OH NO....SNOW

Winter arrived this week - in a big way!

Looking to the West - our field is all covered!

Tuesday night it snowed...and snowed and snowed and hey...look it's SNOWING.

Woke up to at least a foot of snow in our driveway. Here's the deal, we don't get snow like this that often, if at all. In fact, we can't really remember the last time it snowed so much! Also, snow in our area stays for a day maybe two days then melts. This time the snow is still here and I think it will be around for a few more days. The weather forecast doesn't seem to be improving much, the temps are still going to be low and there is a chance of rain (oh how I miss the rain) and oh hey, let's talk about FREEZING rain...No Thank You!

So, while the weather outside is frightful, I am going to hunker down with my seed catalogs and my homesteading book, Four Season Harvest book and my Market Gardener book (when it comes back home from Mary's house).

I've been thinking about "the next season" for a few weeks now and this snow is not going to deter me from my planning!

The last time I checked, my little plants under the low tunnel were doing fine. I guess we'll see how things look after the snow...and freezing rain.

What have I been up to for the last couple of months?

The reality is that the last month was totally crazy with Christmas and New Years and all the crazy that goes along with the holidays.

I have been watching a lot of...

Homesteaders on YouTube 

In the last couple of weeks I have been following more homesteader YouTube Channels - mostly in North Carolina. My favorite would be Justin Rhodes. He and his family are getting ready to embark on a very big project this year - The Great American Farm Tour. You can find out all about this on his You Tube channel which I have linked above.

Other channels that are becoming favorites, Art & Bri, Wild Roots and Sounds Like Reign - these are all in North Carolina...Oh, the other I am LOV-ING is Jameson Adventure. They are the bus conversion people that the Rhodes chose to convert their school bus. Super cool family! They are all very unique families with different types of homesteads. Check them out!

I've also been thinking about...

Raising A Pig

Because of Jeff & Stacy of Jameson Adventure and their two swine, I've been thinking about raising ONE. After a little research I learned that pigs don't get lonely so one would be just fine. Alright! More research also got me thinking that we'll need to build some sort of shelter for our future friend. It can be pretty simple like:

photo from ricelandmeadows.com

I suppose it could be elaborate too, but for the sake of experiments, I think we'll keep it on the simple side until we have raised the first pig and then go from there.

Now, what breed of pig to choose, there are so many to consider! The girl in me wants a cute pig. Let's face it, most baby animals are CUTE. So, maybe one that will be a nice looking as an adult, but not so much that I lose my desire to have he or she processed for meat. A good personality is a must - we want feeding time to be a more enjoyable time rather than a throw the food in and go away! I don't want to get too attached, but at the same time I don't want to be neglectful. It will be a fine line.

Since I think that we'll just go with ONE pig we'll have to make sure that the end weight is no more than 250 pounds. A pig of this size could possibly produce anywhere from 160 to 180 pounds of meat. That is way more meat that we could possible consume in a year, so we'll have to share the wealth with friends and neighbors. As much as I like beef, I think that raising a pig would be a more cost effective project and would require less space in the process. This project may or may not happen this year - we will revisit this topic later.

What we are planning...

Chickens for eggs and meat!

I know, I know...I've said it before, but this year the chickens will happen! We have a spot all picked out. Once the weather improves and the snow is gone we'll have to go and check out what supplies we have for a coop and what sort of coop we want to build. Still unsure of what the housing situation will be for the chickies...there are so many options. Chickshaw, chicken tractor, A-frame, hoop house. If you can imagine it, build it right? So, the laying hens will be the first thing we get. I've found a place in Woodland that sells laying hens that are less than a year old and would be close to laying eggs sooner than later. That will be nice - let someone else raise the chicks and we get to benefit from that.

The meat chickens will be from a hatchery in Tangent called Jenks Hatchery check out the site it's a pretty cool family operation not terribly far from where we live. I haven't totally decided on whether we should go with Cornish Cross or Freedom Rangers. It will be time to research more I guess. The amazing thing is that within 3 months we will be able to process the chickens and we'll have meat in the freezer! The first year will definitely be a learning experience, so I won't go into a chicken growing frenzy and get more chicks after a month or so. I may want to do two rounds of chickens though, so we'll see.

Whatever we decide on the chickens will happen for sure!

It's never to early...

To Plan A Garden!

I've been thinking about kitchen gardening for a little while. THEN my first seed catalogs arrived -

Oh yeah, my favorite thing ever...Seed Catalogs! There is one more that arrived this week, but it got a little beat up in the mail and may have been tossed into the recycling bin. I better check on that...Tom pulled it out of the bin...I can see how it might be mistaken for trash.

Can't trust the USPS!

Where to start? Well, favorites is always a good idea - tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, potatoes and a variety of leafy greens, which are also the things that work out REALLY well. Things that we experimented with last year - ground cherries, cabbage and shelling beans. New stuff that we planted in late fall - purple broccoli, flower sprouts and Chinese cabbage. If those items survive the cold snap that we experienced this week we'll have some super early stuff in a couple of months. I peeked at my low tunnels and the snow collapsed them, but I am hopeful that the plants underneath are okay.

We'll see. Everything for the next few years will be an experiment. Planting, observing and harvesting. As well as taking notes along the way to record what went well and what we can improve on.

There have been a lot of things on my mind...

Why Not Become a Master Gardener?

This last week I thought I could enroll in the Master Gardener program at WSU - Vancouver. It's an 11 week program which takes place one day a week and includes other online projects and assignments. Then once the classroom work is done 50 hours of community service providing gardening related information, assistance, problem solving etc. to the public is required to become certified. Afterwards, you commit to 35 hours a year to maintain your Master Gardener status.

We'll see, I haven't made a decision on doing this just yet, but it's something that I could easily commit my energy toward if I want to make a home business a reality. It just might not happen this year - possibly closer to when I think I want to leave my current job behind. Which doesn't bring me the kind of joy and contentment as working on our farm.

One more thing...

It's hard to tell how far the tunnels are hanging as there is a lot of snow in front of them!
I cannot believe that it is 42 in the hoop house!!

I promise to do better at posting here. When life gets busy, you kinda gotta go with it!