The Chickens Have Arrived!

The Gals have arrived on the Little Farm!  They moved in last Saturday morning and have already given us 6 eggs and some laughs.  We've even had some sessions of Chicken PE classes!

This year's group are all less than one year old.  We've got a Rhode Island Red, Americuna, Brown Americuna/Unknown cross and a Black Australop.  So far, their eggs have ranged from off white to dark tan.  The dark tan eggs are easily the size of jumbo eggs from the store.

The Gals are currently living in the backyard.  Farmer Ron moved their chicken coop/tractor thingy back there from its place beside our garden.  We thought we'd let them get used our place and roam around the backyard for a few weeks.  The garden is pretty wet and sloppy right now.  When it dries out, we'll move their coop out there and let them eat all the random seeds and weeds in the garden.  We love letting them do our work!


In their coop

We're all glad to have the coop filled again, especially the three youngest Young'uns.  They have been out to look for eggs about 3 times each day.  The youngest Young'un spent a good deal of time in the backyard talking and singing to them.  Hope they like company!



Hanging out by the sandbox


I know the Gals have been given names, but I'm not sure what they are...I've heard about 20 different ones floating around in the past few days.  When they've been officially christened, I'll let you know.

Be sure to check the Egg Count in the sidebar.  I'll keep it updated every few days.  We'll see if these Gals earn their keep over the next eight months or so.

Making Paper Pots for Starting Seeds

The seeds have arrived!  The next step, here on the Little Farm, is to get the tomatoes and eggplant seeds into some dirt so they can start growing inside.  We can't put plants or seeds into our garden much before Mother's Day each year.  This means our growing season is pretty short and we need to give some of our plants a head start if we want to have any veggies.

Starting seeds usually means getting a black plastic tray or two and some peat starter pellets from the infamous Fleet Farm.  Once home Fleet Farm, we'd put the pellets into the tray, add water, "ooh" and "aah" as the pellets puffed up into dirt, stuck our seeds into the dirt and wait for a few weeks.

This year we're doing something different...I bought a Paper Pot Maker from Amazon using some of my Swagbucks!

I'd seen one of these little babies a few years back and loved the idea, but hadn't gotten around to giving it a try.  My Amazon gift cards had been sitting in my account (thanks Swagbucks!) just begging me to use them, so I thought we'd give the Paper Pot Maker a go. 

The Verdict:  so far, I love it!

In the space of about an hour, I made 103 small pots out of newspaper!  They were easy to make, are the perfect size for starting seeds and the materials (newspaper) didn't cost me a thing.  Once the plants are ready to put into the ground, we can stick them in pot and all since the paper pot is biodegradable!

Besides all of this - I think they're cute!

Here's how it works...  Cut strips of newspaper about 4 inches wide. 

Wrap a strip around the Pot Maker snugly, but not too snugly or it'll be tough to slide your pot off when it's done. The ends of the paper should hang over the bottom end of the pot maker by about an inch or so.  Fold these ends in towards the center.

Press the Pot Maker onto the circle/base thingy.  I found it takes some pretty decent pressure to get the bottom to sticky somewhat tightly.  It worked best to have the base sitting on a table or some sort of firm surface.  There are grooves on base which help to make the bottom stick. 

 Here's what the bottom of the pot looks like after it has been pressed and mashed around a bit on the base.

At this point, you slide the pot off the end and viola!  You've made yourself a cute little pot that's all ready for your dirt, seeds and love.

Seeds: They Make Me Happy!

 On Saturday afternoon, our friendly mailman (I do know I'm supposed to call him a "postal worker," but he is a man and he was delivering our mail) knocked on our door and handed me a small, square box.

"Could it be?" thought I.

One quick glance at the return address and I knew.  Our seeds had arrived! 

Oh the joy!  Oh the hope!  Oh the possibilities!

I'm pretty sure I sensed the slight taste of a big juicy tomato in my mouth...

In my happiness, I gave the aforementioned mailman a big ol' kiss, took my package and shut the door.

The seeds for this year's garden here on the The Little Farm have come from Fedco Seeds on the recommendation of a friend, Laurie, who is miles and miles ahead of me in all things "farming."  She has a lovely garden, property and blog, Common Sense Homesteading.  She is so smart about so many things, but I digress...

We were looking for a new seed source because last year's seeds were a bit disappointing.  The catalog from Seed Savers looked gorgeous and I love the idea of what Seed Savers does, but the seeds didn't turn into many plants.  What plants we did get, didn't do so great.  And, to be honest, we're in this for the food.  We've got five Young'uns - two of whom are teenage boys and one 3 year old who's favorite summertime activity is to hide in the garden and eat veggies.  She's learned what jalepenos look like, but again, I digress...

Fedco.  One look at their website and they had me.  Here is the first line from their "About Fedco" page:

Welcome to Fedco Seeds, your source for cold-hardy selections especially adapted to our demanding Northeast climate.

See why I liked them?  The Little Farm isn't in the Northeast, but we still need cold-hardy selections.  This may have been the trouble with last year's seeds - not made to grow in the Frozen Tundra.  Did I mention we had snow falling here today on April 4th?

Back to the box.  I opened it with ooh's and aah's.

Do you think 31 packs of seeds is too much?

I loved the seed packaging - thick white envelopes with green printing and resealable flaps.  They also have explicit planting directions on the front of each envelope, something which is very helpful to gardening wanna-be's like us.

As I spread them out on the table, reading the names aloud, I got even more excited.  Amish Paste Tomato, National Pickling Cucumber, Over the Rainbow Carrot Mix, Arugula, Swallow Eggplant, Pink Brandywine Tomato, Mammoth Dill, Arugula, just to name a few.  (I know I mentioned Arugula twice.  Say it aloud - it's fun.)

The seed packs have been sorted into piles of those we'll start early in our basement (hopefully in the next couple of days) and those we'll sow directly in the ground.  I'll keep you posted.

Seeds!  Oh the joy!  Oh the hope!  Oh the possibilities!

(I'm just kidding about kissing the mailman.)

What Does Hope Look Like?

Hope - to expect with confidence of future fullfilment

If you live somewhere which is perpetually green or at least mostly perpetually green, you might not get this.  Here is what hope looks like to me...

Those little green shoots poking out of the ground are the brave little daffodils which have started appearing in the last week outside our house.  Again, if you're in a location where there's even a bit of green year round, these tiny sprouts probably don't look very impressive to you, but they are to me.

I've been going outside to see them at least once a day, sometimes more.  They represent my hope for the future...I am hoping for green leaves, green grass, juicy tomatoes, warm breezes, tanned kids with scraped, dirty knees and nights of sleeping with the window open.

After a long, cold, dark winter, I am confidently expecting new life to arrive outside my door.  Soon.  Please let it be soon.

What else does hope look like to me?  Like this...


The Young'uns in the Fall of 2009.  Photo by Hailey Brautigam.

The Young'uns.  Five of our greatest gifts from God.  I have hope that "he who began a good work in you (them) will be faithful to complete it." (Phillipians 1:6)  Sometimes during the day, I look at them and get excited to see what their futures will be.  New lives.

Finally, for me, this is what hope looks like...

In the cross I see hope.  I confidently expect the fulfillment of my hopes soon...in Easter.  The best new life of all.

Frivolous Friday: Things We Do to Our Kids

Despite all my best efforts, I am sure I've done many things over the years which have traumatized the Young'uns.  Probably for life.  It's hard to be a great Mom all the time.  We have weak moments.

However, I can honestly say I've never been this weak... at least not when my camera has been around.

Poor kid!  This was his mother's cure for sunburn.  I think it is cornstarch.  Apparently, his left hand escaped the sun.  Maybe he was in a Michael Jackson phase and was sporting the sparkly white glove at the beach that day. 

Whatever is going on here, it made me laugh.  Happy Frivolous Friday!

Once again, thanks for the laugh Awkward Family photos!

Sometimes I Think We're Too Trashy Around The Farm

A Disclaimer:  In posting this I am not wanting to enter into some debate on Global Warming and such topics.  Really.  I am not.

Sometimes when I am hauling yet another bag out to our trash cans...  Or better yet, sometimes when I am yelling for one of my sons to come and haul yet another bag out to our trash cans...  I get a bit sad.  Well, maybe disgusted is more the word for which I'm looking.

We recycle an overwhelming majority of our paper, plastic, aluminum, glass, etc. We compost an overwhelming majority of our veggie and fruit scraps.  We do most all our cleaning with clothes and not paper.

We still have trash.  Lots of it, it seems to me.  (Yes, I know there are 7 of us living here.  It still seems like a lot of trash even under these circumstances.)

I'm not prepared to go to the lengths of the family in this video.  I don't think human trash will lead to the utlimate destruction of our planet and life as we know it.  But I can't see how it couldn't be a good thing for everyone, including this earth God has given us, for our family to use and throw way less.

The family has gotten me thinking.  Check out the video and some of their ideas on the website.  They are pretty inspiring.  Their first line of defense is rather shocking:  Refuse!  They simply refuse to bring things into their home.  Wow!  How simple and yet, how revolutionary.

Don't worry Big Guy and Young'uns...I'm still very partial to toilet paper.  I won't go THAT far.

This Is Why I've Been An Absentee Blogger...

Little Farm Confections

A friend and I have been baking our aprons off and earning a little extra cash.  It's been crazy and fun all at the same time.  I'll be back one of these days, I promise.  I miss blogging.

All those ideas are actually out of my head on paper because it seems like it might be a bit late for them this year...  :)

(The words "Little Farm Confections" above are a link, by the way...)