What Winter Has Brought On

We have been very busy preparing for winter or... the end of times!  Because the amount of food we have killed, processed and frozen is sustainable!!  And the best part is -  this is our first year and we didn't really know what we were doing!  Just think what next year will bring with all we have learned from our mistakes and successes.

From Ten of our Hogs

To 900 lbs of Pork

From 200 Roosters & Hens

To Beautifully Packed Goodness

It has been nice not to have to wake up early and work so hard to feed and water so many animals.  We still have a few rabbits, ducks, turkeys and guinea hens roaming about.

And From the Garden!

We are in our winter garden now with spinach, mustard greens, broccoli, Garlic, Beets and maybe carrots if they grow bigger.  I learned that even freezing weather with ice on their leaves does not hurt these vegetables.  The leaves become frozen, then they unfreeze and I pick them and eat them.

Alyce and I joined a fishing club from the senior center and they love our pond.  One of the great benefits is that we now know there are fish and we are catching them!  One of the men caught a 4.4lb bass that was 22inches long!  They have updated our 30 year old fishing poles, and are taking on the project of fixing our pier so we can actually use it!  They found several 'deep holes' in the shallow end where the big bass hang out!  Fishing is much more fun when you are catching fish!

Our last Farmers Market is next week.  It has been hard to wake up and head out in low 20's weather - but we did it! and are better for it.  My yearly physical was greatly improved!

So... we welcome the quiet of winter where new plans will be formulated.  Lots of reading to do and maybe time for relationships!

A Merry Christmas to all and a happy new year from Hearwood Farm!!

A Christmas Meditation From The Farm

A Sacred Spoon

I have a wooden spoon that was given to me by a friend on her birthday.  It was a gift she gave everyone who came to her party.  She brought the spoons from India where she was working on an academic project.  This has been a perfect spoon for cooking.  

One day as I stood stirring over a pot of soup, it struck me that every time I use this spoon I find myself transported to the times I spent with my friend -and I would smile. 

And so this spoon had taken on a life beyond it’s common use.  This spoon had become a conduit, that created a quiet space in the midst of a my busy life.  

Sacred, Holy, Love, God…. Each one of us has our own meaning for these words.  For me, these words represent a place of awe and wonder.  A place where I am caused to stop, stand, and recognize that there is something greater beyond myself.  And it dawned on me this morning; this spoon has become for me an experience of sacred, holy, love, and God in the midst of my life.  For it makes me stop and remember that this common, humble spoon was a gift of relationship from a friend – a friend I haven’t talked to in awhile.  And my thoughts move on from there to other relationships where I have fallen down in my relating.  And from there – a humble reminder of my weaknesses and a pondering of my soul.

God is love, and he/she who abides in love abides in God and God in them.

So…I thank my friend Diane for her gift that has led me to this Christmas mediation. A gift that keeps giving and has made my life better because of her act of friendship – where God lives in the midst of!

The Arrival of the North Wind

The North wind has a particular sound and smell.  When it arrives, there is a subtle change in the air and Fall begins!  This morning when I opened my window, the North Wind blew in and I was immediately filled with images of sweaters, falling leaves, and baking pies all rolled into one immense feeling of excitement.

Yesterday I finished the fall planting in the rain - beets, carrots, spinach, mustard greens, chard, broccoli.  There are eggplant, potatoes, okra, and earlier beets getting a head start for fall.

Did you know there are 2 kinds of poop! - hot and cold.  Cold poop (rabbit) can be directly applied to the garden.  Hot poop (chicken) is put on a compost pile to heat it up.  I learned this last Saturday from a family friend.   So because I have been using 'cold' rabbit poop, this compost pile won't be ready for at least 2 years!  So moving to chicken poop!!   It really 'takes a village' because I look at the pictures if I have to read directions.  Getting information from people is a lot easier.

Along those same lines - another friend came to visit that same Saturday -  he was a bee expert.  He looked at my hives and in 10 minutes had completely reconfigured the 2 hives into 1 heathy hive.  Turns out that one of the hives was missing the queen.  He reduced that stagnant hive to one box and plopped it right on top of the healthy hive!  I then learned that I was starving all my bees!  I just assumed that if I fed my bees they would become dependent on me.  Yes! I put them in a box and they are dependent on me!  So, as it turns out, one has to feed bees.   So much for letting nature take care of itself!   Since my hive was reconfigured and I feed it regularly , several people have been stung in the face (including me) at quite a distance from the hive!  I can't go in my garden without a bee chasing me.  Nature!!! so unpredictable!!

My bean vines are beautiful.  But no matter how I cooked them, they didn't taste that good.  Even if I cook them in butter with onions, the skin was tough.  Well, it turns out they are not beans, they are cow peas!  I was using a recipe from my John Besh cookbook to make gumbo and there was a picture of my beans!  The description under the picture said purple hull peas!  You have to shell them to get the peas out!  Wow, that was a revelation!  So I go and pick a big bunch of these wonderful peas and sit down on the porch to enjoy the cooler weather and shell these peas.  Half hour later, I have a small bowl of peas - enough for one person.  I am not growing these next year!!

Yesterday, my son brought home young turkeys and baby quail!  

Baby Quail in hot house

Turkeys hiding from other animals

      

Part of the other animals about 200 young roosters

More Baby chickens

roaming duck mass

Looking in the hoop house, I was surprised by these characters...And I don't even know what these are! 

And of course...there are the hogs.  I talked about Buttercup (a very big teenage girl) last blog.  Usually she pushes past the electric fence and is willing to take the current for what lies OUTSIDE THE FENCE)  Yesterday morning, very early, as I was feeding the chickens, she comes up and I watch her lift up on her hind legs and try to push over the garbage barrel that holds the chicken feed!  She usually has an entourage of the newest baby hogs (which are not so small anymore).  The other day, the chicken coop was left open and I found her and several of her entourage in the hoop house.  Scared the chickens to death.  Like I said earlier - shoulda never named her!! 

We are now eating the meat we are raising along with the vegetables we are growing.  This is an amazing thing when you come from the suburbs!  

The kids are digging some kind of hole in the bog.  There are all sorts of tools out there and they come back covered in mud.  I was going past them in the car and it suddenly dawned on me that they might be trying to did a tunnel under the road!!  Freaked me out - I checked on it - they were not! They have a garden also - beans & pumpkins.  For some reason they dug out the pumpkins and put them in small pots in the tree house.  I told them that the pumpkins were going to grow big and the treehouse porch may not be the best solution!  Those darn kids!!  

There are just some things about this life that are not pleasant - for instance - the stink bugs have returned for the fall.  They are all over the screens and will find their way into the house into our furniture...  This will be followed by the ladybugs.  The flies are everywhere and follow you into the house every time you open the door.  The mice are working to get into the big house.  So Fall is coming and along with it - the good, the bad, and the ugly....

Damn it! Just give me a cold Corona with Lime

It was a long day that deserved a cold beer.  I checked in the frig and I found 1 pony Corona among the many craft beers.  Pulled it out, added my lime and sat in the rocker on the back porch.  It was one of those moments when you decide to take a stand - I prefer a cold Corona to a craft beer!  No more pretense - just give me a Corona and be done with it!

Next topic - Life and Death on the Farm.  So little Camille tells me that one of the girl rabbits died and dad fed it to the hogs - just part of the process of death around here.  We had found 2 baby ducks and 3 baby chicks that had been picked on by the larger chickens and we rescued them.  Rachel put glue on the heads of the baby ducks because their brains were showing.  We took care of those baby animals and nursed them to health.  Some animal went into the shack where we keep the baby ducks and chickens.  It pulled out the 2 baby ducks and left the 3 chickens!  And that was that.

Elijah found a baby chicken roaming around the yard alone and brought it back into the chicken yard to place with one of the mother hens.  As he stood there, another hen came up and plucked the head off of the baby chick - he came back sobbing.  Two of the rabbits died of heat - they got fed to the hogs also.  I was putting grass under the rabbit cages and noticed that some rabbit fur was on the ground.  Now this is what a mother rabbit uses to build her nest.  I looked up and there was a baby rabbit laying on the bottom of the cage.  We had miscalculated when the litter would be born and did not have a birthing box in her cage.  I ran for help and was told just to put a birthing box in and put the new rabbit in the box - which I did.  Zac came over and told me to put some cut grass in the box since sthe mother had no more fur to fill the box.  I thought the mother was putting the grass in the box, but she was eating.  The baby is still alive, but is just laying on the wood.  Will it live or not!

I killed and cleaned my first rabbit.  Did you know that rabbits can smell death?  So when Zac brought in another rabbit, it screamed because it knew.  I have to say that the rabbit looking at me while I break it's neck is disconcerning!  I helped Zac kill some ducks and chickens and I kept yelling that they were still alive! - but they weren't.

In other news...the tomatoes have gone crazy.  I was away for 3 weeks and the garden looked good - just had to do some weeding.  We have had lots of births - another litter of hogs, several litters of baby bunnys, we got 200 free baby roosters (that should be intersting later).

New litter of rabbits

Elijah holding a new baby rabbit

New litter of baby hoglets

First crop of potatoes

Lots of visits from cousins

My first sunflower garden

baby rabbits growing up

Eva playing with baby hoglets

200 free baby roosters

The end is near!

Thank goodness - a friend that helps out.

Oh Yes, we built a zip line!  And we have a paddle boat!  We have had lots of visitors this summer and there was lots to see and do.  Now the first signs of fall are showing and time to think about a fall garden.

As my son says - It is all good!!

"Love Coming Home To This Sweet Face"

A friend of mine sent this picture of her favorite goat from her farm.   She included the above quote with her picture.

This is Mr. McHowl.  Even though he won't let me come close to him,  he waits for me in the morning by my door.  I do have to bring the other dogs inside before I drop a bowl of food right out my door.  He is very skittish and he waits until I go back inside before he gets close to the bowl.  He makes me happy when I see him.

You have seen this picture before.  This is what happens when the hogs see you coming - they run to greet you.  And look how we love our dogs!  OK...so it all revolves around food - but who cares what the motivation is.

Animals engage our attention.  They greet us with a snort, a bark, a jump or a meow; and they make us feel welcomed into their world.   And for a moment in time - we forget what worries us.





And now all the baby animals have arrived.  And they all engage our attention and make us happy.

200 Baby Chicks

3 litters of baby rabbitts

7 baby hogletts that are the new hooligans

175 baby ducklings

The garden is booming because it is too cold for the bugs.

Brussel sprouts, lettuce, radish, potatoes, pees, carrots, artichoke, kale.  I learned you just cut the tops off the lettuce and it grows back!  So you don't need a lot of lettuce plants.  You can't see the small tomato and pepper plants in the dirt.



I almost forgot about the bees.   I received them last weekend and they are catching the flow of nectar.   I moved them into the garden that we have fenced off from predators - like those hooligan hoglets which keep trying to get into the garden beds.

Beehive 1

Beehive 2

And speaking of predators... when you live on a farm, you begin to understand life as a food chain.  Even the dirt is a living organism.  If you kill one tiny microbe with pesticide you are using to kill something else; you also kill the things that lives off that microbe.  And maybe the thing that lives off that microbe is important to a small creature that is critical to a plant.  And maybe that plant is critical to making the air that we breath and the food that we eat!  You really begin to see and understand how everything is involved in a web of connectivity.  Even the smallest microbe is as important as a human in the web of life.

The word 'sustainability' is used in a lot of different situations - from the corporate world to organic farming.  But I am beginning to understand this word as - DO NO HARM.  Do no harm to your soil, do no harm to your animals, do no harm to the people around you - everything is connected and needed.   It is a word easily thrown around, but very difficult to live when you have been brought up to just buy whatever you need, kill what you don't want in your yard, and close you door when you don't want people to be involved in your life.

And so, we have had 20 straight days of rain, one day of sun and now it is dark and raining again. But what the heck, the animals are always happy to see us and doesn't that make anyones day!!

How Gangs Get Started

We bought these two sows, with their recently weaned hoglets (3 each), from a small farmer who was selling all his livestock.   The little hogs tried to nurse when we released them into the fenced field, but their mothers pushed them aside.  .  Shunned by their mothers, they had to band together. They were timid little hogs.....Now they are a roaming GANG!

This is the gang yesterday under the rabbit cages staring me down - GIVE US THAT FOOD OR ELSE!  Is this not the cutest thing!  They are too small for the electric fence to cause them any distress, so they just come and go as they please.  You can find them during the day in the field eating grass.  In the afternoon sun, they return to the pen to rest.  They travel as a group and sometimes playfully tease Eva, our chocolate lab.  They 'romp' ( play roughly and energetically) around the farm, free and easy.  But soon, they will grow large enough that the fence becomes a deterrent.

Moving on.... Planting time.  We had trees and seeds to set.  It's too cold to put anything in the ground, so we planted the seeds in the planters below.  We also planted maple, hickory, redbud, fig, and I can't remember all the other saplings we planted.  I will probably be 80 before they look beautiful on our farm!

Planting an olive Tree!! Our memories from a trip to Italy

peas, carrots, beets, fennel, sunflowers, beans, lettuce, basil, and much more

Wild Flowers (note tree saplings)

We are also building more chicken coops for the 200 chicks that are arriving soon.  Eventually, there will be 800 chicks.

Alyce building 2nd of 4 chicken houses

2 down and 2 more to go.  They are on wheels!

So these houses can be pulled across the field and setup in new places every few days.  An original design!!

A funny story about the planted seeds.  We put them in the barn to protect them from a freeze.  When we went to pull them out the next morning, there were these perfectly made little holes in each pod where a mouse had taken it's little paw and dug out the seed!!  I had to reseed almost every pod!  We caught the not-so-little mouse a few days ago - almost the size of a rat!! There is always a predator to watch out for!!

Today, a couple that just moved from Atlanta to build a life on a farm, contacted me.  They are coming to visit this afternoon.  The farm they bought is about 10 minutes from our farm!  They, like us, wanted a change in their lives.  

Here is the label I designed  - from the farm sign I made - for my honey.  Very exciting!  Now I just have to get the bees to live past 1 year!

So begins April....

March Madness - Must all the animals be pregnant at the same time!

We can't keep up eating the number of eggs that are being produced!  The white eggs in the back are duck eggs!  I try every morning to eat my share - I am not making a dent.  Every day there is an entire basket of new eggs.  And this is from only 7 female ducks and 20 chickens.

There is a plan.  We are going to sell duck eggs and chicken and pig meat at the markets.  We are awaiting the arrival of many more ducks and chickens - and the birth of baby pigs from 3 pregnant hogs.

We have been busy building all the new houses and pens for all the newcomers.

building the new chicken house on wheels

New new rabbit home built from cedar trees on property

New Pig houses - or Civil War Camp!

Then there are the gardens - we added 5 new plots.  Talk about busy or crazy!

Oh yeh! I forgot the bees - as it turned out - I lost both hives.  But try and try again.  So newly cleaned and repainted - we are ready for the new bees.  I was able to extract the honey that was left.  Using my father's old honey extractor - which had a few problems I needed to overcome - I extracted 30 lbs of honey.  This is not a pretty picture - but it is the reality of the situation!

As my brother said - Don't loose any weight

Which brings up another topic.  I have not lost a single pound since I moved here - REALLY!! I had such high hopes of getting back to my young-girl weight!! What is a girl suppose to do.

It's all real