At Last...

What a winter we had out here in the sticks!  I know we haven't updated in quite a while so I'll try to catch up a bit.  We are certainly glad to see the four foot drifts slowly sink away and leave the ground bare once again. Living in the middle of a corn field is fantastic... when there's corn.  In winter we are left with no windbreak for half a mile around, and the results are pretty impressive.  The drift I am standing on is easily chest high if I were standing next to the water jug at the bottom.

During the coldest week of January we somehow managed to have 10 rabbits born and all survived!   We were terrified and amazed at the same time during that week.  Our does are wonderful mothers.

In March we welcomed a new puppy home, her name is Misty and she's WAY faster than she looks. She enjoys chasing pretty much anything, which is why she came with 3 legs :)

Misty's newest friends are 4 chickens, 2 ducks and 4 turkeys.  She absolutely adores them and won't stop staring at them intently.  We inherited a coop and all the supplies from a super nice friend of ours who hasn't had chickens in years.  

We are on our second litters of the year already with our meat rabbits.  We were super nervous about the butchering process at first, but it gets much easier with practice.  I won't get too detailed but if anyone did want to know more all they'd have to do is ask! We currently have 12 bunnies out there about 5 weeks old.  They have turned out to be a lot of fun to raise and a delicious source of fresh meat.  Along with venison we don't need to buy any meat and it's fantastic.

 About two weeks ago we transplanted 40 black raspberry plants from the gnarl on the side of the shed to a nice patch out in the open.  We will be trellising them so that they are easier to access and I hope to kill the grass using cardboard and mulch around the whole thing.  We will also be adding a couple of grape vines a friend gave me and the two blueberry plants I got from Geoff for our 3 year anniversary.  The picture on the right is the way I decided I was going to attempt to grow strawberries this year.  Having seen elaborate build-it-yourself planter boxes, rain gutters brimming with berries and PVC pipe planters I was stumped about what my best option was.  Then I thought, forget going to great lengths to acquire materials and build all this junk. I'll just use some of that mound of drain pipe in the back yard.  So here we are, I hope that they hang down the sides the same way that the rain gutters full of berries do!

The hops have been up and putting on tiny leaves for quite some time now.  This year will be the first year that we get a full harvest from them and we couldn't be more excited about all the beer we get to brew with them.

The progress in the greenhouse is great!  So far we have been eating fresh spinach and lettuce with peas, radishes, cilantro, and garlic coming on fast.  I have white clover taking over everything but I'm not too mad about it.

<-- Garlic

Oh! and some of the most exciting things in my opinion are the four hives of bees we installed this spring!  I am just learning beekeeping but so far it is one of the coolest things I have ever experienced.

Planting season is getting underway at the farm so we will be working hard between Geoff's farming job, erecting the chicken coop, tilling and planting our own garden and green forages for the bees and rabbits.  We seem to take on more and more... it's super rewarding seeing how much we can accomplish :)