Odysseus is sent to fight at Troy in a war he sees as pointless and his enemy Poseidon the God of the sea refuses to let him return home to his wife and child after the battle is won. He spends countless years out at sea trying to return home and goes through many adventures with his faithful crew. By the time he does finally arrive back home no one recognizes him except his faithful dog Argos. It's more or less a tribute to our literary addiction that we have in our household.
We've also acquired two wonderful Lion-head bunnies. Our male is of a red color and he has broken in his background. Our female is a blue eyed white and she is of show quality and we are still deciding if we want to enter her in this years Houlton Agricultural Fair. We are planning on breeding them late July and keeping some of the litter for line breeding purposes. With a good breeding plan and a little luck we should have some bunnies for sale by Easter next year.
Easter for us this year was a very trying time. My oldest son Vincent came home the weekend of the fair not feeling good and as a result I had to stay home with him. The cold was a bad one and he had 3 days of a high fever but then it broke and he came out of it all right. A couple of days later my middle son Victor started feeling bad and the next day my daughter Garnet. The two little ones spiked fevers as high as 104 and after 3 trips to the er Garnet was hospitalized followed by Victor 2 days after that.
With in 24 hours of my sons hospitalization Garnet developed Acute Kidney Failure and Victor was still in really bad shape. It was raining and the cloud cover was so low that life star could not fly so Garnet and Victor were both driven by ambulance to Maine Medical Barbra Bush Children's Hospital over 6 hours away. Garnet received last rites before transporting because we weren't sure she was going to make the trip. Along the way the ambulance got a flat tire and we had to wait for another ambulance to pick us up. Despite the odds we reached the hospital at 8pm that night almost 8 hours after we left Caribou and Garnet was still alive. She was rushed into ICU and received dialysis along with a slew of other treatments including blood transfusions. Victor and I went up the the Pediatrics ward where he began his recovery and where I stayed until almost a week later when Garnet was released from ICU and put into a double room with us.
They were both diagnosed with pneumonia. The strain of bacteria that caused it is called Streptococcal Pneumonia #19A. In Victor it caused a very bad case of classic lung pneumonia that required four tubes to be inserted into his lungs so that the fluids could drain. He had to have a pic line put in so he could receive his antibiotics and get daily blood draws. In garnet the bacteria caused Pneumococcal HUS not to be confused with classic HUS. It caused kidney failure and septicemia and did not go into her lungs at all. Her HUS was so rare there have only been 46 cases in the U. S. this year. The childhood vaccine Prevnar is supposed to protect against this disease but sadly it doesn't protect against this type. However, the FDA has signed a new Prevnar vaccine into use this past week and it does protect against this and 5 other additional kinds. If you have a child under 5 it may not be a bad idea to ask your pediatrician about it. It's a day late a dollar short for my family but future children will not have to worry about this bacteria.
Garnet and Victor spent another two weeks in the hospital trying to recover from this and yesterday we were finally released. Victor still has his pic line in and is receiving IV antibiotics for the next 3 weeks from the visiting nurse daily. The nurse is also monitoring Garnet's blood pressure and kidney function although she is now no longer receiving dialysis. It will be a long recovery here at home but I am truly grateful for my kids triumphant return home. I truly believe as do the Doctors who worked on Garnet that it was by Gods grace she made it to the hospital in Portland alive. We Thank God for our family and Thank everyone who knew our troubles and were praying for us.
So it's been a long month for all of us here. I'm hoping next month will go smoother and that it will be a productive month for the farm. We've got lots to catch up on and do so it should be eventful. I hope you all had a much better Easter than mine and that we find all of you healthy and blessed. Until next time,
Thank You and God Bless.
Mar 18, 2010
For All of You Northern Mainers with Spring Fever!!!
Hello All,
This post is largely just for the local followers. Just thought I'd do a small blog letting you all know about the Maine Agri-Business Trade Fair coming up on March 26-28 in Fort Fairfield. It is the 30 anniversary of the fair and as such they will be featuring special demonstrations along with the over 60 farm and business vendors who are attending. Some of the demonstrations include canning, dog obedience, rabbits, and wind power displays. Kids will have a chance to win a potato picking contest, make there own whole wheat tortillas, and enjoy "The Queens" tea with milk and cookies. We will be attending under the name Night and Day Property Services; our landscape and construction company. We will be displaying some of the work we've done here in Maine and we hope that you will all stop by our booth if you are in the area and meet us in person. It will be a wonderful way to get out of the house and enjoy some of this lovely spring weather without being hip deep in mud. Hope to see you all there!
Thank You and God Bless!
This post is largely just for the local followers. Just thought I'd do a small blog letting you all know about the Maine Agri-Business Trade Fair coming up on March 26-28 in Fort Fairfield. It is the 30 anniversary of the fair and as such they will be featuring special demonstrations along with the over 60 farm and business vendors who are attending. Some of the demonstrations include canning, dog obedience, rabbits, and wind power displays. Kids will have a chance to win a potato picking contest, make there own whole wheat tortillas, and enjoy "The Queens" tea with milk and cookies. We will be attending under the name Night and Day Property Services; our landscape and construction company. We will be displaying some of the work we've done here in Maine and we hope that you will all stop by our booth if you are in the area and meet us in person. It will be a wonderful way to get out of the house and enjoy some of this lovely spring weather without being hip deep in mud. Hope to see you all there!
Thank You and God Bless!
Jan 21, 2010
A New Chapter
This March marks the start of our third year here on the Farm. It's a milestone of serious accomplishment. When we first moved here we were city folks, greenhorns that knew nothing of how to live off the land but what we read in books. Reflecting on all that we have learned in the past two years I can't help but feel proud and humbled by all we've done. We've learned to garden, and to preserve our harvest by means of drying, canning, jerking, and pickling. We learned the fine art of storing vegetables over winter in a root cellar, how to care for chickens year round, how to gather eggs without being attacked by the rooster. How to build our own outbuilding and cut our own wood. How to heat a house in -50 degree weather using only a wood stove located in the basement. How to sew my own cloth diapers, and crochet a queen size coverlet, how to thrash grain and sun dry laundry.
No matter how please I am over what we've learned in skills I can't help but be elated in what we've learned that is so much more. The simple things that seem to get lost in the city living that thrive way out here. We've learned to enjoy having neighbors, and whether it's sharing tomatoes from the garden or eggs from the chickens how good it feels to enjoy a simple cup of coffee with friends. We've learned to slow down long enough during harvest to enjoy the sounds of the birds in the fall when the skies are thick with flocks heading south before the winter. We've learned to appreciate dandelions as flowers instead of weeds when they cover every square inch of our lawn in the spring giving us the most spectacular burst of color after months of mounds of snow. We've learned that we have a deeper connection to God than we've ever imagined and that living a simpler way of life away from the unnecessary complications that we create for ourselves we can feel that connection so much more. We've learned that there is nothing more precious in life then the smiles of our children as they play with simple sticks and pine cones in the mud. We've learned that everything around us has a rhythm to it's life, and we've learned to seek the beauty in it.
Even with all this there is always more to learn. We've acquired our building permit to construct our forever dream home in the back field of our property. When we first moved here our intentions were to build a big, beautiful, modern farmhouse with all the conveniences. We would run a farm and provide for ourselves but we would do it in style. Today our building permit is for a 1500sqft 3br. 2bth Saltbox. The plans include a spring house instead of a refrigerator and a wood cook stove in the kitchen. The home will be run by a modest solar powered system that can run high efficiency lighting, a computer, a radio, the well pump, and 2 composting toilet fans daily, and that's it. The home will not be wired for phone but we will instead use cell phones and use solar powered battery pads to charge the phones and several of the children's small electronic devises. We will no longer have a tv, dishwasher, washing machine, or electric stove. I know as I write this many of you out there are mind boggled by this sort of simplistic lifestyle, but honestly this has been discussed at length by our family, and everyone is on board for the change, even the children. Their biggest concern was for family movie night on Saturday's which I assured them that even without a tv the laptop can play DVD's so family movie night was safe and sound in our traditions.
Some of this change can be thanked in part to our Amish/ Mennonite neighbors we have who have done a wonderful job showing us what is truly important to life and what is merely unnecessary. I've strived now for the past year to be a model woman of Proverbs 31 partly because I've always felt that this is what a woman should be, and partly in my attempt to be closer to God and his will. I've always been fascinated with Amish lifestyle and form of dress, so I questioned my neighbor Sarah one day how they could live without a tv, radio, anything that tells them what is going on outside our town. She replied by asking me why I moved up here to the remote section of Northern Maine. In that one question I understood. We\ moved our family to get away from the craziness of the city...not just to homestead, we could have done that in CT on the 30 acres of land we owned there. No, we moved because of the drugs, crime, violence, petty competitions, and lack of morals that we were surrounded by where we were. So if we moved to remove ourselves from this culture than why do we invite it back into our living room every night in the form of the evening news? Why do we allow our children to watch the petty series and sitcoms with the immoral values we are trying to save them from? Sarah explained to me that she dresses the way she does not just because God commands it but because by dressing this way it reminds her everyday that she is different from the rest of the world, but a part of her community, a place where people share her thoughts, morals, and devotions. Sarah is a very smart woman.
While I am not ready to shun society as a whole I can understand what Sarah was trying to say and I agree with her. We've been hanging on to the last of what our former life was and the last of our old ways, and it is now time to shed them. We no longer need a large gaudy house to show off to friends, family, and neighbors. We need a house that is serviceable and able to work just like us. We no longer need a tv to spend hours mindlessly watching, and since I will no longer be watching tv I have time to wash my clothes and dishes by hand. More time to play with my kids, more time to read to them and teach them the morals and values I want them to carry into their own lives in their own homes.
So as we enter 2010 there is still a lot for us to learn. I need to except each day as it is. What I can accomplish in a day is what I can accomplish, there is always tomorrow to continue. I have to strive to make keeping my home a litany to God instead of a chore that must be done. I have to set aside more time for my kids to teach me things....because in spending time with them they often do. I need to turn off the tv, and to turn the page to the next chapter of my life with my family on our little homestead, and there are no regrets, no what ifs, nowhere we would rather be.
God Bless.
No matter how please I am over what we've learned in skills I can't help but be elated in what we've learned that is so much more. The simple things that seem to get lost in the city living that thrive way out here. We've learned to enjoy having neighbors, and whether it's sharing tomatoes from the garden or eggs from the chickens how good it feels to enjoy a simple cup of coffee with friends. We've learned to slow down long enough during harvest to enjoy the sounds of the birds in the fall when the skies are thick with flocks heading south before the winter. We've learned to appreciate dandelions as flowers instead of weeds when they cover every square inch of our lawn in the spring giving us the most spectacular burst of color after months of mounds of snow. We've learned that we have a deeper connection to God than we've ever imagined and that living a simpler way of life away from the unnecessary complications that we create for ourselves we can feel that connection so much more. We've learned that there is nothing more precious in life then the smiles of our children as they play with simple sticks and pine cones in the mud. We've learned that everything around us has a rhythm to it's life, and we've learned to seek the beauty in it.
Even with all this there is always more to learn. We've acquired our building permit to construct our forever dream home in the back field of our property. When we first moved here our intentions were to build a big, beautiful, modern farmhouse with all the conveniences. We would run a farm and provide for ourselves but we would do it in style. Today our building permit is for a 1500sqft 3br. 2bth Saltbox. The plans include a spring house instead of a refrigerator and a wood cook stove in the kitchen. The home will be run by a modest solar powered system that can run high efficiency lighting, a computer, a radio, the well pump, and 2 composting toilet fans daily, and that's it. The home will not be wired for phone but we will instead use cell phones and use solar powered battery pads to charge the phones and several of the children's small electronic devises. We will no longer have a tv, dishwasher, washing machine, or electric stove. I know as I write this many of you out there are mind boggled by this sort of simplistic lifestyle, but honestly this has been discussed at length by our family, and everyone is on board for the change, even the children. Their biggest concern was for family movie night on Saturday's which I assured them that even without a tv the laptop can play DVD's so family movie night was safe and sound in our traditions.
Some of this change can be thanked in part to our Amish/ Mennonite neighbors we have who have done a wonderful job showing us what is truly important to life and what is merely unnecessary. I've strived now for the past year to be a model woman of Proverbs 31 partly because I've always felt that this is what a woman should be, and partly in my attempt to be closer to God and his will. I've always been fascinated with Amish lifestyle and form of dress, so I questioned my neighbor Sarah one day how they could live without a tv, radio, anything that tells them what is going on outside our town. She replied by asking me why I moved up here to the remote section of Northern Maine. In that one question I understood. We\ moved our family to get away from the craziness of the city...not just to homestead, we could have done that in CT on the 30 acres of land we owned there. No, we moved because of the drugs, crime, violence, petty competitions, and lack of morals that we were surrounded by where we were. So if we moved to remove ourselves from this culture than why do we invite it back into our living room every night in the form of the evening news? Why do we allow our children to watch the petty series and sitcoms with the immoral values we are trying to save them from? Sarah explained to me that she dresses the way she does not just because God commands it but because by dressing this way it reminds her everyday that she is different from the rest of the world, but a part of her community, a place where people share her thoughts, morals, and devotions. Sarah is a very smart woman.
While I am not ready to shun society as a whole I can understand what Sarah was trying to say and I agree with her. We've been hanging on to the last of what our former life was and the last of our old ways, and it is now time to shed them. We no longer need a large gaudy house to show off to friends, family, and neighbors. We need a house that is serviceable and able to work just like us. We no longer need a tv to spend hours mindlessly watching, and since I will no longer be watching tv I have time to wash my clothes and dishes by hand. More time to play with my kids, more time to read to them and teach them the morals and values I want them to carry into their own lives in their own homes.
So as we enter 2010 there is still a lot for us to learn. I need to except each day as it is. What I can accomplish in a day is what I can accomplish, there is always tomorrow to continue. I have to strive to make keeping my home a litany to God instead of a chore that must be done. I have to set aside more time for my kids to teach me things....because in spending time with them they often do. I need to turn off the tv, and to turn the page to the next chapter of my life with my family on our little homestead, and there are no regrets, no what ifs, nowhere we would rather be.
God Bless.
Nov 30, 2009
The Twelve Days of Christmas (Northern Aroostook County, Maine Style)
On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me a partridge in a pine tree.
On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me 2 pigeons, and a partridge in a pine tree.
On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me 3 White Rocks, 2 pigeons, and a partridge in a pine tree.
On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me 4 large black crows, 3 White Rocks, 2 pigeons, and a partridge in a pine tree.
On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me 5 FEET OF SNOW, 4 large black crows, 3 White Rocks, 2 pigeons, and a partridge in a pine tree.
On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me 6 moose a mating, 5 FEET OF SNOW, 4 large black crows, 3 White Rocks, 2 pigeons, and a partridge in a pine tree.
On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me 7 hunter's hunting, 6 moose a mating, 5 FEET OF SNOW, 4 large black crows, 3 White Rocks, 2 pigeons, and a partridge in a pine tree.
On the eighth day of Christmas my true love gave to me 8 skiers skiing, 7 hunters hunting, 6 moose a mating, 5 FEET OF SNOW, 4 large black crows, 3 White Rocks, 2 pigeons, and a partridge in a pine tree.
On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me 9 pounds of potatoes, 8 skiers skiing, 7 hunters hunting, 6 moose a mating, 5 FEET OF SNOW, 4 large black crow, 3 White rocks, 2 pigeons, and a partridge in a pine tree.
On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me 10 snowmobiler's sledding, 9 pounds of potatoes, 8 skiers skiing, 7 hunters hunting, 6 moose a mating, 5 FEET OF SNOW, 4 large black crows, 3 White Rocks, 2 pigeons, and a partridge in a pine tree.
On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me 11 plates of poutine, 10 snowmobiler's sledding, 9 pounds of potatoes, 8 skiers skiing, 7 hunters hunting, 6 moose a mating, 5 FEET OF SNOW, 4 large black crows, 3 White Rocks, 2 pigeons, and a partridge in a pine tree.
On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me 12 black flies flying, 11 plates of poutine, 10 snowmobiler's sledding, 9 pounds of potatoes, 8 skiers skiing, 7 hunters hunting, 6 moose a mating, 5 FEET OF SNOW, 4 large black crows, 3 White Rocks, 2 pigeons, and a partridge in a pine tree.
This little song came about after my husband Steve commented that there were partridges in the back field of the farm. I of course started singing the line "and a partridge in a pear tree", and he laughed and said no they're in pine tree's here. That's all it took for me to sit down and recreate the Twelve Days of Christmas for the farm blog. I hope you liked it and it gave you a laugh, we laughed a lot making it, and sang it while putting up the Christmas decorations yesterday.
God Bless.
On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me 2 pigeons, and a partridge in a pine tree.
On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me 3 White Rocks, 2 pigeons, and a partridge in a pine tree.
On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me 4 large black crows, 3 White Rocks, 2 pigeons, and a partridge in a pine tree.
On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me 5 FEET OF SNOW, 4 large black crows, 3 White Rocks, 2 pigeons, and a partridge in a pine tree.
On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me 6 moose a mating, 5 FEET OF SNOW, 4 large black crows, 3 White Rocks, 2 pigeons, and a partridge in a pine tree.
On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me 7 hunter's hunting, 6 moose a mating, 5 FEET OF SNOW, 4 large black crows, 3 White Rocks, 2 pigeons, and a partridge in a pine tree.
On the eighth day of Christmas my true love gave to me 8 skiers skiing, 7 hunters hunting, 6 moose a mating, 5 FEET OF SNOW, 4 large black crows, 3 White Rocks, 2 pigeons, and a partridge in a pine tree.
On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me 9 pounds of potatoes, 8 skiers skiing, 7 hunters hunting, 6 moose a mating, 5 FEET OF SNOW, 4 large black crow, 3 White rocks, 2 pigeons, and a partridge in a pine tree.
On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me 10 snowmobiler's sledding, 9 pounds of potatoes, 8 skiers skiing, 7 hunters hunting, 6 moose a mating, 5 FEET OF SNOW, 4 large black crows, 3 White Rocks, 2 pigeons, and a partridge in a pine tree.
On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me 11 plates of poutine, 10 snowmobiler's sledding, 9 pounds of potatoes, 8 skiers skiing, 7 hunters hunting, 6 moose a mating, 5 FEET OF SNOW, 4 large black crows, 3 White Rocks, 2 pigeons, and a partridge in a pine tree.
On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me 12 black flies flying, 11 plates of poutine, 10 snowmobiler's sledding, 9 pounds of potatoes, 8 skiers skiing, 7 hunters hunting, 6 moose a mating, 5 FEET OF SNOW, 4 large black crows, 3 White Rocks, 2 pigeons, and a partridge in a pine tree.
This little song came about after my husband Steve commented that there were partridges in the back field of the farm. I of course started singing the line "and a partridge in a pear tree", and he laughed and said no they're in pine tree's here. That's all it took for me to sit down and recreate the Twelve Days of Christmas for the farm blog. I hope you liked it and it gave you a laugh, we laughed a lot making it, and sang it while putting up the Christmas decorations yesterday.
God Bless.
Nov 25, 2009
Eggs... It's What's for Dinner?
Hello All,
Don't they look harmless? Picturesque? But once they all start laying at the same time what does one do with all those eggs?
What came first? The chicken or the Egg? Well on our farm it was definitely the chickens and now It's the EGGS. Now that the Chickens are in full production Eggs are a staple at just about every meal. Eggs; poached, scrambled, fried, hard boiled and soft have graced our table for breakfast over the last two weeks daily. For dinners we've had egg salad sandwiches, and egg and potato salad. For supper one night this week we've even had a quiche. along with countless recipes that require eggs as an ingredient like meatloaf, french toast, and dinner tarts.
Yes sir folks this is a picture of my vegetable bin in my refrigerator FILLED with eggs, and I have yet to collect for today. So the plan is Tomorrow for Thanksgiving I'm going to add some new seasonal additions to the menu. Deviled eggs, custard, and a souffle or two will be gracing the table along with the traditional turkey and dressing. I plan to post my EGGcellent recipes on the web page over the course of the next week, and if anyone has any suggestions on what to do with all these eggs please feel free to share. I'll leave you now with some frosty pictures of our farm.
Have a Happy and Safe Thanksgiving. God Bless.
Don't they look harmless? Picturesque? But once they all start laying at the same time what does one do with all those eggs?
What came first? The chicken or the Egg? Well on our farm it was definitely the chickens and now It's the EGGS. Now that the Chickens are in full production Eggs are a staple at just about every meal. Eggs; poached, scrambled, fried, hard boiled and soft have graced our table for breakfast over the last two weeks daily. For dinners we've had egg salad sandwiches, and egg and potato salad. For supper one night this week we've even had a quiche. along with countless recipes that require eggs as an ingredient like meatloaf, french toast, and dinner tarts.
Yes sir folks this is a picture of my vegetable bin in my refrigerator FILLED with eggs, and I have yet to collect for today. So the plan is Tomorrow for Thanksgiving I'm going to add some new seasonal additions to the menu. Deviled eggs, custard, and a souffle or two will be gracing the table along with the traditional turkey and dressing. I plan to post my EGGcellent recipes on the web page over the course of the next week, and if anyone has any suggestions on what to do with all these eggs please feel free to share. I'll leave you now with some frosty pictures of our farm.
Have a Happy and Safe Thanksgiving. God Bless.
Nov 19, 2009
Homesteading and The City
Hello Everyone,
I started thinking this blog up last night after my eldest son commented on how much work it was to heat the house. He went on to say how much work it was to hunt, and garden, and tend the chickens, and wouldn't it be easier to just buy these things like we used to before we moved to Maine? We've just come back from a long vacation in Connecticut where my son witnessed many of his cousins and my friend's children live carefree lives with no chores or responsibilities, or any concepts of where their heat, or food comes from. This conversation made me realize that it's been an absolutely crazy last couple of months here on the farm.
Anything that can go wrong usually does, and there's a certain amount of stress that comes from the constant uncertainties of this life. I plant a garden for food, spending a small investment of my savings hoping for a large return, but will the weather cooperate? Will we have early frosts? Will we loose some crops to deer, Moose, rabbits, ect.? Oil is exceedingly expensive, so I cut my own firewood to use for fuel, but it is back breaking work. Not just hard work in the cutting and stacking but in the burning as well. Someone needs to feed the fire every 6 to 8 hours in order to keep the temperature of the house warm, and when the weather dips to -40 or below it needs to be feed every 4 hrs. or so. That means bundling up and going outside in the freezing temperatures to get into the basement through the outside hatchway because I like many other families out there live in a home built before 1900 and the only access to the cellar is from outside.
Every morning I get up at 5am make a pot of coffee for my husband and father, change the baby's diaper and set her to play in the pen, while I don my winter coat and head outside with a 2 litter bottle of water and last nights scraps, to let the chickens out of the coop and feed and water them. Then it's back to the house to make breakfast, and pack lunches for the guys so that they have food while they are working and they don't have to spend extra money eating out. That first pot of coffee that is now done is poured into a Thermos also for the guys to go to work with, the last remaining bit goes into a cup for me and a second pot is set to brew.
By this time my middle child is up asking for food and to be changed. The guys are up and about as well usually packing the truck with the tools they'll need for the day and putting wood in the stove before the last remaining coals burn out and a fire needs to be made from scratch. I usually have to wake up my eldest, and he picks up his room and makes his bed and wanders down stairs in short order. We all eat breakfast as a family, then it's off to get everyone dressed and start the dishwasher, and throw a load of laundry on. The kids now have an hour or so to play or watch tv, before we start school. This is when I run back outside to do the first egg collection of the day.
As you can see my son is right it is a lot of work and it's only 9am! But what he doesn't see because he's not yet old enough is that everything is a lot of work, you just pick and choose what kind you want. Whether you homestead or live in the city, neither life is absolutely better. It can be better for you or better for them but it's better because you made the choice to live in that manner. Not everyone is alike so one lifestyle will not be for everyone.
I spent $35 in seed this past spring to plant my garden, and I spent about 80hrs. give or take planting, weeding, watering, and harvesting. My corn crop failed because of our cold and wet summer, as well as our tomato crop. We got an over abundance of carrot and potatoes do to the same cold wet conditions so I do not have to purchase carrot seed for the next two yrs. or potato seed next spring. I have all of our potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, rutabaga, squash, peas, green beans, beets, and all of our soft fruits for the year out of that garden. I purchased $120 worth of peaches and other fruits earlier in the summer and canned them for the year. I also bought from the local apple orchard150lbs of various varieties of apples for about $70. The grand total of money invested for a years worth of produce is around $225. Add to that my time in canning which was about 50 hrs. and my time gardening, at the going rate of $9 an hr. for a total of $1170. So the garden cost in both money and man hrs. $1395. for a years worth of both fruit and vegetables if you count your time as money.
My chickens eat the left over scrapes from our meals everyday and I buy a bag of crumble and cracked corn every month for a total of $10 to feed them. They are currently laying 2 and a half dozen eggs daily and our neighbors are purchasing 3 dozen a week at $2 a dozen. We get all the eggs we can use in a month at the cost of 15 mins. a day in care and collecting. We make $10 a month on keeping our own chickens right now. If I sell more eggs than we make a greater profit. Next spring we will be selling both eggs and pullets which will increase our profits as well. In an enterprise this size your not going to get rich but again it's a lifestyle choice.
Now trying to explain the mechanics of everything above to an 8 yr old is just about impossible. $10 a mth and free eggs and chicken isn't that impressive compared with the endless hours of video games and Twinkies that his friends enjoy in Connecticut so I decided to explain it to him in wood. My house is old and drafty. We have an oil furnace as an alternative to the wood stove but if we use oil we burn one 275 gallon tank a mth. With oil prices once again on the rise the current cost this month would be a total of $725, next month only God knows. At that cost the average American would have to work two whole weeks just to buy oil to heat the house every month since 75% of all Americans earn between $9-$13 an hour. We spent 135hrs cutting, splitting, stacking wood, and we will spend about an half hr. everyday this winter feeding the fire. We used 10 gallons of gas in the chainsaws, and used a splitting maul instead of a gas splitter. for a total of $45 actual money spent. We had log length wood delivered by truck load and paid $475 for a total of nine cords. If we figured the 135 man hours @ $10 each that would be $1350. Giving the grand total of heating the house a price tag of $1870.
We have 6 months of heat usage here. So if we were to use oil heat we would have to work 12 full weeks to pay for oil heat to heat the house. With the wood heat we would have to work a total of 23 days if we were to be paid $10 an hr for our time. My son understood this, and in the end decided that we actually work a whole lot less than people in the city. lol.
But isn't it funny how we can think that someone situation is so much easier than our own. I hope my son remembers this lesson of the "grass is not always greener", but I'm sure he'll relapse and need to be reminded again that nothing in life is easy and if it is than it's often not all its cracked up to be. What I saw on my vacation was through the eyes of an adult not that of a child. I saw lots of people trying to get out from under a system that is slowly squeezing then to death. The cost of living rising all around them while the lucky one's pay is staying the same, and far too many are loosing their jobs, their homes, their dignity and everything they've worked so hard to build. Our society has become convenient, lazy. Ever growing more and more dependant upon the system to keep them going, but the system isn't working anymore. The gap between the rich and poor is becoming wider everyday, and the middle class seems lost in the divide.
I pray for all of those trying to stay afloat in these financial times. I hope these hardships will not break the backs of your families as it often does. Now is the time we all need to band together in society instead of pulling apart. This is the worst time of the year for families who go with out. Christmas and the seasonal holidays have become so commercialized it can degrade even the strongest of heart, and tear apart the best families. Everyone suffering through our Countries economic woes are in my families prayers.
For those of you out there wishing to homestead there can be no better time than now. If you've lost your homes, jobs, went bankrupt and are starting over anyway why not change the basics of the problem in the first place. A clean slate, a fresh start, a positive from a negative. One piece of advice I can offer is keep records of everything you do on your homestead. Without these records I couldn't have written this blog, and I wouldn't know how far we've come in just two years. With any luck next year will be better than the last for all of us,
God Bless.
I started thinking this blog up last night after my eldest son commented on how much work it was to heat the house. He went on to say how much work it was to hunt, and garden, and tend the chickens, and wouldn't it be easier to just buy these things like we used to before we moved to Maine? We've just come back from a long vacation in Connecticut where my son witnessed many of his cousins and my friend's children live carefree lives with no chores or responsibilities, or any concepts of where their heat, or food comes from. This conversation made me realize that it's been an absolutely crazy last couple of months here on the farm.
Anything that can go wrong usually does, and there's a certain amount of stress that comes from the constant uncertainties of this life. I plant a garden for food, spending a small investment of my savings hoping for a large return, but will the weather cooperate? Will we have early frosts? Will we loose some crops to deer, Moose, rabbits, ect.? Oil is exceedingly expensive, so I cut my own firewood to use for fuel, but it is back breaking work. Not just hard work in the cutting and stacking but in the burning as well. Someone needs to feed the fire every 6 to 8 hours in order to keep the temperature of the house warm, and when the weather dips to -40 or below it needs to be feed every 4 hrs. or so. That means bundling up and going outside in the freezing temperatures to get into the basement through the outside hatchway because I like many other families out there live in a home built before 1900 and the only access to the cellar is from outside.
Every morning I get up at 5am make a pot of coffee for my husband and father, change the baby's diaper and set her to play in the pen, while I don my winter coat and head outside with a 2 litter bottle of water and last nights scraps, to let the chickens out of the coop and feed and water them. Then it's back to the house to make breakfast, and pack lunches for the guys so that they have food while they are working and they don't have to spend extra money eating out. That first pot of coffee that is now done is poured into a Thermos also for the guys to go to work with, the last remaining bit goes into a cup for me and a second pot is set to brew.
By this time my middle child is up asking for food and to be changed. The guys are up and about as well usually packing the truck with the tools they'll need for the day and putting wood in the stove before the last remaining coals burn out and a fire needs to be made from scratch. I usually have to wake up my eldest, and he picks up his room and makes his bed and wanders down stairs in short order. We all eat breakfast as a family, then it's off to get everyone dressed and start the dishwasher, and throw a load of laundry on. The kids now have an hour or so to play or watch tv, before we start school. This is when I run back outside to do the first egg collection of the day.
As you can see my son is right it is a lot of work and it's only 9am! But what he doesn't see because he's not yet old enough is that everything is a lot of work, you just pick and choose what kind you want. Whether you homestead or live in the city, neither life is absolutely better. It can be better for you or better for them but it's better because you made the choice to live in that manner. Not everyone is alike so one lifestyle will not be for everyone.
I spent $35 in seed this past spring to plant my garden, and I spent about 80hrs. give or take planting, weeding, watering, and harvesting. My corn crop failed because of our cold and wet summer, as well as our tomato crop. We got an over abundance of carrot and potatoes do to the same cold wet conditions so I do not have to purchase carrot seed for the next two yrs. or potato seed next spring. I have all of our potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, rutabaga, squash, peas, green beans, beets, and all of our soft fruits for the year out of that garden. I purchased $120 worth of peaches and other fruits earlier in the summer and canned them for the year. I also bought from the local apple orchard150lbs of various varieties of apples for about $70. The grand total of money invested for a years worth of produce is around $225. Add to that my time in canning which was about 50 hrs. and my time gardening, at the going rate of $9 an hr. for a total of $1170. So the garden cost in both money and man hrs. $1395. for a years worth of both fruit and vegetables if you count your time as money.
My chickens eat the left over scrapes from our meals everyday and I buy a bag of crumble and cracked corn every month for a total of $10 to feed them. They are currently laying 2 and a half dozen eggs daily and our neighbors are purchasing 3 dozen a week at $2 a dozen. We get all the eggs we can use in a month at the cost of 15 mins. a day in care and collecting. We make $10 a month on keeping our own chickens right now. If I sell more eggs than we make a greater profit. Next spring we will be selling both eggs and pullets which will increase our profits as well. In an enterprise this size your not going to get rich but again it's a lifestyle choice.
Now trying to explain the mechanics of everything above to an 8 yr old is just about impossible. $10 a mth and free eggs and chicken isn't that impressive compared with the endless hours of video games and Twinkies that his friends enjoy in Connecticut so I decided to explain it to him in wood. My house is old and drafty. We have an oil furnace as an alternative to the wood stove but if we use oil we burn one 275 gallon tank a mth. With oil prices once again on the rise the current cost this month would be a total of $725, next month only God knows. At that cost the average American would have to work two whole weeks just to buy oil to heat the house every month since 75% of all Americans earn between $9-$13 an hour. We spent 135hrs cutting, splitting, stacking wood, and we will spend about an half hr. everyday this winter feeding the fire. We used 10 gallons of gas in the chainsaws, and used a splitting maul instead of a gas splitter. for a total of $45 actual money spent. We had log length wood delivered by truck load and paid $475 for a total of nine cords. If we figured the 135 man hours @ $10 each that would be $1350. Giving the grand total of heating the house a price tag of $1870.
We have 6 months of heat usage here. So if we were to use oil heat we would have to work 12 full weeks to pay for oil heat to heat the house. With the wood heat we would have to work a total of 23 days if we were to be paid $10 an hr for our time. My son understood this, and in the end decided that we actually work a whole lot less than people in the city. lol.
But isn't it funny how we can think that someone situation is so much easier than our own. I hope my son remembers this lesson of the "grass is not always greener", but I'm sure he'll relapse and need to be reminded again that nothing in life is easy and if it is than it's often not all its cracked up to be. What I saw on my vacation was through the eyes of an adult not that of a child. I saw lots of people trying to get out from under a system that is slowly squeezing then to death. The cost of living rising all around them while the lucky one's pay is staying the same, and far too many are loosing their jobs, their homes, their dignity and everything they've worked so hard to build. Our society has become convenient, lazy. Ever growing more and more dependant upon the system to keep them going, but the system isn't working anymore. The gap between the rich and poor is becoming wider everyday, and the middle class seems lost in the divide.
I pray for all of those trying to stay afloat in these financial times. I hope these hardships will not break the backs of your families as it often does. Now is the time we all need to band together in society instead of pulling apart. This is the worst time of the year for families who go with out. Christmas and the seasonal holidays have become so commercialized it can degrade even the strongest of heart, and tear apart the best families. Everyone suffering through our Countries economic woes are in my families prayers.
For those of you out there wishing to homestead there can be no better time than now. If you've lost your homes, jobs, went bankrupt and are starting over anyway why not change the basics of the problem in the first place. A clean slate, a fresh start, a positive from a negative. One piece of advice I can offer is keep records of everything you do on your homestead. Without these records I couldn't have written this blog, and I wouldn't know how far we've come in just two years. With any luck next year will be better than the last for all of us,
God Bless.
Sep 22, 2009
Long Time No Blog
Hello All,
It's been a busy while since I last blogged. The hard frosts have come and the only thing left in the garden as of today is the turnips, carrots, and russet potatoes. All are scheduled to be dug over the next two weeks. The carrots will be processed and the rest will be ushered to our root cellar. When the last potato is out of the ground we can official call it an end to the season and till the garden under for next year. We will fertilize it and till it under a second time before the first snow usual around the first of November.
We were unsuccessful of hunting a moose this year. We were issued a land owner permit for the August hunt, but did not win the lottery for the upcoming October hunt. Because this was a land owner permit we were limited to hunting solely on our own property. The moose however were all a couple miles up the street where they were enjoying our neighbors broccoli crop rather than the potato crops that were planted around our property this year. Our hope is that we will be victorious on getting a deer next month when open season starts to off set some of the costs of both the permits and the cost of meat this winter.
The chickens are getting huge now and are learning to crow. Eggs are appearing in the strangest of places, and they are starting to earn their keep with those eggs. I will not be culling out of the flocks this year as originally planned for a few reasons. First not all the birds are laying yet so they haven't even started to earn money yet. Second the having the thirty of them in the coop together during the winter will help keep the temperature in the coop up so that I may only need to run the one light powered by our tiny decorative windmill. If that can happen it means no extra money on our electric bill to keep the coop warm. Lastly I like to do a lot of rich baking and home cooked meals in the winter. The extra eggs will be a welcome cooking addition for the season.
I started homeschooling my eldest son at the end of August, and that is always a challenge. Motivation is the thing I find the hardest to handle. He's a smart kid, but he'll be as happy do do the minimum as he would be to do his best. Something to work on over the winter I guess.
Everyone is looking forward to our trip to Connecticut in October. We are excited to see family that we haven't seen in almost a year, and just as excited to see our friends who still live there. We are blessed to have our vacation at the same time as some of our out of state friends who are also going to Connecticut on their vacation. So it will be a welcome reunion of sorts with all of us together again for two weeks even though we are all scattered across the country.
In news not related to the farm I noticed that end times, gloom and doom, conspiracy theories and the like have been prevalent in the media lately. I wonder if all of this excitability is solely over the dreaded swine flu or if it's do to an underlying unhappiness with the economy and a feeling of a loss of control with the American public. I can't help but think that if more people had just a little more control over the simple things in life would this fear lesson or even dissipate?
In theory if your worried about where your food comes from you could grow a small garden even in the city and solve that problem. If your worried about energy costs and the stabilization of the energy grid there are now alternatives out there to put you into control. If your worried about the high cost of living, and credit card bills, car payments, ect. ect. then maybe it's time to make a life change and live well below your means to give yourself a break from all this constant worrying and fear. Yes it's harder work, yes it's a sacrifice of convenience in most cases, but panic and stress is bad for your health over the long term, and your health is really the most important thing.
I'm pleased to read that all this panic has caused a resurgence of neotribalism in the country however. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term here's the link from wikipedia that explains the culture for lack of a better term. To me the fact that large groups of people in our country are choosing to change the way they live voluntarily before something forces this life change is invigorating. The bottom line is change we must, because the average American out there today isn't surviving but instead simply existing wondering when the next difficulty will put them over the edge.
I have faith that many people will come to terms with the new reality of life that is surfacing in America. I believe we will all do what is best for ourselves individually, and we will persevere in the shadow of adversity, no matter what happens in this unstable future we're Americans and we can take it.
God Bless.
It's been a busy while since I last blogged. The hard frosts have come and the only thing left in the garden as of today is the turnips, carrots, and russet potatoes. All are scheduled to be dug over the next two weeks. The carrots will be processed and the rest will be ushered to our root cellar. When the last potato is out of the ground we can official call it an end to the season and till the garden under for next year. We will fertilize it and till it under a second time before the first snow usual around the first of November.
We were unsuccessful of hunting a moose this year. We were issued a land owner permit for the August hunt, but did not win the lottery for the upcoming October hunt. Because this was a land owner permit we were limited to hunting solely on our own property. The moose however were all a couple miles up the street where they were enjoying our neighbors broccoli crop rather than the potato crops that were planted around our property this year. Our hope is that we will be victorious on getting a deer next month when open season starts to off set some of the costs of both the permits and the cost of meat this winter.
The chickens are getting huge now and are learning to crow. Eggs are appearing in the strangest of places, and they are starting to earn their keep with those eggs. I will not be culling out of the flocks this year as originally planned for a few reasons. First not all the birds are laying yet so they haven't even started to earn money yet. Second the having the thirty of them in the coop together during the winter will help keep the temperature in the coop up so that I may only need to run the one light powered by our tiny decorative windmill. If that can happen it means no extra money on our electric bill to keep the coop warm. Lastly I like to do a lot of rich baking and home cooked meals in the winter. The extra eggs will be a welcome cooking addition for the season.
I started homeschooling my eldest son at the end of August, and that is always a challenge. Motivation is the thing I find the hardest to handle. He's a smart kid, but he'll be as happy do do the minimum as he would be to do his best. Something to work on over the winter I guess.
Everyone is looking forward to our trip to Connecticut in October. We are excited to see family that we haven't seen in almost a year, and just as excited to see our friends who still live there. We are blessed to have our vacation at the same time as some of our out of state friends who are also going to Connecticut on their vacation. So it will be a welcome reunion of sorts with all of us together again for two weeks even though we are all scattered across the country.
In news not related to the farm I noticed that end times, gloom and doom, conspiracy theories and the like have been prevalent in the media lately. I wonder if all of this excitability is solely over the dreaded swine flu or if it's do to an underlying unhappiness with the economy and a feeling of a loss of control with the American public. I can't help but think that if more people had just a little more control over the simple things in life would this fear lesson or even dissipate?
In theory if your worried about where your food comes from you could grow a small garden even in the city and solve that problem. If your worried about energy costs and the stabilization of the energy grid there are now alternatives out there to put you into control. If your worried about the high cost of living, and credit card bills, car payments, ect. ect. then maybe it's time to make a life change and live well below your means to give yourself a break from all this constant worrying and fear. Yes it's harder work, yes it's a sacrifice of convenience in most cases, but panic and stress is bad for your health over the long term, and your health is really the most important thing.
I'm pleased to read that all this panic has caused a resurgence of neotribalism in the country however. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term here's the link from wikipedia that explains the culture for lack of a better term. To me the fact that large groups of people in our country are choosing to change the way they live voluntarily before something forces this life change is invigorating. The bottom line is change we must, because the average American out there today isn't surviving but instead simply existing wondering when the next difficulty will put them over the edge.
I have faith that many people will come to terms with the new reality of life that is surfacing in America. I believe we will all do what is best for ourselves individually, and we will persevere in the shadow of adversity, no matter what happens in this unstable future we're Americans and we can take it.
God Bless.
Aug 13, 2009
Weather's Changing
The weather's starting to change as it usually does around mid August. Morning and night are dropping under the 50 degree mark now, while the days are loaded with warn hot sun, and usually reach the 85 degree mark more or less. This mean for me that the frosts are not far away and that harvest is coming near.
Our tomatoes are getting a decent yield now that the rain has slowed down and allowed the plants the heat of the sun. Our beets should be ready to harvest within the next two weeks. Our zucchini and summer squash are on round two and should be ready to pick this weekend. My peas are as prolific as ever and produce for me daily keeping me in kitchen work each morning. My green beans and cucumbers have finally flowered and I expect to see their fruit of work any day now. The winter squashes are doing lovely and are producing some good size keepers, a lot more than I got last year... probably has something to do with all that rain.
We never stopped getting lettuce this year, which is good because we enjoy our salads with dinner and supper. The carrots look good and I hope to harvest them the first week of September. They take a considerable amount of work to harvest, prepare, and process. Our onions should be ready to come out of the garden and put in the root cellar any time now, and we just dug the first ten rows of our kennebec potatoes so they can cure today and tomorrow before we put them in the cellar as well. Our corn is sad, and that's all I'll say about that.
The pumpkin vines are about ten feet long now, and I have high hopes that this year we may even get a few. The apple tree that was on the property when we bought the farm has apples this year too. I don't know what variety, but they're reddish green and they're getting big, and I plan to have them in the cellar after a good frost sweetens them up. Our crap apple tree is doing spectacular again this year giving us crab apples that look like some kind of hybrid cross between an eating apple and a crab apple because they're so big, but they retain the sour taste of the crab apple just fine. In a couple weeks I'll harvest them using a trick with a rope and a tarp I just read about in the newest issue of Countryside. Should be a huge time saver... and Lord knows I need as many of those as I can get.
We transplanted rhubarb this past spring to it's own little garden bed, and in doing so stunted it's growth. So sometime next week I'm going to harvest the largest fall crop of Rhubarb I've ever seen. Should keep me busy processing for the better part of the week. I sent my kids out with my father a few days ago to the back field of our property to investigate the Raspberry bushes we have growing wild out there. They did such a good job picking the wild strawberries in the beginning of the summer I knew I could count on them for the raspberries. They came back with four 5lb buckets full. Needless to say there is now raspberry jam in my pantry as well. The high bush cranberries should be ripening by the end of the month and I intend to get my hands on some of them before the bears and birds do them in, and we have some hazel nut bushes that should be producing this year so I'm keeping an eye on those as well.
We finally got our Controlled Moose Hunting Permit in the mail and the hunt starts on the 17th of this month. We are all excited even though it's only my husband who gets to hunt it. I already bought a freezer in preparation of where to put all the meat, and we've already made arrangements to donate to the food pantry any extra meat that we can't handle from this hunt and the hunt in October for deer, that way nothing goes to waste. We've had good luck through the summer with fishing and we have several good size trout cleaned, filleted, and frozen awaiting to be eaten this winter, and Steve is taking the boys fishing this weekend one last time before the hunting season begins and he has to turn his attention to the larger game.
Our chickens are fattening up nicely and I'm thinking of culling 6 or maybe 7 of the hens sometime early October for stewing meat over the winter. That will leave us with four roosters and 18 hens to over winter. They'll give us all our eggs all winter, and give us our fryers next spring, so thus far that's the plan. We'll move the coop closer to the house to facilitate feeding and watering them easier when the snow starts to fly.
The kids are getting ready to be home schooled this year, and they are surprisingly really excited. Vincent, my eldest has a couple of things he's asked to learn about this year mostly pertaining to science, and that's what I love to hear. I think it will be a really good thing for him since he enjoys a fast paced learning environment over the conventional kind. My middle child Victor went with me to the store and picked out some pre-school work books that he liked, you know the dot to dot and that sort of thing. He's going to be 3 in December so I thought what the heck he can learn while I'm teaching his older brother too, right? I'm happy their both enthusiastic approach to this and I'm excited to be a part of their learning experience.
Other than all that, time is just ticking on by. The men are busy working in our new company, and doing various odd jobs on the farm. The in-law apt. is almost done for my father, and should be finished before hard winter hits so he will have some privacy in the house this year. They are cutting, splitting, and stacking all our firewood for the winter and they have 7 cords done so far, and next week the plan is to start re roofing the house before water starts to drip on our heads. But that's what a farm is. I lot of hard work, dedication, fixing, and rolling with the punches. We're getting the hang of it, and we're loving every minute of it.
I hope you all enjoy all of your own little triumphs life gives this week. God Bless.
Our tomatoes are getting a decent yield now that the rain has slowed down and allowed the plants the heat of the sun. Our beets should be ready to harvest within the next two weeks. Our zucchini and summer squash are on round two and should be ready to pick this weekend. My peas are as prolific as ever and produce for me daily keeping me in kitchen work each morning. My green beans and cucumbers have finally flowered and I expect to see their fruit of work any day now. The winter squashes are doing lovely and are producing some good size keepers, a lot more than I got last year... probably has something to do with all that rain.
We never stopped getting lettuce this year, which is good because we enjoy our salads with dinner and supper. The carrots look good and I hope to harvest them the first week of September. They take a considerable amount of work to harvest, prepare, and process. Our onions should be ready to come out of the garden and put in the root cellar any time now, and we just dug the first ten rows of our kennebec potatoes so they can cure today and tomorrow before we put them in the cellar as well. Our corn is sad, and that's all I'll say about that.
The pumpkin vines are about ten feet long now, and I have high hopes that this year we may even get a few. The apple tree that was on the property when we bought the farm has apples this year too. I don't know what variety, but they're reddish green and they're getting big, and I plan to have them in the cellar after a good frost sweetens them up. Our crap apple tree is doing spectacular again this year giving us crab apples that look like some kind of hybrid cross between an eating apple and a crab apple because they're so big, but they retain the sour taste of the crab apple just fine. In a couple weeks I'll harvest them using a trick with a rope and a tarp I just read about in the newest issue of Countryside. Should be a huge time saver... and Lord knows I need as many of those as I can get.
We transplanted rhubarb this past spring to it's own little garden bed, and in doing so stunted it's growth. So sometime next week I'm going to harvest the largest fall crop of Rhubarb I've ever seen. Should keep me busy processing for the better part of the week. I sent my kids out with my father a few days ago to the back field of our property to investigate the Raspberry bushes we have growing wild out there. They did such a good job picking the wild strawberries in the beginning of the summer I knew I could count on them for the raspberries. They came back with four 5lb buckets full. Needless to say there is now raspberry jam in my pantry as well. The high bush cranberries should be ripening by the end of the month and I intend to get my hands on some of them before the bears and birds do them in, and we have some hazel nut bushes that should be producing this year so I'm keeping an eye on those as well.
We finally got our Controlled Moose Hunting Permit in the mail and the hunt starts on the 17th of this month. We are all excited even though it's only my husband who gets to hunt it. I already bought a freezer in preparation of where to put all the meat, and we've already made arrangements to donate to the food pantry any extra meat that we can't handle from this hunt and the hunt in October for deer, that way nothing goes to waste. We've had good luck through the summer with fishing and we have several good size trout cleaned, filleted, and frozen awaiting to be eaten this winter, and Steve is taking the boys fishing this weekend one last time before the hunting season begins and he has to turn his attention to the larger game.
Our chickens are fattening up nicely and I'm thinking of culling 6 or maybe 7 of the hens sometime early October for stewing meat over the winter. That will leave us with four roosters and 18 hens to over winter. They'll give us all our eggs all winter, and give us our fryers next spring, so thus far that's the plan. We'll move the coop closer to the house to facilitate feeding and watering them easier when the snow starts to fly.
The kids are getting ready to be home schooled this year, and they are surprisingly really excited. Vincent, my eldest has a couple of things he's asked to learn about this year mostly pertaining to science, and that's what I love to hear. I think it will be a really good thing for him since he enjoys a fast paced learning environment over the conventional kind. My middle child Victor went with me to the store and picked out some pre-school work books that he liked, you know the dot to dot and that sort of thing. He's going to be 3 in December so I thought what the heck he can learn while I'm teaching his older brother too, right? I'm happy their both enthusiastic approach to this and I'm excited to be a part of their learning experience.
Other than all that, time is just ticking on by. The men are busy working in our new company, and doing various odd jobs on the farm. The in-law apt. is almost done for my father, and should be finished before hard winter hits so he will have some privacy in the house this year. They are cutting, splitting, and stacking all our firewood for the winter and they have 7 cords done so far, and next week the plan is to start re roofing the house before water starts to drip on our heads. But that's what a farm is. I lot of hard work, dedication, fixing, and rolling with the punches. We're getting the hang of it, and we're loving every minute of it.
I hope you all enjoy all of your own little triumphs life gives this week. God Bless.
Jul 22, 2009
Delayed
Hello All,
I can't believe it been two weeks since I last blogged. Time is flying by so quickly lately. There's just so much to do and so little time to do it in. I'm going to hold off on writing about my insights from the bible for the next few weeks and concentrate on just fining time to update all of you on what's been going on here on the farm.
First off with all the rain we've been getting everything in my garden has stunted growth. The weeds are doing better than the vegetables at this point so I've been in the garden everyday for the past week weeding and fertilizing and tying up all my vining plants. The pea plants have just begun to blossom and so have my potatoes. The tomatoes look as if their soon to follow, along with the summer squash and zucchini. My winter squash is getting huge but no flowers yet and my corn is still only about 16 inches high. The beans, cucumbers, beets, and turnip are all really struggling. But the cabbage, carrots, spinach and lettuce are all doing fine.
I'm really beginning to worry about what is going to be able to grow to maturity this year before the frost takes it from me. Last year our first killing frost fell on the first week of September, this year the locals are predicting a week or two earlier. I bought all my seed geared toward a short growing season, but corn and winter squash regardless how early the variety still needs 80 days or more, and that's under optimum conditions of a good mix of sun and rain. This year we seem to be really lacking in the sun although the past week it did finally decide to shine on us a bit today we are back in the drizzly rain that has been our usual weather through spring and much of the summer.
So as I look around my garden this morning a little bit of panic has started to come over me. Everything needs to grow! I was planning on using much of the corn crop this year as feed for my chickens over the winter. With the prospect of not getting a crop this year looming over my head I'm starting to think and calculate the costs its going to take to feed my little family and livestock over the winter and its not looking good. We live comfortably and it's not like we're going to starve if I do not bring in a harvest it's just that extra expenses this year cut out of the profits used to improve the farm further next spring and that has kinda a snowball effect on the rest of the year pushing us behind our goal to be completely up and running in another three full seasons. It's discouraging to say the least, but harvest time is still 5 weeks away for now so there's no need to worry terribly yet.
The chickens are getting so big. They've begun to free range and seem to be very happy with their new found freedom. They wander all over our mowed lawn and chase after anyone walking around the farm, it's really quite funny to watch as my distressed neighbors are followed by a team of birds begging for food. They are definitely a happy addition to our farm so far.
We've begun looking ahead to the winter and are dealing with getting the firewood cut, split, stacked and drying in our never ending wind for the next 4 weeks. Then we will begin to bring it in the house downstairs into our basement for storage through the winter. All the wood must be put undercover in the house because if we left it outside we wouldn't be able to get to it midwinter when the snow on the ground is over 5 feet deep and counting. It's a daunting task but it's something that we have to do so we do it all a family and enjoy it all the more.
I canned some more peach and strawberry combination jams and jellies over the last 2 weeks. The wild strawberries on our property are still going strong and I hope they last through the next month so I can use then to can with the crab apples. The domestic strawberry season ended last weekend prompting me to buy a few flats and can some more jams before I lost the chance. Blueberry season will be in full swing soon along with raspberries ans blackberries so I will be posting more canning recipes on the website in the next week or so.
There's always so much to do. It's such a strong contrast to January when there almost nothing to do. You wouldn't think you would need to get used to it, but I do. Sometimes I feel very overwhelmed by all the things that are expected of me here on the farm and I long to just sit still and not think or do anything just for a few minuets. Isn't that funny? We are so spoiled today in our lifestyles. Years ago my grandmother would say I was lazy for wanting to be idle, and I have to agree. We are all lazy today, society is lazy. Very few people today are equip with the knowledge or the stamina to provide for themselves. It's work that has been done for countless generations before us, but it's hard work and most people shy from that sort of thing. So I chalk it up take a deep breathe and continue working. I'll sleep in January.
We were blessed a few weeks ago to have family come and visit us for a few days. It's always nice to enjoy family. The kids were happy to see their grandparents now that they only see them a couple times a year. And my husband got to spend sometime with his mom. We didn't do much while they were here, but we enjoyed the farm and our surroundings, a relaxing vacation for them. We mad a fire in our pit outside one night and just enjoyed each others company cementing the fact that this life is the right choice for our family. The right life for us to live. And regardless of the ups and downs we are blessed to be with one another.
Enjoy your week, God Bless.
I can't believe it been two weeks since I last blogged. Time is flying by so quickly lately. There's just so much to do and so little time to do it in. I'm going to hold off on writing about my insights from the bible for the next few weeks and concentrate on just fining time to update all of you on what's been going on here on the farm.
First off with all the rain we've been getting everything in my garden has stunted growth. The weeds are doing better than the vegetables at this point so I've been in the garden everyday for the past week weeding and fertilizing and tying up all my vining plants. The pea plants have just begun to blossom and so have my potatoes. The tomatoes look as if their soon to follow, along with the summer squash and zucchini. My winter squash is getting huge but no flowers yet and my corn is still only about 16 inches high. The beans, cucumbers, beets, and turnip are all really struggling. But the cabbage, carrots, spinach and lettuce are all doing fine.
I'm really beginning to worry about what is going to be able to grow to maturity this year before the frost takes it from me. Last year our first killing frost fell on the first week of September, this year the locals are predicting a week or two earlier. I bought all my seed geared toward a short growing season, but corn and winter squash regardless how early the variety still needs 80 days or more, and that's under optimum conditions of a good mix of sun and rain. This year we seem to be really lacking in the sun although the past week it did finally decide to shine on us a bit today we are back in the drizzly rain that has been our usual weather through spring and much of the summer.
So as I look around my garden this morning a little bit of panic has started to come over me. Everything needs to grow! I was planning on using much of the corn crop this year as feed for my chickens over the winter. With the prospect of not getting a crop this year looming over my head I'm starting to think and calculate the costs its going to take to feed my little family and livestock over the winter and its not looking good. We live comfortably and it's not like we're going to starve if I do not bring in a harvest it's just that extra expenses this year cut out of the profits used to improve the farm further next spring and that has kinda a snowball effect on the rest of the year pushing us behind our goal to be completely up and running in another three full seasons. It's discouraging to say the least, but harvest time is still 5 weeks away for now so there's no need to worry terribly yet.
The chickens are getting so big. They've begun to free range and seem to be very happy with their new found freedom. They wander all over our mowed lawn and chase after anyone walking around the farm, it's really quite funny to watch as my distressed neighbors are followed by a team of birds begging for food. They are definitely a happy addition to our farm so far.
We've begun looking ahead to the winter and are dealing with getting the firewood cut, split, stacked and drying in our never ending wind for the next 4 weeks. Then we will begin to bring it in the house downstairs into our basement for storage through the winter. All the wood must be put undercover in the house because if we left it outside we wouldn't be able to get to it midwinter when the snow on the ground is over 5 feet deep and counting. It's a daunting task but it's something that we have to do so we do it all a family and enjoy it all the more.
I canned some more peach and strawberry combination jams and jellies over the last 2 weeks. The wild strawberries on our property are still going strong and I hope they last through the next month so I can use then to can with the crab apples. The domestic strawberry season ended last weekend prompting me to buy a few flats and can some more jams before I lost the chance. Blueberry season will be in full swing soon along with raspberries ans blackberries so I will be posting more canning recipes on the website in the next week or so.
There's always so much to do. It's such a strong contrast to January when there almost nothing to do. You wouldn't think you would need to get used to it, but I do. Sometimes I feel very overwhelmed by all the things that are expected of me here on the farm and I long to just sit still and not think or do anything just for a few minuets. Isn't that funny? We are so spoiled today in our lifestyles. Years ago my grandmother would say I was lazy for wanting to be idle, and I have to agree. We are all lazy today, society is lazy. Very few people today are equip with the knowledge or the stamina to provide for themselves. It's work that has been done for countless generations before us, but it's hard work and most people shy from that sort of thing. So I chalk it up take a deep breathe and continue working. I'll sleep in January.
We were blessed a few weeks ago to have family come and visit us for a few days. It's always nice to enjoy family. The kids were happy to see their grandparents now that they only see them a couple times a year. And my husband got to spend sometime with his mom. We didn't do much while they were here, but we enjoyed the farm and our surroundings, a relaxing vacation for them. We mad a fire in our pit outside one night and just enjoyed each others company cementing the fact that this life is the right choice for our family. The right life for us to live. And regardless of the ups and downs we are blessed to be with one another.
Enjoy your week, God Bless.
Jun 30, 2009
Horses, Cows, and Kids
Hello All,
Last week went well. It's rained almost everyday, so the plants in my garden are very happy. Unfortunately so are the weeds, and with no break in the weather yet that means there's going to be a lot of work on the first sunny day. Everything has started growing well with the exception of my green beans. A few plants started up but many are oddly missing. I imagine it's do to the excess of rain since the seeds will not germinate in soggy ground but will instead rot. If this happens to be the case than I will have to replant some green beans in a week or two depending on the weather. Here is a picture of my potato field so far. As you can see they are enjoying the water very much.
The Mapleton Farm Festival was a lot of fun even though the weather didn't cooperate. We ran between rain drops for the most part from tent to tent. There were a lot of vender's there doing demonstrations of all sorts of things, and many of the demonstrators where in olden day costumes to liven up the atmosphere. There was a demonstration on making soap, and one on candles. One on carving wood, and another on making maple syrup. There was a large demonstration on cleaning, carding, and spinning wool, and they had a farrier there explaining and showing the finer points of trimming hoofs and shoeing horses.
When I say horses I'm not talking about your average riding horses with the spindly legs and prancing gait. I'm talking about horses that for lack of a better term are monsters. As you can see in this picture this women is about 5'4'', and she isn't even as tall as these horses back, let alone their head. They had to be an easy 7' tall. I find then frightening and absolutely beautiful all at the same time. Steve is excited about training with them before we acquire some of our own, and I am pleased he's going to work with some horses before we buy some myself. I've worked with horses before and road horses for a couple years during my childhood, but nothing as large or ominous as Draft horses, so the refresher course is warranted.
Also at the fair was a friend of mine Natalia Bragg of Knot II Bragg Farm. If any of you are interested in herbal healing and apocrathy you can't get better than Natalia. She comes from six generations of healing women in here family and continues her families traditions today. Her website is lovely and she's an all around down to earth person you can ask questions of who will not talk over you but actually to you, if you know what I mean.
We saw one farm that had a demonstration of their Scottish Highland Cattle. They had beautiful representations of the breed, and in the future when we start to develop our own herd, I assure you I'll be visiting their farm. Here's a nice picture of one mother with her baby, and some other random pictures of the fair.
This weekend is The Fourth of July so we will once again be out and about enjoying the local area outside of our farm. I hope everyone enjoys their week and has a good time for the holiday.
Stay Safe and God Bless!
Last week went well. It's rained almost everyday, so the plants in my garden are very happy. Unfortunately so are the weeds, and with no break in the weather yet that means there's going to be a lot of work on the first sunny day. Everything has started growing well with the exception of my green beans. A few plants started up but many are oddly missing. I imagine it's do to the excess of rain since the seeds will not germinate in soggy ground but will instead rot. If this happens to be the case than I will have to replant some green beans in a week or two depending on the weather. Here is a picture of my potato field so far. As you can see they are enjoying the water very much.
The Mapleton Farm Festival was a lot of fun even though the weather didn't cooperate. We ran between rain drops for the most part from tent to tent. There were a lot of vender's there doing demonstrations of all sorts of things, and many of the demonstrators where in olden day costumes to liven up the atmosphere. There was a demonstration on making soap, and one on candles. One on carving wood, and another on making maple syrup. There was a large demonstration on cleaning, carding, and spinning wool, and they had a farrier there explaining and showing the finer points of trimming hoofs and shoeing horses.
When I say horses I'm not talking about your average riding horses with the spindly legs and prancing gait. I'm talking about horses that for lack of a better term are monsters. As you can see in this picture this women is about 5'4'', and she isn't even as tall as these horses back, let alone their head. They had to be an easy 7' tall. I find then frightening and absolutely beautiful all at the same time. Steve is excited about training with them before we acquire some of our own, and I am pleased he's going to work with some horses before we buy some myself. I've worked with horses before and road horses for a couple years during my childhood, but nothing as large or ominous as Draft horses, so the refresher course is warranted.
Also at the fair was a friend of mine Natalia Bragg of Knot II Bragg Farm. If any of you are interested in herbal healing and apocrathy you can't get better than Natalia. She comes from six generations of healing women in here family and continues her families traditions today. Her website is lovely and she's an all around down to earth person you can ask questions of who will not talk over you but actually to you, if you know what I mean.
We saw one farm that had a demonstration of their Scottish Highland Cattle. They had beautiful representations of the breed, and in the future when we start to develop our own herd, I assure you I'll be visiting their farm. Here's a nice picture of one mother with her baby, and some other random pictures of the fair.
This weekend is The Fourth of July so we will once again be out and about enjoying the local area outside of our farm. I hope everyone enjoys their week and has a good time for the holiday.
Stay Safe and God Bless!
Jun 28, 2009
Christian Parenting
Good Morning Everyone,
I decided I'd start today's blog by answering a question posed about last weeks blog. Whether or not Jesus had long hair. While it is impossible to know for sure whether Jesus' hair was long or short because no image of him has been found one can assume that Jesus' hair was short as it was the custom of the day to wear one's hair short, the one exception to this is if someone was under a Nazerite Vow than they would wear their hair long. While Jesus was a Nazarene it can be assumed he was not under a Nazerite Vow because if he was he would have to refrain from wine and laying hands on the dead, or so I'm told. In truth this is all way over my head but you asked so I found answers.
Now on to what I learned about the Bible this week. The Bible is full of references on how to properly raise your child. I find this extremely fascinating because this is truly a book that is a guide to life. The disciples where writing self help books long before it became the rage of the modern day, and yet how many knowledgeable people today pick up the Bible and read it as a guide to life? Dose anyone else see the irony in this?
The Bible speaks volumes on discipline. It gives specific instructions as to how we are supposed to gear the discipline of a child; Proverbs 13: 24 He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him. Proverbs 19: 18 Discipline your children while you still have the chance; Indulging them destroys them. Hebrews 12:11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. But the Bible also talks about the discipline of the parents should they fail in raising a righteous child 1 Samuel 3:13 For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons made themselves contemptible, and he failed to restrain them.
Hasn't every child at one time or another made themselves contemptible? Being contemptible by definition is being willful and obstinate, disobedient and showing a lack of respect. That one word sums every child I've ever know at least some of the time. The Lord knows my children are guilty of it. So I think with these passages the Bible has summed up the problems that all parents face everyday, and to be good Christian Parents we have to nip it in the but so to say.
However that isn't popular thinking when the general consensus of the time is that parents want their children to "like" them. I know many mother's personally that want to have their daughters treat them like a friend, and want to be able to hang out with their daughter's and their daughter's friends, and while I must admit sometimes the thought is appealing it is by no means acceptable.
You can hang out with your kids when they're adults, when you've done your job raising them, and when they are no longer accountable to you for their actions, but are accountable to God and themselves. I love the relationship I have with my children, and I hope that relationship will stay strong throughout the upcoming teenage years that are right around the corner. I know that I have to remain a figure of authority in my house however tempting it maybe to play the role of a friend. I want my children to grow up in a loving, healthy, safe environment that can be a refuge from the real world until they are ready to enter it, and I want to teach my children to be good Christians and give them an example of a good Christian parent so that they may grow up and be the same for their kids.
I decided I'd start today's blog by answering a question posed about last weeks blog. Whether or not Jesus had long hair. While it is impossible to know for sure whether Jesus' hair was long or short because no image of him has been found one can assume that Jesus' hair was short as it was the custom of the day to wear one's hair short, the one exception to this is if someone was under a Nazerite Vow than they would wear their hair long. While Jesus was a Nazarene it can be assumed he was not under a Nazerite Vow because if he was he would have to refrain from wine and laying hands on the dead, or so I'm told. In truth this is all way over my head but you asked so I found answers.
Now on to what I learned about the Bible this week. The Bible is full of references on how to properly raise your child. I find this extremely fascinating because this is truly a book that is a guide to life. The disciples where writing self help books long before it became the rage of the modern day, and yet how many knowledgeable people today pick up the Bible and read it as a guide to life? Dose anyone else see the irony in this?
The Bible speaks volumes on discipline. It gives specific instructions as to how we are supposed to gear the discipline of a child; Proverbs 13: 24 He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him. Proverbs 19: 18 Discipline your children while you still have the chance; Indulging them destroys them. Hebrews 12:11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. But the Bible also talks about the discipline of the parents should they fail in raising a righteous child 1 Samuel 3:13 For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons made themselves contemptible, and he failed to restrain them.
Hasn't every child at one time or another made themselves contemptible? Being contemptible by definition is being willful and obstinate, disobedient and showing a lack of respect. That one word sums every child I've ever know at least some of the time. The Lord knows my children are guilty of it. So I think with these passages the Bible has summed up the problems that all parents face everyday, and to be good Christian Parents we have to nip it in the but so to say.
However that isn't popular thinking when the general consensus of the time is that parents want their children to "like" them. I know many mother's personally that want to have their daughters treat them like a friend, and want to be able to hang out with their daughter's and their daughter's friends, and while I must admit sometimes the thought is appealing it is by no means acceptable.
You can hang out with your kids when they're adults, when you've done your job raising them, and when they are no longer accountable to you for their actions, but are accountable to God and themselves. I love the relationship I have with my children, and I hope that relationship will stay strong throughout the upcoming teenage years that are right around the corner. I know that I have to remain a figure of authority in my house however tempting it maybe to play the role of a friend. I want my children to grow up in a loving, healthy, safe environment that can be a refuge from the real world until they are ready to enter it, and I want to teach my children to be good Christians and give them an example of a good Christian parent so that they may grow up and be the same for their kids.
Jun 22, 2009
July Looks Fair
Hello Everyone,
The weathers getting warmer, the grass is getting greener. The birds, bees and bugs have graced us with their presence for yet another year. In town the people are running around in their short shorts and belly shirts. Kids of all ages are tramping around with ice cream cones and water guns. Summer is upon us, and enjoyment abounds. With the onset of July, fireworks can be expected and already the neighbors have begun practicing their festivities for the day, but when I think July I think Fairs.
This years round of fairs are shaping up quite good. I love Fairs ever since I was a kid I would try to go to each and everyone in the area. There isn't a better time to be had for a cheaper price than bring the kids to the fair. Carnival rides are of course my eldest's favorite. My middle child loves the barn animals. Only time will tell what my youngest enjoys the most. My husband likes the tractors and equipment, and I love the demonstrations.
Any demonstration really. It can be for selling a product like they do at the really big fairs or showing how to make cheese at the town fair, doesn't matter to me. I always like to learn something new or a better way to doing something I already knew. My favorite demonstrations are the spinning classes or the quilting bees. In these small groups are people who are trying to teach their skills. Skills that are a dying art of days long past, and I feel it's a duty to keep these skills alive and pass them on to future generations.
This year we have a list of fairs to go to in the area. Starting this weekend is a horse fair in Mapleton, Maine called the Maple Meadow Farm Festival. We will of course be attending and I will post pictures next week. Then for Fourth of July weekend there is the Houlton Agricultural Fair in Houlton, Maine who's high light of events is a concert staring American Idol Contestant Josh Gracin among the usual agriculture fair agenda.
There is the Potato Blossom Festival that is held in Fort Fairfield every year that embodies the true spirit of agriculture here in Northern Maine because as many of you know you can't get more Maine than a potato, and the Strawberry Short cake Festival in Limestone. There's the Centennial Parade and Pig Roast in Portage lake where the snowmobile club is going to host a motorcycle rodeo, and the County Gospel Music Festival in Fort Fairfield in early July. The Northern Maine Fair in Presque Isle touts itself to be a family affair worth going to , and
the Crown of Maine Balloon Festival is always something to behold at the end of August.
We plan to take a trip to Connecticut this fall with the kids so they can spend sometime with our extended familiesl. While we're down in that neck of the woods I intend to take them to the Big Eastern States Exhibition in West Springfield, Massachusetts. It is a fair that I went to every year with my family growing up in Connecticut and it is the largest fair I've ever seen. My eldest son has gone to it twice in his life but it will be the first time all the children get to attend and I imagine it will be a time to remember for sure. Also while we're in Connecticut I intend to attend the Riverton Fair. It's a tiny little town fair but I have fond memories of it since I grew up in the town next door to Riverton, Connecticut.
So that's the plan for entertainment off the farm this summer. I hope everyone is making plans for a great eventful summer out in your area. I feel summer is meant to be enjoyed and shouldn't be all about work whether your on a farm or not, and that there's always plenty of local entertainment right in your area that can be taken advantage of.
Happy planning and God Bless!
The weathers getting warmer, the grass is getting greener. The birds, bees and bugs have graced us with their presence for yet another year. In town the people are running around in their short shorts and belly shirts. Kids of all ages are tramping around with ice cream cones and water guns. Summer is upon us, and enjoyment abounds. With the onset of July, fireworks can be expected and already the neighbors have begun practicing their festivities for the day, but when I think July I think Fairs.
This years round of fairs are shaping up quite good. I love Fairs ever since I was a kid I would try to go to each and everyone in the area. There isn't a better time to be had for a cheaper price than bring the kids to the fair. Carnival rides are of course my eldest's favorite. My middle child loves the barn animals. Only time will tell what my youngest enjoys the most. My husband likes the tractors and equipment, and I love the demonstrations.
Any demonstration really. It can be for selling a product like they do at the really big fairs or showing how to make cheese at the town fair, doesn't matter to me. I always like to learn something new or a better way to doing something I already knew. My favorite demonstrations are the spinning classes or the quilting bees. In these small groups are people who are trying to teach their skills. Skills that are a dying art of days long past, and I feel it's a duty to keep these skills alive and pass them on to future generations.
This year we have a list of fairs to go to in the area. Starting this weekend is a horse fair in Mapleton, Maine called the Maple Meadow Farm Festival. We will of course be attending and I will post pictures next week. Then for Fourth of July weekend there is the Houlton Agricultural Fair in Houlton, Maine who's high light of events is a concert staring American Idol Contestant Josh Gracin among the usual agriculture fair agenda.
There is the Potato Blossom Festival that is held in Fort Fairfield every year that embodies the true spirit of agriculture here in Northern Maine because as many of you know you can't get more Maine than a potato, and the Strawberry Short cake Festival in Limestone. There's the Centennial Parade and Pig Roast in Portage lake where the snowmobile club is going to host a motorcycle rodeo, and the County Gospel Music Festival in Fort Fairfield in early July. The Northern Maine Fair in Presque Isle touts itself to be a family affair worth going to , and
the Crown of Maine Balloon Festival is always something to behold at the end of August.
We plan to take a trip to Connecticut this fall with the kids so they can spend sometime with our extended familiesl. While we're down in that neck of the woods I intend to take them to the Big Eastern States Exhibition in West Springfield, Massachusetts. It is a fair that I went to every year with my family growing up in Connecticut and it is the largest fair I've ever seen. My eldest son has gone to it twice in his life but it will be the first time all the children get to attend and I imagine it will be a time to remember for sure. Also while we're in Connecticut I intend to attend the Riverton Fair. It's a tiny little town fair but I have fond memories of it since I grew up in the town next door to Riverton, Connecticut.
So that's the plan for entertainment off the farm this summer. I hope everyone is making plans for a great eventful summer out in your area. I feel summer is meant to be enjoyed and shouldn't be all about work whether your on a farm or not, and that there's always plenty of local entertainment right in your area that can be taken advantage of.
Happy planning and God Bless!
I was unaware
Hello All,
Some of you already know that my husband Steve and I have begun studying the Bible. For the past 6 weeks we have been doing a Bible study every Sunday night. In doing so I never thought to become so enlightened. So in light of this I've decided to do a post every Monday on some sort of knowledge that I've realized from the Bible the night before... here goes.
When I was growing up every adult around me would always try to give me some insight that would help me in my adult years about how one should live. I never realized that many of these insights are derived from the bible. Hidden with in this one book can be found all of those little saying and tips, here are examples of just a few.
Boys are supposed to have short hair, girls should have long.
Corinthians 11:14-15 Dose not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, but that if a women has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering. While I know this school of though dose not convey into today's style of things my Grandfather can still be heard commenting anytime he See's a boy with a ponytail. If asked why he's so adverse to the style he simply replies that it's just not right.
Never go to sleep Angry.
Ephesians 4:26-27 In your anger do not sin, do not let the sun go down while you are still angry. This was a piece of advise my mother gave me when I got married.
Education is the key to success.
Proverbs 24:3 Through wisdom a house is built. This is only one example of the many times knowledge is sited as being good in the eyes of the Lord. Today we place a lot of stock on higher education and it's good to see that furthering one's mind is in keeping with God's will.
If at first you don't succeed try, try again.
Proverbs 24:10 If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. Perseverance is greatly rewarded today and is also a desired trait by God.
Those that have a closed mind also have a closed heart.
Ephesians 4:17-18 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is them now due to the hardening of their hearts. The people out there that think they know everything never open themselves to anyone else for knowledge, and in doing so they cut themselves off from God.
These are just a few little insights that I've gleaned from the Bible so far that I've often heard used in every day life. I know many of the people who have reiterated these teachings have no idea that they are derived from the bible, I know I didn't. It makes me wonder what else we are not giving religion proper credit for. It seems that today religion has become taboo, but the basis of our fundamental lives, Countries, and governments are all derived and based on religion. So how is it we can shun something that is a foundation of who we are as a human being?
Some of you already know that my husband Steve and I have begun studying the Bible. For the past 6 weeks we have been doing a Bible study every Sunday night. In doing so I never thought to become so enlightened. So in light of this I've decided to do a post every Monday on some sort of knowledge that I've realized from the Bible the night before... here goes.
When I was growing up every adult around me would always try to give me some insight that would help me in my adult years about how one should live. I never realized that many of these insights are derived from the bible. Hidden with in this one book can be found all of those little saying and tips, here are examples of just a few.
Boys are supposed to have short hair, girls should have long.
Corinthians 11:14-15 Dose not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, but that if a women has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering. While I know this school of though dose not convey into today's style of things my Grandfather can still be heard commenting anytime he See's a boy with a ponytail. If asked why he's so adverse to the style he simply replies that it's just not right.
Never go to sleep Angry.
Ephesians 4:26-27 In your anger do not sin, do not let the sun go down while you are still angry. This was a piece of advise my mother gave me when I got married.
Education is the key to success.
Proverbs 24:3 Through wisdom a house is built. This is only one example of the many times knowledge is sited as being good in the eyes of the Lord. Today we place a lot of stock on higher education and it's good to see that furthering one's mind is in keeping with God's will.
If at first you don't succeed try, try again.
Proverbs 24:10 If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. Perseverance is greatly rewarded today and is also a desired trait by God.
Those that have a closed mind also have a closed heart.
Ephesians 4:17-18 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is them now due to the hardening of their hearts. The people out there that think they know everything never open themselves to anyone else for knowledge, and in doing so they cut themselves off from God.
These are just a few little insights that I've gleaned from the Bible so far that I've often heard used in every day life. I know many of the people who have reiterated these teachings have no idea that they are derived from the bible, I know I didn't. It makes me wonder what else we are not giving religion proper credit for. It seems that today religion has become taboo, but the basis of our fundamental lives, Countries, and governments are all derived and based on religion. So how is it we can shun something that is a foundation of who we are as a human being?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
