The State of the Farm Address: or how are we doing on the plan I discussed in December

In December, I mentioned that we planned to plant a larger scale garden here and get some animals.

The garden is about a 60 ft x 60 ft horseshoe-shaped area with various plantings. We have 5 tomato tepees with 5 plants each underneath. The tomatoes are interplanted with green and purple basil and surrounded by marigolds for insect control.

There are about 50 white potatoes and 50 red potatoes planted, but something is wrong with the red potatoes. We think the trees have filled in with so many leaves and the direction of the sun has changed so much since planting in February that they aren't getting enough sun and they've just died. There are about 40 ft of pole beans which are yard-long green beans. With those are planted cucumbers, buttercrunch lettuce, and scarlet nasturtiums.

Along one of the fences is the squash bed with zucchini, yellow, acorn, and butternut squash plants. They are growing like crazy and have little baby squashes and/or blossoms on every plant.

The onion and garlic bed is coming along nicely and I snip green tops of onions for cooking whenever I need some. The cabbage patch is about 8 ft x 8ft and has interplantings of chamomile, clary sage, and dill. I've decided that only perfectionists wait for cabbages to form heads. I'm snipping leaves and using them in stir frying and other recipes! Fabulous!

The melon area is planted with decorative Indian corn, cantaloupes, decorative gourds, birdhouse gourds, pie pumpkins, and giant pumpkins. There are also pumpkins growing in the compost pile.

I still need to plant roma tomatoes for sauce, heirloom tomatoes because they're cool and I can save and use the seeds next summer, chard because it is delicious, leeks because they taste VERY different from onions, and peppers because they are beautiful! I look forward to seeing what kind of harvest we get.

Animals?? We GOTS animals. Here's the list:
13 (almost) laying hens
14 quail
10 week-old mixed chicks
8 bunnies
5 goats
1 puppy
2 kittens and
104 freshly hatched pullets!

By my count, we have 157 critters as of today, May 29, 2009.

As for growing edible mushrooms, we are still making decisions about that enterprise. So, all in all, I think we're doing really well on the plan!

2 more critters . . .

The kittens born to our friend James turned 6 weeks old today, and the children were chomping at the bit to go get 'em!

I had bought a pet carrier - yeah, right! As if the kids would let the kittens be in the car without one of them holding the kittens! They are the CUTEST kitties ever! They are tiny with dark black color all over mixed with tan and mottled everywhere. If it was a dog, I'd call it brindle color, but its a cat and ????.

I love watching the children oohing and aahing over each subtle movement of the cats! The kittens haven't had a break from being held since 4pm and its now past 10:30. Jessica is especially in love (in lerve as she would say)with the kittens.

I'm so glad the children have animals to tend to over the summer!

Speedy Delivery!!

A man at the post office called this morning to let me know my chickens had arrived. I had that little anxious moment where you think, "Oh, crap!" Then I took a deep breath and began to mentally prepare for what lay ahead.

We got to the post office around noon, and the lady behind the desk brought me a box - just one box - full of 100 chickens!!!!! No extra space whatsoever! If you can imagine space needed for 100 eggs, that's about the amount of room the chickens had.

We brought them home and began putting special paper down in plastic storage tubs. I estimated that I could only fit 20 chicks in each tub with a feeder and a waterer. And that would only last about a week. I'll need to take it down to 15 or less per tub after that. This is going to be a big deal!! We papered, put water and feed in, and attached clamp lamps to the rims of the tubs to warm the little fuzzballs. I counted 20 chicks into each tub and there were 4 extras (they ship overage in case of any trampling deaths).

Then I proceeded to dip the beak of each chick into the water to make sure they find it. They all found food VERY quickly. MAN they are so CUTE!!!!!

Tune in again for the continuing saga - "100 Baby Chicks."

Out in the kudzu patch this morning . . .

I was walking - no trudging - around looking at a sea of ruby red future jewels. Every now and then, my eye would catch a gleaming black-garnet jewel, and I would pick it and add it to my growing bucket-load of ripe blackberries.

I don't know why I'm so motivated by FREE fruit, but I'm willing to wear long pants, hot rubber boots, and layers of Off bug spray and get out in the snakey kudzu for the treasure hunt!

It's amazing that a person as chicken as I am is willing to risk a skin-ripping thorn prick to retrieve even the tiniest blackberry.

I look into the dining room at my case full of jelly jars filled with delicious, dark, thick blackberry jam and then I can say, "Oh, yeah. That's why I risk life and limb to get those things!"

Today, Monty and I picked another 3 quarts. Our new friend, goat farmer John Anderson (not the "Just a-Swangin" singer), gave us two Wal-Mart sacks of used Mason jars which I am soaking in the sunshine so that I can wash them and sanitize them later for jam. Tomorrow morning, after feeding and watering the animals, I plan to make a batch of blackberry jam.