Every month/season/year I think: The end is right around the corner. Life is about to calm down and I can spend more time knitting/cooking/sleeping/hanging with my husband/kids/critters, etc.
That has yet to actually happen. EVER.
Getting our new business up and running has been a full time-plus undertaking for the past few months now. Meeting with suppliers-bankers-contractors, renovating our space, marketing, hiring employees and doing 90% of the physical labor on the building ourselves... it's kicking our butts a little.
Then we have life on the home front - kidding season, garden planning, fostering dogs, fending off raccoon and coyote attacks, attempting (and failing) to keep my house and yard presentable, seeing my kids for more that 5 minutes per day, etc. Le Fail.
I offer last Friday as an example:
*My oldest stayed home from school sick.
*My youngest came home early from school, sick.
*My big dogs escaped. Thrice. That meant that I had to keep them in the house for the day after escape #3. Guess how productive a gal can be when she's being stalked by two giant, cagey dogs and two needy daughters? Not very.
*Our septic tank filled up so completely that we couldn't run any two of the following at the same time: the shower, toilet, dishwasher, clothes washer. When water did successfully go down the drain, we were "rewarded" with a burp from the toilet. Magical.
So... how's Winter treating you?
Showing posts with label this old house. Show all posts
Showing posts with label this old house. Show all posts
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Saturday, December 8, 2012
The Goatses with the Mostest
Dairy time is about done for us here. The does have all been dried off, and have very likely already been re-bred by our escape-artist of a buck, Buckley. So we'll be buying milk until February at least, but not having to milk in the cold and wet makes the trade off quite fair.
On a day like this, when I'm missing my goat milk in my coffee, I come across a post from a fellow farm chick, Matron at Throwback at Trapper Creek. She has a gorgeous Guernsey, Jane, who gives her four gallons of milk per day. I have a mild case of cow envy.
Sure, we'd drown in 4 gallons per day, but the stuff is golden and just...amazing. I could make a whole different assortment of cheeses, and enough butter that I wouldn't have to hit up Costco whenever a baking jag hits. And we could feed the extra to the pigs that we plan to get this Spring. Oh, the things I could do with all that milk...
But.
But, we only have 3 1/2 acres.
A full acre of that land (the bog) is under water 9 months out of the year.
We have well water and a septic system, which means that we basically recycle the same water constantly. I try really hard to maintain balance in those systems by not overwhelming the septic with chemicals, phosphates or tons of cow poo. Goat poop is in "jellybean" form, and can be cleaned up/moved easily, and breaks down slowly. A giant cow pat in the rain will end up running off into our bog, and eventually our septic/well system. Simply put, it would just be too much for our little foothold to handle.
We've already committed to pigs this coming late Winter/early Spring. And their care and "output" will be plenty for this little farm to take on. The reason that we green-lit the pig idea, rather than the cow, was primarily because there is an end date to it. The pigs will be with us for no longer than 9 months, at which point we can evaluate whether the cost/work/impact was worth the trouble.
So, for the foreseeable future, goats will be where our dairy begins and ends. And really, these little gals do a pretty bang-up job of providing us with milk for our coffee, little batches of snowy white butter, some really intense aged parmesan, and the secret ingredient for our lovely homemade soaps.
These are the gals who make it happen. Thanks again, girls.
On a day like this, when I'm missing my goat milk in my coffee, I come across a post from a fellow farm chick, Matron at Throwback at Trapper Creek. She has a gorgeous Guernsey, Jane, who gives her four gallons of milk per day. I have a mild case of cow envy.
Sure, we'd drown in 4 gallons per day, but the stuff is golden and just...amazing. I could make a whole different assortment of cheeses, and enough butter that I wouldn't have to hit up Costco whenever a baking jag hits. And we could feed the extra to the pigs that we plan to get this Spring. Oh, the things I could do with all that milk...
But.
But, we only have 3 1/2 acres.
A full acre of that land (the bog) is under water 9 months out of the year.
We have well water and a septic system, which means that we basically recycle the same water constantly. I try really hard to maintain balance in those systems by not overwhelming the septic with chemicals, phosphates or tons of cow poo. Goat poop is in "jellybean" form, and can be cleaned up/moved easily, and breaks down slowly. A giant cow pat in the rain will end up running off into our bog, and eventually our septic/well system. Simply put, it would just be too much for our little foothold to handle.
We've already committed to pigs this coming late Winter/early Spring. And their care and "output" will be plenty for this little farm to take on. The reason that we green-lit the pig idea, rather than the cow, was primarily because there is an end date to it. The pigs will be with us for no longer than 9 months, at which point we can evaluate whether the cost/work/impact was worth the trouble.
So, for the foreseeable future, goats will be where our dairy begins and ends. And really, these little gals do a pretty bang-up job of providing us with milk for our coffee, little batches of snowy white butter, some really intense aged parmesan, and the secret ingredient for our lovely homemade soaps.
These are the gals who make it happen. Thanks again, girls.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Homemade Carpet Shampoo
Having light colored carpets in a farmhouse is giant pain. I've accepted that my carpet is somewhat of a lost cause as far as it ever being truly clean and free of stains, and really, I'm ok with that. But, in spite of the fact that I've made peace with the sorry state of my carpet, I still like to give it a shampoo now and then, just to liberate some of the yuckier muck that has collected down deep. Our foster dog, sweet Cici, sort of accelerated my cleaning schedule by having a couple of "whoopsies" during her first few days here.
I borrowed my sister's carpet shampooer, but needed cleaner. You can buy a bottle of the cleaner that they sell for use with Rug Doctors wherever they rent the shampooers, but that stuff is spendy, and I prefer gentle, non-toxic cleaning alternatives anyway, so I decided to skip the store and see if I could make a comparable, effective, and non-scary alternative. This is the recipe that I cobbled together from several that I came across.
*1 quart hot tap water (not boiling!)
*1/4 cup hydrogen peroxide*
*1 tablespoon white vinegar
That's it! Other recipes suggested maybe adding some dish soap or essential oils to the mix, but I think that soap and oil on/in your carpet leaves a bit of sticky residue behind that can actually make your carpets more likely to grab and hold on to dirt and gunk.
A sample of my results-
I took the "after" shot immediately after cleaning, so I expect that the carpet will lighten up further upon drying completely. So far, I'm really pleased with the results.
*A word of caution with regard to the use of hydrogen peroxide - it has the potential to have a bleaching effect if used directly, in too large an amount or on deeply colored fibers that aren't terribly colorfast. Obviously, I'm not worried about my carpet getting too white (that's never gonna happen!), but if you are, test the cleaner on a small, hidden area first, and/or reduce the amount of peroxide in your solution.
I borrowed my sister's carpet shampooer, but needed cleaner. You can buy a bottle of the cleaner that they sell for use with Rug Doctors wherever they rent the shampooers, but that stuff is spendy, and I prefer gentle, non-toxic cleaning alternatives anyway, so I decided to skip the store and see if I could make a comparable, effective, and non-scary alternative. This is the recipe that I cobbled together from several that I came across.
*1 quart hot tap water (not boiling!)
*1/4 cup hydrogen peroxide*
*1 tablespoon white vinegar
That's it! Other recipes suggested maybe adding some dish soap or essential oils to the mix, but I think that soap and oil on/in your carpet leaves a bit of sticky residue behind that can actually make your carpets more likely to grab and hold on to dirt and gunk.
A sample of my results-
A puppy accident that we did not find immediately. It was there long enough to dry completely, but still came up nicely with just a few passes of the shampooer and no pre-treatment.
I took the "after" shot immediately after cleaning, so I expect that the carpet will lighten up further upon drying completely. So far, I'm really pleased with the results.
*A word of caution with regard to the use of hydrogen peroxide - it has the potential to have a bleaching effect if used directly, in too large an amount or on deeply colored fibers that aren't terribly colorfast. Obviously, I'm not worried about my carpet getting too white (that's never gonna happen!), but if you are, test the cleaner on a small, hidden area first, and/or reduce the amount of peroxide in your solution.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Kick-starting a Cottage Kitchen
The Washington State Cottage Food Law is on its way! Soon, I might be able to sell my jam, jellies, baked goods and more to complete strangers at markets or from right here on the farm. :)
But my kitchen is wee, and the CF regulations require that you store your personal food/ingredients separately from your "commercial" foods, which would be a serious obstacle to having an approved kitchen. So I'm wondering - should I seriously consider expanding/renovating my little kitchen?
I could get a bid on the work and equipment, then launch a kickstarter fund drive and cross my fingers. The idea of making my homemade food for the masses makes me kinda giddy. I'd also like to start making some bath products (soap, lotion) with some of our goat milk. Those types of items wouldn't fall under the heading of a cottage food product, but an increased kitchen space and facilities would certainly afford me more space in which to produce my goaty toiletries too.
What say you? Should I give this a serious go? Would you contribute to my cottage kitchen project for a small gift and my eternal thanks? ;)
But my kitchen is wee, and the CF regulations require that you store your personal food/ingredients separately from your "commercial" foods, which would be a serious obstacle to having an approved kitchen. So I'm wondering - should I seriously consider expanding/renovating my little kitchen?
I could get a bid on the work and equipment, then launch a kickstarter fund drive and cross my fingers. The idea of making my homemade food for the masses makes me kinda giddy. I'd also like to start making some bath products (soap, lotion) with some of our goat milk. Those types of items wouldn't fall under the heading of a cottage food product, but an increased kitchen space and facilities would certainly afford me more space in which to produce my goaty toiletries too.
What say you? Should I give this a serious go? Would you contribute to my cottage kitchen project for a small gift and my eternal thanks? ;)
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Reflections on my Year and a Half as a Farm Chick
In some ways I look back to when we moved in to our little white house on the bog and think, Has it really only been 18 months since we jumped head first into this adventure?
Then there are the days where I see the stacks of boxes in the basement, and the pictureless walls of our living room and think, Well we did just move in. There hasn't been time to get to ALL of the odds and ends!
In a weird way, both things are true. It has been a year and a half since we started down the build-a-farm-from-scratch path, but it has been an intense 18 months.
We've gone from 13 chickens, down to 5, then back up to an all time high of 40+ chickens (I don't plan on doing that again anytime soon). We started with two "female" bunnies who turned out to be a boy and girl, and whom had litters of babies like clockwork until we were able to get Papa bunny neutered.
We entered the world of livestock ownership with three goats, Spike, Archie & Gertie, and presently have 9 goats with more on the horizon in the near future.
We've crashed and burned hard, in our first year of gardening, but have lived and learned about what we did wrong and hope to build a garden this Spring that will feed us until next Spring.
I've also acquired a few bits of folksy wisdom and farm chick tricks along the way that have borne themselves out as true and useful for me-
*Foxes come out in force at the full moon. If the moon is full and nightfall sneaks up on you before you've had a chance to lock up the chickens, you've all but handed Mr. Fox his supper.
*The groundhog gets it wrong, but the frogs are always right. Phil says 6 more weeks of Winter, but the chorus of Pacific Tree Frogs who call my bog and pasture home say otherwise. This (times about 100) is what it sounds like at my house 3 weeks or so before Spring starts sneaking in.
*Critters escape, pipes burst and tires go flat at the worst possible time, always. And mostly when your hunky farm hand is away on a business trip.
*Goats will NOT eat anything. In fact, they're rather picky eaters. They will mouth just about anything to determine whether or not it is edible, which is probably where they got their unearned reputation as eaters of tin cans.
*To keep your chickens healthy and laying during the Winter months, supplement them with a carbohydrate (cracked corn, grain, day old bread) twice a day; once when you first turn them out in the morning and again right before they roost up for the night. The morning feed gives their body a little burst of calories that keep the eggs coming, the evening feed gives them a belly full of heat-generating carbohydrates that keep them sufficiently warm through the night without needing supplemental heat sources.
*A good pair of muck boots are worth their weight in gold. Spring for quality - they're an investment in your health and comfort!
I'm learning more little bits and pieces every day, and even though this place is still kicking my butt on a daily basis, I have an evolving vision of what it will be someday and that keeps me putting on my old jeans and my holey sweatshirt and getting back out there every day. Chipping away, S-L-O-W-L-Y but surely enough, we'll get there.
The little red shed, probably the closest thing we'll have to a proper barn for a while yet. ;)
Then there are the days where I see the stacks of boxes in the basement, and the pictureless walls of our living room and think, Well we did just move in. There hasn't been time to get to ALL of the odds and ends!
In a weird way, both things are true. It has been a year and a half since we started down the build-a-farm-from-scratch path, but it has been an intense 18 months.
We've gone from 13 chickens, down to 5, then back up to an all time high of 40+ chickens (I don't plan on doing that again anytime soon). We started with two "female" bunnies who turned out to be a boy and girl, and whom had litters of babies like clockwork until we were able to get Papa bunny neutered.
We entered the world of livestock ownership with three goats, Spike, Archie & Gertie, and presently have 9 goats with more on the horizon in the near future.
We've crashed and burned hard, in our first year of gardening, but have lived and learned about what we did wrong and hope to build a garden this Spring that will feed us until next Spring.
I've also acquired a few bits of folksy wisdom and farm chick tricks along the way that have borne themselves out as true and useful for me-
*Foxes come out in force at the full moon. If the moon is full and nightfall sneaks up on you before you've had a chance to lock up the chickens, you've all but handed Mr. Fox his supper.
*The groundhog gets it wrong, but the frogs are always right. Phil says 6 more weeks of Winter, but the chorus of Pacific Tree Frogs who call my bog and pasture home say otherwise. This (times about 100) is what it sounds like at my house 3 weeks or so before Spring starts sneaking in.
*Critters escape, pipes burst and tires go flat at the worst possible time, always. And mostly when your hunky farm hand is away on a business trip.
*Goats will NOT eat anything. In fact, they're rather picky eaters. They will mouth just about anything to determine whether or not it is edible, which is probably where they got their unearned reputation as eaters of tin cans.
*To keep your chickens healthy and laying during the Winter months, supplement them with a carbohydrate (cracked corn, grain, day old bread) twice a day; once when you first turn them out in the morning and again right before they roost up for the night. The morning feed gives their body a little burst of calories that keep the eggs coming, the evening feed gives them a belly full of heat-generating carbohydrates that keep them sufficiently warm through the night without needing supplemental heat sources.
*A good pair of muck boots are worth their weight in gold. Spring for quality - they're an investment in your health and comfort!
I'm learning more little bits and pieces every day, and even though this place is still kicking my butt on a daily basis, I have an evolving vision of what it will be someday and that keeps me putting on my old jeans and my holey sweatshirt and getting back out there every day. Chipping away, S-L-O-W-L-Y but surely enough, we'll get there.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Burn, baby, Burn!
I successfully built a fire in the wood stove this morning! It may sound like nothing much, but this is kind of a big deal for me.
I grew up in 1980's suburbia, in a "development". Baseboard heaters and pink-panther insulation kept us warm enough. Fires in the fireplace were heat-inefficient, and therefore were built only when the power went out, and once in a blue moon on a snowy evening. So while I appreciated a good fire in the hearth, I never really thought of them as needful, much less something that might require skill to make happen. Learning how to build a proper fire was simply not on my radar.
Then I married Bill, who doesn't build cozy fires, but face-melting infernos that will send you outside in a blizzard to escape their "warmth". If I wanted to wake up each morning, a raisin on wringing-wet sheets, I'd have Bill build the fire. Surprisingly, I'm actually not a fan of that, so I undertook to learn the craft myself. With much coaching from the hubby, but perhaps slightly more restraint in the shoving-in-as-much-wood-as-will-fit-in-this-thing arena, I struggled to get things going. My goal was to come down somewhere in between the strictly decorative presto-log fire of my youth and Bill's dehydrating blaze. And I feel like I may finally have the hang of it.
This morning's fire has been going for 4 hours now and the furnace hasn't clicked on once. Woot-woot!
Let's hope that I can keep this mojo going, because the bill from having the oil tank filled last week (270 gallons!) nearly gave me a stroke. So it's either the wood stove and lumpy homemade knits keeping us warm this winter or mama's going to need to sell a kidney to pay the oil man.
I grew up in 1980's suburbia, in a "development". Baseboard heaters and pink-panther insulation kept us warm enough. Fires in the fireplace were heat-inefficient, and therefore were built only when the power went out, and once in a blue moon on a snowy evening. So while I appreciated a good fire in the hearth, I never really thought of them as needful, much less something that might require skill to make happen. Learning how to build a proper fire was simply not on my radar.
Then I married Bill, who doesn't build cozy fires, but face-melting infernos that will send you outside in a blizzard to escape their "warmth". If I wanted to wake up each morning, a raisin on wringing-wet sheets, I'd have Bill build the fire. Surprisingly, I'm actually not a fan of that, so I undertook to learn the craft myself. With much coaching from the hubby, but perhaps slightly more restraint in the shoving-in-as-much-wood-as-will-fit-in-this-thing arena, I struggled to get things going. My goal was to come down somewhere in between the strictly decorative presto-log fire of my youth and Bill's dehydrating blaze. And I feel like I may finally have the hang of it.
This morning's fire has been going for 4 hours now and the furnace hasn't clicked on once. Woot-woot!
Let's hope that I can keep this mojo going, because the bill from having the oil tank filled last week (270 gallons!) nearly gave me a stroke. So it's either the wood stove and lumpy homemade knits keeping us warm this winter or mama's going to need to sell a kidney to pay the oil man.
Monday, August 23, 2010
We're here!
Just a quick howdy to all my homeboys and girls on the interwebs. We're in the house, surrounded by boxes, overwhelmed by our new yard (and missing our old garden), enjoying the quiet, adjusting to the taste of well water ;p and just generally exhausted and blissfully happy to finally be HOME.
Pics forthcoming, as soon as the camera can be located.
By the way - the farm name debate drags on. Bill leans toward Boggy Hollow Farm (because Boggy Hollow Beer sounds better as a name for his homebrew, so he says), while I and many of you prefer Soggy Bottom Farm. Maybe a compromise? Boggy Bottom Farm, Soggy Hollow Farm? Help!
Pics forthcoming, as soon as the camera can be located.
By the way - the farm name debate drags on. Bill leans toward Boggy Hollow Farm (because Boggy Hollow Beer sounds better as a name for his homebrew, so he says), while I and many of you prefer Soggy Bottom Farm. Maybe a compromise? Boggy Bottom Farm, Soggy Hollow Farm? Help!
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Input Requested - Name this farm!
Our very soon-to-be new place, our little farm, is going to need a name. I've been mulling this over for a while, trying to think of something unique, witty and fitting. I've got so many weird possibilities that I thought I'd run a few by you, but first, you'll need a bit of info on our farm and what we hope to do with it.
Our new place is located on one of many peninsulas in Western Washington, which means a few things -
A) The soil is clay, rocks and more clay, but mostly, clay.
B) We get a lot of rainfall.
C) Our back pasture is a very small valley with clay soil, which is to say, it is boggy.
D) The main food crop grown on our little peninsula is blueberries, because they don't mind the standing water or the acidity from our abundant fir and pine forests.
E) Our main focus will be poultry, at least at first. Chickens and turkeys for sure, maybe ducks too and somewhere down the line, we'll look into getting something with hooves. We will also, of course, have a hefty garden - eventually.
With all that in mind, I humbly toss out a few of the names that have drifted through my head, when thinking of this farm-
*Homemakers Acres
*Soggy Bottom Farm
*Jackson Family Farmstead
*Pampered Poultry & Produce
*Two Sisters Organics (This is the girls' choice, though I think we'd have to be certified to use this name - d'oh!)
*Little White House Produce & Poultry
*White House Farmstead
*???
Feel free to leave your thoughts and suggestions in the form of a comment or email, though I don't know if/when I'll be able to view it, since my internet was supposed to be shut down yesterday, Comcast could drop the hammer at any moment.
See y'all on the flipside! ;)
Our new place is located on one of many peninsulas in Western Washington, which means a few things -
A) The soil is clay, rocks and more clay, but mostly, clay.
B) We get a lot of rainfall.
C) Our back pasture is a very small valley with clay soil, which is to say, it is boggy.
D) The main food crop grown on our little peninsula is blueberries, because they don't mind the standing water or the acidity from our abundant fir and pine forests.
E) Our main focus will be poultry, at least at first. Chickens and turkeys for sure, maybe ducks too and somewhere down the line, we'll look into getting something with hooves. We will also, of course, have a hefty garden - eventually.
With all that in mind, I humbly toss out a few of the names that have drifted through my head, when thinking of this farm-
*Homemakers Acres
*Soggy Bottom Farm
*Jackson Family Farmstead
*Pampered Poultry & Produce
*Two Sisters Organics (This is the girls' choice, though I think we'd have to be certified to use this name - d'oh!)
*Little White House Produce & Poultry
*White House Farmstead
*???
Feel free to leave your thoughts and suggestions in the form of a comment or email, though I don't know if/when I'll be able to view it, since my internet was supposed to be shut down yesterday, Comcast could drop the hammer at any moment.
See y'all on the flipside! ;)
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Sometimes it's the Little Things...
We've been packing up this house, bit by bit, for more than 2 months now. I started with our least essential items - baby books, my wedding dress, Christmas decorations, and slowly progressed toward our more everyday items - towels, clothes, dishes. In this weird period of living without 90% of my stuff, I've had a chance to rethink my take on simplicity and which material goods have truly become essentials, as in, the stuff you should pack 10 minutes before you leave your house for good. Here are my findings-
Stuff I actually needed:
-Cell phone chargers
-An old-school paper phone book
-Corkscrew
-Deodorant, hairbrush & toothbrushes
-Diana Gabaldon Books
-My Knitting
-Towels
-Sharpies
-COFFEE MAKER
Stuff I thought I needed:
-DVDs (As if I have the time. These were actually more for the girls, but they prefer to follow me around asking Whatcha doin'? every 10 seconds instead.)
-Curling Iron (I curl my hair a few times a year. Did I think that someone was going to ask me to prom between now and the weekend?)
-Toilet plunger - I'm pretty glad that this turned out to be unneeded.
-Blankets (It's been in the upper 80's and 90's all week, which is like living on the surface of the sun to a born and bred Washingtonian.)
-My P-touch labeler (Who the hell am I, Martha Stewart?)
Ahhh... live and learn.
Stuff I actually needed:
-Cell phone chargers
-An old-school paper phone book
-Corkscrew
-Deodorant, hairbrush & toothbrushes
-Diana Gabaldon Books
-My Knitting
-Towels
-Sharpies
-COFFEE MAKER
Stuff I thought I needed:
-DVDs (As if I have the time. These were actually more for the girls, but they prefer to follow me around asking Whatcha doin'? every 10 seconds instead.)
-Curling Iron (I curl my hair a few times a year. Did I think that someone was going to ask me to prom between now and the weekend?)
-Toilet plunger - I'm pretty glad that this turned out to be unneeded.
-Blankets (It's been in the upper 80's and 90's all week, which is like living on the surface of the sun to a born and bred Washingtonian.)
-My P-touch labeler (Who the hell am I, Martha Stewart?)
Ahhh... live and learn.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Un-duh Press-shuh
T-minus 5 days until the start of the big move. I am oscillating between hummingbird-like packing frenzies and shut-out-the world napping sprees. I AM NEVER MOVING AGAIN.
In the midst of all of the crazy, we've all been managing to distract ourselves quite nicely from that whole cleaning/packing/sign-you-life-away-on-the-dotted-line thing. Bill and his Grandpa went fishing up in Alaska for a week. Together, they came home with over 80 pounds of salmon and halibut - that's the filleted weight!
Those handsome Jackson boys and their fishies
The girls and I have been crazy busy with camping, berry picking, county fairs and walks on the beach. The county fair may have been a mistake. My cousins' girls were there showing everything from chickens to pigs, and I think that a pair of 4-H maniacs have been born. Here we go again. Liv is already ogling the model chickens in her backyard poultry magazine, and lobbying for a pond so that we might raise her beloved Cayuga ducks. My head is spinning with the possibilities and the more pressing matters of actually getting the real estate stuff wrapped up. I need another nap.
When I resurface, I'll be whipping up a batch of Oregon Grape Jam, showing off my British Columbian foodie prize package (thanks again, Meghan!) and hosting my own pay-it-forward foodie package giveaway.
In the midst of all of the crazy, we've all been managing to distract ourselves quite nicely from that whole cleaning/packing/sign-you-life-away-on-the-dotted-line thing. Bill and his Grandpa went fishing up in Alaska for a week. Together, they came home with over 80 pounds of salmon and halibut - that's the filleted weight!
The girls and I have been crazy busy with camping, berry picking, county fairs and walks on the beach. The county fair may have been a mistake. My cousins' girls were there showing everything from chickens to pigs, and I think that a pair of 4-H maniacs have been born. Here we go again. Liv is already ogling the model chickens in her backyard poultry magazine, and lobbying for a pond so that we might raise her beloved Cayuga ducks. My head is spinning with the possibilities and the more pressing matters of actually getting the real estate stuff wrapped up. I need another nap.
When I resurface, I'll be whipping up a batch of Oregon Grape Jam, showing off my British Columbian foodie prize package (thanks again, Meghan!) and hosting my own pay-it-forward foodie package giveaway.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Weary
Packing up this house and hashing out plans for our move has me feeling bone-tired and mentally fried. I am so ready to be done.
It isn't even that I'm just sick of all of the business of packing and making offers and counter-offers and all of that mess. I'm torn right down the middle about being thrilled out of my mind and scared to death about this move. I can't believe we're selling this house! I cannot believe that I'm leaving my garden, my baby apple tree and my gnarly little pond!
After eight years of piecemeal DIY projects and landscaping, we finally were able to get this house and yard pretty much where we wanted it to be - raised beds full of our own compost, bountiful blueberry bushes and now, a freshly-renovated upstairs bathroom. And now we're walking away from it. Remind me why again?
Oh yes, it was that whole farm thing. That's what touched off this whirlwind.
When I'm not maniacally packing boxes and painting walls into the wee hours, I'm daydreaming and scheming about our (hopefully, hopefully) soon-to-be new house. Our farm. I want turkeys and more chickens. I think I might even want a goat. I want to put in a good half acre or more of blueberries and maybe cranberries too. I want to raise red wrigglers for sale and start my own CSA. My mind is racing with possibilities, only limited by my going-going-gone energy and this painfully slow and complicated process of buying and selling houses simultaneously. Good Lord, what I would give to have this over already, and to be back tending a garden that I will actually still own when it begins to bear it's fruits.
It isn't even that I'm just sick of all of the business of packing and making offers and counter-offers and all of that mess. I'm torn right down the middle about being thrilled out of my mind and scared to death about this move. I can't believe we're selling this house! I cannot believe that I'm leaving my garden, my baby apple tree and my gnarly little pond!
After eight years of piecemeal DIY projects and landscaping, we finally were able to get this house and yard pretty much where we wanted it to be - raised beds full of our own compost, bountiful blueberry bushes and now, a freshly-renovated upstairs bathroom. And now we're walking away from it. Remind me why again?
Oh yes, it was that whole farm thing. That's what touched off this whirlwind.
When I'm not maniacally packing boxes and painting walls into the wee hours, I'm daydreaming and scheming about our (hopefully, hopefully) soon-to-be new house. Our farm. I want turkeys and more chickens. I think I might even want a goat. I want to put in a good half acre or more of blueberries and maybe cranberries too. I want to raise red wrigglers for sale and start my own CSA. My mind is racing with possibilities, only limited by my going-going-gone energy and this painfully slow and complicated process of buying and selling houses simultaneously. Good Lord, what I would give to have this over already, and to be back tending a garden that I will actually still own when it begins to bear it's fruits.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Here we go!
Well, it's about as official as anything ever is in our life, we're moving. It has been almost 8 years since we bought our current house, so the idea of packing it up and leaving fills me with more dread, anxiety and excitement than any move previous. I am a bundle of freaked-out energy right now!
Lest I jinx myself, I won't say too much about the place that we have our eye on, except to say that it has 3.5 acres (that's 14 times more property than we have now), and that it is just up the road a piece. Oh, what the heck here's a pic of our hopefully house-
Isn't it cute? :)
Even loving the hopefully-new-place as much as I do. I'm going to have a really hard time giving up our house. It is a gorgeous old 1920's craftsman on a double lot in one of the best neighborhoods in the state capitol. It's is exactly what we wanted at the time that we bought it, a farm house in the city. We made wonderful friends with our neighbors, our family grew here, Scarlet was born here. I love every creaky floorboard and wonky-old door. If I could pick this place up and move it to a 5-acre piece of farmland, I'd do it in a heartbeat. In fact, that's been Scarlet's plan all along. She wants to fill the house with balloons (Up style) and float it down the road to a plot of land with orchards and horses and rose gardens all ready to go. If only...
So anyway, if you see a little less of me, it's because I'm busy packing/painting/cleaning/rocking-back-and-forth-by-myself-in-a-corner-somewhere. I just have to keep reminding myself that just on the other side of all of the packing and change and goodbyes lie my green pastures, turkey poults and big old apple trees.
Lest I jinx myself, I won't say too much about the place that we have our eye on, except to say that it has 3.5 acres (that's 14 times more property than we have now), and that it is just up the road a piece. Oh, what the heck here's a pic of our hopefully house-
Isn't it cute? :)
Even loving the hopefully-new-place as much as I do. I'm going to have a really hard time giving up our house. It is a gorgeous old 1920's craftsman on a double lot in one of the best neighborhoods in the state capitol. It's is exactly what we wanted at the time that we bought it, a farm house in the city. We made wonderful friends with our neighbors, our family grew here, Scarlet was born here. I love every creaky floorboard and wonky-old door. If I could pick this place up and move it to a 5-acre piece of farmland, I'd do it in a heartbeat. In fact, that's been Scarlet's plan all along. She wants to fill the house with balloons (Up style) and float it down the road to a plot of land with orchards and horses and rose gardens all ready to go. If only...
So anyway, if you see a little less of me, it's because I'm busy packing/painting/cleaning/rocking-back-and-forth-by-myself-in-a-corner-somewhere. I just have to keep reminding myself that just on the other side of all of the packing and change and goodbyes lie my green pastures, turkey poults and big old apple trees.
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