I am not super woman!!

Contrary to what some people who really know me think, I am not super woman!! I make mistakes, and sometimes fall on my face.

I am attempting the March Food Storage Challenge over at http/livingmydreamlifeonthefarm.wordpress.com/, let me just say that I have already blown it!

The idea behind this is to eat only what is in your food storage for a month, I had very good intentions last Wednesday when I read about this, I have decent food storage and I do produce most of my food, so I figured I would give it a try.

Thursday was great, most of Friday good, but Friday night is when I blew it... my kids were at their older sisters for the night and my honey wanted a date night and dinner out. Let me just say time to ourselves without kids, is pretty slim, and yes we could have stayed home, but then I just start working and he watches t.v. so I caved ( I can be a push-over sometimes) and we went out. I could have omitted this in my blog, but then I wouldn't be accepting of how hard this challenge can be.

So now my rules--eating out of food storage as much as possible without my family revolting against me. It is not a stretch for me not to go to the store, I hate shopping! My goal is to see
how long I can go without shopping. I didn't know about this challenge before last Wednesday, so I know there are areas of my food storage that is lacking.

My other rule, this challenge does not include beverages, if I have to cook and scrounge for food, I will need a glass of wine while I am doing it, and my honey will need a beer to cope with my crazy ideas!! LOL But I will be doing more research on homemade wine, it is on my to-do list.

Obviously I am not as disciplined as some of the other bloggers, but I will try my hardest to eat what I have stored. I will keep everyone posted about my success and failure during this month.

So far this is what we have eaten:

March 1-- Breakfast: Smoothies Dinner: Left-over potato soup
March 2-- Breakfast: Smoothies for kids, bowl of cereal for me Dinner: eat-out
March 3-- Breakfast burritos, with farm eggs & canned potatoes Dinner will be chili with our beef and tomatoes in the crockpot to go to oldest daughters get together, also taking pepper jelly from my bff and chips (last bag from food storage)

I make my honey's lunches, I eat whatever I can scrounge and the kids eat at school.

So far this is where I am at, wish me luck as the month progresses...

New Years Day!

I love New Years Day, not only is my husbands birthday, Happy 43rd Honey!! But it is the beginning of farm season. I take November & December off, try not to think of anything farm related as I play during the holiday season. I decorate, bake and just have a great holiday season, we hang out with family and friends, eat and drink too much I am sure, and just enjoy the season, but then it happens, farm life sneaks up on me, and I can't help but start planning!

Today was seed order day! I spent most of my day going through my seeds and my new catalog deciding what I would need for this season, I needed to order more of certain varieties, I forget I need enough produce to sell at market throughout the season! I also went through my paperwork from last year and cleaned out my farm binder, getting ready for a new season, I even redid my meat order form to send to my customers this week.

I have the 2012 garden mapped out for the year, of course it is in pencil in case I need to revise it, but it looks pretty good right now. Oh and my honey, he is sitting next to me, watching football enjoying his birthday greatly!!!!

Here's to a happy, healthy and productive 2012 and maybe a bit more blogging...

Garden Progress

This spring has definately been cold and wet! We have had to get the garden work done between rain storms and puddles. This is the garden in May, we always plant the tomatoes and all of our vine crops in black weed barrier, it keeps their roots nice and toasty and keeps the weeds down for us. This year we are adding the peppers and herbs to this list.

These are my guys working so very hard weeding on Fathers Day. We had to get the bulk of our work done, this was one of our rare nice days! Alyssa and I got the rest of the garden planted while they weeded, that was huge. It is amazing how well the weeds grow in this weather.

This is our hilltop view of the farmhouse and our garden. This year we have 21 rows, they are 4' by 50'. Since it has been so cold we covered our warm weather crops with row cover.

The tall greens in the front of the picture is our garlic, it should be ready to harvest the end of July/beg. of August. The four mulched rows are our potatoes.

Hope you enjoyed the garden tour, more pictures as the garden grows...

Time does fly!!

Where has the last 4 months gone since I last posted?? Perhaps to all the snow and rain we were having, oh wait, it is still raining at least half the week.

Perhaps the time went to the sports the kids were doing or the spring cleaning I thought I would have time to do.

No, I think it went to everyday life, that somehow just gets a moving and doesn't stop, with family, friends and a farm, things just keep moving.

We have been working pretty hard this spring, getting pigs & steers, delivering goat kids, trying to get the garden in between rain showers, of course we also had my honey's work schedule, school, soccer, wedding planning and now the farmers market!

Some days I just wish time would creep instead of fly...

Daddy's Birthday

Today was my "Idaho" dads 76th. birthday, we had a party at our house with all the family.
Even though they aren't my real parents, Chuck and Arlene have been in my life for the past 20 years. Mommy and Daddy have been such a constant in my life, I am definately the person that I am today because of their love and support. I am so glad I adopted them so many years ago!

We enjoyed a great dinner of lasagna, salad and garlic bread. We have the best parties when our family gets together, my sister, husband, son & new baby boy, my oldest daughter and her fiance, and my #2 daughter came up from where she lives an hour away.

Alyssa lighting the candles and we are all singing Happy Birthday...

Mommy and Daddy have been married 50+ years, the are an inspiration to us all.

Daddy after blowing out the candles and the smoke clearing, enjoyed cake and ice cream.

We definately are party central at our house and I am the party queen. I love every minute

of our family time, in such a busy world, a party is a great place to be.

Spring Seeding

Spring seeding has begun on Four Seasons Farm. I try to start the peppers and tomatoes during the middle of February. We need that much time to have them the size to sell for our first Farmers Market, the first Saturday of May.
This is my seeding table, with my seeds organized and my planting chart.I usually try to have 3-4 varieties of one vegetable in each tray.

These are the flats when they are seeded and setting on the heat mat, there is enough room for 4 trays. I started 9 varieties of tomatoes, 4 varieties of peppers and basil.

As you can see our garden area is almost completely free of snow, we just have a bit to melt, by this weekend, it should be all gone, not to say we won't get more, but at this time of the year, it won't be here for very long.
I am hoping to plant the cold frames with spinach on the 1st. of March, hopefully the weather will cooperate.

Early spring is definately here on the farm, I am hoping this weekend or next to clean the goat barn, we have babies coming...

Every fall I am so happy for the break, to just hang out at home and work on my house projects and to visit with friends. I love the winter months because the kids play basketball, which is uninterrupted from farm projects. But then, the snow starts melting, the goats are getting rounder, I see green sprouts in the pastures and I just get so excited for a new year of farming.
Every year is a do-over, to correct your mistakes from last year, to add a bit more to this year.

I never thought I would love what I do so much, definately wasn't what I thought my life would be, but now, wouldn't change it for the world!

Puppy Love and Old Man Winter

Meet our newest addition to our farm family, Millie our corgie/heeler cross, she is about 10 weeks old and totally adorable. We have had her for a week now and she is behaving very well.
Her training has been going very well also, the whole family absolutely adores her, and hopefully this spring we will train her to herd something. Just not sure what yet!

Yes, the weather guessers might be right, we could be having the worst winter in 55 years, with this La Nina weather pattern. Spokane has already beat the winter of 55 for snow totals. Are you getting this, 1955, worst winter in 55 years, we are in the year 2010, you do the math and grab a snow shovel, lol. This is our house in all its snow glory, of course I didn't get the corn stalks and pumpkins picked up from our fall decor display before the snow came, might have to wait till spring for that.

My #1 son, Alex, (my only son) is doing an awesome job of plowing us out. He works so hard, so when his dad gets home, dad doesn't have to plow us out, since he has just plowed for the county! My boys work very hard this time of year, hoping they get a bit of a break soon.