Strange Weather

I woke up to quiet with some racket in the kitchen. (Dad) I rolled up my blinds, and there it was. Snow. I think everyone I know loves snow. What's to dislike? It's bright white so that when there's enough everywhere, the world is black and white which is really cool. You can pelt people with it, and make things in and with it. :)

There wasn't much on the ground, but the snow was coming down pretty fast, so I assumed the ground would be covered soon. When I went out to say good morning to my dad, it started raining! two minutes later, it started snowing again! Not out of the ordinary, but it was really weird. 

Later in the afternoon, the sun came out! Bright as day. Blue sky as far as the eye could see with no snow on the ground and no raining falling............ OUTDOOR YOGA TIME! 

Jared and I did some weird poses and "warm-ups" on my gymnastics mat outside on the porch. Then, when we realized that rain wasn't going to happen, we went out into the field and kicked the soccer ball around for about two hours. We discovered a long blue piece of rope (brought that back) and a leg that still had meat and fur on it. Hoof and all. Left that there. 

So far, today has been pretty sunny and great for doing some work. My dad is working on building some goat feeders for next months goats! So exciting. Bye!

The Magnificent 5

So far, we only have 5 maples that are moderately close to our house that we are taking sap from. We're using a very simple way of collecting the sap. Just tapping into the bark a few inches, and inserting a spile attached to a tube that goes into a hole in the bucket! Tada!

Today's weather is pretty cold in the upper 40s and lower 50s. It rained a little on and off in the morning and it's a little misty right now. 

To the Farm!

Hello again! Jared, my dad and I are finally coming back to the farm! My dad came up here last week and found out that we could tap our maple trees! The sap was taking a while to drip, so he left the collecting buckets under the trees. Hopefully, the buckets aren't overflowing at the moment. See you later!

  Alright! Finally got to the farm. It was getting really dark when we came here so we had to move fast. We harvested the maple sap buckets and most of them were at least half way full. We only have about 5 buckets which seems like a lot of sap but once you boil it down it's not that much. The sap was almost just like water it had a clear consistency and was very non-sticky. As I "type" the sap is boiling down outside on our porch.

Tiny pot, medium pot, large pot!

Covering Up

It's time to leave the farm and we do not want to come back with the whole container covered in weeds and overgrown kale. I uprooted all of the kale that still hadn't been harvested and threw those in the compost. (The compost is literally a few feet from the top of the container so I can just throw plants into it from the top) I rolled two long pieces of landscape fabric on top of the rest of the plants that I didn't get rid of. Hopefully- with all the stakes I hammered into the dirt- there will be no more plants left and the fabric won't get swept off the container.

We're coming back on February so the cover has plenty of time to work its magic! :)

Winter Update

Alright! So, there are many different things going on right now. Now that it is Winter, our progress has been slowed down and there is not much that we can do about the weather. It is really foggy and cold outside right now and I am pretty sure it is not warming up anytime soon, so I'm going to stay huddled up inside my room trying to stay moderately room temp... There is thin coat of frost on everything as far as the eyes can see. We just parked our car here last night, and it looks like Jack Frost had fun decorating it.

I wasn't here when the hoop house went up, but it's in pretty good shape right now. We're not growing anything in it at this moment, but we are going to grow lots of tomatoes and basil in it during the summer. 

Our fencing/gates are finally finished and everything is working smoothly. Hopefully the eight feet will keep out those elk...

Tons of these tiny guys are popping up everywhere! I am no mushroom expert, so I am not eating any of those... 

That's about it! :)

Got back.

We just got back to the farm and it's about 5:30 p.m. right now. I have to say, it is freezing cold in the house and we found three dead mice from our preset mouse traps. There are very few flies in here surprisingly! They always find a way to get in... 

The drive here was very thick with fog. It's getting dark here really fast now that it's wintertime. Hopefully tomorrow, we can start working right away!

It's Finally Decided!

After visiting a few farms here and there, we have finally come to the conclusion that we are having goats instead of sheep. We just have the largest priority of getting rid of as many thistles as possible! Apparently sheep are a little more picky than goats and aren't exactly going to cooperate with us with getting rid of the weeds. We are getting Nigerian Dwarves hopefully! 

The goats in Vermont were so friendly, but the sheep were even more friendly! Here's a picture:

Visiting Farms in Vermont

We stayed at a beautiful place in West Glover, Vermont. It was in a place a lot like our farm. Far away from the rest of society. We shared a house with our hosts. We visited a cattle farm that our hosts managed. It was stinky! They house a few hundred cows and milk every cow three times a day and every cow makes about eight gallons a day! The cows seemed pretty afraid of us. We even got a tour of the place from the farmer. He showed us the whole process of milking a cow mechanically. There are so many steps! Imagine doing the same thing for eight hours a day! The farmer said that he has to wake up at about three in the morning every weekday. 

After having our last breakfast with our hosts, they showed us to their lambs that were about a mile away from their home site. There were about twenty-five of them! When we drove up, they all came running from the field to meet us because they knew they were going to be fed. We went into the pen and and started giving them food and they all had their unique little "bah". Some of them were a little skiddish  if you moved to fast, but most of them were very enthusiastic about being "massaged". I am starting to want sheep instead of goats...

Now we're staying at another farm that is much larger. It is at the shore of Lake Champlain with a marvelous view. The farm is a few thousand acres with rolling hills and tons of free-range cows.  (Shelburne Farms) We live in the Vineyard house that's about three miles from the entrance gate. The view is amazing and you could see the lake from the porch. We're going to take a tour of the farm in a little while!

Kale

We were getting a little tired of all that kale we had last summer... It was appearing in quiche, soup, and salads. We harvested so much, we had to try out all of these new ways to eat KALE. Jared came up with this very crazy seeming idea to dip kale in chocolate. I started saying and joking that we should definitely try it out, and I guess he took it seriously and microwaved some chocolate and put it in a bowl to use. As you can tell, he even included a spoon to dunk it all on! I tried it out and it actually tasted pretty good! I sound really crazy, but for some reason, I really liked it. I was the one that finished it all up. :P It tastes like crunchy chocolate! 

Maybe we could do it again???

Traveling!

Hi again! I haven't blogged in a while, so I might be a teeny bit rusty. I am at the airport right now waiting to board. Not anytime soon. We are traveling to Vermont to see the fall colors! We are also going to check out some farms and to see how they operate. I won't be on the farm in a while because I am staying behind in Berkeley to play my teams' last soccer game. I'll keep updated! 

Waiting to board... 

Herb Garden

We are going to have to leave these little guys for a while... We are heading back to Berkeley and I am going to miss blogging about the farm. Hopefully when we come back, these guys'll be all ready and big enough to use as garnish! We've got bachelor buttons, basil, and some spinach. Although spinach isn't really and herb... Oh well! :) 

The bachelor buttons are finally starting to grow and there are light pink, dark pink and purple colors so far! (Bachelor buttons are edible) The one at the bottom of the picture is almost fully bloomed! It's going to become a soup garnish I am sure. :(

As you might tell, we finally got those posts up for pen number 2 for the goats and chickens. Yay! Now we need to lay out the fencing. We got the fencing from TSC. (Tractor Supply Company) Thankfully it is in a remote location for us, and we don't have to drive too far.

We've also been harvesting all the kale on the top of the container and we're canning it ALL. just 6 plants can make 4 huge quart jars! The plants got super big and we're harvesting them before the cold weather starts rolling in even though it's been super hot lately... They are also starting to become bitter. Next year, we're not planting so much kale. 

I am going to miss blogging so much, and I hope to write right when I come back! ;) (October)

Blackberries Galore

It has been super hot here! It is supposed to be in the upper nineties and lower hundreds this week. Oh boy. Obviously, we're not the only ones with all of these fires going on! The weather has been pretty harsh so we are doing most of our farm work in the mornings and evenings. 

My dad has been dropping me off at the blackberry patches in the mornings. It's a nice way to spend time by myself given that I live with stinky guys most of the time. I get to listen to audio books and whatnot with no disruptions. We've been making blackberry jam without thickeners this year. We have one batch of non-sweetened, and one batch of sweetened. We sweetened the blackberry jam with our own honey! There's a big difference, but I love both. 

For those that wonder how we can our veggies and fruits:

Wash the blackberries first, then cook.

First, we tried boiling the blackberries in a pot on the stove, but it takes a long time and you have to check on them every once in a while. It also splattered across the counters a lot and left a big mess. (Blackberries stain) We decided to use this really weird way of cooking the blackberries. We used our "rice cooker" and put as many blackberries as we could in it. Then we set it at "Saute and simmer". This works really well because the mess stays inside! :) We occasionally mix the blackberries, but only about three times. For the honey jam, we pretty much waited until the blackberries were done cooking and then added the honey and tasted along the way. (Yes, we used clean spoons.) 

Now for the canning part. We used pint jars by Ball. 

Spoon the jam into the jars and close tightly. We have a set for pickling and canning. The use a large pot to boil the jars. This kills any of the extra bacteria inside and outside the jars. Take the jars out, and store. One way to check if the jars are tight and ready to store is by pressing down on the lids. They should not pop up or down; that means that they weren't closed all the way and you have to eat the jam fast. That shouldn't be a problem though! ;)

Inspiration

We visited the city of Sequim yesterday, and went to a lavender farm called Purple Haze. They have at least four different kinds of lavender plants. Initially, we were going to buy a pre-cut bundle for $7, but why do that when you can make your own for $5? We ended up getting our own twisty tie and some clippers and headed out to the field. I started looking for the ones that would smell best and ended up getting mostly white flowers. The rest of the plants were purple, and they smelled the same. The white flowers smell sweeter. After getting a large arrangement of flowers, I went to the front desk and asked for some ribbon. The nice cashier tied the flowers up with green and purple ribbon, and said to "enjoy!" 

Cute boot vase by Over the Fence! 

Honey Harvest time!

Considering this was the first year we had a hive up here, I was surprised we got any honey at all.  

Although our hive to the right was a bit slow to start (was initially hit hard by invading ants before ant proofing measures were fully in place), the left hive performed well enough for us to gather some honey.

8 full frames of "Skokomish Wildflower" honey

Used a new uncapping roller to uncap the honey.  Jury is still out as to whether this was better than the hot knife though.  Had to do 2 or 3 passes to get a complete uncapping.  At that point, some of the cells were damaged :(.  Also, the roller didn't do a good job at the ends, so we need to use the uncapping knife anyway.

Shelves inside the honey house netted 22 pounds (about a gallon and a half) of honey.

Salvaged the uncapped wax.  Going to use it to cap off our mushroom spawn plugs

Farm Animal Projects

We've been digging post holes, carrying cement packs, moving posts, and pulling fence. 

Goats (milk): 

We are definitely hoping to get some goats next year. (At least three) We're getting smaller goats, but aren't sure exactly what kind. We've been driving posts into the ground to act as a fence so that when we get the fencing in, the goats won't be able to escape or get eaten.

First, we marked down the boundaries where the fence would be, using a yellow string and stakes. Then we mowed across the lines, so that it would be easier to dig holes. Then, using a gasoline powered auger, we drove holes into the ground (about 2 1/2 ft.);  twenty feet apart from each other. I believe the posts are about twelve feet high. we put those posts in, along with some cement for the corners. So far, we need more posts because we ran out... 

Bunnies/Rabbits (Meat and fur [lucky one as a pet]):

There is a fence that runs along our land that no one has touched in a long time, so we decided to use that for our bunnies! Not necessarily for walls, but for barriers so that they can't burrow to far out so that they would be able to escape. We cut four 50 feet sections and lined that up where part of our elk fencing is going to be, and secured them with the poles. Then, we hammered some T-posts into the ground to put the forty feet of fencing sections across to cover up the grass. The holes are pretty large, but the rabbits shouldn't be able to burrow deep enough to escape. The grass should grow out of the holes so that the rabbits would be able to eat more easily. 

My dad gave me permission to keep a bunny as a pet and not for meat... :) I can't wait! 

P.S. I haven't been posting in a while, but I'll try to do it more often, now that the summer is almost over. I've been starting homeschooling a little early, just to get a head start so that when we go on vacation, I don't have to bring all my books with me. 

Making our living roof/container

Ah... the humble shipping container.  Sturdy workhorse, but kind of plain.  We decided to deck ours out a bit and make it not just a place to store our tools, but to also build David's "man cave"  and put in some vertical farming elements.  We also installed a living roof to grow some shallow rooted veggies.  We were also pleasantly pleased when we noticed how much of an insulating effect the roof and pallets provided.

Shipping container arrives.  We put in two windows, a dividing wall on the inside dividing the container into 2 20 foot halves, and put in a door to access the right half (the left half is accessed from the container's swinging doors).

The container is slid off the semi truck and in place

Put up a series of 2x8x12's along the sides to act as support beams for the pallets and also to aid in holding the living roof borders.  Placed a pond liner up top and put some drainage holes to allow the soil to drain.

After stacking the pallets and securing with screws and zip ties, we secured in rain gutters

4 inch gutters along the front wall on in place.  Inexpensive 3 inch gutters are placed on the eastern wall.  The 3 inch gutters are shallow, but should be fine for small herbs.  Holes were drilled on the bottoms of the gutters, and drip irrigation/emitters were stringed along the top.  As one gutter saturates, is drips to the gutter below, etc.

Basil are coming up nicely!

Drip tape put in on the top of the container... and just in time... the kale were beginning to look parched 

The view from the roof top looking back at the house

Building lean tos

When we first moved in, we put all of our outdoor/processing gear behind the shipping container.  It's outdoors equipment after all, right?  Well, after one wet and cold equipment, we saw what could happen to unprotected equipment.  It tarnishes rather quickly.  So, this summer, we decided to build a couple of lean tos.  One semi-enclosed structure to keep equipment and hay dry.  The other one, we decided to build fully enclosed.  This will be our meat, veggie, and honey processing center.  Fully enclosing that structure will keep the bugs and bees out when processing.  Trust me... after finding honey bees swarm you after you take their honey supers.... you'll be thankful to have an enclosed structure. 

First thing's first... have to dig post holes and put in concrete before putting in the posts.  We aimed to dig the holes 4 feet deep, but some of our holes just hit a bunch of rock.  Even with a digger bar, we could only manage 3 feet on a few holes.  

Insert 4x4x12 treated posts and hope they are square.  Good thing we had a post level.  We then cut the tops off so that the post tops were level with each other

Framed top and bottoms with 4x4x12s, and hung joists up top every 24 inches, and put up corrugated steel panels

Now we got the skeleton of both structures up, we placed some tarp inside the structures, and lined it with wood chips.

The semi-enclosed structure is just about done.  Was thinking about enclosing it all the way, but we purchased generic 4 foot screen from Home Depot.  In order for the to "stick," and look taught, we had to put up some joists 4 feet high... kind of a waste of lumber.  

Good enough to keep the spare generator, wood chipper, a hay pallet, and a washing table dry and free from vermin!

For the food/honey processing structure, we got the 9.84 ft wide "Ultra Screen" from Premier One.  When rolled out, the screen perfectly covered everything from top to bottom.  We just wrapped it around the sides, staple gunned in the screen, and that was that.  We build a swing door on the right, and voila.. a fully enclosed structure for us to wash food and extract honey without getting pestered by pests.  Can't really tell in this picture, but I patched water and power through too... all the comforts of home!

Lots of Wood Chips.

We got a huge donation of pine wood chips from PUD -1. We finally finished wood chipping our orchard path, and it looks a little bit like a boomerang. We've also been working on our two storage sheds that are next to the container (in the back). We are using the wood for the entire surrounding of the container, the bee path (we finished that too!), the front of our house, and getting rid of all the weeds we have since pine has a poison that plants don't like. That means we can't use it for our plants. The mound is slowly going away, and we need to keep coming up with ideas to use it for... 

Our little worker bees are doing really well! Their honey will probably be fully ready to harvest and put into jars next Summer when we get back. Our fence will come up next week, so we can finally probably get chickens. The goats we are getting next year. Dad's working on welding a chicken tractor for the chickens. (A pen for chickens that you can move on wheels) This would be for fertilization and new grass to eat. I think we would get the layers before the broilers. 

I have started a tiny tractor tire garden that was super hard to move. (Dad moved it somehow). I planted some bachelor buttons, amaranth, and a few other bee-friendly flowers. There might be some kind of slug that really likes the amaranth, because half of them were eaten! I have to manually water the garden since it is a long way from any of our water pumps. I am hoping that a heavy watering before travels will be enough to keep them alive!

We are also growing an herb area with basil, and more bachelor buttons (they're edible). There is not enough space with all of those gutter planters that we have, so we're going to have to install some more somewhere.

Exploring the north fork of the Skokomish River

Temperatures have been nearing 100 degrees on the farm.  We have been waking up early to do our farm work in the cooler temperatures.  That gives us the option to take a break from the hot weather and cool down when the sun is bearing down.  in the afternoon. One day, we decided to walk from our backyard to the Skokomish River.

Started under our farm bridge.  Waders on, and ready for action!

As we walked upstream, we found some nice deep, shady pockets.  Pretty sure some fish are in these areas.  Will bring out the fly fishing equipment on our next go round. 

Found a few native blackberries Rubus ursinus growing along the bank.  So much sweeter than those invasive Himalayan blackberries, and without those annoying prickly thorns.  A bummer the berries are so much smaller (and not as prolific).   

Soaking in the cool water on a warm day.  That water is about 60 degrees, if not cooler.  Thank goodness for breathable waders!

Salamander sunning itself amongst the river rocks

Lauren found some purple river rocks and decided to make some impromptu "eye-black" by rubber the pigment off the rock and strategically applying it.

The "futility" of walking upstream.  Parable for life and the day... It may be slow and hard work trudging against the river of life, but the beauties we see and experience along the way are so satisfying.  Just make sure you have a good pair of proverbial waders :)

What to do with old furniture padding

After moving in, we were left with a bunch of furniture padding from the movers.  Rather than throw them into the landfill, we tried to find a way to re-purpose them.  So, we embarked on a project of making a path to our bee hives (which are about 150 feet away in their own secluded little tree grove). 

Before laying down the padding, we acquired some no dig edging.

We mowed a path and laid out the edging to outline the path's borders  

Enlisted child labor to cut padding, fit to the edging borders, and drive in landscape spikes to secure in place 

Laid on wood chips, and now we have a walkable path to our bee hives (you can see them in the upper left corner.  The bee equipment structure is in the upper right)