sum sum summa time

saturday morning with daddy

a little slice of sherpa heaven

fresh lettuce from the garden to the table

can you see it? look very close...it's there if you stare long enough

Gardens, Flowers, and Fruits of Labor

Welcome to summer on the farm. It's full of blooming flowers, a running creek, shooting lettuces...and loads of crabgrass in the garden . Every season has it's ups and downs. I guess that could be said of childrearing, seasons of life...let's see, what else? All kidding aside, this truly is the prettiest season so far on the farm. It's the 3rd year that we have been living in our home, the 3rd year we've planted (a scaled down) garden, the 3rd year of John's life, and the 3rd year that grass has sprung in the front yard. It's a vast improvement over the past ~ rocks out front, a cranky toddler...ew!!

Mesclun, with a hint of peas creeping in.

Can anyone guess which crop in the garden already has flowers?

Personally, I don't think there is anything better than watching my husband work in the garden...it shows how limber he still is after all these years.

Strawberry season is winding down for us...we lost our plants last year to some pesky invasive goats so we had to start anew...a least we had a few fruits to enjoy.

Sherpa...watching faithfully, never lifting a helping paw.

We are gearing up for our first vacation as a family! Next week we are going to Amelia Island, FL. We'll leave towards the end of the week and get back the following week. The Neals are coming to stay at the farm while we are away. We are so thankful for their willingness to spend their vacation here caring for the farm and animals and working on projects. It's going to be hot...we are working on our tans here in ol' KY now so that we don't turn into lobsters in FL. John has not visited the beach yet and we are so excited to watch him discover the sand and surf for the first time in his little life! I can't wait to take pictures of him enjoying our vacation.

Adios for now...we hope that you enjoy this beautiful sunshine!

Love,

Jackie

Kentucky Proud

We sold our first 14 dozen eggs at Market this past weekend! We truly had no idea all-natural eggs would be in such demand. However, with the recent scare about salmonella nationwide, it seems people are especially aware of where and how they purchase their food. We don't think it's a coincidence that the media is showing the harrowing factory conditions for laying hens. These are the hens that have been laying the eggs we've bought in stores for years, decades even. These conditions are not new. These images have been in circulation for 20+ years. And, it is August of 2010 that our young, pasture raised hens are laying our first eggs for market. It is encouraging to us, to say the least! I had visions of linking this post to articles from the media, but I'm pretty sure even those without a t.v. are aware of the media barrage. So, for now, we'll just keep loving on our hens, giving them "Fresh Air," clean water, and fresh pasture so that they'll give us "Fresh Eggs." A huge thank you to everyone who made our first sales for Palisades Point Farm so successful! We are just sorry we had to turn away customers and that the demand was greater than our supply! If you aren't nearby, wherever you are ~ buy local, support your family farmer...the rewards extend on and on for both you and them!

Wed. Wisdom

Grandma McBride recently sent us a little book called "Maple Lane Garden Tips." It's full of wisdom, poetry, recipes and stories about life with a garden. We have been looking with consternation at our tomato plants for the past several weeks. They have yellowed at the bottom and the fruits are not as large. Charley thought to look in the gardening book from Grandma and after much reading discovered that our plants probably have blight. Here is the recipe for a spray. We'll let you know if and when we use it. The recipe says to catch blight early. Since it's already August we may not try to overcome it this year, but at least we'll know what to do for the future:

Dissolve 1 cake Ivory soap in 1 quart water. When dissolved, take from stove and add 4 ounces salt, 4 ounces borax, 3 quarts rain water and 1 pint ammonia. Store in glass jar with lid. Use 1 Tb/1 quart water to spray plants.

Guideposts had this quote that I thought was lovely. It's from reader July Ann Lewis, West Virginia. "Thank you, Lord, for giving us good healthy food to eat and bountiful blessings that make our lives complete. He who eats of holy bread will always find his spirit fed."

So You Think You Can Dance is one our favorite shows. I've had this note posted on my computer for several weeks now and wanted to add a link to a hip hop routine. We are so sad that Alex is out for the season! This routine by the most amazing choreographer, Wade Robson, was amazing also. Ok, so if this link is strangely wrong, please forgive, b/c my computer wouldn't load the clip. I remember it as a performance from Cirque du Soleil.

I had to add a picture just because. Record blistering hot temps again here in ol' KY.
Happy Wednesday

Farm Tour

This past weekend the 3 of us traveled 15 min. down the road to tour a local farm. Pike Valley Farm raises 32,000 natural and organic chickens/year and is the largest producer of pastured poultry in the nation. They are young, only 5 years old, but are mighty! The Pike family has done a remarkable job of modeling their products after Joel Salatin. It was such a fun experience to tour their acreage on a hay wagon! In addition to poultry they have beef and pork, too. We were inspired and re-energized for our oh, so-much-smaller journey into processing 14 roosters this weekend! Please check out Pike Valley and support their growing business...only until we are able to provide some of those things here at Palisades Point, mind you :).

lavender

summer family pic

Farm

I figured these were pretty self-explanatory! Our laying hens are great...staying out of my mulch, in their pen and laying eggs. I am happy and healthy. Oh, and the chickens are too. Corn looks promising this year. This is all sweet corn. Happy Monday!

Tuesday's Tomatoes

The secret is in the mulch. For years we have read about, watched others, done the work for others, and tried our best to mulch our garden. It keeps the weeds at bay, amends the soil, and looks neat and tidy. Mulching, that is. Yeah...it also takes a good source from which to get the mulch and a way to haul it. This year we finally had a way to haul it (old truck was running), a place to get it free (AC horse farm), and made the time to put it down (in the heat and humidity we just made it happen). We've decided we'll mulch for several years and then take a break and lay plastic. Mulching is a lot of work if I haven't convinced you of this by now!

http://www.ssawg.org/dawson-photos.html#

For words that match the beating of my heart, go here...http://www.ssawg.org/dawson.htmlf
"And, if you get bored, I truly understand. I will not hold it against you," said with a smile. One of my favorite lines about his weeding techniques is..."he uses a wheel hoe and hand hoe, with hand weeding as a last resort." Amen. I'd like you to chuckle along with this "farmer" about the fact that we do not own a single hoe. Huh? No hoe you ask? Why not? Weeding by hand keeps us humble. We've decided humility is over-rated. Anybody got a hoe? Wait, don't answer that...we'll just go to Lowe's.

Gardening Part deaux

Our first tomatoes and bell peppers of the season have arrived. We are going to start on salsa soon! Mmm...my personal favorite of the garden. Some people can't stand to have their foods mixed on their plate, this girl loves to blend it all up...it's all going down the same way anyway, right?!




Check out these tobacco hornworms. Ick. We discovered them several Saturdays ago on our potatoes and tomatoes. We salvaged some potatoes, but most of those plants are eaten. And, we are picking one or two off the tomato plants every other day or so. The farmer up the hill grows tobacco...apparently, these worms will grow into huge moths. Our bug zapper on the shed will most likely die at the sight of one of those. I don't really know much about this pest other than the fact that they are BAD! We have discovered lots of lady bugs *good* and evidence of parasitic wasps on the tomato plants. The parasitic wasp evidence is in the form of white egg sacks hanging from tomato leaves. We believe lady bugs leave yellow eggs in this same form, also. We picked them off the first time we saw them and then read that they are good!


And, above are blue~green Americauna eggs and our other brown eggs from the two hens our neighbor gave us last year. Needless to say we've felt the decline in our grocery bill recently! However, we should take out stock in watermelon the way that my husband eats it. Ours aren't ready yet and he's a little impatient. We found sweet corn at the grocery the other day - 10 for $2!

I know, shocker...2 posts in one day when I haven't been around for weeks. That's my life. Take it or leave it, love me or leave me.

Happy summer friends!

Gardening

So, we have a bounty of cucumbers currently and we decided that we could not possibly gorge ourselves on fresh cucumber after cucumber morning, noon, and night. That led us to the conclusion that we needed to plan our first canning session of the summer. We haven't pickled cucumbers in the past. We've tried black raspberry jam from the berries down the hill from our house. That was delicious, thanks to Charley's expertise. And, we've canned tomatoes in the past, many years ago, from our small garden in the backyard when we lived a neighborhood. This year we have attempted to grow our largest garden to date. We only have about 6 cucumber plants, but just those few will allow us to eat, can and share cucs all summer. Below are pix of our process. We picked, cut, chilled on ice, and canned 9 jars of cucs last night. We put 7 jars in a hot water bath...we can store those jars for up to 1 year. We kept two jars out to refrigerate and eat this summer. In the midst of canning we began discussions on our goat pen and how we must reinforce our fencing before kids arrive in September. Ahhh...the joys of farming. It's wonderful and exhausting all at once! We wouldn't trade it for anything!

And, when I woke up this morning, this stay-at-home mom was greeted with a kiss and a congratulations! I was confused, as I don't refer to the calendar often except for John's dr. appointments, etc.! My dear husband reminded me that it's June 30th today, our anniversary! Oh dear, how time flies. So much has changed since that day 9 years ago when we wed on a hot Saturday and flew down to the Gulf coast of Florida for our honeymoon. I have to find our wedding pic! Next post!