Death in the afternoon

Yesterday Tim went outside about 5:30 and saw a hawk ripping one of our smallest chickens apart.  Tim scared the hawk off and buried the dead chicken.
This is our first predator loss.
It was a subdued night.

Full measures, the hero, and the friends

Never one to do things by half measures, I've started my gardening with a bang.

 I spent many snowy months pouring over seed catalogs in spare moments- Richters, West Coast Seeds, Seed Savers, Seeds of Change, Territorial Seeds- I compared and contrasted varieties, descriptions, zones.  I imagined perennials in my orchard and annuals in the center of the circle driveway, medicinal herbs I would learn to preserve and use, my favorite flowers in bloom.

I got carried away. 
I fully acknowledge that I am a novice.
It would have been much more prudent to start small.
Wiser gardeners urged a more modest start.

 

I just couldn't make myself do it.

 

I decided to take all my licks at once and try almost everything from my old CSA box plus dozens of perennial vegetables I've never eaten and herbs I love.
Now we've got 20+ trays with 32 seed cubes each out on our porch and ramp with temporary barricades to prevent the chickens eating all our work.

“Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.”

Oscar Wilde 

Let's hope old buddy Oscar is right 'cause excess I've got.  

I'd like to be the hero of this story but I'm not.
The hero is Anjali who spent an hour twice a week for 8 weeks watering these trays and then 2 weeks "taking them out for a walk" every day to harden off. 

Thanks also to Angela and Megan for planting seeds and labeling trays when I felt too overwhelmed to start. 

Memorial Day Weekend

 Our adventures this Memorial Day weekend 2013 inspired me to start blogging.

Our friends, Dave and Alicia DeNio, came over to help us construct some raised beds out of logs, manure, and dirt.  Then Dave needed to drive his tractor home so I asked if we could get a ride down the dirt road close to our house.  Dave did even better- Anjali and I got to drive.

"Driving the tractor was really fun although I started out at snails' pace, then hedgehog, and finally a rabbit with three legs pace.  It felt really bumpy.  Every little bump seemed to be magnified."

-Anjali, age 11

 
 

 Super easy- one pedal and the wheel.  

When I stopped pushing the pedal, it stopped, rather abruptly.

Up very tall, I felt like a country road celebrity, a farmer, really, driving powerful equipment.

I saw my neighbor out in his tractor working his fields and I waved but he didn't even look my way.

Such is the self-assurance that comes with having your own tractor apparently.

But it's not all glamor-  I got a bug in my teeth!

-Amy, age 42

"Well, it was fun and kind of scary.  

On the fast parts, basically, I felt like I might fall off, so I held on tight."

-Mark, age 6

Then we pounded in some fencing around the berry patch and Tim took me for a walk to see the elderberry bushes he'd found.  On the way, we found and harvested some ramps (wild onions) and dandelion greens for salad.  I was so proud of our wild harvest, I took this photo.

Ginger asked last Friday if our Memorial Day plans included chickens and of course it did.  Here's last weeks's photo of the kids with their favorite chickens- Anjali with Peaches and Cream and Mark with Brownie.  

 Tim and Anjali tried to sex the chickens this weekend and despite best guesses when they were day and month-old chicks, looks like we've got 7 roosters and 15 hens instead of 2 and 20.  Fortunately, a 4H friend is looking for a couple roos and we'll figure out the others.

Welcome to R Farm Adventures

How does a family reinvent itself?
How do they share that adventure with others?

I haven't known the answers to either of these questions this last year as we transition from life in the Cities to life on R Farm.
Still don't.
But we're trying.
So here we go.