No, these are not hatching pods for aliens....I have my strawberries under them! They are actually the coverings for old street lights. A friend of a friend had gotten them when the city they were from put in new street lamps, figuring they'd use them the way I am, as little green houses. But they never got around to it and they were given to me. They are so cool! A little fragile, and the shape makes them hard to cover a lot of stuff, but I just cover whatever plants are still sticking out with large plastic cups, the clearest I could find. We'll see how it works!

Another Shabbat is here...boy, are we worn out! It was a very busy week.

A few days ago, Chuck and the boys rigged up a greenhouse using a pavilion tent we had. I was so proud of them, it looked wonderful! And it was FULL of itsy bitsy plants sprouting up everywhere!

But alas, we had a horrible wind storm today, and unfortunately the poles this tent was made from were not strong enough, and the whole thing collapsed. My heart just broke for Chuck, he had tried so hard to make it work, and with pleasing ME as part of the motivation. I told him it's OK, but he was just so down. He and the boys are hoping to "rebuild" on Monday. More later today....

Hi everyone. Today (and last night) is Rosh Hashanah, more commonly called the Jewish New Year....so....HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Rosh Hashanah is literally translated, "head of the year." So although we aren't having a big celebration (we've just been to busy to prepare for it) we will think about the year to come, what we want to accomplish, and especially, ways we want to improve ourselves. We are eating apples and honey to symbolize having a sweet year ahead! The honey, by the way, was given to us by Charlotte's boyfriend down in Florida...his parents have a farm there and raise the honey bees themselves. It has an orange flavor, because the bees collect their pollen from orange tree blossums! It's delicious!

Michael and Zach (Davey's grandson) blew the Shofar on the porch. My grandson enjoyed some apples too!

We prayed that we would all improve ourselves, treat each other kinder and with more respect, strive to make our home someplace that the children WANT to be, the center of our lives, and a haven of rest and love for those we don't see as often (Charlotte, Kelsey, Travis and Amanda) because they are on their own.

My biggest flaw, which I hope to improve in the new year, is mis-scheduling my time, and getting all that I need to get done, finished! The bottom line is that I just take on too much and on top of that I'm a procrastinator. I have an article I got from a friend about how to deal with procrastination, so I think today would be a great day to read it! My mismanagement of time has led to not spending as much of my life with family, immediate and especially extended, and not sharing and keeping in touch with relatives and friends who we are apart from.

Remember that little bottle fed lamb I posted about back on February 4th? Well, look at her now! She's a moose, sooooo big and still being bottle fed, though I'm SURE she could be weaned. Problem is, if she doesn't get fed when she desires, she stands at the porch and screams "Baaaaaaaaa" for a long, long, long time...And it's not just her, it's her and two comerades (see 3 posts back, the sleeping lambs). If we try to ignore, and it's evening and they can see us inside the house, they will go from window to window crying!! In the past, all bottle fed babies stayed with the herd, but not this crew...they don't know that they are sheep...Look at Abigail, it seems as though she's saying, "Come on in, this is my porch, make yourself at home!"

We had an awesome week, got lots of stuff accomplished. The boys were able to remove some problem trees which were blocking a lot of sunlight to the garden area, and posed a threat to the house should we have another bad wind storm .

I was able to work in my garden and build some somewhat raised beds, surrounded with rock, to plant some root vegetables in. Root veggies do very well in loose, deep soil. I filled the beds with mulch, sand, manure, and some wonderful soil made from years of barn waste. It's so dark it's almost black!



Raegan, of course, wanted to be part of what we were doing, and played contentedly with some lawn garden ornaments for HOURS...a mama duck and 2 baby ducks. She washed them in the birdbath water, took them for walks, and chattered away endlessly. As you can see from the picture, we dress for comfort and work, not style, on our farm!


















Lastly, I got a few books in the mail, one I wanted to share which I started reading. It's called "Family Friendly Farming" by Joel Salatin. Joel Salatin is a farmer in Virginia I've admired for years, who promotes small, family run enterprises, in which the animals work through nature as they were meant to...not like most industrial, factory farms in our nation today, which produce the bulk of our food. The book is about working together as a family, side by side, to make a living, and especially to be good stewards of the land. I've read most of his other books and this too, looks like it will be a gem!

Well, I took pictures last Shabbat, but didn't get a chance to load them till this week, so I've got a few posts to catch up on!

Anyhow, last week was so warm and relaxing, I noticed EVERYONE was just having such a nice rest, so I went around the farm and took a few pictures. :o) It had been an extremely busy week, as the good weather finally overrode the bad weather, and we were able to begin spring work. It has been a blessing to work alongside each other!

Of course, when we tried to take pictures of some of our family, they wouldn't sit still anymore and had to cuddle (the cat).

Even the chickens were stretched out in the warm air, sunning themselves and stretching their wings out to dry.

The kids got in on the act too...though I think their picture was a little more staged than the animal's portraits! But I'm sure the feeling of relief and rest was authentic!

Well, this first day of the week we got a LOT done in the garden! We probably planted a couple hundred onions, and weeded and tilled up 3 long wide rows. We also spread some lime since it was a misty, lightly raining day. I also planted a lot of seeds indoors, to give them a head start in the spring. How do I know what to plant when??

I wanted to share with anyone reading, the wonderful tool you can get from your local Extension office. Each week, sometimes many days of each week, the calendar is marked with simple instructions telling you the best time to plant, order, pot, till,...anything to do with your garden. For an example:

March 11 - seed tomatoes indoors

March 12 - seed peppers indoors

March 13 - seed swiss chard indoors

The calendar is also filled with tips of when to fertilize certain plants, when to order certain seeds and plants, when to prune trees and fruit plants, the best time to put in a high tunnel, when to begin covering plants in the fall...it is really one of the best tools you can get for your garden, and it's FREE! Look up your local extension office in the phone book (might be under 4H) to find your local office. I am not sure if all extension offices have these calendars, but it's worth a try.