Good moring from the moutian

Good morning from the mountain, it is pleasant rainy day.  I was so hopeful yesterday, we had found a home for a rooster who then decided to fight everything in the barn yard, a real bruiser that one.  So tough is this rooster that he would give Popeye a run for his money.  So now he is running the yard with a swollen eye, blood dripped comb and still I can not catch him.  We offered the woman an older red rooster, it was not going to work, though he would have been a good breeder, missing tail feathers though, and a younger reddish colored rooster, who is as tough as nails fertile as the great delta, but neither of these were to fulfill her desire or need.  Sometimes I just fall short, so said roosters will become food for us and not breeding stock for some one else, that is how farm life goes sometimes.


My lavender has set to bloom and all I can think about it is lavender cookies.

Here you make some too:


You will need :
Parchment paper and cookie sheet
1 3/4 flour I use wheat flour, but you can use white.
3/4 of a cup of sugar or 1/4 cup of honey.
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 duck, chicken or 7 large quail eggs or a quarter of a goose egg.
3/4 cup of real whole cream butter( room temp) or 3/4 cup of apple sauce.
1 teaspoon bourbon vanilla
At least a 1/2 teaspoon of fresh lavender flowers or one teaspoon dried.

I do not preheat ovens, unless cooking with my wood-burning one.  You will want to cook these cookies at around 350 degree F or 175 C for about 10-12 minutes, till they are golden and lovely.

But before we can bake we must mix the ingredients, dry to wet.  Mix flour, sugar baking soda together and add the butter and egg or eggs, now add vanilla and lastly lavender.  Once mixed drop by spoonful on Parchment paper lined cookie sheet.  Now bake as directed above and enjoy.  Cookies are best when shared with others.



Time for me to get to my chores, be blessed dear ones.

Shekhinah

Good afternoon from the Mountain

Good afternoon from the Mountain and a special welcome to our new viewers from South Korea.  As normal live on the farm is hectic.  There is more than needs done than anyone could ever seem to finish.  Plants needs planted others need harvested. I bought a new food grade plastic bucket to make Kim Chi in, it cost .75 cents.  I bought a second one to make a swamp cooler for the children's room.

I also found out what that sound was on the drivers side rear, I needed breaks, never mind that I had them replaced by the dealer ship less than 2 years ago. Chevy Dealership in Thayer, Missouri should be ashamed of themselves, charging me for breaks and then not putting them on.

So I had a fun day yesterday, hit a parked car at the repair center, thank goodness for insurance.  After I filled a claim with The Hartford they went right to work on the claim, they are some great people. By the way if you hit some ones vehicle on private property the police will not issue you a report, 20 minutes of my day gone for nothing....ugh. I also want to thank my mechanic Keith's Auto for their help and Steve's Alignment in Mammoth as he replaced my breaks.  Steve does nice work and quick, though I am broke again, but that is how life his.  I still need to get the front redone, and new tires.  About another $800 dollars that today I do not have, but I know I will have to make it as I need the van.  Some things one can not be with out.

The last two days have been rainy and I am happy for the rain, though the ground is not soaked yet.  The plants are looking wonderful, some of the first Oaxacan green corn is already three feet tall, the pumpkins are flowing (male flowers so far), and the beans are quickly taking up to growing on the corn, all is well with these guys.  I am planting the pumpkin , corn and beans better known as three sisters in batches.  They all take around 100 days to mature and this means I will not have to harvest great amounts at a time.  The first batch I will can and dry all I can for the home and the second will be half for the livestock and half for the house and so on.  I should be able to feed for quite some time.  Pumpkins like these will keep for months on a shelf, and everything like to eat them.  The beans once dried are good for the animals and us and if stored correctly will keep for many years.  The corn must be dried as well, and will keep for years if put up correctly.  I will reserve some corn to use as sweet corn though.  The plants them selves would be put up as fodder for the winter months, there is no waste and beets, turnips and other root vegetables can be planted as soon as the first round is done.  This form of growing is by far the best I have ever know.  It is gentle to the earth and promotes a fantastic harvest.  If you would like to try the corn we planted you can buy it from www.johnnyseeds.com 

First rounds of potatoes will be ready to harvest in about a week or so, still have many pounds to go into the ground, it is not to late to plant potatoes, they take just two months. You do not need land or even a fancy place to grow them. You can use a cardboard box and a plastic trash bag, in my case I am using cardboard boxes and plastic sheeting that we took down off the windows, waste not want not.  You take the box line it with sheet plastic or your trash bag.  Place an inch of soil into the box and set your sprouted potatoes in and cover them lightly with soil, after about a week they should have sprouted up a few inches, now add more soil, let them grow up again, add more soil.  Repeat until the box is full. When your potatoes flower, which by the way was the first reason they were grown in America, for their flowers; you will still have a few weeks left. One they dye back you are done, tip the box over, cut it open, what ever is easier for you and you will be blessed to see many new potatoes ready to eat or be put up for the winter.  A banana box will yield over 20 pounds of potatoes in a season from just three potatoes.

On to other news Our dog is doing so much better, though he still has a small wound.  I think the goats milk has really helped to get him back on track.  We are feeding it to him twice a day and this morning when I went out to milk the goats he was running and jumping and playing.  I love to see a happy healthy dog.

After a frantic amount of telephone time and perhaps making some of my fiends a bit uncomfortable; I have found one that for a share of the meat and gas money will help us to take both the cow and the calf to the butcher in West Plains, Missouri. Although my horse trailer is in good shape and would handle the load, my van will not. I came to terms with that yesterday.  I wanted to cry as a feeling of helplessness came over me, and the dread of trying to feed and deal with the cows filled my mind. Moo our now retired milk cow has made me a wreck with her running off.  The last time she was over ten miles from the farm when some one saw her and contacted us.  Her calf scares me to death and is impossible to keep in a fence or barn and can more often then not, be-found wondering my farm in the dark.  Michael seems to be fine with this, but when you think of a 700-800 pound 7 month old bull greeting you in the dark it is quite to the contrary of fine.  In fact I was terrified.  I went out to see what the dogs were barking at, with out my gun of course and from the brush a thundering sound, it was the big black bull calf, snorting and starring me down. I was just a few feet from our water house and I ran, not walked into the building.  I prayed he would not charge the door which is old and barley together.  I hoped that he would just leave, thinking maybe I frightened him or he would get board.  So here I was trapped in the dead of the night in my water house and no one knew where I was. Millions of thoughts ran though my mind, why did I not grab the cell phone, the ac is on in the house, no one will hear me if I yell and it might just draw the bull in closer... and again, no one knows I am gone. About 20 minutes passed and I peeked outside the door, my dog rounds the corner of the building with her little grin upon her face, as if to say, it's safe to come out now.  I causeless step outside the door, looking right to left, listing to the sounds echoing in the night and quickly follow the path back to the safety of the house.  Never have I disliked an animal before, but I am working towards it.  I think the two cows will make great steaks.

Here is the other think the hay crops are not looking so good, many of the hay farmers I have talked to had nothing good to say, it is as if the grass feels that winter is coming and has stopped growing, that means the hay will undoubtedly go up in price. This is very disappointing news for us as we are already hurting with them getting ready to spray what is left of the non-organic wheat in this country with RoundUp, to quote, "dry it faster".  So wheat is off our list of feed items very soon.  We will have to scale things down in the next few months, just to survive the winter that is coming.  Each week buying feed is becoming harder and harder and as we change our feeds , we lead others to do like wise.  This means more good feed is being sold, now causing a shortage of that as well.  It is very frustrating and the reason that we are trying to grow food for ourselves and our animals.

That is where we are...I hope you all are doing well

Be Blessed
Shekhinah

Do you live in or about the Camp area,looking for some great deals? We have a place for you, it's the all new Camp Online yard sale group! Please feel free to join us, make some new friends and sell or buy some great stuff. I look forward to seeing you there.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/camponlineyardsale/

Good rainy evening from the mountain

Good evening from the mountain and a special welcome to our viewers in Belgium.  We have had a nice day today with guests to the farm and the birth of new mini pigs.  You can not believe how cute and how little they these little pigs are.  You could darn near fit them in a coffee cup.  I am very happy they were all born healthy and vibrant.  There are six total, I do not know their sexes yet and I do not have photos.  My camera needs batteries and it is a far drive to get them.  I will get some soon.

Our first round of potatoes are about a week from harvest.  I will replant them right away.  I have lots to still get in the gardens, it is a never ending task of planting and replanting.  Something is always ready to come out. Right now I am still harvesting an old world wheat for the livestock, it is time consuming and hot work, so I do a little and rest.  I take a wheel-barrow full out each time, I think one more wheel-barrel from that one garden and it will be ready for replanting with tomatoes, peppers and lots of beans.  The cucumbers and zucchini are about ready to go in the ground as well.  On our eight ball zucchini we already have fruit and the first tomatoes already have fruit so things are coming along nicely I think.  I think I will cut back a few of the Chinese cabbage and make kim chi, honestly I am never with out things to do.

To those of you who have asked about Penguin duck dog, he is still with us, the snake wound is healing, his tongue is the loveliest shade of purple from this constant licking the blue coat( a medicine) off. He is for all reasons back to his old self.  Each night he patrols the farm, barks at everything and keeps us all safe.  I am sure the other dogs on the farm are as relieved as we are with his recovery.  He is getting goats milk with his food twice a day and I am sure it is helping him to recover.

Well time to get off of here and supper cooked...

Be Blessed
Shekhinah

Good evening from the mountain

Welcome our Irish guest, and to all our viewers from across the globe.  It is nice to know that you share the day with us.  This weekend is a holiday weekend in America, Memorial day week-end.  It is a time when people gather their families together and remember and honor the veterans.  For us it is a day to rest and stay out of town.  To many drunk people...lol

Our dog continues to do better since his bite, the plants continue to grow and we continue to work hard to make our little farm work.  Today we were gifted 50 pounds of seed potatoes to plant, I have no idea where to plant them, but have to figure it out ion the morning.

We did not get the rain that was called for and much needed, do watering the garden will happen at 6:30 tomorrow morning.  I lot a Italian squash plant, something ate it, uhgggg, thank goodness I have 10 more seedlings.  I will plant them somewhere else a little safer I guess.  I picked up some Green Zebra tomatoes as well to get into the ground, here we can plant till the end of June and still harvest before the first frost.  We are very lucky.  Tomorrow I hope to harvest more strawberries, some Chinese cabbage, some asparagus, spinach and some other greens, oh and peas...

We were blessed to have some very nice people come out to the farm today, they were charming and their girls we so cute and smart.  They took home some silky chickens and some mutt birds.  I wish them a happy start with their little farm.

Well the boss has some pumpkin pie baked and is serving it up, so I will leave you all and get some pie.

Be Blessed
Shekhinah

Good morning from the mountain

Good morning from the mountain, our snake bite dog is looking better, though I think the whole event has been a traumatic experience for him and us.  He was not really great about trusting us before, now, even more so.  He is up to date all on his shots now though, as we took full advantage of having him held.  Now if I could get a collar on him, some times I feel like we are his pets, as he only interacts with us when he deems it to be so.  I truly am grateful for our three dogs.  Even eagle our older dog ha been a great blessing in keeping the farm free of most vermin, and some times humans.  I can see why the link between dogs and man is so strong.

I am still using the children's computer and that is the reason the posts are slow in coming.  I have ordered a new laptop, which is costly, however I hope that it will be a great tool for the many projects we have underway.  It is an Alienware system and will be good for five years, or should I say it is insurable for five years.  It works out with insurance to $400.00 per year.  Watch as I fool myself into thinking that this is reasonable.  At $400.00 per year fully insurance against everything, including an elephant sitting on it, it being run over by a car, stuck by lightning, plugged in to North Arkansas Electric Cooperative's grid, Soda or other liquids spilled upon it, faulty boards, drives, etc...Do you know that $400. per year works out to just $33.33 per month, I mean come on, that is so reasonable.  It is just $1.11 per day, right around the cost of a cup of coffee with a senor discount.  Hey wait I don't get a senor discount, whew, that makes it cheaper then a cup of coffee.

Wow that sounds great, right...well not so much.  I have to endure such malevolent foolishness as I live in a country where is good is not good enough and every computer company is not satisfied until they have gotten you into the latest and greatest tech that you never needed.  I did not want an upgrade, did not really need one, just needed my computer repaired, but after a model has been on the market for five years, they will not help you and finding the parts become incredible hard.  On top of that, when you can find a reasonable priced system that what by remarkable chance the same if not a lower configuration than the last one you owned you can not a quire it.  Why you might ask, the forced market of windows 8, it is really all about the cloud and it's apps, less about you and me, unless you feel your privacy is important.  They want every one in two classes, and I did see this coming over 15 years ago.  Back then there was talk of two Internets, one for the poor and one for everyone else.  What I did not see coming was that it would be this open creation for spying on every moment of our lives.  Never would I have though that in the Republic of the United States of America would I be forced to step down and walk away from new tech, clinging to windows 7 with a powerful grip in hopes of maintaining at least some small amount of privacy.

Many years ago while working for home health, I cared for a women who  had not indoor toilets, and I found it a bit disturbing that in this day and age she still had an out house.  She did not maintain this style of life because she was poor, but because she felt an indoor bathroom did not allow for privacy.  She said, " there are just some things one should not be forced to share".  I agree, I do not want my unfinished books or cartoons, or anything to be-able to be accessed from the cloud by anyone else.  As to date there is no complete way to guard against such a thing and in Windows 8 most everything is cloud based and that is the reason so many systems are being built with only 4 gigibites of memory, which my ten year old laptop also featured.  So bad is the security of this cloud that yesterday I received notification from a site before it was announced by eBay that there pass words have been compromised, sounds like a Target problem.  Again people's data is stolen, but we are safe in the untested place that is the cloud.  I am not saying that I do not use the cloud, but I am careful where I do.  If my banks switches to the cloud I will drop them like a rock and go back to using money orders and straight Paypal.  I see no reason to put my self through further pain.  It is a scary world out there.

In more farm stuff we are scaling back on livestock a little more and have been working towards so new ways to feed us and them, so we will see how that goes.  I did view a wonderful program on Ethiopian black barley yesterday, wow that grain is so amazing and versatile.  I see using it more and growing it in the future.

They have aired it all over the news here in America, that there will be less food from California this year. They say less then half across the board and the bread baskets states also have been hit hard by weather, I am not sure I believe the number they have come up with, but I do get that we need to continue on our path of self sufficiency that we are working towards.  I can see see clearly that this winter we will eat well as we have planted many varieties of each plant in hopes of forgoing issues like mono-farms have.  If part of my crop fails, no biggie.  We will still eat and well.  I try to get every person to raise their own food to what ever degree they can as well as to hunt for wild food and game.  If we all did this, the world would be far healthy then it is today and so would we.

Weather for today and tomorrow, rainy....

Be Blessed
Shekhinah

Welcome friends in China, more planting and snake bit dog, spent as a wheat crop

Good morning from the mountain, I just wanted to welcome our new viewers in China, and  good for you dumping windows 8, which again is a terrible, "software" (APP) program. I am very interested in the older agricultural practices of your people and your long time interest in Heirloom crops.

I still have a long way to go on planting, I plan to get as much done today as I can, the rest of the started tomatoes at the very least need to be in the ground and more garlic too.  I have The Italian gourd squash that I need to plant today too, tomorrow I have even more to do.  I will start more seeds as well.  I really need to have at least 25 pepper plants....Oh our peas plants are making peas, I am so happy to see the little white flowers, which means its time to plant the beans.  We are planting so many different types of beans, I can not wait till first harvest.

I am thinking about planting Spelt, if I still have enough time.  It has twice the protein of regular wheat and by far more healthy. I watched a great program on BYU , called "Fusion Grain Cooking", wow are these people on task with grain.  I learned so much.  I may not agree with their religious views but I can can agree that they are amazing cooks.  Just check out some of the recipes:  http://www.chefbrad.com/recipes/category.php?category=&cat_id=23


The dog is looking a little better since yesterday, I think we are going to give him a shot of penicillin.  He will not leave his bandage alone though, he managed to gt it off.  It would not be so bad, but much like his daddy before him, he is a bit wild.   He is frustrating.

Time to go to work...so much to do...

Be Blessed
Shekhinah

Snake bites-doing rounds with the chickens-religion and windows 8

A few days ago our dear penguin duck dog got bitten on his side by a snake.  At first it let a big bubble on his side.  As a couple of days passed it opened up into a sore, which we have been treating, but t looks terrible. I would welcome any help in treating this wound that anyone might offer.

I spent a good deal of time tending to the birds out side after Michael cleaned their pens.  I have trimmed their toe nails and vaselined their legs, and back into their clean pens.  The all look happy.  We had a bang up day selling eggs yesterday and now have boxes for the eggs, so there will be a lot of boxes going out in the mourning.  The muscovys surprised us to day by laying, every last one, got a bunch of eggs, and I followed up by listing them for sale on eBay. I hope to be able to cover the electric bill with the money we have taken in this month.  You will notice I did not use the word made, there is very little profit in what we do, we do it because it matters to us and we feel it is important  to help others to raise their own food.

Well goats are milked, might be getting another one that has mastities, I have a good success rate with making them well and it would break my heart if my friend took her to auction.  Please I would feel bad for the person that bought her.  I know sometimes it takes me a year to save up for a goat, even longer for a cow.  At that I place myself in the place of the person who might get her, how would I feel after working so hard to get a goat to give milk for my kids...hurts my heart just thinking about it.

People always ask my why I feel and act this way, in truth it has nothing to do with religion, it has more to do with knowing right and wrong, to live each day being as kind as one can.  I know sometimes I do not seem kind, but behind each thing I do is a carefully laid out thought; I am not jumping in blindly by force.  I do what I do out out of love, and compassion.  Simple doing what is right with out thought of punishment or reward, as the act of thinking and acting is it's own reward.  Perhaps my life would be easier if I give into to the impulse of keeping someone else money, tempting blood money given to quite a loud voice or even look the other way, however my soul does not allow these things, it just knows.

The good intentions of others to want to save me is in vain, as I know where my heart and soul need to be.  As of late I have found that I am unhappy with religion, much like my government, I love G-d and I love my country, but the in-between things trouble me greatly.  Being told by both that what they do is for the over all good.  How odd that is that they both want to force their negative nasty behavior on me.  I just want to live on my farm in peace, what they do is of little interest to me.  When I do ask either for an answer as to why they do this or that, I get the same level of silence.  I remember being told silence is a gift; I do not think so, I think they do not answer out of fear, out of looking foolish.

Where religion is concerned I ask why do you cut your hair, why do you not feed those that are hungry for works and food.  A hungry man can be a dangerous man, and it matters not what one they are hunger for.  The government on the other hand would like to feed everyone words, but then stave them and feed them things that look like food, slowly staving them and all with out a thought.

I just want to tell China that you made a wise choice in pulling windows 8 for your computers.  The number eight it's self is not a good number, but the program is crap, complete and total crap.  Windows Vista offered the best security of all Windows software, windows 7 has issues but is one thousand times better then windows 8 the App, the lie of happy all wrapped up in a nice box with shiny paper.

I get to go and work in the garden now, be blessed dear ones.

Shekhinah

Morning from the mountain

I am so sorry I have not been posting, I have limited access to a computer right now.  I took the DELL back as it could not be easily downloaded, and after 15 days, I gave up.  It would have been fine if they would have told me the chip-set for the wireless board, but they chose to keep it a big secret.  DELL Like other computer companies seems to have a lot of secrets, such as only paying their phone techs at or round $550.00 American dollars per month.  I can see why a company like DELL or HP would think they are saving money, but in the long run making the customer happy is saving money.  Less tech calls, less repeat tech calls.  No one should have to call more than twice to fix something.  In the end, I understand where they went wrong and I told them.  I think the worst part for me as a retired tech is knowing that this will only get worse as Windows 8 is the most horrible of all the software that I have ever used that was created by Microsoft.   It makes Millennium Windows look good, and that is really saying something.  Now in all fairness Windows 8 is less a program and more an App.  Apps for those who do not know are like mini software programs that phones and tablets use.  They have some awesome benefits like taking less memory to run, less processing on both phones and tablets, but are not a replacement for software on a laptop or desk top.  What we are seeing is the top of the mountain, in that most people have as much tech as they can use, that puts all computer companies at risk, as very little has changed in the last 10 years other then hard drive size has grow.  Most computers being sold still only have four gigs of memory and less than a tig hard drive, but they run Windows 8.  I can tell you it is very difficult to find a Windows 7 laptop and when you do, you are often on your own as computer companies will give you little or no help with them. Then there is the cost you are going to pay 40% more over all for a Windows 7 laptop.  You may be saying to your self, this is madness, but not so in an industry that needs more buyers and less keepers.  If I make it very hard for you to use your desk top or laptop you will buy a tablet, and the cycle will start over as you realize once owner a tablet for half a year or so you will want a desktop or laptop and a year latter you will want a tablet because they have cool apps and are portable, so then what.  A new hybrid is most likely in the works, that will be more like the chrome books that use the web as a hard drive.  I am not interested in letting some one else have access to all my stuff, I do not have any thing to hide, it is just my stuff and I value my privacy.  So next time you buy a device, just pause for a minute and say is this something I want or something I am being conditioned to buy.

Now on to farm matters, we have been selling hatching eggs all over America.  I do not make a great deal of money at it,m but I feel it is important to help others to raise their own food or pest control.  Lately i have felt that the Post Office is not with me on this venture.  I have ordered free boxes, which I once got in four days, now it has been months, I asked my carrier about it and she has not seen them, how odd I thought.  On Friday I went to pick some boxes up for the local post office, which is in the middle of farm lands , so to speak and there is a sign on their door..."Post Office Open from 11 am to 1 pm."  What madness is this?   Turns out the Post Master sets the hours, I know this as I spoke to him about it.  He informed me he was fine with it, I on the other hand less so.  I am quit un-happy with this as I ship eggs which are time sensitive and I need to be-able to access the post office before 11 am to get my business done.  Mind you the only reason they are still in our area is due to the number of boxes we and one other farm ship, but they stand on making it very difficult for me to do so.  I am very sad over this, so I have been on hold with the main US post office for now 60 minutes, nice I am glad they care.  I tried very hard to work this out on the local level, but no dice.  I am now thinking maybe the post office kept my mailing boxes that never arrived and in the back of my mind I am thinking worse thoughts, it is all very sad.  I must admit I am not sure why anyone would think it would be a good idea with summer coming to have the office open in the heat of the day when it cost more to keep the building cool, maybe that is why they can not make a money, poor management skills.  So eggs will go out late today due to their issues, not mine.  In the short of it, doing business with them is bad business for me, maybe when Fed-ex buys them out I will get better service.

My children are loving on a pet butterfly, she was damaged from the storms.  Yesterday Elijah carried her about the yard and placed her on the roses to get a meal, he enjoyed watching her eat so much and I delighted in watching him care for this little love.  I was awoken to Elisha wanting me to make breakfast for her, which I did, organic sugar water.  Elijah has also had a nice time with the little butterfly.  He spent almost an hour learning about their life cycle today.  He came out and told me she would live around two weeks after she had become a butterfly, it is all too sweet and a good chance to learn to care for even the smallest of farm members.

Speaking of small members, our last set of bees are now in place Italian bees. A good friend of mine went and drove with me to get them...bees were lose everywhere...but we were fine, the bees were not angry with us.  After they got here to the farm they seem very happy and productive.  I foresee a good relation ship between them and us. Now we have three hives , all a buzz and happy.  Lots of honey this fall as they have tons of flowers to chose from.  Even with our bee losses last year do to a neighbors careless fire and North Arkansas Electric Coop chemical trespass, we still lost less bees then others in the country.  I read the loss of bees this winter was 23 % in America, that is almost a forth of all the domestic bees in America, that is insane. I mean unless you think of the number of GMO crops in the ground and idiots spraying the sides of the roads with chemical cocktails.   Then it seems about right, if I had one magical wish it would be that people would wake up and ban the use of GMOS and these chemical cocktails that are killing the bees, wild life and some day us.

Our gardens are doing well and I am still planting, always planting.  We have been eating greens from it everyday and with lots of yummy wild greens as well, we are all feeling better.  Our Chinese cabbage has started bolting, as I think I have said before and it is amazing how much food we have gotten from this one patch.  I have been cutting the flowers off and we put them in with the rest of our greens.  You can see the resemblance between the Chinese cabbage and broccoli and it is so yummy.  I think for a while longer we will keep doing this, cutting the flowers off and eating them, I can dig up the rest and use them for kimchi any time.  We picked more radishes and spinach, wild and domestic.  The tomatoes are doing great, peas are starting to make baby peas, I am so happy, I though I would be eating the plants, lol.  they are edible and yummy, but we sure could use the peas to can for winter and to dry for winter spouting.  Over all the strawberries have done well too...and we have tons of lemon balm and spearmint, our garlic is looking great, potatoes, wow we have so many, pumpkins and corn, yup they and the beans are doing great, oh and our leeks are coming along nice too...I will be on busy caner this season.

Lots of baby chicks everywhere on our farm, the baby goose is so big, I wish I could post photos, but this computer is very old and it is very hard to get it to even post this blog.  I am looking for a new laptop and hope to get this all fixed very soon.  My website is also suffering, but I do what I can.  I believe that G-d will provide an opportunity to find just the right computer for us.  So my dears I must go to work, so much needs to be done.  I am still on hold with the post office, 88 minutes now, time to milk goats, that should get them to pick up...


Be Blessed
Shekhinah

Another day on the farm....

Today I went to the store, we found great bargains and stumbled on a strange discovery.  They had pasta sauce in the big can, not an item I normally buy as almost every brand out there has HFC as it second or third ingredient.  But when you look at the labels for Garlic and herb, they contain no HFC, so this women bought a case of 12 large cans of Garlic and herb Spaghetti sauce for .49 cents per can.  I also got 10 pounds of pasta for .49.  I bought corn beef for .99 cents a pound, four packs, don't like to buy store bought meat, but I can live with something that has been brined.  So it was a good trip.

The day continued, wet weather, and more wet weather...but the plants are doing great.  Green floods the land like a huge shaggy carpet.  Every thing looks great but with every joy there seems to be a sadness that follows us, looming over us. Today my husbands cat over almost 30 years has passed away. Baxter will be greatly missed.  It will be hard to not see her sunning her self in the window, or sleeping by the wood stove, she was as sweet as any cat could be....She will always have a place in our hearts.

So that was a brief over view of my day...

Shekhinah

To our Ebay buyers and friends...

Please people when leaving feedback for me or anyone eBay and you get hatching eggs or anything in a priority box, and it comes damaged, i.e. box is smashed in, don't post it in my feedback, even as good feedback, the box is insured, and I have gone to great lengths to pack it safely. I could just cry when someone gets a box that has a dented corner and a broken egg and says in the feedback, Fast shipping, only one egg broke, etc...it is not the sellers fault when the post office damages the box, it is the post offices issue, not mine. Please do not poison my business in this way, the money we make from selling hatching eggs is our income.



Thank you
Shekhinah

Rainy and cold day on the mountain...

Good morning from the Mountain, it is so hard to believe that just yesterday it was 90 + degrees F here on the Mountain and today the high is 66, by tomorrow I will need to light a fire to keep us warm.

Our gardens are coming along well and we harvest strawberrys, spinach and other greens nearly everyday.  Everything is coming along nice and I pray the cold over the next few days does not kill the tomatoes.  We are still selling hatching eggs and plan to set up at a swap in Camp, Ark to try ans sell some of our over flow on the animals, mainly piglets and birds.  I need to make another a little more money then we are making right now, just to cover the basic bills.  I know it will be ok, I worry to much.

We have been blessed this week, the children have been on two play dates, one at a friends house an hour from here and one here on the farm. It is nice to see them playing with other children and making a mess everywhere.  Back to school for them today though, no slacking.  My oldest at home Elijah will start work on a free writers class with me this week, it should be fun to see his view of  "Athem."

I have tons to get done today, I must go to the feed store and the grocery store ( Hate to go!), as we are out of things that I do not have the time to make.  I must make soap soon...and I must buy rennet to make cheese as mine is too old now.  So cleaning the whole kitchen down is on the top of my list as well as putting some form of order to it all, I see clear plastic totes in our future.  I can not wait to get into the big kitchen and have places to store stuff, it is a real pain to have to try and stack and find new places to stick stuff and when it is stuff you use everyday, well it is nothing short of painful and it leaves me with deep feelings of  inadequacy.

Anyway have to get a move on, have shopping to get done and plants that need in the ground.

Be Blessed
Shekhinah

Good evening from the Mountain....

Good evening to one and all from the Mountain, the week has certainly been full of interesting news , both in the country and on the farm.  In Michigan small farms are being shut down, it is worth taking a minute and googling it.  I pray for our friends in Michigan that G-d hers their prays over his new form of oppression.

In farm News I am done with school till the fall, so more time to tend gardens and plant and in some cases replant.  I have been other the weather for the last few days, so I hope less stress will help me to feel a bit better.  As to our garden,we have been steadily eating spinach now, and asparagus, lots of strawberries and radishes, lots of wild greens as well. The Chinese cabbage is just about ready to be made into kimchi, I know my husband is happy to hear that as we were down to our last jar. then that land is open for tomatoes and peppers, beans and carrots.

In other news I have 6 new Cayuga ducks that were purchased early today, they are so cute.  Tonight I must start on more cheese and make some biscuits for the week.  There is always something to do on the farm.

I hope to get back on track with the blog over the next few days.

Be Blessed
Shekhinah

New Laptop, new bees, and so much going on....

I am sorry it has taken me over a week as it seems to get back to writing this blog.  My laptop died a quick and painless death; however it left me in quite a bind.  Without my laptop I have been trying to get my school work accomplished through various other means.  It has been quite frustrating.  At one point I was working on an over clocked 486 dx4100…that was fun.  I am just glad that I have a good working knowledge of computers. 

I will be cleaning up the two dead laptops and selling them as parts only, in the magical world of Ebay.  I am sure I will not get much, but something is better than nothing and as long as they sit here, I am tempted to re-build boards or have new boards made for them.  It was truly a good computer aside from its little over heating issues.  I believe them to still be quite superior to the one I am using today, or maybe it is just the madness of windows 8.1 that has me hating it so much.  I and DELL are currently having issues as the people they have working for them, do not speak English as a first langue.  I asked them if they had anyone who spoke French, I figured I could have understood that better then their broken English.  It will be after next week before I can bear to deal with DELL again. 

Aside from computer issues, I am trying to finish up the last few weeks of school, again frustrating.  I have math to finish and American History.  Now the History teachers say please write me another paper, this one just two pages about my view of American history, it is not holds bare and anything goes, really will test that theory…lol  Still have many more tests to take and one section of math to finish up,  I hope to live through it. 

Our last year’s bees arrived on Thursday, Pigeon Mountain sent them and that is great one less person I have to sue this year.  I have not set up this computer for pictures yet, but once I do, I will post some nice photos.  The bees came thought the US Postal service, which did a really great job of keeping them alive for three days as they made their journey from Georgia.  They came in a rather small box made of wood and framed in screen.  There were around 10, 000 bees in the box, we had ordered Italian but got Russian bees, but they are bees so we are happy.  They are fun to get out of the box and since and my husband had never done boxed bees before we were ill prepared for what followed.  We did watch a very nice video which should a bee keeper and his new boxed bees.  In the video he removes the wooded cover, removes the can which contains sugar water (food for their trip) and a queen in a cage.  Now he does this no bee suit on and the bees are all calm and happy, he taps the box and the bees fall to one side, he dumps them in the hive, and then tap and the rest get poured in like thick cake batter. 

After watching a few times we feel that we can do this, my husband and I don our bee suits and I become the living image of the stay-puff-marshmallow man, and we bravely go to the old hive remove a section of comb with uncapped honey, which by the way is falling everywhere.  First set of bees toughly mad now, and off to uncap the box containing the new bees.  First we notice that it is a piece of cake to take the wooden cover off, no so easy to get the metal can out and lastly the queen cage.  Bees are now flying everywhere; hmmm this is nothing like the calm bees in the video.  Michael gives me the queen cage and I have the tool that the video said I needed, a match.  Well this is not going to work and now bees are everywhere, 10, 000 bees per three pounds, rolling my eyes and I am looking for a nail, stick anything to get the cork out of this so the bees can get to the candy and free the queen, great now I am a part of a living video game, shaking my head.  Finally we get the queen in the hive and start dumping bees in.  Michael does a great job, but the bees are having none of it and may do not want to leave the nice box and must be forced to leave, they whole time I have been spraying them with sugar water, so not they are drunk, pissed redneck bees, and just cannot seem to find their way.  In the end only a few refused to go and we left the box in hopes they would find their own way to the hive.  So we cover the hive of now drunk bees and went to do other things, now things are calming down and they seem to like the new hive.

We get our next bees on the 16^th of May, I am ready. 

Got the okra in the ground in a month or two we should be harvesting it, I wanted to get more tomatoes in, but came upon a nest of spiders so they have to leave first.  Our chines cabbage are just a week or two out from harvest, they are looking so yummy, I did have to use D.E. powder on them,  I did it very lightly as to only kill the grass hoppers and not my earthworms or other helpful bugs.  We have started to harvest spinach, and radishes so far, along with our wild forage.  We have picked curly dock, and lambs quarters, yum, and add them to almost every evening meal.  The peas have yet to flower, the corn is coming along nicely and the test patch of the three sisters keeps growing and looking good, that garlic, looks great and I have starting picking strawberries, shhhh, don’t tell my kids, I leave like one or two a day and pick the rest, clean them, cut them up and freeze them for ice cream and jam.  The Jerusalem artichokes are looking good too; I will be cutting them back and feeding the livestock with them very soon.  Oh and the asparagus this year is wonderful. 

As for the birds on the farm, they are being weird as normal; my pigeons hatched out two OEG self-blue game birds today, honestly we had the pigeons in with the chickens and thought nothing of it, so my bad.  The pigeons must have been surprised as well when they hatched out chickens instead of pigeons…

We have new brown egg laying chicks for 4-h now as well, 50 or so, what was I thinking, more birds, oh sometimes, I should say no.  But in for a penny in for a pound I guess. 

We are of course still selling hatching eggs, which is provide a fair source of return on the dollar, but we will not get rich doing it, farming is not a job, but a life style, so back to doing art and such after school this term.

So this is a little bit of what we are up to, I will try to write again very soon.

Be Blessed

Shekhinah