Rain, Rain

Rain, rain...I won't say go away, because the pond is finally up. Overall, the weather has been very mild. We are now in the 50s and 60s, with some cold nights. However, I do wish there was at least little sunshine. I have had to put the lights on in the greenhouse. And I only have two double - dug beds in the garden. I was hoping to be a lot further along than that by now.

The rosemary is blooming and we have had a few days that the honeybees have been out trying to find something. They really are not in a very good mood this time of year...they seem a bit urgent. I even saw daffodils along side the road blooming. My daffodils have leaves up, but no blooms yet, thank goodness. I prefer to see them in the spring, not winter.

Although the pond is muddy now because of all the rain, I have the pleasure of seeing ducks. There are up to six on there, and of course the Blue Heron visits often too. The beaver is back at it, cutting down more trees. There are even a few logs floating on the pond. If he were a good beaver, he would help us cut down those cedar trees that are in the "pasture-to-be."

I guess I better go turn the greenhouse lights off now and hope the sun comes out tomorrow...

Chicken Update

The grab-bag of chickens we ordered in September are maturing nicely. We have three roosters in the freezer. We need to put at least two more there. (We had our first killing cone experience-it worked well for us.) The Barred Rock and Columbian Wyandotte are nice sized. Bruce wanted to keep them around for breeding purposes. I personally want them in the freezer for eating purposes. We shall see. Our multicolor (possibly a Salmon Faverolle) rooster is beautiful, but smaller. I thought we had Black Jersey hen, but it is a rooster. We won't eat him because he has something wrong with him. He had a tumor growth on his chest and his crowing is affected by it. He sounds like a car with a dying battery. We also have a loner, who I though was an "easter egg" hen. But, it crowed. Not sure if it is a dominent hen because of the loner status, or really is a rooster and just small.

I am so excited! Our little hens have started laying eggs. I have had four small ones, and of course, Penny's normal sized ones. We have dark ones and light ones. No white ones yet. I am wanting to order the rainbow laying pullets later in the spring for fun and that should really brighten up the egg basket.

But first, next week, in fact, we have 25 broilers coming. Little leghorns to put in the freezer in about four months. I have shut down the one side of the coop, so all the chickens will get used to only going in on one side. There was only two that roosted in there anyway. I will do one more final cleaning this weekend and buy a new heat bulb. At least these little guys will be all white and boring, so they won't have names to get attached to. I am hoping that they will be big enough before the snakes decide to wake up and come looking for them. It would be wonderful to have 30 chickens in the freezer. That will last us all year, along with the deer and rabbit, and occasional squirrel. That just leaves all the pressure for me to make sure the greenhouse and garden can keep up...great!

Clemson Extension Course

I am so excited. Oh, I hope I get to go. Clemson Extension is offiering a course on sustainable small farms and backyards. They are going to be discussing subjects such as beekeeping (hopefully I can recruit to ACBA), soil fertility, composting, livestock/forages, fruit and vegetable gardening, and marketing excess produce. It is a once-a-week course for six weeks. The only thing is I am not sure if I can come up with the registration fee. I have about four weeks, so hopefully it will work out.

Update 1

What's new at Lost Arrow since we last met? The family has finished planting 2 dwarf apple trees, 2 dwarf peach trees, 4 blueberries, 2 boysenberry and a thornless blackberry bush. We have ordered one nuc (bees) for spring. I would love to have more, but the finances are keeping us from expanding too quickly. Our roosters are finally crowing, just in time for them to butchered. We really did not have as many hens in the last bunch as I would have liked. We have 25 Leghorn broilers coming at the end of January to fill the freezer and maybe a few canning jars, late spring. I am still wanting to order some spring hens to keep the eggs fresh, especially with the low numbers of hens now. Right now, they are all free-ranging around the yard and all but one seems to find their way back to the coop by nightfall. I have a few seedlings up in the greenhouse. I am hoping to get those moved into my first intensive raised bed in a few weeks to have some early vegetables for us and maybe even for the market (not sure about that yet though). I am working on my second intensive bed, a few rows a day. I am hoping to get that done within a week or so and get some potatoes going pretty soon. The garlic I planted in September has come up since our weather has been so mild, so I got that bed weeded. I have been also doing a bit of wire brusing on the deck to get it ready for some new paint this spring. Since our weedeater was out of commission the end of last summer, some of the grass, especially around the house was a bit out of control, and I have been working on that with the hand shears a few minutes at a time. We have hooded megansers on our pond. If I pass by a window and see one, I have to get the binoculars and just watch them for a moment before continuing what I was doing. Even though it is only a couple of weeks into winter, I am thoroughly enjoying this winter and the preparations for spring.

Happy Now Year

No, it is not a typo...I am not going to dwell on the past year. I am not going to live for the future. I am going to focus on the now. What can I be enjoying in this season of my life, this moment in time? That is not to say that I will not plan for the future, or remember the past, but I will not ignore the now, as I can easily do.

I am loving the contrast of the cool temperatures and the bright sunny sky. I have been working on my intensive, double-dug beds for the garden. Since there was a wonderful rain a couple of weeks ago, the clay soil has been great to work with. I am, however, running out of compost...I guess it will be have to be straight rabbit manure soon. After the first couple of shovelfuls of clay, I am taking off my coat and pushing up my long sleeves, soaking up the vitamin D in the warmth of the sunshine. Sometimes I catch myself almost smiling in the joy of my labor. It is an odd feeling to enjoy much of anything in January, which makes it even more special.

Happy Now Year, Everyone!

New and Improved...

That is to be determined, I suppose. Nonetheless, it is definitely time for a new start. For the past 16 months, you may have read Valley Creek Herb Farm blog. It was the name my mother had given the farm and we adopted the name when we all moved together. Since she was the horticulturist of 40+ years, when she moved back home to the Midwest, the "herb" in the name really did not fit anymore. We kept it for the past year because I was attempting to work in the greenhouse and garden a bit, but found with my transcription jobs it was nearly impossible to do what I wanted.

Starting next week, all things are different (farm name included)...I will no longer have the time- consuming, and of course good paying job. I have quit. The stress of the work, the feeling of "burning out" after 15 years of the same work, while the opportunity to make my dream a reality was just outside my window, made it a miserable existence for the last several months. In that time, my emotional stability, my overall feeling of wellness and joy has been slowly declining, whereas my weight, blood pressure and lazy ways have been going up. I prayed earnestly. I received a definite, undeniable answer...not only in what to do, but also when!

So, next week, a fresh start. A scary start with the loss of half of our income. There may be drastic changes, such as losing our newest vehicle, not being able to afford vacations, inevitable changes in our lifestyle, yes, but I have faith we will be adding new, simpler and more satisfying changes.

There are lots of improvements to be done. Buildings to build (such as a milkhouse, smokehouse, honey house, root cellar). Fences to put up for goats and/or sheep, pigs. Gardens to create both vegetables, beneficial insect gardens, grains to grown, orchards to plant. There are home improvements to make (pulling up that blue carpet, at least in the bathroom, and painting the porches and decks, replacing screens in the screened porch, repairing the pier/dock on the pond, and good old general deep cleaning that has been suffering for a long time now. Although the light is very dim at the end of the tunnel, it is there. Even as I think about the work to be done there is a small smile that comes to my lips. Knowing that I will be moving around and accomplishing something is satsifying, but knowing that the kids, who are almost grown now, will have that same wonderful satisfaction of a job well done is even better. Even this weekend, I had the kids to simple tasks. Jacob contructed a small chicken tractor out of an old rabbit run. It is wonderful. Although I enjoyed the end result by sitting on a stump and watching the three chickens eat grass, scratch and look for bugs, I know Jacob was proud of what he had done. And Sarah had filled up three large trash bags of old pots and trash that had been made by a litter of puppies in the shadehouse behind the greenhouse. And she was proud, as was I. Bruce had made a new gate for the goat fence with the leftover lumbar that was piled behind the third area of the garage. Everyone had a feeling of satisfaction that lasts a lot longer than the temporary joy of going to Barnes and Noble and sifting through the fiction section while drinking the 400 calorie coffee that you buy on impulse.

Lost Arrow Acres is named so as everyone in the family has a bow. We all shoot, although not as intensely as Bruce (not yet anyway). The kids and I lose arrows from bad shots, where as he loses arrows from Robin Hooding them! Because this homestead is MY dream, I wanted Bruce to know that it is his too, I let the name reflect him more. Personally, I had considered HoeBow Hills (I like gardening and hoeing and he likes bowhunting) but my dream, his name.

Since I am starting at square one again, I will be taking similar pictures and probably telling similar stories, but hopefully they will be enjoyable, teaching stories that bring a smile to your face or a tear to your eye. As I have experienced a lot of losses, a goat, rabbits, chickens, plants and trees, I do not expect that my learning curve of losses is over by any means. Its hard. I never had problems butchering rabbits and chickens, and I still do okay with it, but when you bury the animals that you had intended to keep and could put names on their headstones, it gets hard, or when the one goat that you have let in the kitchen just to see what she does and walks right next to you around the yard gets attacked and badly injured by another animal, it is like a family member. My mother told me as you get older it gets harder emotionally. Once again, I am starting to think she might be on to something.

With the family's hard work and God's grace, Lost Arrow Acres is born and ready to grow.