A Season for Everything

I'm sure we've all heard it; to everything, there is a season.

There is no doubt that some seasons are more enjoyable than others. There are seasons of plenty and seasons of want.

A season for gardening, with fresh tomatoes straight from the vine, strawberries still warm from the sun, and sweet lettuce just picked from the garden. And a season of well, no gardening, the cold winter months when the ground is frozen and all there is to do is look through seed catalogs and dream about spring planting.

And a season for eggs.

Did you know this? Eggs have a season. I had no idea.

Right now we are gathering between one and two dozen eggs each week, a far cry from the six dozen we were getting each week last spring. I feel like we've let down our "regulars" who buy eggs from us each week. And for the first time in a year I even resorted to buying eggs in order to have enough over the Thanksgiving holiday. It's a bit sad.

After a bit of reading I've learned that it is completely normal to see a big decrease in production when winter sets in, the hens are molting, and daylight is short. Some people would suggest using a light to extend the "daylight" hours, but we want to give the chickens their much deserved break and let them follow a more natural course.

There is always something new when is comes to this farming adventure. There is so much to learn. While our current egg shortage is not ideal, we will adapt. Not only do we plan to add more hens to the flock, but we will adapt how we use the eggs we do get.

I'm trying to be more aware of the seasonality of our food. Now eggs will have to be part of that equation too. While we still buy more than I would ideally like that is not local or seasonal, hello bananas currently sitting in our fruit basket, it's all about baby steps. In my wildest dreams we would raise every bit of our food right here, just steps from our back door, all while the house is perfectly clean, the kids are on their best behavior, our meals are planned and executed to perfection and nothing goes to waste.

Reality check, this is real life and that isn't happening... ever. Not in this season we're in, or any other that comes our way.

But, I guess it never hurts to dream.

Pumpkins for Sale

I just finished telling my mother-in-law that I am ready for fall to start. Realizing that that technically has already happened, it sure doesn't feel very fall-ish around here. Frankly, we are having beautiful weather and I shouldn't complain, but I'm ready for the gray skies, rainy days, the fire in the wood stove, and a hot mug of apple cider. 

Although it doesn't feel like fall, the garden is telling us otherwise. It's pumpkin season. We seem to have improved our timing and all of the plants Audrey planted thrived this year and are ripening at just the right time (our timing was off last year and we ended up with a bunch of rotten pumpkins by September.) 

A couple of days ago she spent the afternoon picking all the pumpkins that were ready, making signs, and setting up her pumpkin stand. She takes the selling of her pumpkins very seriously and made sure that they were arranged just right.

Luckily for the passerby's who decide to stop she also doesn't have much of a concept of the value of money, so her prices are pretty reasonable. Each day she has gone back out to her plants to see if more are ready to add to her stand.

Even though the weather is deceiving, I guess it's time for me to embrace our warm fall weather. I better head down the driveway and buy a few pumpkins to decorate the house.

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Tuesday Garden Party at An Oregon Cottage

The Reality of Farming

Standing at the kitchen sink, a place I find myself quite often (do the dishes ever end?), I can look out and see our back pasture. The chickens are usually roaming around as they have free range to go wherever they please and there are usually at least a couple of the four-legged creatures back there too. I can also see our garden, which despite the fact that I have paid it very little attention this summer, is overflowing with fruits and vegetables that are ready to be picked. And sometimes, on the really great days, I can also watch Audrey and Owen running around the backyard playing happily or picking something from the garden to shove through the fence and feed the animals. 

Frankly, it's pretty darn idyllic. The animals happily wandering around, the garden full of produce, the orchard just beyond our property, and the mountain view in the distance all make for a beautiful picture. In fact it's pretty close to the picture I had in my head years ago when having a farm was no more than a daydream.

Unfortunately despite how "perfect" that view can be out the kitchen window there is also the reality of farming. Sure there is a lot of time and work that goes in to keeping the animals and gardens, but that is something that at this point in our very young farming adventure we still truly enjoy. But there is also the reality that we keep most of our animals for one purpose... meat. And sadly to have meat to eat an animal has to die. There is just no way around it.

It's the harsh reality behind all those perfectly packaged steaks at the grocery store and it's the reality here when an animal that we have named, fed, petted, cared for and loved on has to "go". Last week it was Elsie and Stripey's turn. 

While we don't find any pleasure in the killing of the animal, we find comfort in knowing that the animals lived a pretty happy, carefree life. We like knowing that the meat we are eating comes from animals that have been cared for, fed organic feed, were able to roam as they please, and were killed as humanely as possible. 

In fact we don't just "like knowing" all that, it is the point, it is why we do what we do. And I have to say I am ridiculously excited about the meat that will soon fill our freezer. 

Lambs!

This week. My goodness. I am pretty sure that last Friday was an eternity ago.

What a contradiction, I was just saying that December flew by, and now... well, welcome to the slowest week. ever.

And this cute little thing is going to take some of the blame.

Well him, Curly is what he's been named, along with his twin sister, Mo, on the right.

And their half-brothers, twins also, Larry on the left and White Tipped Tail on the right.

Also, we can't forget about their other half-sisters, another set of twins, Two-Dot on the left and Softie 2 on the right.

These six were all born within 24 hours of each other. Needless to say, it's lambing season around here.

And while having six lambs born was a bit of a to do around here, these guys all made it as easy as possible on us. Yes, there has still been a little work and doting involved, but mostly they've done everything they're supposed to do on their own.

But there was actually another lamb, Softie, born a couple of days before this bunch, that was a different story.

To make a long story short, Softie's mom's milk never came it. Softie got hungry, which led to getting really cold and despite all of our best efforts, which included bottle feeding, several warm baths and an evening inside by the fire, she just didn't make it. I'm going to be honest, I was never that attached to Softie, but there were two little kids around here whose hearts had been stolen. Having to tell Audrey and Owen that the little lamb that was laying in our living room that they had said goodnight to didn't make it through the night was definitely a new parenthood low. Just thinking about having to tell them what happened was enough to bring me to tears.

Luckily though we've bounced back. Watching those cuties up there bounce around the pasture has been a lot of fun and taken sad little minds off of Softie.

We aren't quite done yet though, we still have one more mom waiting to have babies. I feel for her. At this point she looks ready to be done. I know I would be. So who knows by the end of the weekend we may just have a couple more little lambs around here.

Newest Additions

The farm is continuing to grow. Things were going well with the sheep and chickens so we decided we could handle a couple more animals in the mix. 

Say hello to Elsie and Stripey. 

That is Stripey looking up there. Wondering about the name? Audrey was in charge, which should explain it. And she does have a very small patch of white on her belly.

And down below is Elsie.

The only way I can tell them apart is that Stripey is slightly lighter black than Elsie, otherwise they look pretty similar.

It took a few days for everyone to get acquainted, but now they seem friendly enough with each other. The chickens free range, so they are in the mix too. The chickens don't seem intimidated by any of them and their size, but sometimes the cows get spooked by the chickens and go running which always makes me laugh.

I love looking out the windows and seeing all of the animals grazing. They all seem to be pretty happy in there new home and we are pretty happy with the experience we are getting by having them here.

Beautiful Eggs

Each day when we collect the eggs from our chickens I am amazed at the incredible variety in the shells. Not having had chickens before I had wrongly assumed that the eggs would look the same day in and day out. And I'm so glad they don't, I think they are just beautiful. 

It still feels a bit like Christmas every time we go out and open the nesting boxes to find them full of eggs. The surprise of what each egg will look like only adds to the fun.

Meet the Sheep

Meet the latest additions to the farm, our own flock of sheep. 

There are actually six in total, but far be it for me to get a picture with all of them at the same time. A livestock photographer I am not.

We have five ewes (girls) and one ram (boy). And we think all of the ewes are pregnant so in a couple of months we should have a whole bunch of little baby lambs running around. Which I am pretty sure is going to be ridiculously adorable to watch.

Only two came to us with names, that one up there is Blackie, she is the youngest and most friendly. The ram is named Gentle Ben, and he is definitely the easiest to pick out of the group. Otherwise I can't really tell the other girls apart. Audrey has named and renamed them several times already which isn't making it much easier.

I'll be the first to admit that I really don't know much about sheep, luckily Bryce makes up for my lack of knowledge and knows just how to take care of them. Slowly I'll learn, but for now I just enjoy looking out the window and seeing them in the pasture. They seem pretty happy too, wandering around and munching on grass.

Our First Egg!

When we bought our property almost three years ago now our vision was to start a mini-farm. Nothing too huge, as farming is not our day job, but a way for us to grow and raise some of our own food and maybe even have enough to sell a little too. 

As with most big projects it takes time to get things rolling. Our property was completely undeveloped when we purchased it, so the first step was building our house. Slowly we've been landscaping, adding in the garden, and putting fences up to create pasture space. 

In the meantime our nod to farming was buying 12 baby chicks last spring, 6 Rhode Island Reds and 6 Plymouth Barred Rock. We brought them home the day after Owen's first birthday and have been waiting anxiously for the day they would be big enough to start providing us fresh eggs. Which is why we were so excited when we found this cute little egg in their nesting boxes over the weekend. 

So far we've collected two eggs, but hopefully there will be a lot more to come. I just wish I knew which hen was laying so I could be extra nice to her!

Falling Trees

Last week Bryce and I spent a few mornings out at "the property;" which is how we affectionately refer to the piece of land we bought and where we will start building our house.  Here's what it looked like in January when we put in our offer.

And here is what it looked like last week, from the other direction.

Although the trees were really pretty they just couldn't stay. Not only are they sitting right about where our house/yard is going to go, but they are also walnut trees. If you've ever dealt with one of those you know they make a huge mess; something we didn't want to have to deal with. And one of them was obviously dead, so that made that decision easier.

 

We started with the dead tree and then moved on to the tree in the middle. Bryce helped me make a little picture slideshow with the pictures I took of the tree falling. It was a big tree.

We spent the rest of that morning and a few of the following mornings cutting it up and stacking it for firewood.

Here is what the property looks like now. Aren't the wildflowers beautiful? They only bloom in the mornings and are completely closed again by midday. We also have plans to take the biggest tree out on the right, but we'll leave that to someone a bit more professional.

And just in case you were wondering, we plan to plant several trees on the property, hopefully making up for the ones we just cut down.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

Today we officially become land owners! As with most things, the process took many times longer than we expected, but now we are anxious to start getting our hands dirty.

First things first we need to put in driveway access. Hopping over the neighbors barbed wire fence anytime we want to get on the property just doesn't seem like a good long term option.

Plus, we took our plans to a designer a couple weeks ago to have them drawn up officially and should be getting them back any day now. I can't wait to see how they turned out.

Our (future) Mini-Farm

Remember that super exciting project Audrey and I were working on? Well, while we were up in Oregon over the Christmas holiday we did a little house hunting. We toured a few houses and did a lot of driving around trying to find something that would work for our family, but ultimately we were pretty disappointed in what was available.

That is until we drove by this...

Two acres of beautiful land exactly where we were hoping to find something. It's close to a small little town which I love, but not too far from the city where the high school is and yet still very much in the "country". It's flat, it's irrigated, it's surrounded by pear orchards and vineyards. It's pretty perfect.

So... we bought the farm, so to speak. Technically it isn't ours yet, but it will be soon (fingers crossed everything goes as planned).

We are beyond excited!