Onions, leeks and peas, oh my!

We received our onions from Dixondale Farms in the mail on March 4th. We took them out of the packaging and placed them in this crate so they would have air circulation while they awaited being tucked into their beds out in the garden.

 

 

 One thing led to another and they waited and waited until I finally just decided that TODAY WAS THE DAY!

Saturday, what a day!

We had an outdoor work day this past weekend.  It was a beautiful day and we all worked hard and got quite a bit accomplished.  I am so proud of the character our children are developing!  I'll include some of the pictures that we have taken that show the "before" aspect along with the pictures of everyone working and the end results.  It always feels so good to remember what it used to look like and be able to see all that we are accomlishing as we take dominion over this bit o' earth.

Genotyping results of Sweetiebelle are in!

This is the portrait of the foundation of the future Hake family herd...

Many years ago Steve and I began dreaming of owning our own family milk cow.  Over the years we slowly refined our dream as we sifted through new information and decided what we, personally, preferred. 

Savoring the sweetness

Life is always busy.  If it isn't one thing it's another.  The trick is to keep the plates spinning that cannot be forgotten about while juggling in a few things here and there to keep things spicey.  Sometimes I get so busy putting out fires and whacking moles that I lose sight of the sweetness of my life. 

Winter Sowing Part 2

The next day, with the aid of my lovely assistants we scooped out the potting mix into a large bowl and wet it a bit and filled the bottle bottoms up to about 1 inch below the rim.

I let Emily have one of the trays to sow her flower seeds in.  We each chose our seeds and labeled popsicle sticks to keep track of what is in each bottle.

Winter Sowing Part 1

In my research efforts to try to minimize my risk of failure at starting seeds indoors, I stumbled across a curious concept that I've never heard of but am intrigued by...winter sowing.  Since I have so much time on my hands and nothing better to do but dream up things to keep myself busy with, I just couldn't resist jumping right in and trying it.  I figure with attempting to start seeds both indoors and out maybe I can up my success rate.  Couldn't hurt.

I spent a little bit of time reading around online about it and my darling beloved brought me home some wonderful scavenger treasures and we have begun the experiment!

Steve is so very green and brought me a love offering (which scored major bonus points) of plastic pop bottles and a handy-dandy plastic tray to hold them ever so nicely.  This will be wonderful!

Dreaming big...getting ready to start seeds indoors

We are getting excited about starting our first garden in our new home.  The garden bed has been resting while we've been leafing through seed catalogs and dreaming of what we'd like to grow.  We found that it is just as important to not browse seed catalogs while hungry as it is to not grocery shop while hungry! 

We have tried twice to start seeds indoors and both times it didn't go well.  But we really like peppers and we use tomato products year round and would really like to be able to grow our own peppers and tomatoes and be able to grow some interesting and heirloom varieties.  So, we are going to try it again. 

Recovering from a virus

Our long, wonderful stretch of good health has come to an end.  We haven't had anyone sick for almost a year and it was very much appreciated and enjoyed.  I was sort of holding my breath wondering if we'd make it through February.  It seems that is our sick month.  But, alas, we didn't make it and several people came down with a stomach virus.  And a strange one it was, too.  It has lasted over a week.  Most people weathered it alright,