They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit.
Well, it's that time. A local slaughter company came out and killed and dressed the pigs for us, and transported them to the butcher. Yes, it is more expensive, and it is a job that Adam and I know how to do ourselves, but don't have the time or the infrastructure to kill, field dress,… Continue reading Goodbye, Piggies!
Last week we harvested the wheat, so that it wouldn't get rained on. Timing the harvest is a bit of a challenge. If you harvest it too early the sead heads are green and they don't let go of the seeds worth a darn. If you harvest it too late the seed heads dry out… Continue reading Threshing Time
Bit of a time crunch, but we got it done (enough) in plenty of time, at least two hours to spare. Saturday morning, bright and early at the Home Depot when they opened at six, Ryan made the decision to save over a hundred dollars by switching to 3/4" PEX instead of the 1" PEX… Continue reading Plumbing and Trenching.
We are supposed to get a quarter inch of rain tomorrow, so needed to do something to protect the hay that we just bought. So we climb a ladder that’s barely long enough and stand on the edge of an unstable mow. And voilà!
"Daddy, do you need any help?" Little Miss "I'm-Almost-Two-I-Don't-Need-To-Nap!" Of course I do!
Since we harvested the pigs last year, we have been working on our cooking skills, that is, learning how to cook pasture raised meat. We are almost out of pork chops now, and since that is one of the favorites and easiest to cook, here is Ryan’s way of doing it. (Kathleen does it quite… Continue reading Now that’s what I call a pork chop
We pruned our elderberries back to the stumps earlier this year, (along with the mature cherries, which, incidentally, produced a much better crop this year than they did last year). Look at that majestic shrub! And the two purple-leaf varieties are doing quite well too. What we have learned from this is that the Elderberry… Continue reading Younger Berries
Uncle Adam got time to do some digging yesterday. And... He found our water line! Only about 20" down or so, which is not typical for water lines around this place. It also makes me feel a bit ridiculous for having dug four feet down for part of the trench. We will leave that little… Continue reading Found it!
I was originally planning on harvesting the wheat on Monday, but it is supposed to rain on Monday, and Saturday is looking like it’s going to be a busy day, so I took a couple hours to cut it and get it into the shop on Thursday. 140 ft.² of Fife red wheat planted last… Continue reading Bringing in the Wheat
The pigs have less than a week remaining before they go off to the butcher, and the meat birds are now four weeks old, halfway through their brief lives. It is time to get them out on grass, but we don't fancy the attrition rate we had last year with the chickshaw only. We would… Continue reading Bird-Mobile
Little Farm in the Big City 