Spring means.....

....spending time in the backyard!  How to enjoy a beautiful spring evening:

First, chase away the annoying food stealing cat.

 Check!

Second, spread out a blanket.

 Check!

Third, don't forget the baby!

Check!

Fourth, bring out the stuff for Our Favorite Hot Dogs.

Check!

Some important things to remember:

Do not at any cost forget your sticks!

Check!

Please keep your cat away from the food (do not confuse with above mentioned cat).

Kind of check....

The End!

If you want to take your hot dog to the next level, follow the recipe for Our Favorite Hot dogs.  We started out trying a Chicago style dog and just kept going from there.

Our Favorite Hot Dogs

Hebrew National Hot dogs (no if, ands, or butts)

Hoagie size roll

Pickle Spears

Tomato slices

Diced Onion

Coleslaw

Olives

Ketchup

Mustard (Brian only)

Jalapeno slices (Brian only)

Put everything together and enjoy.

Note: We thought we would try to include some non-farm related posts about our family in the blog.  Mostly because we figure that is of most interest to the people currently viewing the blog, and we realize our farm related news is not especially riveting right now.  Enjoy! 

Our big news!

Meet the newest member of our family.

Charles!

Born February 11 at 3:24 AM
8 Pounds 10 ounces, 21.25 inches
A lot of dark brown hair and super cute!

Now that the most important part is out of the way, here is what we are up to:

The Garden- Brian started some seedlings a few weeks back, and we can't wait to start our garden this year.  We also went to Wingard's Nursery and bought two blueberry plants, one raspberry, and one blackberry.  I am also excited about canning some of our bounty!

Seedlings soaking up some rays in our bathroom

Lonely garden waiting for some plants

Chickens- This time we are going to guarantee we get some girlies by purchasing Golden Comets.  Brian made some adjustments to the pen, and we should be filling it up in March.  Right now it is just a stick receptacle for Henry.

Improved Pen

This boy LOVES sticks!

Wondering about the house?  We temporarily took it off the market.  It was way too stressful for me to have it up the last few weeks of pregnancy, and we thought it would be best to keep it off until we adjust to being a family of four.

Still alive

So, I have come to realize that I am not really a blogger.  Maybe that will change when we actually have a farm and I have more to post about.  I do not want to give up on this blog, but I'm not going to promise anything more than periodic updates for the time being.

Here are some things we are excited about right now:

Small Farm conference!  Brian got to attend the small farm conference in Columbia, Missiouri.  He had a fantastic time there.  The seasoned farmers he met were great.  He got a lot of good advice and some much needed encouragement.  He also met and heard from some of his favorite authors: Joel Salatin, Greg Judy and Kelly Klober!

Food, Inc.  We watched this movie a while ago for date night.  We especially liked the part with Brian's farming hero- Joel Salatin.  Definitely worth watching.  I think it is also empowering to consumers.  When you buy things, you are casting a vote.  If you don't like how things are made/what they contain...Don't buy it!

Nourishing Traditions  This cookbook is AWESOME!  I have run out of renewals for it at the library, so we are just going to buy it.  We've tried a number of meals and have enjoyed all of them; the book is a wealth of information.  


A visit to the land We went out to the land to look around and measure the road frontage.  We had a very enjoyable visit.  Right now Brian is thinking he wants to start out with some Spanish goats followed by pigs to work on creating pasture.  The land is very wooded, and some parts are pretty thick with underbrush. 

Measuring Road Frontage

Hiking around on the land

Cute picture of Henry

The All Local Market We have been going to the All Local Market in Columbia to buy grass- fed beef, chicken, and pork.  We love going there and supporting the local farmers, and Brian enjoys talking with the farmers if he can get a chance.  There have been a lot of people every time we have gone.  There is a big demand for healthy local food.

Slaughtering our chicken We came home from vacation at the end of September to find out that our chicken was a boy.  We were really excited about having eggs, but instead we had chicken salad.  Brian was really the star of the show.  I just helped hold things and pluck feathers.  The chicken was tasty, and we feel the slaughtering process would get better with experience.  I have to say that I can understand how the Native Americans felt when they would thank the animals for the food they would provide.  It is such a completely different experience eating an animal you felt connected to.  I was very grateful to it, and the thought of just wasting any part of it seemed ungrateful. 


One thing we are not particularly excited about:

Our house  is still on the market.  The market isn't all that great so we are trying to be patient, but we are really excited about getting started with everything.

So that's what we have been up to.  Until next time.........

Sky Top Orchards

We decided to do something fun on Labor Day after all the work we have been putting in the house.  (FYI- It is now officially on the market!) Sunday night we decided to check out Sky Top Orchards in North Carolina, and we ended up having a wonderful day!

Henry as an apple

  The first thing we did was take a look around the place.  There were plenty of things to do:

Natalie and Henry after first arriving at Sky Top

 - Barnyard animals to feed and pet

-Bamboo forest

-Duck pond (kind of a let down....they just sat around as we threw them food)

-Small store with apple samples and yummy apple treats

-Tons of apple trees

 After walking around we decided to treat ourselves to some apple cider and apple cake doughnuts.

Henry enjoying the apple cider

Finally, we got down to business and went to pick apples.  We ended up just picking Asian Pears.  They were so delicious and we were running low on steam.  We also headed home with a half gallon of apple cider.  The sights, tastes, and smells were all wonderful!  It really is so much fun to actually be connected to your food in meaningful ways.  The apples tasted so much better than the ones in the store and were more enjoyable to eat after picking them off the beautiful trees!

It was really beautiful out there!

Heading out to pick some apples

The boys

Henry passed out as soon as we were in the car and slept the entire way home.

Sky Top Orchards:

http://www.skytoporchard.com/

Raw Milk

We began drinking raw milk a few months ago.  It has so many advantages, and luckily we live in a state that allows the sale of raw milk.  In case you don't know what raw milk is, here you go....  A cow is milked, the milk is strained and then it is rapidly cooled.  The End.  The milk is not homogenized or pasteurized.  You might be thinking, "isn't that dangerous?"  Well, if most dairies sold this kind of milk the answer would be yes.  But you want to purchase raw milk from a farm where the cows are taken care of, with plenty of fresh pasture (you want grass fed, not grain fed!), exercise, sunshine, no shots or hormones, and are milked properly.  In these conditions, the milk is perfectly safe to drink raw and is much more nutritious than the sterile milk available from huge commercial dairies.  If you are curious about raw milk vs. pasteurized/homogenized milk check this and this out.  They are both really great sites, and I wanted to give everyone the option to choose to read on in case you are perfectly happy with your current milk. 

This is a fresh gallon of raw milk Henry and I picked up today. Right now we are getting the whole milk from our local health food store for 6.99 a gallon.  We tend to be pretty frugal people, so the fact that we shell out that kind of money for a gallon of milk is just a testament to how strongly we feel about it.  We are really excited about being able to produce our own milk someday.  We are also excited about not paying 6.99 a gallon, because we like milk around here.

 Warning:  Feeding Raw milk to your toddler may make him do crazy things like climb on your table if there is a chair even slightly ajar.  Just joking....I think that comes from his father.

 Wondering about the HUGE thing of goldfish....I know.  Our whole food diet is a gradual thing we are working on.  Can't wait to be out on the land!

Land, ho!

We haven't posted in a while because we have been very busy getting our house ready to put on the market.  We are ready to move out to the land and get started with everything.  So, if our posts are a little spotty, you'll know why.  Also, things will be a little more exciting once we are out on the land.  We will have updates on animals other than chickens.  Here is the land:

  It is 25 acres out in Batesburg.   

Once we are living our here we will probably try to get some heritage breeds of pigs.  I think I will probably do a post about that later.  The pigs will really help clear out the land so we can create some pasture.  We also need to get goats ASAP so we can start learning about them and save on our milk bill!

There is a lot of background information about the land.  I'm not sure if I have the energy to delve into that right now, but here are some highlights:

• We were not looking for anymore than 10 acres when we started our search for land
• Having a farm was definitely not something we considered when we made the purchase three years ago
• We changed our mind about the land a little over a year back and put it up for sale
• It didn't sell
• We are really glad it didn't because now we really want to be out there farming!

Field Trip

Back in May we went to visit Split Creek Farm, which is a goat dairy.  We had a really good time and became really excited about having goats of our own someday. 

Here are some pictures from our visit.

This is Henry admiring the baby goats.  He had a fun time at the dairy

The goats were so fun to watch.  They really loved climbing and playing.

This goat is trying to eat my pants.  They went after literally anything in reach.  They had one really friendly goat they allowed to roam free, and I saw him once trying to eat the zipper off someone's book bag.  Later we saw him and Henry went crazy.  We walked over to him and he left Henry love on him.  I think Henry + goats = Love!

 All the goats seemed very healthy and happy.  They had plenty of room to exercise, fresh air, sunlight, and plenty of pasture!

The end.