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Potatoes Are Ready! – Wordless Wednesday

Posted by html404 on August 29, 2012
in Business, Farm Stuff, Food and Treats, Gardening

Well, not just the potatoes are ready, we also have butternut squash, pumpkins, heirloom tomatoes, basil and mint ready too. The zucchini and summer squash have slowed down a lot and we still get an occasional cucumber if the children don’t eat it first.

Potatoes.

Pumpkins, butternut squash and zucchini.

Fresh, locally grown heirloom tomatoes.

Fresh, locally grown basil.

Mint.

The children set up a farm stand on Saturday and sold some fresh, local produce, along with organic lemonade (yep, we made it with organic cane sugar and organic lemon oil – from Costco…kind of defeats the purpose of buying local, eh?) While we may not have grown as much produce as we wanted, what we do have is yummy in our tummies! We even made pumpkin pie for Sunday’s potluck!

Lemonade stand.

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Catch Up Time With Motivation Monday on Tuesday

Posted by html404 on August 28, 2012
in Animals, Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Monday Motivation

It’s been a while since I wrote a Motivation Monday post, so that’s why I titled this “Catch up Time With Motivation Monday” because it is time to catch up. So much for taking some time off from blogging this summer, this past month just seems to be so very busy. Not just for this blog, but also for my VA business. When it rains it pours, but it’s a blessing to be busy, to have work and to be healthy enough to work. It’s just stretching my time management skills that’s all. Ha!

Not to mention all the events and promotions we have coming up for our Young Living business and our fledgling farm.

More Farm News

My husband and I are still so impressed with the farmer we met on Sunday. True to his word, he sent over all the information he said he would yesterday morning. I have been working on a farm listing, called an insurance agent regarding farm insurance and have a date on the calendar to learn about chicken processing and to process our own turkeys. Oh and we now have upgraded housing for our laying hens – thanks to this new farmer friend! We have been deliberating over what we were going to do since our nesting box won’t fit in their moveable pens, which were just a short-term fix until they started laying. Our laying hens should start to lay soon so we have to pick up the larger moveable coop soon. Our moveable coops were/are for our broilers (meat chickens), which we now plan to do next year. So next year we will be able to do about 100 broilers at a time and do several batches of them, now that we have some networking happening. Funny to think that I am excited about raising chickens when I never thought we’d ever have any animals. Nevertheless, I do find it all very exciting.

Our Midget White turkeys are doing well. Not having raised them before we worry sometimes if they are gaining enough. Then other days when we go out there a couple of the plumper ones make our mouths water at the thought of roasted turkey! Yummy! That’s the difference between my husband and I, and our children – we look at our livestock as food, not pets.

Townhouse Update

All the cosmetic work is finally done on our townhouse. I am hoping to get some new photos and I’ll have to post some before and afters or something. We just loose ends to tie up and we have to finish cleaning out the garage and bring our second fridge and freezers over now that they are nearly empty. Now I have to start marketing it again or we’ll need to list it with an agent to see if we can sell it. Decisions, decision, decisions.

“In every deliberation, one must consider the impact on the seventh generation”
-Great Law of the Iroquois

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Chicago Chapter of Weston A. Price, Farm Tour and Potluck

Posted by html404 on August 26, 2012
in Animals, Business, Family Stuff, Farm Stuff

Today we are hosting our first farm tour and potluck since having animals. A few months ago the leader of Chicago’s Weston A. Price group contacted me after having found our Local Harvest listing. It’s been a little nerve wrecking this week since I have had my normal work load to deal with, that many of the things for the farm tour – cleaning the house, making a couple of dishes to pass, getting things to look half decent in the garden and yard, etc. have all had to wait until the weekend. The yard is a challenge since Padfoot is still chewing up boxes or whatever he can find and making a mess every time he’s bored!

We are really looking forward to meeting this new group of people and allowing them to see what we are doing to provide locally grown, healthy, GMO-free, non-chemical food. They are really interested in our farm and would like to promote it during the winter months, as we have offered them significant savings if they purchase a CSA share from us for the 2013 season. (CSA means Consumer Support Agriculture). Here’s to hoping the event goes off without a hitch!

We really want the farm to be self-sustaining, which simply means profitable enough to pay for itself. That’s our first goal. Our next goal is to make enough money for the children each to earn an income from it. Let’s just say lots of thinking has been going on lately as we brainstorm and try to see what businesses we can create as off shoots to poultry, eggs and veggies.

I’ll let you know how the farm tour and potluck goes a little later….

Update: We had about 13 people out for a session of “know your farmer, know your food”, in spite of the rain. Nice group of people. Met another local farmer whom we learned a lot from, so that was a huge connection as he has some great ideas and only 45 minutes away. AND he’s willing to try processing our turkeys for us, I say try because he’s only processed broilers/meat chickens, so we don’t have to make a 4-5 hour drive to the only processing plant in Illinois! We also have the opportunity to volunteer on his chicken processing day so we can see how it’s done (up close and personal) and help him out.

I was took busy talking to get photos of the actual potluck, so the one above is a fake. Our oldest son wants to know when the next potluck is because he liked all the food….HA!

I’d say our day afternoon was a success.

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Little Farm Helpers – Wordless Wednesday

Posted by html404 on August 8, 2012
in Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Wordless Wednesday

We don’t agree with child labor or slave labor, but we do desire to teach our children to work according to there age and abilities. Our little guys are not required to do many chores other than pick up their toys, help put their clothes in their cubbies and help a sibling or parent feed the animals. Yet they are often found doing more because when the older children are told to do something they trail along behind. Little farm helpers. That’s one advantage to having many children – the older ones do tend to teach the younger ones by example (and not the example they set is not always positive! ) Below is our 4 year old “Nookie” who loves helping take care of the chickens. He’s very kind and gentle and actually very good at catching them.

Our Little Farm Helpers

The diapered dude is our baby who will be two this month. My daughter captured him helping fill the chicken waterer with the hose.

Please excuse the marker all over them, markers usually end up in them coloring each other’s skin!

Our little farm helpers thrive on helping.

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Wordless Wednesday – 2 New Kittens

Posted by html404 on June 27, 2012
in Animals, Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Wordless Wednesday

We added a couple more critters to our ~~ark~~ farm…2 new kittens!

Meet our fluffykins:

Princess Moonstone, a fiesty female!

Severus, a mellow male!

Photos are my daughter’s.

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Animal Control, Dead Duck and Dead Bunny :-(

Posted by html404 on June 15, 2012
in Animals, Farm Stuff

I’ve been trying to get this written and posted all week…

I worked at our homeschool convention with a friend last Thursday thru Saturday as an exhibitor. On Friday I got a text from my husband to call him when I had a chance. When I finally called him he told me he had a visit from Animal Control. I said, “What?!”

You see we have these moveable chicken tractors/coops that my husband made, see below. They are in the field next to the barn and close to the major road that runs by our house. Apparently a concerned, but naive driver called Animal Control and reported that our chickens were sitting out in the sun all day not being cared for. (Please note the blue tarps we have on there for shade!) Thankfully the Animal Control officer drives by every day to visit her horse and told us, “This is a joke, but someone called and reported that your chickens are not being cared for, which I know is not true because I drive by every day. Besides I can hear them. Please do me a favor and move your chickens to the back field.” She was very nice and didn’t even look at the chickens since she could hear the “happy” chicken sounds.

What I don’t like is that someone actually reported us and that we can’t even choose where we keep our chickens now. However, it does make for a good blog post. So it does have a humorous side. I had a friend, the same friend I worked the homeschool convention with, tell me that once we got animals we would have lot of stories to tell! She was right as the past two weeks have been chalk full of adventure.

Dead Duck and Dead Bunny

This week due to inexperience our children have suffered some hard lessons and the loss of two animals. Two beloved pets. We have had a sad couple of days. The children introduced our ducks to water for the first time and had a blast watching them go “bottoms up” in the water after who knows what to eat. However, the children left them out while they came inside and our cute, adorable, ~~BAD~~, normal, puppy got the female duck and killed her.

Today the younger children were playing with the bunnies and again the puppy was loose and the older children came in. I was sitting by the patio door working on my laptop when I heard a child screeching. By the time someone got out there the puppy had got Luna our black and white bunny. Yes, the one that was stolen or lost and returned again.

The children want to get more ducks and more bunnies, but the stipulation is that they pay for them.

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If It’s Free! It’s for Me!

Posted by Brande on June 7, 2012
in Appliances, Baby Products, Bedding, Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Free Stuff, Fun Stuff, Furniture, Thrifty Thursday

I found a new website! Watch out, it’s addicting! It’s called The Freecycle Network. Type in your location and see what people have to “offer” or “want” and they are all free! You will find almost ANYTHING on here. I’ve seen used oil, frozen meats, swing sets, baby items, beds, you name it! You will need an account – if you find and “offer” you’d like you then need to contact the person to set a time / place and go and pick it up! I’ve seen a few “curb alerts” (a curb alert is people that are putting stuff out on the curb or road) in my area. This is my kind of bargain shopping!

http://www.freecycle.org

Editor’s Note: Our family has used Free Cycle and have got some pretty nice stuff – our recliner is one of them. We have also got work horses which have come in handy now that we have moved! Lots of neat and useful things have been found on Free Cycle. Beware of daily emails as they will over take your inbox! I finally had to unsubscribe due to the emails and my husband’s request! lol! I had him running out to pick up too many things!

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Our Critters – Wordless Wednesday

Posted by html404 on June 6, 2012
in Animals, Farm Stuff, Wordless Wednesday

Here are our growing farm critters…

All photos are property of my daughter RJ.

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Stolen Bunny?

Posted by html404 on June 4, 2012
in Animals, Family Stuff, Farm Stuff

It has been a fairly uneventful week. I took an unexpected break from blogging due to life just happening, but so all of you know I will only be blogging 2-3x per week for the summer – probably Monday, Wednesday and Friday OR Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday some weeks. There’s just too many other things on my plate right now.

The one bit of excitement we did have – besides my daughter’s birthday in which we had a cook out – was Luna, our black and white bunny, went missing. Saturday morning we discovered her gone, plus some sheet metal that was outside the barn was gone as well. This led us to count the chickens and we discovered two of them missing! We ended up calling the police because we felt violated having things stolen, not to mention the fact having had someone on our property. The dispatcher was like, “Livestock too?” The policeman who came out was just as baffled as we were, but talked to our neighbors and said he’d file a report in case other thefts in the area had occurred, just in case any of them ended up being related somehow. He did think it was probably local.

Photo courtesy of my daughter.

The funny thing is shortly after the policeman left Luna came hopping across the road and into our field where some of the children were doing their chores. Weird. We didn’t think the bunny had escaped because of the way the cage was so bent and surely the bunny could not have bent up its cage door. However, the bunny went missing again Saturday night even after we moved the bunnies up closer to the house. Yesterday the children spotted her in the corn field behind our house. We are not allowed in the corn field due to the agreement with our landlords and the farmer renting the field, so the children made a trap with apples to lure Luna home. Thankfully she fell for it and they caught her again. We are still very confused by it all and probably will never know what really happened.

It made us wonder about our current location since our property is very accessible and in plain site of a major road, even though we are rural – the city police would not even come out, we had to go through the county sheriff’s department. All of this has made us feel unsafe. Not that we want to move, but if we found something in this area off the main “drag” we probably would consider it.

How about you, ever had anything stolen? Feel free to share in the comments below.

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Pest Control in Our Gardens & on Our Pets

Posted by html404 on May 16, 2012
in Animals, Farm Stuff, Gardening

It’s gardening season and warm weather is here, that means the pests are too. Shauna reminded me of some of these pest control solutions for our gardens and our pets, so special thanks to her for reminding me of these solutions!

For plants infested with insects, use one of the following essential oils. Fill a mist spray bottle with 4 oz. of water, add the essential oils and mist the infested plant. Several applications, a few days apart, may be necessary. (Use as little as possible). These same suggestions may be used on our pets as well. I know we have been using a combination of Purification, Citronella, Eucalyptus and Cedarwood on Padfoot, our puppy. We have found a couple of ticks on him, the children are very good about brushing him, and we put a drop of Purification on the spot where the tick was attached to cleanse that area. Cats can be more sensitive to the oils, so use very little on them. Just putting the oils on your hands, rubbing them together and then running your hands over their fur is enough for them. We are assuming the same thing for rabbits so plan to use the oils the same way on our bunnies.

He’s getting big, this was taken a couple weeks ago!

Here’s one of Padfoot just taken as I type up this post:

Our cutie pie! He provides much entertainment!

Pest Control in Our Gardens & on Our Pets

Spearmint: ants, aphids, caterpillars, black flea beetle, gnats, lice, moths, and plant lice.

Peppermint: ants, aphids, bean beetle, cabbage root fly, caterpillars, black flee beetle, flies, lice, moths, and plant lice.

Lemongrass: black flea beetle, fleas, mosquitoes, and ticks.

Tansy: black fly, carrot fly, fleas, flies, greenfly, mosquitoes, and white fly.

Hyssop: aphids, cabbage root fly, moths, and slugs.

Thyme: bean beetle, cabbage root fly, cutworm, and ticks.

Sage: cabbage root fly, cutworm, nematodes, ticks, and white fly.

Rosemary: cabbage root fly and carrot fly.

Patchouli: gnats, snails, weevils, and woolly aphids.

Pine: slugs, snails, and wooly aphids.

Sandalwood: weevils and wooly aphids.

If you ever order Young Living Essential Oils, I would appreciate you using my distributor number #1038605. This is my referral number and I receive credit when you use my number when you place an order at www.youngliving.org/robnt – Thank you!