Tidbits from our "farm"

We finally got around to starting our fall planting in the vegetable garden.  Things were put on hold in October because I had a few weeks of severe anxiety/depression, complicated by a reaction to medication.  Ugh.  I am so thankful to be doing better!

On Saturday, we put up a fence around the garden to keep the chickens out.  They weren't too happy about that.  After creating the chicken boundary, we planted seeds for beets, carrots, lettuce, spinach, parsnips, and a few herbs.  Today the kids and I went to the garden center and got seeds for peas and kale.  We also got broccoli, cabbage, bok choy, onion, and brussel sprouts plants.  Lots of things we've never grown before.  I'm curious how our fall gardening venture will turn out.  The kids insist that they will eat everything that we grow in our own garden.  I hope they do!

The chickens are doing well and supplying us with lots of eggs.  They are a funny group of ladies, very entertaining to watch.

We've been getting some rain and it is so wonderful to see our lawn (um, weed patch) turning green again.

Bits of life

Anna lost her first tooth this week!  The tooth fairy came to visit and left money and a letter.  Anna's tooth fell out while she was brushing her teeth, getting ready to go have pictures taken at a portrait studio.  So fun that her 6 year old picture session happened to be that day.

A hawk had been circling around our yard, hungrily watching our chickens.  It even landed on their coop and stared at them for a while one day.  For their protection, the chickens have been restricted from their normal free-range days.  Yesterday, I felt bad for them and let them out with hopes that the hawk had given up on a chicken dinner.  I went back outside to check on the feathered ladies and could only find 3 of them.  "Cheepy, where are you?!"  I looked all over; searched all the usual hiding spots.  No Cheepy.  Finally, I looked closely in the nesting boxes.  There she was!  Later, the kids and I went out to inspect her progress and found 4 eggs.  We hadn't been expecting any eggs yet since the chickens are just 4 1/2 months old.  Today she laid another egg.

Arik has been saying, "God knows everything.  But I know almost everything!"  I can't convince him that there really is an awful lot he doesn't know.  "My brain is special.  It is never wrong."  He keeps telling me this, and it is quite obvious that he believes it.  Hmm... we could be in trouble with this kid.

Tonight I made spaghetti sauce with homegrown tomatoes and zucchini.  Yum!  I would be particularly impressed if I had also grown the onion, garlic, and herbs.  Maybe next year.  I've started making all our bread, thanks to the help of my bread machine.  I absolutely love knowing exactly what ingredients are going into the food we eat.  I'm wondering what frequently store-purchased product I'll make at home next.

Planning for the rapidly approaching school year is in process.  The list of subjects I want to teach the kids is long.  Can I fit it all in?  I keep having to remind myself that I don't have to do it all this year.  I'm thinking we will start with the basics and add in one extra subject each week until our schedule feels right.  The kids are especially excited about science and history.

Anna kept begging for more school today.  "Mom, can we have school today?"  We started with Bible, then did reading, then math.  "Mom, can we do more school?  I'm ready to have school every day again."  History lessons and projects followed this statement.  We went outside.  "Mom, can we do more school?"  "Yes, but only if you go in and pick up the toys first."  "Arik, hurry, lets pick up the toys so we can have more school time!"  They went inside and cleaned up.  We had a science lesson.  "Mom, what else can we learn?"  So, there you have it.  Like so many people say, homeschooled kids are weird.  But I'll take this kind of weird any day.

Everything is growing!

Our garden!  We have planted tomatoes, corn, peas, beans, beets, carrots, spaghetti squash, zucchini, cucumbers, parsnips, spinach, lettuce, sunflowers, and strawberries.  I might be forgetting something.  Almost everything is sprouting!  We still need to plant our watermelon and pumpkin seeds.

One of the little gophers that has been digging up our yard and trying to gobble up all our hard work!

The chicken coop.  Now we just need to paint it and put shingles on the roof.

The chickens sure have grown!  This picture is from about a month ago, so they are even bigger now.  Anna and Arik like to give the chickens lots of hugs.  The chickens aren't real thrilled about the affection.  Corn Cob, the Rhode Island Red, is by far the most friendly of the 4 chickens.

Anna and Arik are growing quickly too!

On the home front

Last summer we moved out of the city to a smaller, farmish (that is a word, right?) sort of town.  Our goal was to find a place where our kids could have room to run and to dig in the dirt.... to have space to plant a vegetable garden and raise chickens.  We realized we were unwittingly raising city kids who were afraid to get dirty or leave the well-worn path.  My husband Joel and I both grew up near a very small town in Oregon.  We both lived in forested areas with no other houses visible from our own.  When I wasn't reading, I spent my time building forts out of hay bales, building dams in the creek, running through the forest, playing with the pigs...  It was a good way to grow up!

So here we are on our mini-farm:  our 1/2 acre Petracci Plantation.  We planted our first small vegetable garden last fall.  We are still enjoying the fruits (um, vegetables) of our labor.  During the fall and winter (we live in Southern California) we were able to eat lots of beets, carrots, lettuce, peas, cilantro, and parsley from our own garden.  We have now made our garden about 3 times larger and are digging, hoeing, and adding compost to try and prepare the soil for our spring planting.  Maybe some day we will be blessed by the use of a rototiller?!  I'm dreaming of tomatoes, beans, peas, corn, squash, watermelon, cantaloupe, zucchini, cucumbers, sunflowers, herbs, and more!  I need to scale back my plans to match the actual area we've managed to prepare!  Turning desert soil into a fertile garden plot is hard work.

Two weekends ago, we chose 4 chicks!  They are very cute and are growing quickly.  They should start laying eggs in about 4 or 5 months.  Now we just need to build their chicken coop before they outgrow their tiny home in a container in our garage.

Shauna, the novice farmer in training.  I keep wondering how I managed to grow up on the edge of a farm, with 2 sets of gardening and farming grandparents, and have absolutely no experience with gardening or raising chickens.  I am determined to learn how to grow and raise food for my own family and to help my kids learn these valuable skills.