January Farm

Our little farm is about as snoozy as we are in wintertime. The greenest place is definitely the front porch, which Adam enclosed in plastic again this year.

 I have three leggy tomato plants. Today I noticed two little tomatoes!

 I dug herbs from my beds and plunked them into pots in late fall. Now I have: dill, cilantro, basil.

 My young hens are laying through the winter. All are part silkie (I think?), but only the youngest one, who started laying just a few weeks ago, gives me a true olive-colored egg. See?

 I have six hens and a rooster I don't like, but he does his job. Well, he does half of his job. He protects his ladies. Not sure how effective he is in the romantic side of his job though!

 Today is barely warm, so farm doggies are outside. Trixie:

 Ned:

Our strawberry transplants are surviving on the front porch too.

I was asking Adam today when I'll likely be able to start working in the greenhouse, as I love doing in the late winter/early spring. He'll cover the greenhouse next week. I should be able to start fiddling in there in mid-February, I hope.

Lastly: gourds. They are curing well on the front porch.

See all that lovely mold? These are the largest ones. I've been practicing on smaller ones that dried first. Here's a summarizing video of what I've done with gourds thus far:

By the time I get to the largest gourds I should have my style perfected, haha! Thanks so much for stopping by to check on our sleepy little farmette, where not much happens and we're mighty peaceful about it.

More Empty Nest Behaviors

I now know what The Empty Nest feels like. Hmm. New, different, wonderful but sometimes a bit empty and quiet. I enjoyed the first week or two, throwing myself into moving furniture and clearing things out, setting up my oh-so-fun craft room. Today is the first day I've sat around thinking, "Hmm. What do I do now?"
Anyway, before this pondering, I did finish some curtains for the other little house, AKA Julia's old room:

 They give privacy but allow some light in.
And a new one for the door:

I also, at last, made a simple skirt from this chicken-themed fabric. I'd bought it to make an apron, so (as you'd guess) the skirt has ended up shorter than my preferred ankle-length. I plan to buy some muslin to make a built-in underskirt or slip, that will hang longer.

Cute fabric, huh?

 I finished a rather unusual weave:

 And for the first time in a very long time, I went to Prayer Shawl at the Methodist Church on Thursday! It was delightful to see my old yarn buddies again and sit and click some needles in their company. I started a basketweave shawl:

The yarn is actually very blue; size 15 needles

 These are NOT our farm pumpkins. We have no pumpkins this year. I photographed these at WalMart.

 Our second go-around with potatoes are sprouting up now:

 And it appears we will have a good pecan year ... we hope. Some of the trees are loaded.

 Lastly, I had a bit of a scare today, walking back from the chicken coop (where Punkin was trying to lay). We'd noticed Ned had a swollen neck (jowel, hanging down below), and we wondered if he'd had another run-in with a snake. Here, they sat in the sun (after the thunderstorm), but notice the foreground ....

 I stepped so close to him! I squealed, oh did I squeal! Thankfully, Ned had already killed him. You can't see it here, but there are flies on him.

This is another one of those yellow-bellied (really orange-bellied) water snakes. They are pretty creepy to look at, but they are not venomous.
So THANK YOU, Ned, for being my protector and killing all snakes on the farm! Oh, how I do loathe the look of them.
Punkin was on an egg-laying strike for about five days, but she appears to be back up and running again. Life is generally quiet on the farm. We do hear from Julia, and she seems to be doing very well at college. That makes my mama heart at ease.
I hope you are enjoying your September thus far! Cooler days are coming!

Sunset on the Farm

 What a day! After the frigid temps of a couple days ago, how glorious to have a high near 70! -- a balmy December day. I know it was warm because when Adam and I were walking across the field, a small brown snake was in our path, making his way somewhere. Snakes out, in December!
Ned said it was a good day to play outside.

 Isn't he a handsome fellow?
Beau agreed to play with him, and they were both quite happy. Love this pic:

 Sunset through the oaks and pines:

 Adam has worked so hard on these garden beds (and he's not done yet). But three of them are comlete.

They're all three tilled, lined with metal edging, raised soil, and a layer of leaf mulch on top.

 Our two horseradish plants are still vaguely green.

 I was given three large mums this fall. Adam put them deep into one of the beds to sleep for the winter. I hope to put them into a sunny bed in the house lot, in spring.

 On Friday morning, a truly frigid morning at about 19 degrees, I made the chickens hot oatmeal with other yummy nibbles thrown in. I took it to them in a big enamel cooker, allowing the oatmeal to cool, of course.

 Except for their feeders in the coop, these chickens are used to me bringing them crumbs and scraps, and eating them off the ground. They did not know WHAT to do with that enamel pan! They refused to stick their beaks in. They scooted around it, nervous little hens.

Finally I had to dump it all out on the dirt before they would eat it, which they did. Silly birds.
Adam is composting leaves like a crazy man, driving to people's yards and collecting them -- mowing them, bagging them, hauling them back. His compost pile is enormous. Let's hope it translates into some fabulous vegetables next year!

September on the Farm

We survived Tropical Storm Hermine over the weekend, and now temperatures are definitely cooler compared to a month ago. Phew! We're weary of that heat!

The hens continue to give us about three eggs each day. I think maybe my Rhode Island Red is the freeloader holding out on me :) Goldie loves going to the field with us and rolling around in the grass. We call it her "Salsa Dancing."

Hermine dropped lots of rain, but she moved quickly through during Friday night while we slept. She left a soggy yard.

 Lines of pine straw indicated to us how high the water washed up, but it didn't stay long.
This is the bottom of our house deck ramp, just a bit of water.

 The path to the out-building was soggy too and scattered with fallen pecan limbs. One large one punctured the ground.

 On the other side of our house deck, I finally told Adam to remove the huge holly bushes that flanked the steps.

 They were quite tall. Walking between them each morning was a little creepy. The spider webs were significant.

We'll find something else to go there eventually.
Yesterday Adam had a big fire in the pasture for all the brush; it was cool enough at last. Soon he will pull almost all the remaining tomato plants out of the ground. They still have fruit, but the tomato hornworms have found them at last. I pulled off and squashed about 25 of them yesterday. Most of the remaining fruit doesn't look good. A few plants we put in later are still thriving and healthy. Adam is putting in peas in the two tomato rows.

Cucumbers continue to bear a bit. Our watermelons have come .. and come ... but each one rots. Adam investigated and found they were deficient in calcium. Next year we'll know better. I've picked two pretty gourds and one pumpkin. They sit on the front porch.

Not an impressive return for the massive gourd plants twisting their way 'round the garden!
Adam admits that he spent an inordinate amount of time MOWING, all summer long. It eats into his available time to do other farm work. Next year, if finances permit, maybe we'll get a better mower. Maybe!
Next year:
We hope to get grapes from the vines, if they're getting enough sunlight.
We hope to use the dehydrator.
We hope to harvest honey.
We hope to double our greenhouse space.
We hope to have successfully had a winter garden and corn and sunflowers.
We hope to have a Sheltie and for Goldie to have moved outside full-time.
And many other things ... we hope for.

Why I Picked the Cantaloupe

 

Because I had to rescue it from Ned, our resident cantaloupe picker.
He picked and nibbled on this other, smaller cantaloupe (below) on Saturday. We'd been watching that big cantaloupe (above) for weeks. Waiting. (Adam is a lover of cantaloupe.) So I picked it, probably early.

 Ned chews EVERYTHING. He drags wire mesh out of the barn and mangles it.

 He pulled my bike basket off my my bicycle (which was hanging from a ceiling hook) and ripped it to shreds.

 He sticks his snout into the open end of Adam's big dehydrator and nibbles on the styrofoam.

 He reduced a garden hose to gnawed-on segments all over the yard.

 He chewed up a paint roller and the handle too.

 Oh, and I forgot to take a picture of the canister of liquid nails he got hold of.
He even attacks his own play balls and reduces them to trash.

Then there's the brand new bag of Miracle Gro potting soil he stole off the greenhouse shelf.

 Not to mention the many, many cardboard boxes Adam puts in the compost bins. Ned removes them, shreds them up and scatters them across the pasture.

The one thing I've never seen him chew, which he really ought to chew, is his chair.

It's a big upholstered wooden chair -- perfect for gnawing on.

Many of his chewing victims come from the worm bay in the garage (the far left bay). It had nothing covering the doorway, so Ned helped himself. He would even grab the old veggies Adam put in for the worms to eat, and nibble them down for lunch. (sigh)

 Ned's room is in the middle -- his chair, his food, his water. The door on the left has the worms. The door on the right is full of old lumber, equipment, scary things like snakes and mice. I don't go in there EVER. But I needed another board to put over the worm bay (as you see I did in the photo above). So I looked in the bay on the right right. And I saw this.

A snake. On its back. With its head tangled up fully in some mesh fencing. Ugh. I thought it was dead but then it wigged. I left it for Adam to deal with. Double ugh. I retrieved a big piece of wood, covered the doorway again, and left it to wiggle.

I do worry for my chickens a bit. They're in the enclosure on the left -- see one? They like to flutter up onto the fence or the gate -- see the darker wooden gate with the hook closure? They sit atop it. Today we'll be putting some of that loose black fencing all along the top of the more solid fencing. It's so soft they won't be able to sit on it, but it's high enough they won't be able to fly over. I hope.
Speaking of escape ... today at the pound, Adam and I found our second farm dog! So now Ned has company! Maybe he won't be so bored? Maybe he won't chew so many things?
Meet Marigold, aka "Goldie."

on the ride home

She didn't like it when Adam went out the door.
She pined for him.

Playing with a pound kitty.
Goldie is friendly, playful, maybe 5 years old.

It's good to have Adam back home from his long trip to Louisiana to officiate at his nephew's wedding. He's already mowing and cleaning up after Ned. Ned and Goldie have already escaped the fence once today, through a gate that has always been closed and bolted. Not sure how it got open. We are hoping Goldie is not an escape artist who will adversely influence Ned. That's all he needs!