The Days are Full

The past two Tuesdays we closed our farm market store due to the need to do freeze cover preparations and then this past Tuesday - spring cleaning of sorts.

Our vegetables stayed covered for a good three days and to be honest I was afraid to lift the coverings off to see how things looked.  We did take a bit of a hit - but isn't that how farm life goes?

We've been pulling out older plants that have gone to seed making room for new plantings.  Wednesday Michael tilled 100' along the vintage fence. There's nothing like fresh tilled ground.  He trenched out that 100' row, laid down sprinkler hose so I could come back and add soil amendments like kelp and humic acid so the sunflower, asparagus and French filet beans will end up happy.  76 Cucumber heirloom seeds will go in on Monday.

I've been adding some color spots to different garden areas while Michael planted pomegranate and pecan trees and added a few little fencing structures.

The end of December Michael built our Simple Farm Greenhouse out of pvc pipe.  I couldn't have been more proud of him. After hours and hours of research and scratch pieces of paper with different designs and drawings he built a wonderful green house perfect for our present needs.  I imagine as we grow the farm he'll be building a second one.

The greenhouse is full of about 300 + heirloom tomato starts, basil, 3 kinds of eggplant, 2 kinds of okra, cucumbers, beans, thyme and different kinds of peppers.  I can't wait for the soil to warm up so these babies can find their new spots in the ground.

It's Cold Out There

Monday evening we decided to close the farm store and regroup with a bit of "spring cleaning" around the farm.  We'd heard that cold front freeze thing was expected one more time, but for some reason we didn't think it was today.

In light of it hitting - it was a good thing we closed the farm store as it has taken most of the day to prepare and cover as much of our produce as possible.  Even as I write this post, my dear farmer husband is outside covering the rest of the citrus. What a guy!

Saturday At The Farm

Normally, we seek to take a Saturday Sabbath and yet today, it's such lovely weather to plant more radishes, turnips, carrots, beets, peppers and the tomatoes we started that have been growing in the green house.

And, so, we'll do a bit of that today and then enjoy the rest of the day.

Quick Happenings Around the Farm

Midst the holiday preparations of tree trimmings . . .

cookie making. . .

and cake baking for to celebrate my husband (Michael became a year older this year and our dd made THIS amazing cake) . . . 

planning a trip to PDX for a few days, writing out milking schedules for Anita (our farm manager), pulling weeds, trimming goat hooves, making goat milk fudge for our Simple Celebration of Christmas here at the farm, planting new seeds, preparing and planting new starts of herbs, tomatoes and peppers to sell at our Tuesday market . . .

and regular home front care - Michael's building a green house (and by the way, I'm incredibly proud of him...he designed and built it himself!) . . .

and breeding goats - today . . .

. . .no, it's not a full life at all!  Ha! Ha!

No matter how full a day gets and no matter how many speed bumps we run into (that's a constant on farm life) or how many projects we're simultaneously working on (which is often farm life), we LOVe what we're doing and get to do what we loVE.

And, so . . . that's just a little update for today!  We hope you all have a wonderful and Merry Christmas!

There's Nothing Like . . .

. . . playing in the dirt. Happy December 1st.....have a wonderful Wednesday!

One of the Things We Do At The Farm

What Michael Did Saturday

We're Busy Working And . . .

 . . . discing our field and planting a few things (yup, even in this heat) that will be for the starts of our fall crop.

We've seeded French Breakfast Radishes and will do more with consecutive seedings. I know we're a tad early for these, but thought we'd try and see what happens.
We've seeded Heirloom Pumpkins:  Small Sugar Pumpkin & Sugar Pie Pumpkin. And, for the kids pumpkin patch, we've seeded Big Max pumpkins.
We've seeded Italian Pole beans and more eggplant.
We've seeded a ton of zinnia (great to attract bees), a ton of mammoth sun flowers and a desert wild flower mix.
We've also seeded a lot of love and nurture into each one.

Pumpkins popping up!