My First Farm Booth experience! We didn't have much to sell but were very happy to be there!

My daughter and I set up our very FIRST Farm Booth at the 2nd annual Newport, TN community celebration for Armed Forces Day!  We didn’t have very much to sell in the way of produce as it’s quite early in the season, but we did offer cut Peppermint, Russian Sage, Greek Oregano, Flat Italian Parsley, Green Onions, Arugula, Mixed Leaf Salads and a few select fresh Strawberries!

It was fun to meet so many locals, great to see the community honor our military and really nice to have sort of a “soft opening” for the actual first market date coming in 2 Saturdays!  I hope by then we can also offer pickles, green beans and possibly a few select tomatoes & much more salad.

We made several contacts who also know we have great chickens and eggs available as well.  We will NOT be selling eggs at the market.  The state of TN requires me to wash eggs for sale, and I believe that is counter productive to eating fresh eggs as washing introduces bacteria and takes away the protective layer that all eggs have.  Additionally, they also require that I refrigerate even FRESH day old eggs, something that uses too much electricity and is completely unnecessary in my experience.  Our eggs are sold generally within 1 week of being laid by the hens, we do not store eggs long term.  Eggs that are here longer than that are fed to the animals, or given away to the local food pantry if possible.  Therefore I would have to seriously modify my practices and participate in methods I believe are a detriment to my fresh eggs.  Eggs will continue to be sold as a DIRECT FARM SALE, which means you can buy/pay for them ahead of time, & pick them up here at the farm or the market on Saturdays when you pick up your other weekly produce.

I’m looking forward to it, and I’ve got SO much still to do!  I have to order our booth banner and aprons, create & print some much needed sign-age and of course keep the gardens going!

See you in two weeks on Saturday at the Market!  More info:  www.NewportTNFarmersMarket.com

I planted the last of the sweet potato slips last night. I put them in a different area this year and swapped them out with my corn patch, I do hope that was a good choice. I’m pleased to say also that the perimeter fence/driveway posts/grape arbor posts are now cemented into the ground, the hard work of digging post holes in solid rock is complete. We can now focus on the horizontal pieces & wires and really start making this place look great!

I planted “Nest Egg” Gourds in the front of each and every coop. My hope is that they will all grow up and cover the front of the coops offering additional shade during the hot summer days ahead.

We’re about to chainsaw down the Forsythia bush at the front of our yard, it is apparently making a wonderful nest for mice, and THEY MUST GO!

Garden photos have been updated, check them out here: http://picasaweb.google.com/dawnonthefarm.com/FoodGardens?feat=directlink

Once I get done putting up the new fence & cleaning everything up, we’ll do a video walk through of it all.

I am doing pretty well to keep my Gardens page updated, more specifically my Harvest Amounts & Garden Expenses. The garden plans are a little out of date and I will try and update those soon. Check out what we’re harvesting and how much here: http://dawnonthefarm.com/gardens.html

I can’t stress enough how relaxing, rewarding & enjoyable it is to spend the day gardening!  Unfortunately, it also requires that I spend all day long each day maintaining & caring for everything.  It’s seriously a LOT of work to grow your own food, but at the moment, in only a couple of weeks I have harvested almost $50.00 worth of food.  That really does make it a no-brainer for us.  I really enjoy eating well, and there is nothing better than a fresh supply of food!  So only about 3 weeks into harvesting, with several MONTHS to go, I have already made back almost 25% of my expenses for this year!  Fantastic!

Stay up to date with my garden progress here

I am also enjoying spending time with the baby geese, who are of course darling, sweet and completely entertaining to watch socialize, graze and of course swim!  I just can’t get over how fish like they are, or perhaps they are just like ducks, only I’ve never had any of those.  In fact I’ve only ever seen them in a cage at the Poultry show, so I had no idea of their natural personality.  Right now the geese have a paddock out in the yard, their feathers are growing in, as are their personalities.  They graze almost exclusively on grass & greens from the garden, eating very little else.  I found a waterfowl pellet that they do eat a small amount of each day.  It’s there if they want it, and sometimes they do, but all in all they prefer grass & weeds for sure!

Well, I still have several things to get into the ground, including two varieties of sweet potatoes and a new Stevia garden.  So I’m off to work now.  As always, I DO PLAN to blog more often in the future, but early spring is tough… there is literally 15 hours worth of work to do EACH AND EVERY DAY.  If I’m not working or digging, I’m exhausted, too exhausted to type.  Once everything settles down, I’ll get you all caught up with pictures of everything!  You won’t believe how much I’ve done!!!

Take care, eat well and see you soon!

Dawn

Lord Nigel Gosling

Well… we’re officially insane and we now have a gosling, but wait, there is more… two young geese are in the mail now on their way here to be his mates. So soon, we will have a gaggle! 🙂

His name is Lord Nigel, and their names are yet undetermined although I’m thinking Lady Vera and Lady Agatha… LOL. I don’t know why exactly, it seemed as though these guys needed “proper” names.

We also have a Broody Cochin mama, who hopefully will hatch some chicks here sometime in the next week-ish. We’re not sure exactly when she started setting, she hatched this plan ALL on her own 😉 (pun intended).

Broody Red Cochin with 14 eggs!!

The gardens are coming along nicely… we harvest a few small radishes last night when I went to thin out the radish line… check it out, you can see a few poking up through the dirt.  I don’t know if they are SUPPOSED to do that,but they seem fine.

Our first radishes for 2010

There are sprouts EVERYWHERE… here are a few good shots:

We will be eating lettuce & spinach by the end of next week for sure from our back garden planted on 3/5  and here comes tomatoes & some romaine in the front square garden. At the end of this row by the plywood is a blue potato not yet peeking from the soil.  And one of the perimeters of this bed is strawberries, which are in FULL swing now with flowers everywhere, I can nearly taste their yummy-ness.

This is essentially the first row planted in our big square garden out front.  The entire thing has been redug & changed a bit due to the driveway fence we’re putting in.  The lattice is new this year and there is a sink behind it that will soon, I hope, water this garden FOR ME, through the process of daily chores & using it.

We installed a new drain for our washing machine so that we may let it out in the yard or gardens if we desire.  It will help greatly with the back watering and now we can water our grass guilt free!

I still have dozens of small plants in cups in my temporary cold frame.  And two nights ago I started about 50 more in my spare bedroom where I’m hatching a few dozen chicks and storing eggs for my next hatch.

We also installed a new 2′ X 16′ herb garden and will now begin the process of building a small washable pond for our new gaggle of geese!  They will surely enjoy it and take advantage often.

Frankly, I’ve been busier than I have EVER been in my entire life and it feels good.    Unfortunately, this time of year is this way and I tend to get way behind in my emails.  So… if your emailing me and I’m taking a few days to respond, you should know I’m out gardening or caring for the poultry.   If it is an emergency, please call, otherwise I’ll get back to you in a few days.  Or better yet, give me a couple weeks to get all the gardens in, and then things will slow a bit.

So…  hope your busy too!  If not, get a pitchfork and get digging!  There is NO BETTER TIME THAN THE PRESENT to start your own kitchen garden…

Enjoy a 6.5 minute tour around the farm!
Sights & sounds from around the farm on a quiet day, in the midst of spring clean-up and planting. Includes video of all our Orpingtons & their coops as well as a look at our NEW Colored Freedom Rangers’s coop and the 3 week old chicks who live there. The bantam Cochins & their coop are not featured in this video.

Today was my deadline for the new website for the Newport Farmer’s Market. I finished yesterday sometime and everything is now up and online. Have a look at the graphics, the logo & the pages I created at http://www.NewportTNFarmersMarket.com

Today we have a grower’s meeting and I didn’t make it to the last one so I’m excited to see what happens tonight, what kind of crowd there is and if there is any organization involved or hierarchy to who brings what to sell. I am just hoping to be able to bring my extra garden goodies, and not really have a plan.

The Freedom Rangers are growing like gangbusters.  If your going to raise them you will want to think about a constant supply of food.  I decided that after  2.5 weeks that they should start operating on daylight hours alone, except in extreme cold.  Since they are still in my back porch brooder, it’s easy enough to do.  But let me tell you, when I get up in the a.m. to go fill up their feeders, because no matter how much I put in there, it’s always gone…  they act like PIRANHAS!  I would NOT want to accidentally fall down near these guys.. they will eat me in 30 minutes flat!  Otherwise they are growing like gangbusters.  The little discards from my first hatch of the GLO project are still holding their own, surviving with these Freedom Rangers.  They have to be fast & creative to get any food or water, but I’m amazed at how smart & crafty they actually are.  My little heritage types look like day olds compared to the Rangers, but they are all doing fine together.  The Rangers have no extra aggressive behaviors except hunger, and they seem to enjoy the little guys, snuggling them, and everyone piles up together each evening.  Little ones hide under the big ones… and eat in the same space, just from underneath!

GLO chicks are still in progress.  I just hached 22 or 23 this week, they are still in the incubators.  It only looks like 1 or 2 are keepers from this batch.  I have less than an hour to decide because the discarded ones are going home with my friend 17Roses (byc name) today.   Because I knew that so many of these hatched chicks wouldn’t help my project, I lined up a couple of people to take the extras right away for FREE.  Saves me from feeding them and caring for them, and allows me to hatch like crazy.

WE HAVE A BROODY COCHIN!!!  We thought that one of Lexi’s banty Cochins was missing, but as it turns out she was just only coming out during the day occasionally.  One day she was there the next she was gone.  We were certain she was lost until yesterday when we saw here again during the day!  Now.. there are only 4 Cochin hens.. it’s not hard to count.  Well, apparently she’s been off laying a clutch of eggs, and NOW she’s incubating them!  We found her hiding spot last night and thank goodness she’s at least inside our fence line, so will hopefully be safer.  I figure it’s still another 3 weeks before we see if there are any chicks as she’s only been “missing” a couple of nights.  But we’re excited and we’re going to let her continue on.  The banty chickens are just the cutest ever and often I fantasize about re-homing all my 10lb chickens and filling all these huge coops with teeny tiny little Cochins & Orpingtons in every color!

We had our first farm visit yesterday for the season.  DH’s cousin & family came over for a quick visit on their way through the National Park to NC.  They have 3 lovely children, very close in age, which must be EXHAUSTING for mom 😉  but they are delightful.  They threw questions at me faster than I could answer them, and for a moment I was transported back to the days of having my own small child around.   They were great, and hopefully, even though the farm is a total mess right now for another couple of weeks, hopefully they enjoyed themselves and maybe learned a little something too to help them on their new adventure of raising some Sex Link pullets & possibly some showing in 4H.  I hope to show folks that it really CAN be simple and enjoyable and NOT too expensive to live a sustainable and balanced life.  But first… most importantly… I have to show ME that too.  This is our make it or break it year.  I’ve been building up to this.  Will the gardens feed us for 75% of the year… Will the GLO project actually GO anywhere this year…  Will the weather cooperate so I can have a good year at the Market too?

Stay tuned for the next update…  same bat place, same bat channel.

Gosh.. I LOVED Batman growing up… the TV show one too btw.  😉

So, yes, the rumors are true. It DID snow here on Monday! We covered the outdoor sprouts of Spinach, Lettuce & Radish with a little straw and let the strawberries fend for themselves. It didn’t last long, and it didn’t stick. It is not at all unexpected, or even unheard of. But never-the-less, we all hope it’s the last of the season. I’m sure I’m not the only one who is MORE than ready for spring to begin!

This week is hectic, I have to try and finish up the Newport Farmer’s Market website, I have to set a new batch of eggs to incubate (already a day late on that), I’ve got sprouts growing up like crazy with the assistance of artificial light and I’d REALLY like to get some sort of cold frame built and an recycled bottle irrigation system started. Basically, wish me luck as I have TONS to do!

Let me know how your spring is beginning to unfold! Comment on this post, you don’t have to register first or anything!

Pork Stir Fry & Fried Rice

I re-seasoned left over pork roast, by sauteeing in sesame oil, olive oil, & soy sauce with garlic, then setting aside till the end.

Starting with the broccoli, corn, onion, bell pepper, cauliflower… cooking until half way through.

The rice is old rice defrosted in the microwave you MUST have OLD rice for this to work well.. and a hot skillet.

To that I add a sauce of about 1/8 cup soy sauce, 3 tbs brown sugar & a splash or two of rice wine vinegar

Once it’s hot I add the blue bowl w/the pineapple, plus the mung bean sprouts behind it and a can of carrots cuz I was out of frozen..

Once hot, I push everything to the edges and I scramble the eggs right in the center of the skillet

Then drop the meat back into it and mix & serve.

Gold Laced Orpington Project Chick 2010

It’s been a busy weekend for chicks!!  The GLO Chicks hatched, the B/B/S chicks hatched and my Colored Rangers arrived safely!  One of the Rangers was not in the best of shape, it seems he was having trouble seeing with one eye reluctant to open up all the way.  He died shortly after arriving here, but otherwise these chicks are MONSTERS!!  HUGE right away at 3 days old with serious wing feathers!  WOW!

Now.. the photos

4 Splash Chicks, 1 Black & 1 Blue in with the GLO Chicks. See the two chipmunk looking ones on the right side? Those are KEEPERS for sure!

5 Day old Colored Rangers

The Black & Blue chicks have already moved to Cosby, TN along with a couple of the GLO chicks that show no markings.  I believe I’m only “keeping” 3 of these GLO chicks, as there are only 3 with any detail.  I will be growing out a batch of discards too in a different location, JUST for comparison sake and as insurance in case I’m making the wrong choices here and now with who to keep.

The new section for gardening, all fenced in. A utility sink is going in too!

Well, with no internet to speak of at home, I must admit.. we can get A LOT done outside!  We have made such GREAT strides toward spring planting I just can’t hardly believe it.  Let me list for you the things we have accomplished over the last few days.

In NO particular order:

• Planted our new Thompson Seedless Grapes – Cut the bottom off and filled a 3′ tall metal recycled food barrel. I didn’t have any real soil and I didn’t know what it really needed (because my internet is down) so I layered in a mixture of the 3 garden soils I do have here.
• Sectioned off part of our yard as an official “garden” area, installed fencing etc to protect up coming plants from the chickens & dogs.
• Placed our outdoor sink in it’s final destination (love those movies) at the edge of the new garden area
• Moved the Dog Run FROM the corn patch for winter, TO a corner of the new garden area.  I will use this space to grow out chicks for my GLO project and keep it here for 1 year.  Next year it will be ready to be planted with strawberries or something similar.
• Sectioned off part of the new garden area for my fruit beds & am now figuring out how to raise a place to plant my new raspberry which apparently HATES clay & sand too.  🙁   That explains why the other one & the blueberry I planted years ago are doing NOTHING.
• Put the Mini Coop on a palette foundation, put it on the slope of the hill in what will soon be shade from the Willow tree for my 2 yard cockerels still growing up/out.
• Cleaned the porch of all the winter straw remnants (except those still in the dog crate)
• Redesigned the nesting area in the 4 post coop to accommodate those hens who did not want to lay in there, but wanted to lay in the dog crate.
• Placed the 2 young pullets that are growing out with the Blue Orpingtons…  about 3 days and they get along famously.
• Used the Bucket of Death to help eliminate the mouse population beginning to grow again.  Works GREAT!