Summer!

This afternoon has turned rainy (which I welcome heartily!) so I thought I would catch up and do a little blogging. I have not written for a while, for this I apologize. Life has kind of been coasting for a bit with not a lot of documentable change. But now I have a few things to share as summer takes off.

First is that the house will be started... really soon! We have as of now accumulated our refrigerator, range, bath tub, kitchen sink, kitchen cabinets (sitting in the barn), and a dishwasher that we have yet to pick up. We are almost ready to commit to a house plan and submit that plan to the town. We have decided to dig a well instead of drill it, and also due to major structural hurdles we are going to be building a slightly bigger house than we had planned, but it will be about 1000 square feet... small by most peoples standards! More on this in the future.

The chickens are still growing and maturing, we have about 6-8 weeks left until they will start to lay and I will greatly enjoy passing the egg section at the store when they do! When they get closer to laying I will switch them to an organic feed, currently they are on a standard growing feed. Next year I plan to add a few different breeds to spice up the flock, all the girls are the same! I would love some colored eggs to break up the brown as well as have enough to sell regularly.

Next up I have a trip planned to a local dairy goat farm where I am planning to buy my goats from! I will be buying 2 doe kids next spring to start a small milking herd. Ah, the thought of crossing off the dairy section of the grocery list is a sweet one! I would like to pasture them in the spring-fall seasons so we will get the great benefits of grass fed milk, but we will see what we have to work with. I will take pictures and do a post on the farm tour!

Today, as you can see from the picture above, I made planter boxes for the greenhouse to plant my tomatoes and peppers. This was an adventure for sure! I went to Home Depot with the kids this morning and picked up my materials and organic potting soil. After Mini was down for a nap and Puzzle Boy was playing well on his new swing set, I got busy with making the boxes. I cut everything to size and then assembled one box before PB wanted to go in for lunch. I got him settled with that then finished the rest of the boxes on the walkway so I could watch him in the house. Later, I carried them out, rearranged the greenhouse, lined the boxes with plastic (I used pressure treated wood, can't have the chemicals get in the soil), and filled them with the potting soil. Planted the tomatoes, peppers and two dill plants and then pruned all the tomatoes quite heavily. They have started blooming and need only a good 3-4 strong branches under the blooms to thrive, all other leaves are just a energy suck. I want tomatoes not leaves! After all the pruning I arranged my remaining plants on the spare table outside to catch the rain and cleaned up.

I am also focusing on knitting in my spare time and keep wanting to tackle the barn... although I think I have to resign to the fact that it might be best to wait until we move to bother.

Oh the anticipation of our future once we are in the house and can build up our own land with orchards, gardens and livestock! My dreams come true, to raise my kids in such a wholesome environment of life and nature! All it takes is constant puttering, haha! Ok, maybe a little money too. You get my point right?

Til next time!