Busy Days

Our lettuce patch.

Making new friends.

I know most people this time of year are busy
with graduation parties, weddings, school ceremonies and the many other things that keep us busy. The same applies to us here but we also have the added hectic schedule of our homestead.

On a homestead late spring is quite a busy time. It is the time for kidding, selling kids, bringing in new ones, bottle feedings, garden work, farmers market and did I mention garden work.

Here are a few photos that capture our hectic but wonderful days.

Nim our new buckling

"Nice to meet you"

 Cleaning time

Managing a growing Herd






















Mommas and Their Kids

Play time

Feeding time

 Sometimes we are the momma!

Everything in the garden green.

Grateful for a Thriving
Garden

Handmade signs  at the market
give things our personal touch.

Bringing a baby goat gets lots of attention.

A display of herbs for sale.

Who could resist buying from this smiling face?

At the Farmers' Market

Spring Happenings on the Homestead

Sweet-Pea one of
our newest additions.

Clearing and cleaning the raised bed area.

It was a tough winter but we made it through. Spring comes forth with new life, warmth and beauty, but it also brings forth many projects! The homestead is in full swing with kids, repairs, clean up and garden work.

Rob gets busy fixing
the fences that the snow
and goats damaged.

 























It is a whole family affair. It is a lot of work but many hands makes it feel light. We all feel a sense of accomplishment and pride at the end of  the day.

Kolbe helps dad.

We also added fencing
to give us some more garden
area.

The goats watch us work on
the other side!

Donovan got busy making some
more raised beds.

He did a great job.

Peas planted
in their new bed.

Strawberry

 Plants are sprouting everywhere!

Rhubarb

Garlic

Charlotte and Kolbe
clean the area and
discuss what is to be done.

The human kids thought it would be a good idea to clean up an old fire pit in the new garden area. They decided to make it into a grotto with a rock flower garden.

The girls working
hard on their project.

A job well done!
It looks beautiful.

The Importance of Thinning Out and Diligence

 I know I can stand to lose a few pounds, okay more than a few, but I'm not posting about dieting today. I'm sharing a lessoned learned with all of you.

Thinning out means when in the earlier stages of your plant (seedling stage) you give your little plant more room to grow big. You can cut the seedlings that are too close or pull them out so you have them spaced better. I knew this was important but didn't realize how important. I mean it is really hard to yank or cut your little plants when they just started growing. It is easy with kale or other greens cause they are microgreens at this point. Microgreens are a delicacy. You can just toss them in salads. 

But during the spring when my carrots were just wee seedlings. . . I thinned out one section but got lazy and left the other section. I rationalized my laziness by thinking I was growing more carrots. And besides isn't it wasting to just toss them in compost. Yeah, I know I could of fed them to the goats or chickens. Repeat  . . . lazy . . . it was hot that day . . .
Lesson learned and here is my proof. 

Now see photo. You don't have to be a gardener, green thumb or a rocket scientist to see which carrot came from the not-thinned-out row and which came from the thinned-out row. 

Overall my carrot harvest was pretty good . . . but it could have been better will just a little more effort. Homestead lesson learned.

The slack hand impoverishes, but the hand of the diligent enriches. Proverbs 10:4

Rosemary, Rosemary wherefore art thou

New hopeful rosemary plant awaits it fate in the garden.

For the 16 years Rob and I have been married, I have grown herbs in our home. Basil, parsley, oregano in little terra cotta pots sat pretty on the windowsill of our first apartment. In our city home I grew the same herbs (adding thyme and cilantro) in buckets on the back porch. Last year our garden produced enough basil(in the varieties of genovese,thai,lemon and lime) thyme, oregano, parsley,  cilantro, even chamomile; to be dried or frozen for use the entire year. So what gives? Where is the rosemary?

I remember the first time this little evergreen shrub found it's way into my life. Rob brought one home as a gift, it was our first year together and he knew how much I loved potted plants over cut flowers. "Wow, it looks like a little Christmas tree." I remember saying. "Is that really the stuff you put on chicken?" It just needed sun and water like the other herbs, right? Wrong, six months later my "little Christmas tree" looked like it had been caught in a forest fire. 

Poor little rosemary plant from last year R.I.P.

This strange ritual continued for many years. Rob would buy me a rosemary plant and I would kill it. He even tried spiral shaped, topiary, big sized, small sized, creeping or skewer type. Kill, kill, kill. . . .he gave up. "You can just buy it already in a little jar." he said. I thought I gave up too and ordered a full pound from a food co-op. I added it to many of my favorite dishes. But everytime planting time would come around I could not resist it, the smell, the texture. It would just find it's way back to my home. 

Oh, I know my problem was not enough research. So I hit the books. This well-know culinary herb is an old-fashioned remedy for colds, colic and nervous conditions. It is great as an astringent, hair tonic, mouth wash and sore throat gargle. Okay that just made me want to use it more . . .how do I not kill it? This old gardening book I found said it was a half-hardy perennial for New England. So that year I planted it directly in the garden. It did quite well and I even covered it for the winter. The following spring it was dead.  

Last year I potted it and left it in the garden. It did well all summer, fall. I brought it in in the winter and it actually thrived I brought back to the garden but by mid-spring it was yikes, dead once again.

I returned to the books. "There's Rosemary, that's for remembrance: Pray you, love, remember." William Shakespeare (Hamlet). So even Shakespeare had a thing for rosemary. I found out that students in ancient Greece wore wreaths of rosemary leaves, to aid the memory. And that, in some places they called it "elf-leaves" because even the elves had an affinity for it. My thoughts changed when I came across this old proverb: "Where Rosemary flourishes, the lady rules."

Newly planted little discount rosemary plants.

Was that it? Was Rob the true culprit? Has he been secretly sabotaging the rosemary all these years? Or are You Lord my God trying to teach me something? 

I truly surrendered to Rob, God, and the rosemary, until I came upon these two little rosemary plants. They were at a discount, surely I could try one more time.

Dear God, Rob can be the head of the household, just please, please let the rosemary live.