March 27, 2010
Kristin
Whitney feeding chickens
Today the five of us went on a tour of another “farm”, owned by two viola friends of Whitney’s named Molly and Linda. One of our goals this year is to visit at least 5 farming families, to get ideas and both provide and receive encouragement. This is the third family we’ve visited. The first visit was to the Myers-Benners, distant relatives of Caleb’s, and the second was to Wendy and Jerry Custer, our chicken contact. (As an aside, if you know of any other farming families in the central Virginia area that we could visit, let us know! We’ll bring a yummy dessert!)
A common thread through out each of these families is their ingenuity and ability to re-purpose all sorts of things! (more…)
March 24, 2010
Caleb
I’ve just created a photo album of objects of which we don’t know the name or purpose. The images are mostly of plants and farm implements right now. Please help if you can!
March 23, 2010
Caleb
This weekend we took advantage of the fine weather, which began in the middle of last week with the arrival of Carl “Bringer of Spring” Bear, to get some work done. To make room in the beds, we divided and potted some garlic chive plants. Garlic chive plants prolifically reseed if their flowers aren’t chopped off, so they had gotten a little out of hand. We spread some of our garlic chive wealth at church the next day, selling some plants for an average of $0.83 a piece. We probably could have made more if Kristin was doing the selling rather than me. I’d much rather grow the crops than market them. Luckily, Kristin would rather market than tend to the crops. (more…)
March 15, 2010
Matt
One of many holes in the garden fence
Over the past two weeks we have been experiencing a Great Thaw. I hate to stir up jealousy in my family from Minnesota, but we’ve been seeing temperatures consistently in the mid-fifties with a couple days up to seventy. Needless to say, the snow is gone, and we’re turning our attention to the garden space.
Returning to the garden means returning to the challenges of the garden. Early last fall, our number one concern with was the groundhog (Marmota monax). (more…)
March 7, 2010
Whitney
We had kind of a hard weekend in terms of farm progress. Caleb and Kristin went to the ‘Chicken Swaps’ where a bunch of people bring chickens to sell. There they saw Wendy and Jerry Custer from whom we were thinking of buying our laying hens. And they had just sold all of their laying hens that morning. So we need a different chicken source. (more…)
