Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Pictures of the Place


The Notorious Bird



The House


James, Dad, and Dittles with the enormous pumpkins!




Chillin in the sunflowers

Run-in with the Rooster

Today I had a run-in with our dear little rooster here. Actually he is not at all a "dear little" rooster; in fact he is a large, mean rooster with enormous spurs. We currently keep him and his two hens fenced up in a 10x10 area. I have taken upon myself to feed the birds in the morning...which up to this point has been a pleasant undertaking. I usually chirp "good-morning" to them and ask them "how are you?" while dumping mash in their feeder. I occasionally bring a stick in the pen to shoo the rooster from the entrance, but the past several days I haven't needed the stick. So today I went in without the stick, thinking business as usual; I opened the door and kicked a little to have the rooster move...and instead of moving he took my warning kick as a sign that I wanted to fight. He flapped his big wings and started trying to jump up on my legs and spur me. Meanwhile, I am kicking like mad and my heart almost out of my chest!! It was all a blur, but I finally managed to land a good kick in his chest and sent him back a few feet! Yikes...so much for the peace of wild things! Not at that moment anyway. The fiasco ended with me yelling to the chickens "that I'm the boss and that is not a friendly thing to do to someone who is taking care of you" Whew...hopefully that will sink into their bird brains... and just in case it doesn't, I'll be sure to bring that stick in with me!

p.s. I'll post pictures of the beast soon!

Friday, August 24, 2007

The Pace of My Days

Today while peeling peaches over the kitchen sink, something caught my eye out the window. When I realized what it was, it made me start to think about the pace of my days and how much my environment has changed. What had caught my eye was a small yellow butterfly...crazy I know, but what a wonderful thing to be able to notice. Not a person, automobile, noise, but a beautiful little creature. The peace of wild things...I am starting to understand that phrase through the experience of solitude with nature. Life here is slow, steady, and peaceful-a necessary change for my spiritual well-being. I look forward to the small experiences of each day, whether it's weeding, feeding the chickens, canning, etc. and am grateful for all that I am able to accomplish. So today I I have gratitude for that litte butterfly who caught my eye.


Monday, August 20, 2007

A Must Read

I had to post the title and author of the book I am currently re-reading...it is quite revolutionary and has some REALLY good insights. The Spirit of Disobedience by Curtis White. For those of you who are scared off by the title please know that it isn't a "christian" book by any means! (not a John MacArthur sermon on our disobedient nature!!! :) Blessings...

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Canning Days of Summer

The past few days have been busy for me as I have been canning all our excess veggies from my dad's garden. This garden is one of the prettiest I've seen...and it produced some really wonderful corn, squash, green beans, tomatoes, peppers, and huge sunflowers. So I have been trying to figure out all the ways I can preserve them. On Monday, I started with cutting cucumbers for bread and butter pickles. I ended up with 5 quart jars of pickles. The next veggie that I needed to do something with was jalapenos and serrano's. I decided I was on a roll with the whole "pickling" thing, so I stuffed the peppers in quart jars and pickled them, coming up with 8 quarts of pickled peppers. By this time I was ready for a little more challenging canning operation...so I opened up Barbara Kingsolver's newest book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" and followed her recipe for Spaghetti/Marinara Sauce. That day was definetly the longest and hardest canning days! Let's just say it was about a 6-7 hour process from start to finish. But we'll appreciate it when winter rolls around and we won't have these veggies on hand! So that's the life of some rural americans' summer...putting up all our excess fresh veggies...and looking forward to the days of fall!

We've Moved....again!!!

It has been awhile since my last blog, and a lot has changed since then...let's see... where do I begin! :) To start we are now living in Jetersville, Virginia. Yes we moved from NC to her neighboring state VA. This process all started when my dad came out to NC to help us out and to check out Raft Swamp Farms. Let's just say that his insight was very helpful...and this was the time we decided to volunteer at Raft Swamp Farms instead of start farming right away. During that trip, he mentioned that he had 6 acres of land with a large 1930's farm house on it. That got all of us thinking (dad included) about the possiblity of farming together on dad's land. So the idea took root in our heads and we talked about it for several weeks before deciding we should go for it! We were concerned with getting out of our lease, quitting my job, and disappointing Raft Swamp Farms...but somehow it all worked out. Our landlord found a tenant within 24 hours, I ditched the Fresh Market, and we let Jackie & Louie know about our new opportunity. In fact, we weren't sure when we would move exactly, but we ended up finding out on Wednesday that the new tenant wanted to be in the house on Saturday. So we packed up the totally unpacked house on Thursday & Friday, rented a moving truck on Saturday and drove to VA. Whew...but the unloading was still in front of us...somehow we got all our stuff out of the truck by Monday and started setting up house. Did I mention we are actually living with my dad? :) It is working out wonderfully....we are getting along really well and thankfully we all have plenty of space. We are all doing a great job of pitching in (cooking, cleaning, etc) and the greatest thing is that we all laugh A LOT. I haven't laughed so much in my life....my dad and Jamie are quite comical and get along really well.
Our plan is to start a large garden in the spring to produce enough veggies for a 50-100 people CSA...(Community Supported Agriculture...google it if you aren't sure what it is) and deliver to the surrounding cities (Richmond, Farmville). We are excited about this new opportunity and have realized we have to go with the flow and take steps towards what we want to do in life. It has been quite a journey thus far, but I can't say I miss city life and all that goes with it! I do miss all my friends and family...but surely not that Phoenix heat! Sorry y'all...until next time! PEACE