Winter In Colorado

We are in the middle of our beautiful Colorado winter. It has now been snowing all week long pretty much non-stop. It's a quiet time now for us as we only have the goats and chickens to take care of. The green house is now frozen and hopefully it will kill all the white flies that were in there right before Christmas.

Winter is a reflection time for us here, we spend the days reviewing just how blessed we were this last season. Taking the time to see what went right and what went wrong and on ways we can improve our little piece of Heaven on earth. It seems the seasons go and come for us so fast when you live by them. Before you know it I am getting ready to order seeds and we have already plotted out some of our planting areas. We decided this year we are going to add more raised beds outside the green house as these are easier for us to manage.

As the days now grow longer, I think my quiet time will soon come to an end. I am so fortunate in what I have been blessed with. The time to work hard and the ability to do it and then the time to take a rest and allow my soul to spend time in some quiet reflection. I firmly believe we really need this time and I am so thankful I have it. As winter has it's firm grip on my land I am happy to enjoy the thoughts and musings of spring.

Autumn

As the sun comes up this morning there is a chill in the air, it seems autumn is upon us. I am not quite sure I am ready for the change of seasons, but then again she waits for no one. It has not froze yet but it has been at least 39 a few mornings. The hot crops like cucumbers are starting to suffer the cool mornings. I am not sure how much longer they will make it, I might try and cover them but a lot of times it is not quite worth the effort. Aah better to yield at times to mother nature as she changes the season.

I am being entertained this morning as I watch from up my window upstairs. Sonny, the goose is brawling this morning with pearl the goat. I watch as Sonny chases Pearl around the pen biting and snapping with his wings spread out in the largest, fiercest way he can manage. It's very entertaining being Pearl is usually the bully and has control of the farm as she pushes her way through everyone. Not this morning though, Sonny has managed to disrupt everyone in the barnyard with his squawks and honks as he continues to bite, hiss, and chase Pearl through the yard.

I just love mornings, the peace and rhythm of daily life on a farm intertwined with outside influences that sometimes interfere with that. I think it is the rhythm I like the most the daily milking at 7 am and 7 pm, morning breakfast, aah morning coffee brewing as the day cycles through . I had the chance to travel to a monastery this year and spend the weekend. Yet now, at this time, it seems I am so far from that peaceful time of tranquility . I enjoyed so much the daily early morning bell for prayer and the closing of evening with compline.

It seems somehow as life crept in I lost my rhythm. Each day as the outside influences came in I lost my balance to the world. So as autumn closes in I am focusing on my own monastery and I am closing out the world's voice and working towards my own rhythm and cycle.

We have so much to do before winter closes in but we have to prioritize and get the things done as we can. The things I have on the list of chores are to finish out the new goat area with shelters for them and finish up the wood burning oven outside. I wanted to get in some new raised beds but I am not sure if I am going to get to that before winter comes in. So I guess I will have to add them into next years farm goals. I already have things on that agenda and one of the areas I need to do is get my new milking room finished. It seems things just never get finished and it is an on going labor of love.

Summer got away from me!

Wow, it has been months since my last post and I had not even realized it. Life on a farm takes its own time. It demands much of your time and things always need to be done. I looked up and realized it was getting close to fall the leaves are changing and the nights are getting cooler. Harvest is in full swing and the canning process is humming along with green beans, tomatoes, tomato paste, salsa and hopefully much more.

So far this summer we have moved our fencing several times and the electric fence idea never really worked for our pigs. We are getting ready to level and set fencing out for out dairy goats. I decided to move them from the area they are by the chicken coop out into there own pasture area and build a shelter and hopefully a milking room.

The goat milking is going full swing and I am milking twice daily. We are soon getting ready to breed our other two Saanens for spring kids. Hopefully I will be able to continue milking until early spring then maybe take a few weeks off in February and pick right back up in March. It's demanding of your time but I so love having fresh milk. I have learned to be very picky about what they eat can really control the taste of the milk. Our milk comes out smooth and creamy and you don't even notice that it is not cows milk.

Cheese making is going great and I am doing a lot of soft cheese and yogurt. I am getting ready to do a couple of hard cheeses this week. It has been a great season and as it continues on I am very happy about our outcome. We have made a lot of advances to our sustainable lifestyle and have progressed nicely to be able to provide quite a lot of our own food. It has been a journey and I have been dragging Paul along kicking and screaming.

Brianna has started homeschooling again for the year and is doing fantastic! She pretty much has taken all the responsibility on herself and is completely becoming a beautiful young adult.

We started new chicks this past week so that they can get a good start before winter and be ready to lay first of spring. I am hoping to get these through the winter without losing the whole lot as I did in early spring last year. I decided to go with a September start instead of November like last year. They should be pretty large when the early predators come out in spring and hopefully they will not mess with them. We have more rooster then we anticipated so we need to cull some of them before winter.

Well off to the kitchen so I can continue to can, make cheese, and render fat into lard.

Electric Fencing

I started to put up the electric fence this week and this is an all new experience for me. I have no clue what I am doing and only hoping I don't electrocute myself. It seems fairly easy and not too labor intensive a couple of post and some insulator poles. I have almost got it fairly even and just need to set the post where my gate will be. This is where the pigs are going to go as I have an area I want them to really dig up. I am hoping they eat not only the brush in there but the weeds to. Then I can call them porkarators like Joe Salan does. Paul says's I need to stop reading books because I come up with all these hair brained ideas from all these books I read. I told him I was saving us money and not having to rent a big tractor to till up and clear the area. We not only get an area cleared but we get organic, clean and healthy meat too. Doesn't seem to be a down side to me.

The pigs are doing great and they are actually right now the easiest animals on the property to care for. They happily go about there business all day long of digging and eating and digging and eating. They stay in the pen we have them in until the fencing is ready without a problem. The goat on the other hand keeps landing on the back porch eating my plants. It's Pearl and she is the baby and totally a bad bad bad girl. Her mother Sage is happily out in the far field munching away. Don't get me wrong if she is anywhere close to the grain bins where we keep the chicken scratch, her grain and the pigs food she will knock them over. I will look out and there she is with her head in the bucket.

Markets started this week and went great. The weather was fantastic and the sales although a little lower were still good. I am not sure yet if this economy is going to effect the market this year and I am have hope that it isn't going to be too bad. This year the farm is all the income we have coming in due to Paul's layoff. So I am hoping to be able to eek out a living with it. This year will be a hard and true test. It's all in God's hands and I trust that with whatever comes I have my faith in him to endure.

Blessings
Teresa

Market Days!

Well the markets have started and we are off and running. Market Day in Durango went great the weather was sunny and the temperature was absolutely wonderful. Getting there was a great accomplishment due to anything and everything went wrong the day before. The county had a water line break just as I was pulling vegetables to rinse. We had to wait all day for the repair to be done so that put me way behind with the vegetable pulling. When the line broke I had bread rising also and bread to make no hand washing no bread making. When the water finally did come on the kitchen aid broke. So then it was no kneading but by hand and there is no way I am kneading 30 loafs of bread by hand. :)

So off to the store in the middle of it all to buy a new kitchen aid. Now I had not planned for this purchase and it was more money than I wanted to spend but bread is a big part of the farm. So I did not not want to not spend the money. Finally bread maker in tow I get home only to see the bad goat with the pigs feed bin turned over and her head in it.

Now Pearl the baby is getting fat and what is it from? It's from her knocking over the bins or crawling through the smallest hole ever into the chicken coop to get at the grain. Pearl is very bad and basically has the run of the farm. She is just so darn cute!

The turkey's have now made there home in the goat's stall so they no longer want to go in the chicken coop at night. It's the goat's pen for them. So now in the one pen are Sage the momma goat, Pearl the baby, 2 little goslings, and 8 turkey's. Poor Sage I am sure she has no idea of what is going on.

The little piglets are as happy as ever in there knew little condo and veranda that Paul built for them. We have purchase the electric fencing so as soon as we get that in the condo will move. I really need for them to clear out some of that North side of the property. So off they go the little grubbers to cultivate, clear, eat, get fat and be happy.

It's Sunday morning and it's so quiet no one is up yet. I love mornings on the farm with the sun just coming up and the dew on the grass. It's a little chilly but I like that. There is no time like morning with it's crisp, fresh, and new day beginning. As I go to sit on the patio and have a cup a coffee, I give thanks for my week. I am thankful I can wake up every morning in this beautiful Southwest country. I am thankful for my family, friends, and neighbors. I am thankful that my lord has blessed me with this life.

Blessings

Teresa

May is here!!!

May is here and everything is in full swing. All the drips in the greenhouse are in and functioning on a timer. This makes watering much easier and much more effective. Most of the drips are done outside and I only have 2 more areas to finish. That's two more weeks of planting early crops like beets, carrots, and onions and such.

Paul and I prepped a new deep dug raised bed yesterday and I think I am going to try trellis cucumbers in it. It's up by the greenhouse. I have several more raised beds going up there they are a lot of work being I use a deep dig method but I hope they pay off. I really amend the soil using compost and spent deep bed hay the goats and chickens have been on. It's all about sustainability everything gets used.

It's raining today and I have been working in between rain storms outside. My rain collection barrel from the house is working great. I have one barrel full and another almost full and I am going to see how many I can get today. I will use them to water the upper flower and herb beds next to the house. I am also going to set the herb beds up on a drip system so when I am out of rain water I can use the water system more effectively. This is my first rain water collection system so I am not sure how much I can collect or maintain.

Our season is so short here in Colorado it seems sometimes you can't wait to get started. We have to be careful though not to plant out too early. Especially the hot crops like tomatoes and eggplant which are doing great right now in the greenhouse. We installed a swamp cooler in the greenhouse which I got from my friend Linda free. It's doing great at cutting down that mid afternoon heat which is extremely hot. It reached 130 in there last summer so I am hoping to reduce that down this year with the swamp cooler. Paul says's I take better care of the vegetables and animals then him. He said we don't have a swamp cooler in the house but the plants have a swamp cooler.

My first market is next week and I should have Pak choy, gourmet lettuce mix, radish, mustard, chard, tarragon, sage, chives and oregano. Early season here is lots of greens and herbs. I have not planted a mesclan mix yet I need to get that in because I have a cusabi dressing that is great on them.

Time to get back to work,

Blessings Teresa

Great Weather

Finally we had some great weather yesterday and got to lay out some more drip lines and plant onion sets and carrots. Today our schedule is to get the upper layer of drips done and plant out some potato's. My goal is to have two harvest of potato's one early and one towards fall.

The Pok choy in the greenhouse I growing like crazy I am going to have to see if it will last for market. Not sure yet so we may be eating a lot of pok choy. The spinach should and is looking terrific. I have notices grasshoppers in the greenhouse so I am going to have to pick up some Nolo bait. (all organic) I also have to pick up the swamp cooler for the greenhouse that will make it easier to maintain a cooler temperature. It can get really hot in there last year it was around 130 some days. Not too conducive to growing much. Tomatoes and Peppers usually like it around 80-95.

I am almost ready for visitors I only have a few days left until May which is our scheduled open for daily guest. I am hoping they gave me a chance to get set up and ready. The will really experience a working farm otherwise.

Blessings

Teresa