How Our Garden Grows...

Since this is a question that is (annoyingly) asked a lot of me, ;) I am going to share (pictorially) how my garden does in fact, grow...

For me, this is the most beautiful, peaceful place in the whole world.

 

So, this is why I've not been inside blogging in the evenings, when a beautiful space such as this is my backyard... (omg!)

 

Thanks for visiting!
 

Summer

Summer is finally here, as is evident from such things like sunburn, watermelon, volleyball and long evenings (no swimming yet though--Lake Superior is sooo cold this year!)

Last night, after the chores, volleyball and badminton, we lounged around and watched a big storm roll in.

Other summery goodness....

Straw-babies!!

 

and cat babies.

Flowers, never too many...

Playground. Was it only last year our Donna was too afraid to go down these bigger slides??

Wet puppy...

Horses on pasture. Lizzy loves these two...

Happy summer! Eat a watermelon for me--a whole one--all by yourself! ;)

 

The Trouble with Cows...

The trouble with cows is the annoying fact that they keep trying to undercut us with the prices they charge for their own milk.

(These adorable pics were recently dug up from an old photo library and I had to share.)

French Fries Verses the Blood Suckers from Hell…

Even the locals are saying they've never seen mosquitoes like this before. We were preparing for an crazy onslaught of hungry biting flies, such as the animals had last year, and instead, we've been tortured by clouds of misquotes so thick you can't hardly see through them. They just came out of nowhere this past week. Hopefully, they'll leave just as quickly!

On a different (but related--I'll explain in a moment!) note, our potato patch has been increasingly worse every year for a number of reasons. Lack of water, not enough fertilizer hauled out there, too much quack grass growing in from the edges. Basically, it's bigger than us and our shovels can properly care for with the rest of our half acre garden to tend too. Last year, we toiled with little better return than the seed we put in. This year, there was a lot of debate as to how we should proceed with it. Some of us were in favor of trying some new methods all together. Others had different ideas for how the plot should be utilized, while still others argued that we should plant our seed in a new area. After much debate, the most adamant (and one of the hardest working potato toilers) got his way. The area was disced up by our neighbor and his tractor (it had gotten too out of hand for the mule to handle). By then, it was rather late in the spring already, so the kids set to planting straight away. This is where those pesky skeedos come in…

Oh. My. Gosh.
I personally, do not love my french fries and mashed potatoes that much.
Not only did they plant the entire patch in one afternoon, they also spent the next day covering it in manure from the nearby pastures. They would come running in from the garden after finishing, scratching everywhere with a wide-eyed traumatized look as they told their horror stories about having to keep their mouths closed or risk ingesting the buggers. The mesquites never been anywhere near this bad for us in the past. But my siblings are so determined and hardworking when they put their minds to it--I'm so proud of them! :) And Steve is renewing his efforts to get the hoses out there to keep them watered through this summer, so hopefully this harvest will be better for potatoes.

 Every bite of potato I consume this winter, I'll remember how bad the mosquitoes were this spring and the kid's determination and bravery, and I'll feel gratitude and pride towards my siblings. :)

Standing on Abundance

Mom made the comment today that we're finally starting to feel the abundance of our homesteading efforts. The list she made lifted my spirits and hope for the future, so I thought I'd share:

-It's almost June and we're still eating our own berries in the freezer from last summer. It looks like we'll close the gap between our harvest and new crop, which is a first for this berry hungry family!

-Our gardens are abundant and maturing in some ways, but we're still learning and trying new things and not all of our efforts pay off. Still, berry bushes, trees and vines are maturing nicely.

 

-Rhubarb. Ugh, anybody want some?? We also have tons of perennial herbs and and so many walking onions that they're literally walking all over the garden. ;)

-Mom says flowers. Pssht! So, maybe some of my hollyhocks and violets have spread a little, but there's no such thing as an overabundance of flowers so that hardly counts! :)

-We have eggs coming out of our ears. We don't really have more chickens than previous springs, but Mom said that they seem healthier than they've ever been, so they're all producing daily.

-Milk. Soooo much of it! With the new heifers calving we could practically take milk baths. Poor Mom is swamped with kitchen work trying to process it all.

-Our pasture, once stripped of it's topsoil (a few years before we arrived here) is finally starting to produce better grass thanks to our efforts of intensive rotational grazing and mowing. It's a very slow process, but today Mike was able to put cows out on a section of pasture they had just eaten about a week ago. Score!

-Horses and cows. Sometimes we feel that the overabundance of our four legged friends is a bit excessive (because it is) and Theresa is working on thinning down the horse herd, but they're all very healthy, valuable, beautiful animals!

-Maple syrup. We had two good years in a row and now have all we want.

-Kittens. Naturally, there's an abundance of them on the farm, but we never have trouble selling our colorful and ridiculously people friendly kittys.

-Dandylions! Of course. Actually, these are a fairly recent sight out in our stripped pasture--hopefully a sign that the soil's doing better! Mom wants to make wine and Donna is just in love with them all. I caught her planting some in my flower beds, haha!

-And lastly, mosquitoes. Holy freaking wow! Didn't really need an abundance of those, but 'abundance' is stating it mildly. Hope they don't stick around...


Abundance can make a person feel rich and after so many years, it's nice to start feeling the payback for our homesteading efforts, but it's also difficult not to feel overwhelmed. We want to make the most of everything coming in (as in, continuing in cheese making experiments instead of taking milk baths) but it's hard not to feel overwhelmed with everything there is to do here, and all the potential there is to do here. Just have to keep taking it one gallon of milk at a time...