Snow

It snowed yesterday.

Garlic & Log Cabin

Planted about 10 different varieties of garlic this weekend. Sherm tore the entire front face off the house to prepare for the 4-Seasons room installation. We are now living in a real log cabin. The new roof is tight and dry, lovely, lovely, lovely. Our duct work in the cellar hasn't been reinstalled yet, and we haven't tested the corn furnace to see if the replacement parts have brought it back to life after the flood; but we are still toasty warm inside with the wood burner and new little corn burner. First hard frost was a couple weeks ago now, oct 2^nd and 3^rd I believe. All the tom's are off the plants, either stewed up in a jar in the cellar, or rotting on the compost pile. The only produce I managed to save/process this year were beets and toms and a few eggplants. My cuke's had some horrid disease, all the squash were planted too late, and had squash beetle infestation.

Planning already for next year….for sure we'll find a spot for some pumpkins, and other "Autumnal" themed plants….decorative corn, straw flowers for drying, decorative gourds. Beans for drying, mid-season crop of onions. Etc.

New Kitty, New Heat, New Roof, New Room

Lena is now a Grandmother! Maude Lebowski had one little kitty approx 3 weeks ago in Sherm's dirty laundry hamper. A little girl kitty we named Julie. Sherm has been working his butt off tearing off the old roof and working with a friend to get the new roof on. So far we've only had one day of rain inside the house. The guys found a major bee's nest in the attic which put everything on hold for a while. Our "four seasons" room has been delivered and is out in the pole shed awaiting installation. The supplemental heat for the new room is a wood pellet / corn burning stove that Sherm picked up yesterday and is right now just flaming away in the living room. Works damned well.....our only heat right now, and nites are getting down into the 30's. Ordered about 40$ worth of mixed garlic bulbs from http://www.wegrowgarlic.com/, a place here in WI.

Garlic

I am adding a variety of garlic bulbs to my fall planting repertoire. I've noticed the local grocery store garlic, while inexpensive, seems to be losing it's "oomph," growing more and more bland. I like the idea of braided garlic hanging next to the onions in the cellar.

My research sources have primarily been www.gardenweb.com and the Sept 2008 issue of Herb Companion.

Here's my pre-planting info…

The braiding kind is the soft-neck, what you usually find at the store….not ideal for super cold winters. Hard-neck has a flower stalk which needs to be removed or the bulbs get smaller.

Plant in fall, pointy end up, 2-3 inches deep, 6 in apart in rows 10 in apart, in loose "loamy" soil w/near neutral PH. Cold winters need a loose mulch, but remove in spring to prevent slugs/mold.

Water well but let dry out about a week before harvest. On the hard-necks, cut off the "scapes" (flower stalks) after they curl down and before they uncurl. You can eat these in soups, salads etc.

Harvest when about 5-6 leaves remain green, cure in well-ventilated area out of the sun in bundles of 6-12 for several weeks. Store in netted bags.

Severe winter tolerant garlic = Purple Stripe, Porcelain, Marbled Purple Stripe, Rocambole.

Creole varieties have good flavor and store well.

Silverskin is best for long storing. Long storing varieties do not have the flavor complexities you find in other garlics.

Sources for info/ordering

www.GarlicFarm.com
www.FilareeFarm.com
www.TheGarlicStore.com
www.HoodRiverGarlic.com

The Godmother, Canning, New Kitties

I am officially a Godmother as of this weekend, very cool. Looking at my beautiful neice Madeline in all her snowy white satin and tulle, pretty much exploding with love, i remembered the little sketchbook/scrapbook i'd started for her when she was born... and my plans to add a page here and there....and all the pages i havent added. Best laid plans...Every time i see her, i think "ohhh, this would be a cute little drawing to put in her book..." but then the rest of my life crashes in and it never gets done. Last nite i lay in bed thinking about Maddie kissing her reflection in the mirror at church, what a great page that would make, how would i do all that white...i really need to start making art again. i miss it.

meanwhile....there's wax beans and tomatos to be canned. and more beets. found a great recipe for eggplant in my "cooks illustrated" mag i'll be trying for maddie's b-day party next weekend. still havent got out the thank you's for the wedding gifts...etc etc etc.

we now have 3 generations of kitties....maude, daughter of lena, had one little kitten last week.

finally!

Finally! After years of wrangling, Fern Dell Farm now belongs to us, Shermen and Kaaren, and the bank. Up until this point, not knowing what may happen, we have tried to keep our out-of-pocket investments in the farm and farm-house minimal. We have done what we could to make the old 1850's log-cabin farm-house more livable by tiling the bathroom and kitchen floors, painting and putting up temporary walls. We added a much needed corn burning furnace and ductwork to supplement the wood-stove heat. We threw tarp on the roof and weighed in down with cinder blocks and prayed during major storm action. We bought a new fridge when the one that was here started leaking inches deep puddles every day. We've lined the bathroom ceiling with pink styrofoam insulation, and squeezed "GreatStuff" into every nook and cranny to stop the arctic winter winds. Winter meant not seeing out the windows due to the heavy duty plastic wrap, and the base of the farm-house was lined hip high with hay bales. For the first couple years, we cooked AND canned on a camp stove and electric burner. Getting the old gas farm stove running this past spring was heavenly! Being able to boil water in under 1/2 an hour, yay!
We put in a nice veggie and flower garden, and had success (in spite of the stove situation) with canning pickles and beets. We've enjoyed the fruits of our labors during the cold winter months by pulling yummy eggplant pasta sauces out of the freezer and marvelled at the difference between home-grown and store-bought. We raised meat chickens...processed them ourselves the first year, letting them go too long so the only way you could eat the tough old birds was by cooking them all day in a crock pot. Year two, 2008, we processed them sooner (and paid to have it done,) resulting in delectable and tender chemical free, humanely raised chicken. We had a pair of turkeys, lovely Royal Palms, but they were immune to the electric fence, at the heads off all they beautiful tiger lilies, and were a nuisance in general...so they went the way of the meat chickens. We still have 3 of the original 6 lovely layer hens....Polla, Odette and Tyrina. 6 additional layers purchased in April of this year, 2008- not yet laying- and 3 little bantams. We also have 3 sheep- Eric the ram, and Hilda and Matilda, the ewes. The current flock is skittish to be petted, we are looking forward to bottle raising some lambs for pets.
In preparation for the wedding, Shermen put in a gorgeous patio area and waterfall, which Kaaren then prettified with flowers and plants.
We are learning about leaf rust, japanese beetles, excess nitrogen, why some cukes are so bitter they cannot be eaten, not to plant 100's of sunflowers under building eaves or the rain will knock them all down right when they are blooming....we have learned this year to just suck it up and start again when all your lovely flower seedlings are under water for days on end. We have learned that for some reason, Kaaren cannot grow lavender from seed. We have learned that while free tomato plants are great....(self-seeded romas) for some reason they dont taste all that great, and too many just rot on the ground. Little round cherry tomatos are not only the most flavorful, they dont split and they are easiest to freeze. Decorative gourds and pumpkins are cool, but take up a ton of room and pretty much just wound up rotting on the ground....so we skipped those this year. We have a ton of dried out birdhouse gourds ready to be turned into beautiful bird houses....but all these projects take time.
That, I believe, has been our greatest lesson thus far...time is pretty much the most precious commodity of all. Together, Shermen and I can do pretty much anything....we have a ton of wonderful ideas...ways to make life easier, ways to make life more beautiful, yummy things to grow and eat, fun things to build and create...fun ways to share our love of this farm with others...all of it takes time, (and money.) Now it's all about prioritizing. Which dreams can we make a reality? Which need to go on the backburner for a few years? Which for a few decades? We are having a big, beautiful wedding out here on Fern Dell Farm in a little over 3 weeks. At the same time, the farm house is going to be under major construction...once we finally decide which of the renovation projects we can afford, we've already decided which are necessity...roof, foundation, electric, windows....now which of our little dream projects can we have?
Up until now, we have been dipping our toes in the water of this major commitment...now we are ready to jump in...a wedding, a mortgage, a renovation...it's all becoming reality!!!

Winter blah

This winter crap has gone on long enough. Just when you can almost see the ground without any ugly blobs of dingy snow, apparently, we have another big puke of it on the way. The hens were so happy, back to getting about an egg a day, because they were able to get outside and scratch.
Shermen and Mike checked out the new sheep barn and Mike said all looked good. We get our new sheep on Monday, I'm so excited!

Costly Cat Cremation Etc

3/24/2008 We lost "Old Kitty" aka Fleetwood, to old age. His ashes are in a cardboard box in the cupboard, waiting for the ground to thaw so we may properly lay him to rest (260$.) Daisy is newest addition to farm family, lovely chocolate lab - catahoula mix. 3 of the original chicken brood are still with us....many more to arrive soon.
Shermen's spring break was last week, Kaaren's is this week. Good Friday, March 21st, 2nd day of Spring, we got about 6-10 inches of snow. We are pretty much ready to go insane at this point with the snow. At least today it is sunny, supposed to get into the high 40s, so hopefully some of the damned snow will melt.
We have 3 sheep to be delivered soon. Shermen has fixed up the old pig-barn and they now have a lovely, large hay covered bedding area with nice windows for ventilation. We are getting one ram and two ewes, supposedly the ewes will get pregnant and birth around late summer - early fall. They are California Reds....Mom already has someone interested in the wool. They are supposed to be good meat animals, but I think these are just going to be pets. We arent set up yet for cattle, but really want to get there soon. We may get a pig this year tho, need to look into processing cost, but that would be great to have fresh pork all year.
We are considering a peacock.
We also ordered about 70$ worth of chicks on March 14th. I ordered 30 of the Cornish Cross meat-birds that we raised last year. (We "processed" (beheaded, plucked, eviscerated etc here at the farm last year, with the assistance of Kaaren's Mom, Dad and Uncle Ricky- who had NO idea what he was getting into. This year we will pay whatever it costs to have them processed professionally. Way too gross and time consuming, plus, kind of hard to enjoy as food when you've had your hand up it's ass.) We are going to have a few whole, but the rest cut into breasts and pieces.....cooking a whole chicken is kind of a hassle. Also ordered a dozen or so mixed up exotics:
2 Cherry Egger, 1 Cockerel and 2 straight run Black Australorp, 2 Hatchery Choice Heavy Breed, 1 cockerel Araucana, 2 pullet 1 cockerel Dominique, 2 pullet 1 cockerel Light Brahma, 2 Colombian Wyandotte, 2 Salmon Faverolle, 2 Delaware, and 1 cockerel Partridge Rock....not that we'll have any idea what's what. Should be interesting introducing them to existing hens. The 3 original hens quit laying for the winter. Apparently if provided with artificial lite source they would lay in winter. They started again this month (March.)
We have created a poster for a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) to hang at school, Kaaren has done a bunch of research about it, and based upon past 2 years of garden production and Mom's input as experienced CSA facilitator, we should have no problem filling 2 market baskets. It's still somewhat unnerving to take someone's money with the guarantee to deliver a certain amount each week. We may decide to do a bi-weekly market basket for the first year.
Shermen is in process of registering farm with the State as a 100 and 150 year farm. That is cool as hell. We will get a certificate to frame, and another source of justification to continue what we have started when others say just burn and build new.
Produce wise.....the sautéed eggplant, onion, garlic, herb, tomato mixture FROZEN in zip-lock bags stores wonderfully...retains gorgeous flavor all winter. the canned beets were great, but frozen the texture gets gross. it made me SICK to shell out $$$ for dried herbs at the store this winter, definitely must find good drying system and then do it, don't just talk about it. We didn't eat any of the banana peppers or summer squash I grilled and froze, and only a fraction of the cherry toms i halved and froze. A friend told us that she makes meat spaghetti sauce, which she then cans. I think I'll try that this year. Our cucumbers this year had some weird disease or something, they were all bitter, inedible. Cantaloupes just don't work for us....they take up a ton of space in the garden, with a yield of only about 3 edible fruit. NO summer squash this year! Wayyyy too prolific, and we didn't really like them. 2 tries at brussell sprouts have not resulted in edible harvest. Skip those this year. Grow then freeze spinach this year. We buy a lot of frozen spinach.
We are going to try fruit bushes this year. Haven't ordered any yet.
5 cats = major vet bills or many kittens.

Bulbs Ordered

2.18.2008 Today I ordered bulbs from the Michigan Bulb company. Even though I am going to try to switch our "format" over to 100% Heirloom eventually, they have some nice stuff at a really good price. (Got 20$ off order of 40$ or more.)I ordered: Ghost Fern, 10$, Candy Stripe Rose, 13$ + 1 free, Irish Moss, 6 for 10$, and Climbing Peace Rose, 10$.
Stuff wont ship until April, should arrive April-May.
The rest of the plants I order this year should be from Heirloom catalogs. I bought about 50$ worth of seeds at Wal-Mart earlier this year. I may try to return those.

Corn Burning Furnace

Late fall 2007 We bought and installed a corn burner furnace. LOVE IT! So cool to just walk over to thermostat on the wall and push a button and voila! HEAT. We were foolish grasshoppers again this summer....are going to have to buy our wood all winter...but that turned out to be blessing in disguise because the guy we buy the wood from is really cool and is going to sell us some sheep also. Shermen installed the ductwork in the cellar for the furnace, (Kaaren helped) and it looks so cool down there now.....civilized. Something is there that wasn't before, and we did it.

Party Like Rock Star

Monday when I got to work, one of my co-workers asked if I "partied like a rock star" this weekend. (We planted bulbs this weekend, in anticipation of our spring wedding.) I told her hell yeah, like an aging rock star in recovery. Steven Tyler perhaps?

We planted bearded irises, in almost black, pink and blue/white. We planted allium (sp?) and white bleeding heart, some blue wild geranium, some blue/purple fragrant things i forgot the name of, a red peony...transplanted a couple lupine, dianthus and some ground cover. I'm so excited, even if only half of it blooms, it will be so gorgeous.

Engaged!!!

Last nite Shermen suggested we go for a walk on the property to watch the sunset. It was a beautiful Autumn nite....and a gorgeous sunset which I have attempted to memorize so I can paint it. Oranges and purples and fiery red. We saw a deer running across the field, and a cayote jumping thru the tall grass. Very cool. After the sun set, Sherm looked at me and asked, "Do you think you could watch this sun set with me for the rest of your life?" (I'm getting all teary eyed just writing this.) Of course I said yes, which he made me repeat a couple times, just to be sure, I guess. He then got up onto his knee, (we were sitting on a blanket) and took my hand and held the ring at the tip of my finger and asked if I would marry him....I cried and laughed and said yes yes yes. (he was a bit teary eyed also.) It was just the most beautiful moment. I couldnt stop crying cuz it was just everything I've ever wanted but didnt know it yet, so perfect, and I was just filled with this feeling of being so very blessed. It was a moment where everything just felt so perfectly right, as if everthing was exactly as it should be. As we walked back to the house we were just so taken with the beautiful scenery, and Shermen said, "Sweetie, we are going to grow old here together."

We had a lovely nite and a lovely meal at a very posh restaurant. This morning he woke me up by covering my face with kisses, and I just love the fact that I was smiling before I even opened my eyes. Today we bought a beautiful red tea rose to plant in honor of our engagement. Earlier this summer, Sherm bought me a flowering plum tree and a pin oak for himself, which he planted at the same time. I just feel so happy and content, there is nothing in this world I would rather do with the rest of my life than to spend it with him on that beautiful land, helping to make it even more lovely with each passing year.

Betrothed

September 28th 2007 Kaaren & Shermen officially engaged to be married!

Bulbs Eaten

Fall 2007 All the bulbs I did such a good job of digging up are gone because Daisy ate them. Find a better storage place. We have the lovely cellar...duh use it.

Sunflower Bummer

August 2007 All the lovely lovely sunflowers were ready to shine...then the rains came and wiped them all out. Plant away from direct water flow from eaves, and provide support.

aug 8

major sadness here on the farm....our sweet dog louis either ran away or was stolen, we arent sure. he's been missing since last tuesday, july 30th. we made up lost dog posters and knocked on doors etc., but no louis. we'd finally kind of accepted that he's gone when yesterday we got a call saying they saw him, right at the end of our (very long) driveway! looking very lost and sad. but hours of searching and calling have so far yielded nothing. we'll keep trying though.

another chicken, the big rooster, 'broke' the other day, and sherm processed him all by himself. pretty impressive! i notice another is down but dont think i'll be taking it upon myself to take care of it. i did clean out the 'coop' all by myself the other day. felt like quite the authentic farm woman out there in my wellies and overalls, shovelling shit in the 90 degree heat. i do my part.

our new floors are gorgeous, and the new 'temporary' walls look great too. as sherm says, no fabulous or anything, just normal. like normal people live here.

its aug 8th and i am putting in the seeds for our autumn crop today. chinese cabbage, radishes, beets and cucumbers. our current crop of cukes are lousy. if they arent bitter, they are bizarrely large or misshapen.

Babies

Little Lena had 3 kittens Sunday, July 25th. The day before we found a nest of baby bunnies in the middle of our snap pea bed.

"Off With Her Head!" - Processing Chickens is Totally Gross

Yesterday sherm and i "processed" our first chicken. apparently the variety that we have, the cornish cross, is simply bred to be very fast meat producers so you dont have to keep/feed them for more that about 8-10 weeks. sometimes, for whatever reason, they "break" which i guess means they lose the ability to stand. we know this because about a week ago we pointed out this chicken that suddenly would not stand/walk to his step-father, who said, "oh yeah, it broke." and said we needed to process it asap because it wouldnt get better. we were not able to bring ourselves to do this until last nite, so we went about a week having to move the bird by hand so it had access to water and food.

i researched processing techniques on the net, and we had lots of advice from family, so we had a pretty decent idea of what we were up to. however, as neither of us had actually killed anything (on purpose) before, we were both pretty nervous about the whole thing. the poor bird was pretty complacent. she just sat there next to the cutting block, unable to walk, while i shoo-ed away our 3 layer hens because i didnt want them to see us kill a chicken. we had a kettle of boiling water on hand for dunking to open the pores and release the feathers. i held the body and looked away while sherm stretched the neck over the block and whopped off the head with one chop. then i had to hold the body neck down to let it bleed out. letting the body run about without a head is apparently not the right way to do it, from what i read online. this part was pretty horrible. soon as he chopped i looked over at sherm and saw him staring at the head on the ground with a weird look on his face. then i felt the body start to quiver and the legs were kicking pretty hard. i continued looking away and gagged pretty good a few times, but did not throw up. then i kind of started to cry but pulled it together because, as sherm said, this whole thing was my idea in the first place. i couldnt bring myself to look at it to see if it was done bleeding, so sherm let me know when it stopped. then we dunked it in the hot water for about 30 seconds or so, and started pulling off the feathers. they came off really easy, we were both surprised about that. then i used a set of kitchen scissors to cut open the body for the 'evisceration' process. that was gross. i did not set aside to later put into a baggie and freeze inside the body the liver, neck and gizzard as suggested in one of my research articles. the bird is pretty scrawny, but i think thats cuz it was not 'well' there at the end. sherm is supposed to grill it later tonite.

our cucumber crop sucks, the ones we picked so far have been so bitter they are inedible. i used organic seeds this year, as opposed to buying seedlings at menards last year. these are not the 'bush' variety either, and their shape is also very disappointing. large and not uniform. i thought maybe the bitterness was also a result of the organic seeds, but i guess it's some kind of chemical found naturally in the plants and effected by moisture and temperature. this is a drag because i opened a jar of last year's pickles the other day and they are really really good. i think i will go ahead a try to make a batch or two of pickles anyways.

we have about a gazillion sunflowers, planted from seeds from last years flowers. we are so happy that they actually grew! this year we are going to collect seeds from everything to grow next year. we even have some tomato plants this year that just came up i guess from fruit left on the ground at the end of last season.

we bought a big chest freezer and hope to be eating our chickens and frozen garden veg all winter. i'm planning to go with freezing and drying over canning for most of our storage this year.

Questions questions questions

RE: the chickens. We are at 20 and holding, barring any catastrophe, looks like 20 will be processed. (We are down to 3 layers/pets. Lou, newest dog member of our family, killed the lovely Vesslamay about a week ago. We mourn her loss deeply, she was the prettiest, and her eggs were a beautiful sky blue.)
I am in process of researching how to kill a chicken. We plan to slaughter, with the help of my parents, around the 2nd week of August. I am trying hard not to become attached to the chickens, who have become quite cute and friendly. We picked up the chicks May 26, I think they were only a few days old then. The man at the local feed co-op said we should process them at about 8-10 weeks. After that time they just eat and eat until they drop of heart attack or something. Thus far we have spent the initial $1.09 per 25 chicks, 5 bags of feed @ $10 each, $12 and $5 for feeders..(unecessary) and $35 for waterer. A few weeks ago, my mom paid $15 each for 4 organic chickens, so I think we are doing pretty well on our investment.
We are in the scary process of choosing heating systems and contractors etc for our total-renovation-of-farmhouse project. Finances dictate that our immediate investment goes into roof, foundation and heat source. We currently heat with a wood stove in middle of the house. Ambient heat, meaning, only warm right up near the stove. Also, very very very messy. We are looking into corn/wood pellet stove, maybe with gas as a supplement.

Chickens

started process of becoming potential organic chicken farmers. wednesday, picked up 25 adorable baby chicks from farm-n-fleet. setting up brood area, put water dish directly under heat light. thursday morning, 1 deaddrown chick, 2 verging on death. move water dish. at school, students place bets on how many live chicks kaaren will have by last day of school- june 7th. not too many votes of confidence. bets hover around 12-15. thursday afternoon, remove dead chick #2, pray over borderline dead chickie gasping for breath. all others look pretty good.
meanwhile, the 4 hens: vessie, polla, tyrina and odette are in hen house on lock-down due to bad behavior in the gardens. our challenge- find way to house all these damned chickens in humane fashion.
expediture so far, approx 25$ for chicks, 10$ for chick feed, 3$ for feed tray.