Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Spring

I am determined to grow most of my produce from seed this year. Last year's efforts were sabotaged by my cats who kept laying in my seed trays. It took me quiet a while to figure out what was happening.
So far so good. Lots of spinach is coming up.
I have a pretty sizable supply of compost too.
I have started a second worm colony. My friend Anna said that the worms get stripes on them when they are breeding up...mine don't. Mind you, at Anna's suggestion I added a layer of wet newspaper to the top of the worm farm, and the worms seem a lot happier. I will keep looking for the stripes.
Keeping the chooks out of the veggie patch is still proving to be difficult..
Looking forward to a good growing season ahead.

2 comments:

donna said...

I admire your determination. My husband and I have a dream to live your reality. We moved from Sydney over to the Pacific Northwest of the USA nearly 5 years ago with 3 small children. We are looking forward to moving back one day and getting our own piece of paradise. In the meantime we are working on becoming a little more self reliant. We just started making our own candles and I am lending my hand to knitting. We are growing some of our own produce and we have some lovely little chickens that keep us stocked with egss. I look forward to reading your blog and getting inspiration

Jersey Girl said...

I was inspired when I read your story!!!
We too are trying to live our rural dream with 3 young children. We both grew up in a suburban environment and longed to stretch our wings in the country.
Two years ago we made the move and began our rural education. I made a point of getting tips from everyone that we met and slowly started trying our hand at a few things.
We have had our share of disasters, but as a result we have also met some great people and learnt some important lessons.
Our first purchase was the horse that I had dreamed of for my whole life..... we had to have her put down after just 12 mths as she was rather more ancient than the vet had suggested when we made the purchase (we don't use that vet anymore!!).
Next we purchased a pair of alpacas. Within 3 days one had been killed by a snake and the other had injured himself on a fence trying to get away. As a result we took an emergency course in vet science as we tended to the injured animal.
We also purchases two Dexter cows and calves.... yet again we discovered that cows with horns did not mix well with our 12yo golden retriever..... and that a small udder often equals very little milk for the family.
There always seems to be some sort of drama happening at our "Farm" but to be honest I wouldn't have it any other way. We really feel like we are living now and are very much in touch with the world that we are living in.
One of my favourite times of the day (when we still had the cows) was 4pm. I would usually find myself sitting in the middle of the paddock breastfeeding my second son while the cows ate their hay around me. It sure beat the feeling of waiting for the last hour of the working day to finish so that I could leave the office and travel 3hrs to get home!!!!
We have just built our hen house and have 4 of the most amusing chooks that I have ever seen. They each provide us with an egg a day, entertainment whenever we are outside and an educaton for our kids.
We have also expanded the vege garden this year and planted our first fruit trees and vines. There is nothing that beats fresh just picked vegeies.
Later this week we will be picking up our new cow.... a very friendly 10 month old jersey heifer. Fingers crossed and she will be more social than one of our Dexters and produce a lot more milk than the other.
Life really is good..... your blog just reminded me.