Holy Smokes!

It’s been a few days I guess huh? Okay so here is the update (photos and video shall follow later, probably tonight…)

Goats: there are four, not five. I managed to get a great Alpine Billy for $50. His name is Pippen. Then 2 days ago we drove 2.5 hours to get three more goats: Alpine Nanny named Tulip, Alpine Nanny named White Legs and a Boer Billy named Brandon. They have all had hemp collars With bells made and affixed, are happy and loving their new home.

The nannies are milking a gallon per day so into cheese making full throttle we go. I have 2 gallons in my fridge right now so I’m going to pick up some plain yogurt tonight so I can make yogurt from the next milking this evening.

I think that’s about it.

Nope, I lied. I have to go pick up 6 more chickens off of Freecycle this afternoon. 4 bantam something (she didn’t know) and 2 Black Jap roosters (I have never heard of this breed, have you?)

OFf to much to chicken coop and move the roos to their own space for the summer….videos and photos later.

Critter Update

Fabulous Forum!!

Go visit a brand spankin’ new forum:

Pagan Homesteaders

It’s so new, there aren’t even any posts yet. I’m still building the categories and the forum topics, so bear with me…it’s a learning process and I have to come up with all of the topics I think other Pagan homesteaders, or other open minded folks might be interested in. Now bear in mind, I have an open door policy. Anyone can join, but all must keep in mind that topics are probably going to lean toward a Pagan bend.

So go check me out…sign up….start posting….give your recommendations for topics and categories, etc. If you are interested in being an Admin or moderator, lemme know and I’ll see about it. Help promote the board, too! It’s going in all of my signatures, that’s for sure!

Now, I think that’s all for tonight!

Garden Coming Together

Today consisted of getting planted Strawberry Popcorn, Tom Thumb Popcorn, 6 different pole and bush beans, our strawberry plants planted, our melon, cuke and squash plants planted and weeding done in the bed where our sweet corn is planted. The final 2 small beds, the one for the girls and the 2 small herb beds had their fanal touched finished today too so every bed is ready for planting if it hasn’t already been. I don’t have pictures today for 2 reasons, #1 planting got finished just as Thor began raining the land, and #2 I need new camera batteries. Pictures probably Monday.

I made the calls today and Tuesday we load up the girls and the pickup crate and go 2 hours south to Litchfield to pick up our Boer buck and our Alpine nannie, then to Rice on the way home to pick up our Boer nannie and her 2 doe kids for the ride home…fencing needs finishing this weekend. The Alpine is milking about a gallon a day, I’m told! It is going to be thrilling not to have to buy soy or cow milk anymore. I’ll expose the Alpine immediately to the Boer buck so hopefully I’ll have some more kids down the road! Thrilling! The cost for all 5 goats is $450. Not too shabby. There is only one buckthorn in their reach that needs removing so they don’t eat it. Other than that, they’ll be golden in their pen. Again, I’ll have photos of them after they arrive. THRILLING!! Spring is here and everything around us is growing!

April Showers Bring May…

colds and fevers.

Zoe.

Then Grace.

Now me.

No fun.

Posting after the weekend. There are a number of updates too, so stay tuned…..

Beds Complete!

Rob got the raised beds in today and complete! There is about 1/2 of one bed that needs to have compost and manure added to it, but they are ready to go! Next Tuesday is our slotted planting day provided it doesn’t rain.

Our tomato starts came today from Seed Savers. This year our favorites, Green Zebra, Stupice and Cherokee Purple are here and ready for the ground and we also got Brandywine and Mexico Midget. Great tomatoes. Starts are ordered because for one reason or another I have a tough time starting tomatoes and it sure is hard to keep tomatoes to save seed. They are by far the favored fruit in this household by all inhabitants! This year the decision has been made to downscale the number of tomato plants. Last year there were 40 varieties, and nearly 130 plants. This year there are still a great number of plants, but only the 6 varieties. They are the varieties that farmers market goers enjoy and those that are enjoyed here…so everyone is happy! So the greenhouse is FULL!

Our tipi dwelling friends, Vanessa and Dan came for dinner tonight (another MJ bakeover using one of the recipes in the special edition. I prepared the potato and asparagus bakeover. It was delish! everyone ahd seconds! They have a little boy but he didn’t come tonight.

Vanessa and I are in cahoots to start a unschool-homeschool co-op. Compiling resources helps a great deal to save money. Their boy is 4 and our girls are 6 and 2.5 There are a few other family friends of all of ours who have small children too and are interested in this simpler and more rounded approach to educating our children. I have a post coming up about unschooling and how it fits into our ideas regarding the world and the future of it.

Our CSA pickup was today. GREAT DEAL TODAY!!! I got 3 heads of romaine (I paid extra for these, $2 per head) dried organic black beans (4#) and white beans(2#) I also paid extra for those at $2 per pound. I enjoy some of the add ons from time to time and beans are one of them. In the share today were strawberries, kale, gold beets, chard, fennel (MMMM fresh fennel. Last season a pesky woodchuck made off with all of my fennel…GRRRRRRR!) and a few other things I am having a tough time remembering at the moment. It’s late and I’m exhausted. Stay tuned for the great recipes I have to share using our share in the coming days!

Alrighty, it’s off to bed for this farmgirl…lots to do tomorrow and it starts by hanging more clothes on the line….mmmmm fresh Spring breezes in our clothes and linens!

MAKE-OVER!!!

You’ll notice that the previous posts have been removed. I am giving this blog a makeover. As Rob and I are both at home working, doing our farm building, self sustaining action, etc. this blog is going to chronicle our weekly, sometimes daily goings on in building our life in the manner we see the world around us. I’ll be posting about everything from our rabbit adventures, our organic market gardens, the chicks I have hatching as I type this post, kids growing up in the forest, butchering animals, foraging for wild foods (we have an abundance in our forests!) frugal living in our menus, etc. etc. I may even throw in a video or two from time to time. Such as this afternoon. I am going out today to take video of our 5 rabbits to introduce them to you, take you on a tour of the chicken coop, a bit of video of Rob putting in the raised beds and a bit of video of the chicks we hatched from our birds.

A little about our chickens. So far the birds we have procured have been gotten for free off of Freecycle from a lady who needed to be rid of them as she couldn’t take care of them anymore. There were 2 that had been purchased for $5 each from a local organic farmer and one hen that I had rescued from a fellow farmgirl. So all told our flock consisted of 18. After one has been butchered and 2 escaped and got eaten by someone else, now 15 remain. Eggs have been gathered from them to hatch in still air incubators and some have been left to be hen hatched. So far 4 have hatched. One pipped but died so there could have been 5. I think there are 6 more of our birds to hatch out.

So after getting into the hatching game, a bug seriously bit us both. Online I ventured to find some pure breeds. I ended up getting Plymouth Barred Rock, Red Dorking Bantam, Silkies, Buttercups and Black Langshans. Those eggs are all still in the incubators and all here are thrilled for them to hatch. As they are our pure breeds, we plan to build separate living spaces for them from our mutt chickens. Three of our mutt chickens, a roo and 2 hens are going as homewarming gifts to some friends of ours who just put up and moved into a tipi. Sort of a get you started small flock.

The pure breeds that had been chosen were chosen because of their beautiful show qualities, some of them are pretty docile and some of them are super broody. All are good meat and egg birds, sans the bantams as they have tiny eggs.

So join us on our frugal life adventure! Feel free to leave comments, opinions, recommendations, etc. If you have a frugal living, farm living, organic living blog, a pagan farm blog, business or whathaveyou, let me know and I’ll link it.

One last venture for our farm life that I am working on is a podcast of farm living. That is a few weeks out yet though….but keep your eyes and ears open!

Spring is here and there is a lot to do….off to make a couple of videos for your enjoyment!!