summer harvest time!!!!

I have barely caught my breath after moving, before I can even get the pictures on the walls,  its time to start harvesting our summer garden and fruit trees and start canning, making salsa, storing onions and garlic and alot more.  The cool thing is now we have a real cellar under the house to put all this wholesome goodness and keep it longer(post a pic soon)  I have already put our raw honey, which we harvested last year down there and some of the garlic and onions I have already braided(post a pic soon).  In another week we will be harvesting another year's worth of honey(post a pic soon). I have already been making fresh homemade salsa for the past week( I will add some pics and recipe soon) and enjoying summer sandwiches with fresh tomato and onion.  So today the kids and I picked a bunch of peaches, tomatoes, peppers, plums, blackberries, and cherry tomatoes. Now I am no expert in canning and preserving. I have only done a small amount last year. Before then we just ate what we could durring the summer and the rest went to waste.  I was took sick back then, with my chronic illness, to put in the time with everything else going on. But now that I am the healthiest I have been in 7 years and we have enough to work with it is now worth my time and effort to preserve some of this stuff.  I remember as a child spending summers with my family in Texas helping grandmother Jean can peas and harvest from her garden.  But I think I was only seven or eight and of course i didn't retain any of the process.  So I am a real greenie at this stuff, pun intended!  I have had to just google instructions online and refer to the books that came with our pressure canner.  We purchased our pressure cooker and juicer both from www.lehmans.com Check them out, they are from the ammish country and filled with tons of cool items built and used by the ammish, which means lots of non electric items and items used way back when.  Tommorrow will be a homesteading day, I plan to make some cobbler. I already made some two days ago which was fantastic!!  I will also make some salsa, and can some peaches and maybe even some tomatoes. My favorite summer food from our garden is homemade salsa with our very own tomatoes, garlic, onions, cilantro, lemon juice and salt and of course homemade quacamole(no avacadoes on our trees yet)with chips, yuuuuummmmmmmyyy!! I will add to this post some detailed pictures on the process and recipes so check back with this post for updates! In the mean time here are some pictures:

  

Don 't worry thats not pesticides sitting next to the onions.  We are organic in the garden beds.  thats round up for the weeds around the farm.

I failed to mention earlier that none of this would be possible without my gardener of a husband.  He really enjoys gardening all things edible!  He is the one who really is the brains and muscle behind this whole operation.  I just help harvest a little and prep and cook everything. He is also the one that really pushed to start this whole homesteading idea. I was always fascinated by it but probably enver would have done it on my own.  In the past two years we have been able to make drastic improvements with my major medical illness, Charcot-Marie-Tooth and our son's ADHD and chronic sinusitis and allergies by eating out of our garden!!  We make a good team!  I truly appreciate all his hard work!!

Real women drive tractors!!!

So this past week, I learned to do something that was sooooo empowering!!  DRIVE A TRACTOR! The coolest thing about it is I learned to do it by myself, with a little conspiring from my girlfriend Tamara.  We where trying to walk my antique hay rake down the road a few hundred yards to the new house when my husband pulled up and we where laughing at ourselves!  He handed me the key to the tractor and drove away.  So she and I nervously walked over to the tractor and I climbed on.  Long story short I figured it out pretty quick and away we went!  I was sooo excited! I feel like a real farm girl now!  We ended up making about 10 trips hauling on pallets, the last of the big heavy items in the yard.  The empowering part is that now I can move clutter that caleb leaves around any time I want! So if something big and heavy is sitting around looking junky I can organize it!!!  My husband may have something to say about those notions.  And I will probably regret learning to drive it as he may have chores for me to do on it now.  But I like driving and operating a tractor.  One of the best features about the new place is that we have buildings we can store our farm clutter and tools and such instead of having it junk up the yard. That eliminates alot of stress for me. And now being able to move that clutter eliminates even more!!! whhoooo hoooo!!

An Empty Magnificent Shell

Well, its been a little while, but I have been extremely busy.  We are finally in the new house, and what a house it is.  I am posting some pictures below of the house empty right before we started moving stuff in.  My plan is to post some pics, durring the decorating process so you can see improvements a little at a time.  It will take me a while to get this place just the way I want it.  The amazing thing is I truly think this house was meant for us.  Most of our things go perfectly in it and the energy of the home is so much happier and more inviting than the old house. We just feel truly at peace in this home.  Plus, with the property previously in the family a few generations back it just seems meant to be. Enjoy and check back for more pictures as my progress continues...  Once I get settled I will start doing some projects and crafts and will share those as well.  I have some other subjects to post about but am just to busy right now, so check back soon.

Moving into our new victorian home

It's June 2012, and we are in the process of moving next door. That's right next door from our current five acres(1 acre home and 4 acres of navel oranges, which we will continue to farm and rent the house out, to our new beautiful victorian home with five acres of pecans.  We are sooooo excited!! But first we gotta do the hard work of cleaning up the yard and old home for the renters and cleaning the new home and moving in. So needless to say it is gonna be one busy summer.  Add in some camps, and mini trips to the cabin, coast and in laws, swimming accross the street,and scouts events and it is a full summer!!!  I am trying my best to be as organized as possible.
    First off, every box has a number and a picture of whats inside, once its full.  That number and description goes on my master list, with a room assignment.  The box is then labeled with the number, description, and room assignment. So no matter who is carrying the boxes. Since it primarily won't be me due to a spinal fusion, they will end up in the right places. Then each room of the new house, which has several outbuildings and barn. will receive a label on it of what the room is called and that will match the labels on the boxes.  Hey, at least I didn't make a spreadsheet of the masterlist! I just hand wrote it!  After moving about 20 times before I was 18, I like to think I am an expert at moving.  So we shall see how smoothly this goes.  I will add some pictures to this post soon.

White Trash

        Trash. every farm has it! There is always gonna be some trash when you live in the country and have as many acres as we do.  I hate trash! I hate clutter! It causes me anxiety every time I step out our back door. So much so that at times I will start to have an anxiety attack. 
     Now, we are not lazy white trash country folk.  My husband works seven days a week, 12 hours a day. We run a successful business in the agriculture field.  We don't sleep in, or sit and watch movies. We don't even own a T.V.  we don't take vacations except maybe an overnight trip to the family cabin once or twice a year.  We work our asses off!!  My husband works at least 70 hours a week. I help him with the business, homeschool our kids, do cubscouts, girlscouts, church...etc.  We are very busy people. Plus we grow most of our own vegetables, fruit, meat, and eggs.  SO WHY DOES OUR FARM LOOK SO TRASHY!!!!
     My husband is a genius, no really, he is seriously a genius!  But when it comes to details and cleanup or appearances, he doesn't care.  That man has worn shirts with holes in them, the same dress shoes for 10 years and a layer of dust in his 60 thousand dollar truck an inch thick!!  He is brillant with the big picture! But when it comes to organization and tidiness, he is the world's worst!! Now he is organized enough to get the job done.  But he is the type that leaves cabinet doors open, bottle lids sitting there, clothes on the floor next to the hamper. 
       I learned right away not to nag.  He works so hard that I don't mind taking care of the little details.  But I have a clutter anxiety issue and it really gets to me sometimes.  I am a fantastic organizer, I like to think.  But when you are as overloaded as I am, organizing takes a back seat.  So, back in 2008 when I became very disabled,  the clutter and trash around this place became out of control!  Now this is not an episode of hoarders by any means.  But it is embarrassing!
    Over the past few years, I have struggled to keep our home clutter free, organized, and well even just clean.  The outside, I gave up on years ago.  So now that we are moving to the new Victorian farm, which happens to be the 5 acres next door,  the task of cleaning up our current 5 acres is daunting!! This overwhelming task falls on my shoulders.  My husband doesn't even have time to move us, and he has the added task of ripping out part of our fence and extending it around the new place for the safety of our animals and children from the busy road. Plus building new garden beds which are very important to our healthy lifestyle, and moving the heavy stuff i can't move. All while still working 70 hours or more a week!   
    So I started this past week cleaning up the backyard, which is about an acre.  I started off making a trash pile and several different keep piles for wood, wire, fencing, etc... Then i sectioned off the side of the house and started a keep pile for the shop equipment and other things I did not want our dogs to get into.  I put the kids to work, picking up little pieces of trash and moving light stuff(thats a whole other post).   And now after about 4 days of working a few hours in the mornings outside, I am about two-thirds done!!! My husband is floored!!! He never thought I would get even a 10th of it done.  I explained to him that, I can get a lot done when I am focused on one thing at a time and not multitasking in 10 different directions.  Which is what I usually have to do with, homeschool, church, our business, housework, my health issues...etc.
     I am very concerned with being careful not to throw my back out.   I have a spinal fusion, peripheral nueropathy, and hormonal migraines.  But so far, I am doing very well with all the physical work. I figure that by the time we are done and moved in to the new place, I will be in the best shape of my life, which is a bonus for me!!!!   I got to thinking about it all and realized something very important in all of this.  This is the first time in 8 years that I have been healthy enough to work like this outside and it feels great!!!!!   So this move is even more exciting for me, because it means that we will have a fresh start with everything in its place, twice the space and organized buildings for all our STUFF, and no more CRAZY WHITE FARM TRASH!!!!

Dogs, man's best friend, and mine too!!!!

The cow dogs!!! Going for a run!

Dogs... I love dogs! They truly are man's (and woman's) best friend.  We have always owned dogs.  But last year we decided to breed our pure breed queensland to a half border collie half kelpie male.  We ended up with a litter of 11 pups.  We needed some dogs for our new ranch.  Breeding and raising a litter of pups was one of the best farm experiences I have had so far.  It ranks in the top five for me along with: bottle raising a calf, bottle raising goats, purchasing and learning to ride horses, and raising a blue fronted amazon parrot.  Now, we have had an enormous amount of farm experiences in the past 10 years.  But raising a litter of cow pups with my two children was one of the best!!  We gave most of them away and ended up with 3 males and their mother.


baby Harvey, a blue fronted Amazon

Harvey, all grown up

Hersey, our very first bottle fed calf

 We also have an amazing McNab that we rescued from the pound.  I must take a moment to tell you his story.  My son was about 5 or 6 years old at the time, when his first dog, a McNab named Oscar, got out and got run over.  He was devastated for two weeks!! so a few months later we went to the pound to find him a new dog.  He ran smack into another McNab that looked almost identical to Oscar.  This dog had a bad case of kennel cough.  But my son just instantly fell in love.  The pound had named the dog Frisbee, because they had figured out that he could catch frisbees in the air.  We brought the dog home and nursed him back to health.  He was a skinny weak dog when we brought him home. Now three years later is a thick happy go lucky lovable dog that catches ANYTHING in the air.  And I do mean anything, dirt clods, oranges, tennis balls, sticks, and even rocks!!!!!!  We where able to give this dog a new wonderful life on our farm. 

raising chicks

  So about a month ago, we added dog number 6 to the mix.  My in laws, who live accross the street, had brought home an Australian Shepherd that would not quit heeling "grandma" or herding the cats. This pup was gonna be a working son of a gun.  So grandma talked us into taking "Red" home.  So now we are up to seven.   Now a few nights ago, the neighors called and said they had caught my in laws Great Pyrenees down the street wandering around the property all day. But I checked and it wasn't the same dog.  Now if you don't know what a Great Pyrenees is, they are gentle giants. Huge white dogs that look like extra large sheep.  The one my in laws have had for the past 10 years is an amazing dog that we absolutely love.  Theirs has been injured and getting old and "grandma"  has been looking for a new pup to raise up.  So I thought I would bring home the stray, which looked to be about a year old, and if we couldn't find its owner, she might keep it. 

just part of the litter

the mini schnauzers: Bert & Ernie

chickens and turkeys

a litter of piglets

   First off, we knew this dog was someone's beloved animal.  He had been freshly professionally shaved by a groomer, and still had the neckerchief on that they generally give the dog.  He also had a collar, but no tag.  So we walked him to the car on a leash, which we noticed he did very well. He jumped in the car and sat down in the back seat, like he knew what we where doing.  We took him home and put him in a kennel.  He didn't like that very much,  he barked and barked. So i went back out and brought him into the house.  When he opened the front door excitedly with his nose, I knew he was someone's inside dog.  A Great Pyreneese, someone's inside dog? You do know these dogs are in the top 10 largest dog breeds of all? They are huge!  Anyway, so the dog and I ended up sleeping in the living room together and within a few hours,  I knew this dog was amazing!!!  His personality is fantastic!!!  So now, three days later, he is still here, and living inside with us.  He is quiet as a mouse, hugs you with his huge head, and causes no problems whatsoever!!  I contacted local groomers, the local vet, and the pound.  I initially was really hoping we could find his owner, because someone had spent alot of time with this dog and taken well care of him it seemed and probably really loved and missed him.  Although his collar had a torn piece of rope on it, as if he had been tied up outside.  But now we are all in love with him.  We took to calling him "Tyson", since "grandma's" Pyrenees across the street is named "Mike"(or Iron Mike-for iron Mike Tyson). So they have Mike and we have Tyson.  Tommorrow I am going to put a sign up at the local grocery store and Pharmacy. We live in a small town, so if this dog got out of his yard, it is someone local.  We all are now kinda hoping we don't find the owner.  My husband left him out front for awhile, thinking maybe he would wander home.  But he didn't he just laid on the porch.  He will go out to the bathroom but always comes right back in and seems very content to just be inside with us.  He just lays around, not like our cow dogs with all their energy.  Its as if he just decided he likes it better out here on the farm and decided to stay!  We have instantly attached to him and him to us.  I had to make sure the kids understood that we had to try to find his owner and that there was still a chance he would not get to stay. But we are all crossing our fingers that he will get to stay.  Hey, whats one more dog??!! As   

another bottle fed calf

some sheep raising

long as you can take good care of them all. Ours all run around on 5 acres and in a couple of weeks it will be 10 acres, since we just purchased the adjacent property.   The funny thing is, in the past few years, we had tried inside little dogs, we had two miniature schnauzers and later a maltese.  They didn't work out, the first two kept getting out and running down the street. We didn't want them to get run over.  The maltese barked incesently and would wake my husband up.  We also had a pound kitty, that pooped in the bath tub and would go after my daughter sometimes.  So last year, after giving all the inside pets new good homes.  I made everyone vow we would never have inside pets again or at least not little pets.  The past few months we have been letting our queensland bitch in at night and she is great. But I have been quite happy not having an animal in 100% of the time and a puppy to house train or little dog being a nuisance.  Now here we are with a huge dog for an inside dog!!! But somehow it seems perfect. He is house trained and doesn't chew or cause any problems!!! 

pound kitty

  So, thus our love of dogs, man's best friend continues!!  And a city dog has made his way to the farm and seems as happy as me to  experience farm life!!! Welcome to the family Tyson!!!!  

Frisbee now

These pictures are just some of our farm animals over the years!!

Frisbee then



Flynn, one of our horses

just one of our over 500 chickens over the years, we had a farmstand at one point and sold chickens and eggs

yes even fish!!

my porch birds

Cinni Minni

maisy

The view from the top of our ranch

Mikey(Iron mike)
Tyson looks just like this!!!