My new home for now

I've decided to give up my homeschool blogger site. I found it too difficult to deal with, so I will be here until our web site is launched, then I'll be blogging on that.

Our Thanksgiving was a bit different this year. We actually butchered our own turkey, the tom in the photo to the left, and it was the best tasting bird I've ever had. His dressed weight was 32+ pounds! The meat chickens we raised this season were also very tasty. They are free range and run all over our farm. Able to eat the insects and bugs, weeds and grass, they fatten up just nice. They do get grains to eat when they are put away at night. But foraging is best. We kept our meat chickens in a chicken tractor and that allows us to easily move them to fresh ground everyday. We tried in the past to let them free range on the property, but found them lacking interest in doing that. They basically want to sit in front of their food bowl and be fed. Our birds grew faster and were huge by butchering day. I think at 12 weeks, they averaged 15lbs each, just big enough to feed our family with a little left over for soup or a lunch. I'm looking forward to our new batches of them next spring. Yum.

Milk production in the goat barn is done for the season. We'll be back at it again in April, Lord willing. This year, I made chevre cheese in several flavors, garlic and chive being the most popular. My son, Aaron, is busy twice a day milking his cow, Blossom. Right now she's giving us about two gallons a day, which is not huge, but it's her first freshening. Earlier on, she was at three gallons, but has dropped down since the cold weather set in. I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but my goat also dropped way down so much that I am drying her off. With her milk I've made cream cheese and butter and whip cream. People also come to get gallons of milk for their use.

I've started a little store in my front barn and have decided to call it Blossom's Barn. This is where you can find homemade yummies like, jams, butters, pie fillings and nut crunches and whatever else I may have available. You can also find eggs and milk products. Soon there will be soap and some other crafts. It's a start, but gotta start somewhere. I'm looking forward to farmer's markets in the spring.

Sunrises are amazing here. On days when I remember to catch them and it's a good day to see one, I'm taking pictures. I have so many sunrises that I wish I knew how to keep track of them. I thought it would be fun to have a flip book since I take a pictures about every minute as the sun peeks over the horizon. The colors are amazing. These photos are two different mornings in November.

Our school days are rolling along nicely. It will be nice to have a break for a week between Christmas and the new year. We only take that week off. I don't see any need for an extended time off. They get restless anyway. They will have completed their Constitution class by then, yippeee! I'm shooting for their writing books to be completed, but that will be a stretch, but they will be done for sure during January. I'm looking forward to doing a literature segment for the next semester. We will also be doing a westward expansion segment for history which includes the setting up of the nation according to the Constitution by George Washington and then the subsequent presidents. This will be interesting to see how far we have veered off from the Constitution from how it was originally intended by the founding fathers. I'm sure they are rolling in their graves (not really, the Christian men are with Christ in heaven). We will also be looking at the Oregon Trail, Lewis and Clark, Santa Fe Trail and the Louisiana Purchase, not in this order. I'm guessing it will take the rest of the school year to do this unit because of all the readings we will be doing and the notebook they will be keeping. I'm very excited about January!

We've been busy with other things, too. The boys have picked up guitar and bass lessons and are playing in two different group situations. One is at our church and the other is at an alternative school place. They enjoy it and it's good for them to be able to play with other people. It helps make music lessons make sense. Sometimes you wonder "why do I have to do this?" well it makes sense when it all comes together. The work begins to pay off. But, they have a ways to go, but at least there is an up.

We went to the Chicago Planetarium a few weeks ago and enjoyed that. Our church was in a parade after Thanksgiving and we had all the festivities of that holiday. Now we head into the Christmas season and it's a nice slow slide. I'm not one to get involved in the hub-bub. I actually despise that aspect of Christmas, so I say "no" to the hub-bub. I heard a commercial on the radio where they are chiming "It's the most stressful time of the year!" huh? Do we really need to implant that into our heads? Christian radio is just as sucked into it as any other. I always pray we can be different in that area. We are so far off course in that respect.

Lord, prepare our hearts for what is good and glorifies you, Amen.

We have had a very nice extended spring around here. I could do without the wind though. It tends to create havok on most things. I'm having to learn all over again the types of landscaping that will work around here. Where as before at my old house, I could pretty much plant what I wanted as long as it was for the zone we lived in. Now I have to plant according to whether it can withstand extended lengths of time of 20-30 mph wind! It is definately a challenge to create beautiful landscape with this problems. Some days I feel like giving up and not have beautiful plants to enjoy. Then I'll gain a renewed vigor and take on the challege again. I think I may be gaining some ground as my gardens are slowly increasing in size and beauty.

My little hoop house I previously wrote about was a bust. Yes, the wind. The lasagne part is wonderful. I may have to keep adding these as time and supplies allow. I'll will continue to work on the hoop house though. Actually, the plastic may have suvived. There seems to have been a weakening in the plastic along a crease which started to tear, and once the wind got hold, well, end of plastic. The seeds underneath contined to sprout despite my efforts to keep plastic over them and I am know harvesting the lettuce. This fall, the hoop house will be the site of my garlic patch.

We are expectantly awaiting the arrival of calves and kids. There should be some calves very soon and the kids will be coming along in about 5 weeks or so. I really can't wait for all of this. New babies are do cute! I guess I will have to wait for the Lord's timing. Right now we have Flip-FLop and her eleven ducklings marching around the farmyard. She hatched them herself in our hayloft. We also have turkeys and chickens we are raising for the freezer. Momma turkey is sitting on a nest of more eggs. We'll see if she can do a better job of hatching out eggs than we are. We stink at hatching turkey eggs. We started with 16 eggs and only hatched three. All but one were fertile and fully developed, but they just didn't hatch out. Very sad actually. The should be hatching within the next week we think.

My vegetable garden is shaping up. I've got several different varieties of onions I planted from onion plants and not sets. I also have a tray I started from seed, which I've never done either before. I've always used onion sets with minimal success. I think that might be a daylight issue and them selling the wrong types for our area. I've never had success with sets. So we'll see how these plants do. I made sure they were the right type for our area.

My corn, carrots, lettuce, spinach, kohlrabi, and cauliflower are growing nicely. I planted my squash last weekend and I hope to get my melon seed in Sunday and maybe actually finish all the planting, but we'll see. It will be hot and glorious day. The squash varieties are yellow, zucchini, buttercup, butternut, blue hubbard, warty pumpkin, and two types of delicata. Sweet potatoes are mostly in. I still have a tray of slips I'm rooting. Why do I buy these? They are so easy to make your self. I did buy one bunch of slips just in case the ones I am rooting don't work out. These are rooting just fine and are very robust so far. I have tomatoes starting from seed as well as cabbage. My garden will be full! If you live locally, I may have extra for sale. I hope to have a small vegetable stand started this year.

As soon as I gather my oils together, I will be experimenting with making soap of the goat milk variety. I'm excited about this, but I also have been procrastinating gather my supplies. So much I want to do, so little time! I keep trying to set a week when it would be great to try thism but I make excuses as to why I don't start, like, after the conference I've been planning, after the garden is planted, after I mulch perennial gardens, after VBS......I need to just put my foot down, order the rest of what I need and just do it!

All in all, I have a busy season ahead of me and Lord willing, it will be a wonderful season. I'm imaging the garden bursting with produce, flowers blooming, maybe even picking a few pieces of first fruit off our fruit trees and I do plan on spending some time in the pool. God is so good and full of rich blessings for those who love Him.

Today the boys helped me to make the lasagne garden for my hoop house. The soil is too soggy to much of anything else. I'm hoping the hoop house will give me a jump start on the season for veggie growing. We first put a layer of newspaper down and added a decent layer of peat moss on top of it. Then they added a think coat of goat manure and then a good layer of horse manure that has been composted well. This raised the area up about a foot. Tomorrow we'll add the plastic and I'll plunk in some seeds to get going.

The grass is greening up finally and the animals are very happy. Today, the cows were kicking it up and running around the pasture. I do find them very entertaining. I'm hoping to get a couple of them nice and filled out for a June appointment, if you know what I mean. No grain used here, pure grass-fed animals. The chickens are busy scratching looking for the first insects to dare to crawl out. I think they do a marvelous job keeping the bug population down around here. Now what to do about the flies. Yuck.

Grass Fed Beef - It's What's for Dinner

Thank you for checking out this blog. I want to share with you what goes on around here and the updates on our cattle, goats, chickens, ducks and turkeys (I think that about covers it).

When we moved here, we began a commitment to grow, using organic practices although we are not certified, vegetables and meat products. We strive to use only organic feed for the poultry and fowl and the goats get a treat of the same. Herbs are used for any treatments that are necessary for healing purposes, although we don't have that very often. I believe animals that are raised humanely and as naturally as possible are a healthy and happier animal that will produce a superior product. Grass fed beef are happy cattle. I wish I had a video of when I let them out into the big pasture area yesterday. What a sight to behold! Kicking and running, just like it was the first day of spring. Beautiful.

This year, Lord willing, will be our first year to go to the Urbana Farmers Market. I've been an organic gardener for years and would love to share with the consumers the beautiful heritage vegetables we have available in season. Hopefully someday I will have fruit available. Those are just babies right now.

We also try to use heritage breeds in our animals instead of the hybrids. Our farm is switching to Belted Galloway cattle for our beef and we raise Jersey Giant and Rhode Island Red chickens for eggs. We will be also raising up meat birds of a heritage breed, too. This breed has not yet been determined. Last year we raised and harvested the regular Cornish Cross chickens. Those are the most disgusting animal ever! Plus, I found it to be an outrage how quickly these grow and have so many health issues to the point they can't walk. They are bred that way all for the sake of a fried chicken dinner and the almighty dollar.

We are truly blessed and I praise and honor our Lord for the good gifts He has given. All the glory goes to Him!