In the beautiful sun

The other day I got this wonderful photo of the colts laying in the sun. They are growing really fast and are so very smart horses.

a day of rain

means a day of baking. We had a great deal of rain fall on us today. The water barrels are full again and the gardens are watered. It truly was a beautiful day!!

And so it begins

the watering with more. More then the precious water coming from the heavens and into the water barrels we strategically placed for holding water to use on the garden, pet baths, rinsing outside things. etc.Yes we had to drag out the hose. Oh the thud in my great watering setup the dreaded hose. For anyone else this would be the greatest gift ever, yes for most. But for me it is much more then that. It's the reason I have water barrels. I have them to prevent me from using the clean, treated, fairly priced, drinking water. I love the fact that I can go right out into the big glorious barrel and dip out some of heavens goodness. Okay okay before you say there is nothing wrong with water from the hose, I agree. there is nothing wrong with it, it's wonderful. But I prefer to use our re purposed water as much as i can for the outside watering. Also I have this really huge over sized yard and takes forever to drag the hose around to every small or large plots I have to water.I do not water our grass and no I am not complaining, yes I will drag that huge hose around rather then going to the store to buy the things that need watering. But today as i was watering I realized we have 2 rather long water hoses threaded together and opps its not enough. I told you I had a big yard. So I have one water spigot on our property I have been asking for another by the garden, shoot I would be happy if it were just in the back yard. One in the front one in the back. Sounds reasonable enough. But I make do with the one in the front and long that one day to have another strategically placed were 2 water hoses will be enough when the water barrels are dry. or maybe around 30 more water barrels. Which ever would be great. But for now I am thankful. Thankful for the water I have.

500 pounds of produce

That is our goal this year, to grow 500 pounds of produce from our own land. We hope to go over that but 500 pounds would be just fine.
To date we have had
10 oz radish
8 oz of onions
6 oz of lettuce
3 oz of spinach
TOTAL for May so far - 1 pound 11 oz
This is the first year we have grown spinach and much to our surprise everyone loves it. We are pleased that all the kids will at least try everything we grow.

A gander through the raised beds

As mentioned before the raised
beds are growing great things at alarming rates. In the first picture is the carrot bed. The tops look healthy and green. I hope the roots get big and long.

Next is the potatoes I am trying of a different variety. I placed them in the raised beds rather then the garden area to see which beds grow potatoes better. These seem to be doing well with no potato bugs.

Oh yes these are the peanuts. I planted a few seeds to see how they might do. These seem to be growing good. I hope they grow enough peanuts for seed for next years planting.

Peas, carrots, and onions. Might I say the onions are really good. I couldn't wait any longer and snuck a few last night for our dinner. The peas are blooming and the carrots are growing in between rather rapidly.

Please disregard the windy blow Brussel sprouts. The wind is high today, they are really handsome plants. Green, lush, and rather tall. The kids love them so I hope we have a good size crop for eating.

And for the last of the pictures is the lettuce. And a volunteer of sunflower and tomatoes. This lettuce will be on the dinner table tonight with a few more snatched onions and some radish's I harvested earlier. every time I go to the beds I rip off a leaf of lettuce to eat as I work. Doesn't it look yummy?

A few things I didn't take photos of are the spinach, cabbage, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, and beans. Save those for a day that I won't get caught in the rain.

Where it all starts

is way more important then it being homemade here on our bit of soil. I cook with the best ingredients when it comes to feeding my family. And the best, to me, means the closest and organic, pesticide free. We do not have chickens yet but we are making plans to raise our own chickens only for eggs on our land. Before we moved here we had around 20 chickens. The boys enjoyed them and were glad to help then. Now that we are more then settled in here we can't wait till the chicken tractors are ready for there new occupants. As for the eggs in the photo we are happy to have neighbors that have plenty and we purchase our eggs from them on a weekly basis. They are wonderful and completely fresh, most of the time they were gathered that morning. So our eggs come to us with really low food miles and that alone makes them wonderful to us.

a time for color and babies

Yes that is Spring. With Spring in full swing I thought I would share a few pictures of just a few things that are happening around here.


On the left are the kittens that were born under our porch. The photo on the right shows a baby robin bird, just emerging from the nest. Preparing to take its first flight. A robin has eggs in the tree out front every year. We are pleased to be able to watch them emerge every year.



The animals and the garden are not the only thing growing. Our flowers that attract the bees are blooming and keep us in beautiful flowers all Spring and summer long. We plant just enough flowers to keep the bees happy and just enough food to keep us happy around here.





With the rain falling, sometime which felt like buckets, we were also able to capture some in our homemade rain barrels for the garden and raised beds. It seems to rain, fill the barrels, then quit raining long enough for us to use what we saved then rain again. I hope to add around 3 more barrels this summer.



The apples are growing faster then last year. We have a total of 5 apple trees now. Two of which will provide us with wholesome apples this fall and winter. This is the yellow delicious in the picture above. The other one, not pictured, that will grow apples this year is called a Jonathan apple. The peaches are bigger already then in the past, hope to have pictures uploaded soon. We pruned the peaches this year at the end of winter and they are so much happier.
While we still have grass we are taking alot of time to reduce our lawn every year. I hope to have the front yard grass free in the next 2 years. Have a wonderful day!!!