Around the Farm

January Farm Plan

Updated with progress 1/18

This year we have put together a farm plan to keep us on track for the coming year. I thought I would share it each month along with updates about what we have completed. 

Gardening:

Start lettuce

Start onions - done

Start sweet potatoe slips

Start cilantro - done

Order seeds - in progress

Animals:

Get pig farrowing shed ready - both sows are expected to farrow.  - done and pigs in shed

Note - we are maintaining 2 sows and a boar. Both sows farrow once per year and we expect to raise out 10-12 pigs for fall butchering. One sow will be replaced this year from off farm. 

Incubate first batch of chicks. 

Crops and Feed:

Disc garden - we usually get an early dry spell before the rainy season and if I want to plant peas in February, I have to disc early. - done

Finish threshing out seed for next year - sorghum and dry beans - beans done

Harvesting and Food Presrvation:

Can pumpkin - done

Dehydrate garlic - done

Can and dry hominy - done

Gather sap and make maple syrup - taps in but weather no cooperating

Can butter - goal 5 pints per week - in progress 12 pints so far

Dehydrate milk - in progress

Dehydrate buttermilk - in progress

Dehydrate eggs

Crack and shell nuts - walnuts and hazelnuts - walnuts done

Butcher steer (this would usually be done in Dec)

Butcher pigs (this would usually be done in Nov)

Miscellaneous Farm:

Gather downed limbs for firewood - pulled out of forest, need to haul to wood shed

Tan cow hide

Cut firewood

Fabric and Fiber:

Sew personal items - partially done

Make beeswax bags and food wraps - partially done

Spin wool for knitting - 2 balls done, need at least 1 more this onth

Knit 4 sets of socks - in progress

Cut out and piece a quilt top

Family Medicine Chest:

Make tallow soap

Make family de-wormer

Orchard and Berries:

Spray for peach curl

Prune blueberries and grapes -done

Root desired bushes and vines - done

Projects:

Finish processing room and get outside wood cookstove in operation. 

Horse training is on-going by older girls. 

I Love My Life

I love my life ... Living here in our little homestead, nestled away from many aspects of modern life. I struggle keeping up on this blog because modern technology is just not a big part of my life. Typing out information about my old fashioned life seems contrary the purposeful way we live without technology. On the other hand, I know I enjoy reading other blogs of those living this life. I have some go to blogs that help me identify what we should be doing and how to do many of those things. 

We have been busy planning and setting goals for 2014. In the new year I am planning on not buying food at the grocery store. Now I frankly know that we will not be able to go without a grocery store for a year, but I would like to see how well we could do without shopping. I won't be depriving anyone. We have plenty of food and raise enough to meet our needs, but we have been in the habit of buying at the grocery store our every food whim.

We like food and we like good food and we love food adventures. We cook from many different continents and different ethnic foods fill our diets. Many of those items require specialty stores and I will even travel an hour and a half to shop at an ethnic store. After praying at the end of last year, God revealed a few things to me about our diet. 

After a disappointing growing season, I began seeking God about our farm and gardening practices. Where were we going wrong? Why so many failures? Why does it feel we are spinning our wheels and not getting any where? God revealed to me that I was taking the wrong approach to our homestead. 

I kept trying to grow what we wanted to eat. I spent significant time on things like trying to grow sugar beets, researching rice growing, raising geese, growing soybeans in order to ferment our own soy sauce and other such projects. Instead I need to focus on eating what we grow. 

We can raise lots of potatoes, dry beans, and dry corn. Enough hard wheat for all the bread we currently eat, would be more challenging. Soft wheat grows better here. We eat a lot of rice, but growing it is not practical in the PNW. The chickens stop laying in the Fall and don't start again until after winter solsitice. I kept supplementing with store eggs so I didn't have to change my menu plans. We make sausage but not enough to feed us all year, so sometimes I got store sausage. 

We kept trying to raise enough animal feed for all the animals all winter. We fed animals for significant lengths of time when we should have been butchering them. I didn't have storage space for all the meat at one time and I preferred frozen to canned meat. So we stretched out the butchering and fed to many animals through the winter. We went through too much feed.  

Why were we doing these types of things - gluttonany. We wanted what we wanted and were not willing to live with and enjoy what God had provided. We are going to work on making some changes and doing things a little differently. We are looking forward to a great gardening and farming year.