Triple Creek Farm, March 23, 2013

Winter, Spring, we have a little bit of weather representing each season.  This time of year the weather seems to have a difficult time making decisions about each day.  I am so ready to get things going in the garden.  The land is very wet.  I was checking onions and found a number of them rotten, the land is like a sponge.  If we do not get them planted we will not have a harvest.  So, I am taking chances and planting them, I do hope we have an onion crop.  The ones planted last fall are doing good.  March is time to feed the onions plants, the final feeding, but I am not sure what I am going to do, I use a dry root vegetable food I will be watching the weather.

IN THE KITCHEN

Baked potato soup filled my pot, I was so pleased to see we have leftovers for a second meal.  Worked on the oatmeal bread recipe,  I make a loaf using all purpose flour and we decided we did not care for it.  We much prefer the bread made with unbleached bread flour.  I, also, made burger buns I cut the dough into 12 pieces, let rise and baked for about 40 minutes, they are quite tasty.  Cleaning the freezer, we enjoyed spinach pizza.  There was one salad made with lettuce and onions from the garden with a soft fried egg on top, this is so tasty you do not need to add dressing as the egg yolk makes the dressing.


ON THE FARM

Mr. Bootsie worked the roads this week.  This winter has been hard on the roads and gravel is needed.  He hauled in a load and worked the low spots.  It is much to wet to try and bring in a large dump truck at this time.

Friday morning was the first time all of the goats have eaten together,  they had breakfast in the new goat barn.  First meal for Hershey and Gracie in the barn as well as first time eating with new ladies.  All went well, no one walked away from their bowl until it was empty and they ate at the same speed so this was a non-event.  They ate, drank water and went outside to eat more of the pine.  We are bringing them limbs from the pine trees we loss during the storm.  This puts another step in our cleanup but the ladies are enjoying the pine needles and eating the bark from the limbs, good food for them and I am pleased to make my day a little longer because they are enjoying our rubbish.  Tonight, Saturday, we have all 4 of the ladies in the goat barn together.  I checked on the about 8:30 p.m., they were all laying down, this is such a big adjustment for all of the ladies, including me.

We purchased a wagon a few years back knowing the bed was not in good condition.  I could see this wagon would make a wonderful logging wagon for us.  We have woods which need to be thinned, the dead trees taken down and making a place we can enjoy by cleaning the forest floor.  One project off the Honey Do List.  Logging Wagon is ready to roll, waiting for the ground to dry, pack a lunch and have fun in our woods gathering wood for next winter.   I am sure we shall find many other uses for the wagon,  I must confess, I feel like it is Christmas morning and the long await present I wanted is under the tree.  A logging wagon in our pole barn!!!

IN THE COOP

The coop is the most content place on the farm.  Oatmeal for breakfast for the girls and Tweedle.  In the afternoons they receive a large bucket of chickweed.  Hawks are flying over during the day so the girls are staying in the runs most of the time.  We feed them and they give us eggs.  Deedle laid her 7 duck eggs again this week.  Production is picking in the chicken coop, 46 eggs were collected this week.

IN THE GARDEN

 Spinach in the tunnel

Maybe it is better that I have no idea about what I am doing in the cold tunnel.  The plants are looking delicious.  I picked all of several lettuce plants.  There is lettuce coming up and I will be transplanting this to the tunnel.  We can have frost here until around Mother's day.  I will plant somethings in the tunnel to ensure being able to harvest.  The peas I planted in the tunnel are starting to take off on their own.  I planted kale plants in the garden, covered with floating row cover and plastic.  The row covers are being pulled back to water as this land is quite dry.  I was pleased with how good the kale was looking after two days.  Bedding plants are coming up and I am, also, up potting to have a lager root system and the plants be stronger when they are installed in the garden.  The garlic and onions are looking wonderful.  Blue podded and dwarf gray sugar peas were planted on Friday, these are not in the tunnel.  Peas should be planted when the daffodils are blooming.  I have never started squash plants inside but this year I am going to do this, I am trying to beat the stink bugs.  I would like to harvest some squash this year.

IN CLOSING

We have now been living on our little farm for 7 years.  Mr. Bootsie hung a cabinet this week which moved here with us and has been sitting in a corner for 7 years.  I have hopes of lots of projects being completed   Both of us were very involved away from the farm the first years, I settled in about 2 years ago and Mr. Bootsie this January.  I would like to think we are going to work together and accomplish much.  This has been my dream and he is now starting to see why farming is so rewarding. The man who never cared for a salad with lettuce said to me this past week,  "I have eaten lettuce before, there is no flavor, but the lettuce from the cold tunnel you can taste, it is loaded with flavors."  For me, this is what makes me enjoy all of the work, time and effort I put into the garden.

If you do not follow us on Facebook there is a link at the top of the page.  I try to post something there on a daily basis about the activities on our little farm.  Come visit, share your thoughts and suggestions with me and lots of others who follow our page.  This week, because of Facebook, we are sharing seeds for a crop we grow with another farm.  I know many of you have opinions about the social network, here on our little farm we use it as another tool in our box to help us learn from others.

Please note when you see words a different color, you can click on it and it will connect you to a reference,  such as oatmeal bread recipe, the recipe appears.