High 55  Low 37  Rainy, windy, thunder, power blips

My kids keep asking, “When is Spring?” I don’t think anyone around here knows. We’ve had three sunny days so far this year. Two of which only lasted until mid-day and then the sky let loose with torrential rains.

We do have some signs of Spring. The chickens are laying. We are averaging 29 eggs a day out of 31 hens. We have turkey hens sitting on eggs. The bees have shown that they are strong and healthy although they are not able to get our much due to the rain. I will likey have to feed them again. Our rabbit does are bred and hopefully our goats are too. Let’s just pray that the buck got the job done. This is a new buck and although he was sold to us as proven, he doesn’t seem real amorous.

Our girls never look super big until just before they kid so we may not know until right before. Ugh!

As of last week, we still had enough hail to turn the land white and sheets of ice on the ground every morning but the birds are singing and the frogs have joined in the chorus too. They were tentative at first. Singing on one night and then waiting as if to ask, “When is Spring? Is it here yet?”  But just his morning I saw the first seedlings poking their little heads up through the soil. Bok Choy with it’s little rounded cotyledons looking all proud.

Regardless of the weather, I have been making progress on the land. There has been a lot of compost, manure and soil moved. Our tomatoes and peppers are nice and strong in their 4-inch pots. Our 16 year-old dog may have eaten half of what I had going but we still have plenty for our family. We have bulb fennel, collards, broccoli, and cabbages ready to plant in the beds. Raspberry and blueberry beds were just prepared and so was the soil under a cherry tree so a guild planting can be completed there. It’s going to be a good growing season, as soon as Spring arrives!

High 34            Low 26    Bright and sunny in the afternoon, thick fog in the morning and night.

Whew, I made it. It’s been a busy holiday season. Even though I have worked a lot, I can truly say it’s been a Happy Holiday season. I have worked most every weekend selling our farms “value-added” items. SongCroft Naturals is expanding it’s all-natural skin, body and hair care from Farmers Markets, to Holiday Fairs and now in to retail establishments. This is exciting news. We now have products and gift baskets in the Yogalife Studio at Greenlake as well as the Natural Clothing Company on First Street in historic Snohomish. We are happy to partner with both owners who are wonderful people that support other small local businesses.

Now that the business events are over, I am taking the next two weeks off to just hang out with my family. We will go ice skating, make a gingerbread house, bake cookies, make name tags, watch classic holiday movies, wrap presents, play board games and create memories that can only be created through true connection and love. This is what Happy Holidays are made of.

My side of the family will join us on Christmas eve for a dinner of smoked chickens, roasted vegetables, baked quinoa, salad and pumpkin pies. A great deal of the ingredients will be from our land. We are still harvesting cabbages, collards, kale, carrots, turnips, beets, onions, spinach and parsnips. We have squash set aside from local farms (those who had extra sent some our way after our ducks made chop suey out of the vines).

We will exchange gifts, play some games and I think the younger generation will be playing with nerf guns and magic cards. (neither of which are something that I can relate to). The rest of us will likely be making jewelry, talking and laughing at life through stories and memories.

I especially value this Christmas as one where I can enjoy both my own family (as my children are still young and at least one still enjoys toys) and my mother who is starting to show her age. I find myself cherishing every moment that I get with her. How fortunate I am to be able to experience this before she leaves this world. A Happy Holiday for her is to have her girls together with their families.

To update you on what is happening on the farm, as mentioned, we are still harvesting the aforementioned vegetables and we also have a lot of herbs. We put up a few hundred pounds or apples and potatoes for the winter so we are enjoying them. Our “Liberty” apple and “Spartan” produced well for their first time. Next year I will likely have to thin them a bit to get bigger fruit. Our medlar gave plenty of fruit. They are palatable but not especially juicy. While they would be helpful in a time of scarcity, they are not proving to be a family favorite.

The hens and rooster , Iris, are doing well. They have a very nice dry space thanks to Brian’s work this past Spring as well as the recent coop improvements made this past week. There are now added roosts inside the coop and tomorrow morning I plan to staple a layer of greenhouse plastic across the top of the walls to lower the ceiling in hope of it holding more heat in. The plastic is clear so light will still come through the rigid clear poly-carb roof and the air trapped between the two should create insulations. We have not added a light.

The turkeys are doing well. I added a nesting box today so we will see if we get some eggs. There is a hen that is squatting every time I walk past her. This is a good sign that she wants to hatch some eggs. I will get a leg band for her and over the next couple of weeks, I will band three hens to save for breeding. Midget Whites are good breeders so no artificial inseminations is needed.

The goats are still not bred and just like last year, they are not showing strong signs of wanting to be. There has been no one calling out, flagging her tail or anything else. I thought for sure they would go in to ester on the full moon but instead they got totally silent and pretended to be statues because coyotes came to visit. Maybe the coyotes scared the hormones right out of them (kidding)

I sold six rabbits this past month.  Lots of people have been interested in our rabbits. They are a good bunch and easy for people in the city to raise. They produce great manure that is highly valuable. I have been able to use it to barter with. I love raising rabbits!

Our ducks are still quacking about. They are not interesting in going in to their pen at night and are hard to catch. I am hoping ot catch them soon before a coyote or bobcat gets them first.

Well, that is the skinny on what is happening down-on-the-farm. How are things up your way?

Happy Holidays!

High 62  Low 34  Clear and slightly warm.

Visit www.songcroftnaturals.com to support our family farm and to get great all natural skin and body products!

Visit the Farmers Market Thursdays 3-7pm

I’m not even going to put the date on this entry since I am embarrassed how long it took me to get around to writing. You see, it’s spring and although it has been the wettest April in Washington’s history, there are still a lot of spring shores to be done!

• Have planted a thicket hedge of prinsepia to help keep the neighbor dogs from coming over.

• Planted a variety of willows in blue, red, green and yellow along the creek.

• Trimmed back the rugosa, raspberries, woody herbs and several other plants

• Mucked the goat shed, cleaned the stall mats in them and sanitized all of the feeders and water buckets.

• Made a new perch for the chickens.

• Bred the rabbits.

• Got help re-doing parts of the goats sacrifice area as well as their browsing areas.

• Brian added on to the chickens poly-carb covered roof on their summer home (okay, they are a bit spoiled).

• Deconstructed some keyhole beds so I can reconfigure parts of the garden and add vertical growing space as well as an outdoor room.

• Fed the bees (It’s been so cold that they rarely go out and things are blooming late)

• Harvested lots of greens.

• The kids and I planted lots of carrots, radishes, lettuce, bok choy, peas, leeks, cilantro, potatoes, onions, and flowers in the garden beds.

• Planted a ton of seeds in trays that are now overcrowding the greenhouse (snow and hail in April!)

• Made compost tea and applied it to a test garden. (Amazing difference!)

• Taught two soils science class and composting class.

• Planted a berm with edible berries and trees with my apprentices.

• Planted a perry pear, cider apple and medlar tree.

• Planted forage plants including Nanking cherries around the summer chicken house.

• Did all the mom things like helping both kids enter project in a science fair and droving kids to and from swim classes.

• Did the homestead stuff like baking bread and making cheese.

• Got our www.SongCroftNaturals.com business ready for the Snohomish Farmers Market.

• And so the list goes on…

Soon I will be at the Snohomish Farmers Market every Thursday.

You might be asking yourself how I find time and energy to do all of these things. It is really more simple than one might think. I don’t have to go to the grocery very often and I don’t watch TV. I eat a healthy diet that includes very little processed foods and I have a positive attitude, even in this rainy season.

Attitude is everything!

See you at the Snohomish Farmers Market!

High 33   Low 20

Snowing with high winds!!!Whoohoo!

(If you want to learn even a little of what you are reading here, our apprenticeship program starts Jan. 15th. Last call for registration!)

http://songcroft.com/index.php/the-songcroft-school-of-self-sufficiency/

Folks email me all the time saying they get tired reading the list of things we do. Well, you might want to grab yourself a cup o’ tea and kick your feet up ‘cuz this is going to be a long one because I’m going to give a summary of 2010!

All in all, it was a good year in many aspects. We accomplished some of our goals and completely failed on others. Okay, failed is pretty harsh. We just didn’t get everything we wanted to get done done. I am sure we got more accomplished than the average bear since both Brian and I are ‘Type A’ Capricorns.

Our apprenticeship program filled up and we had 3 teens all year!

We had a successful Fish Camp here in conjunction with Wolf Camp.

We took a few camping trips as well as went to our favorite seasonal gathering.

The things we didn’t get done were due to a matter of lack of weather, money, time or energy. The early part of Spring was very wet.

When we went on a camping trip, the chickens got out and scratch up much of our garden beds. I replanted and got things under control, so I thought, and one of the kids didn’t latch the gate so the chickens rearranged everything again. It is amazing what they can do with my tidy little rows in an hour! Of course, they left the forest garden alone since it would’ve taken more effort to walk over there.

We lost part of our duck flock, we think to neighbor dogs, so we are down to just three. Our son was heartbroken when he found his pet duck “Blackfoot” dead in the field.

We sold lots and lots of eggs all Spring and Summer. That was a nice supplement to the family budget.

We also sold a few goat kids too. We got a lot of milk and enjoyed the cheese.

Brians workshop was built and we will finish it in the Spring.

Our cabin was transformed in to a classroom and manufacturing facility for our SongCroft Naturals Personal Care product line. (The ingredients are so safe I can use them on my babies!)

We grew a good garden that is still providing us with fresh vegetables. We had tomatoes until early December and ground cherries too!

I “put up” lots of canned meat, fruit and vegetables, pickles, kim chi, as well as dried fruits, herbs and vegetables too.

I caught two bee swarms and hived them.

We put in the forest garden in April and it’s looking good.

We are one year closer to harvesting asparagas!

So, to the coming year. What are our goals? Well this is what I have settled on:

1. Finish Brian’s shop!
2. Enjoy our apprentices
3. Launch SongCroft Naturals our all natural Personal Care Products and have a Farmers Market booth.
4. Grow a bountiful garden that is well and truly chicken proofed!!!
5. Have more of the family’s help with harvesting more often so our production stays up and our waste in minimal.
6. Preserve more foods and herbs than last year.
7. Learn to smoke different meats.
8. Clear the spot behind the cabin so I can plant new beds. I haven’t decided what to plant there yet though.
9. Plant an evergreen edible hedge on top of a berm to create privacy as well as more perennial food.
10. Plant an evergreen privacy screen near the road.
11. Make more soap than last year. We ran out and I got too busy to make more.
12. Plant more trees for firewood.
13. Which reminds me, reinforce the goats browse area.
14. Fix all of the little jobs like greenhouse door handle, hinges on the compost bins, etc…
15. Re-design the lower part of our land.
16. Build new hay storage.
17. Build a new rabbitry.
18. Expand the summer chicken yard from 16×30 to something like 30×30.
19. Host Farm Camp.
20. Host Illumina Girls Camp.
21. Host Fish Camp.
22. Camp more, play more
23. Sing more.
24. Dance more.
25. Breathe more consciously.

I hope you enjoyed reading our summary of 2010 and being witness to us setting goals for 2011. Somehow it makes it a little more of a commitment if others know that the goals are set. (Maybe I should mention the 10 pounds?)

Oh, and if you come by for a visit, feel free to roll your sleeve up!

Thanks for reading. Your comments are welcome. Please do share our blog with others that you think might be interested. Happy New Year!

Farm Tour

High 54                        Low 34

Yesterday was a really fun day. Nancy Chase from Camano Island organized a tour of fellow permaculturists. There were 12-14, I think. Nancy is a natural at organizing things like tours since she is the owner of http://www.livewellventures.com, an adventure travel company.

There were five farms scheduled on the tour. We started at Wise Earth Ecological Land Trust in Maltby http://www.wiseearth.org/home.html. Wise Earth is a fun and interesting place that my family has enjoyed visiting over the past few years. Albert Postema has been at the visionary behind saving this piece of land from being cleared and creating a special environment for education. The forest is being cared for and maintained and huge Hugelkultures have been built on the land. Wise Earth is also the home of cottage industry. They are raising oyster mushrooms and produce for market.

After Albert’s we visited Ravencroft Garden in Monroe. http://www.ravencroftgarden.com Ravencroft is a great example of what can be done on a small piece of land. It is in the midst of suburban landscapes and only minutes from rural properties. Eaglesong, owner, herbalist and gardener extraordinaire raises chickens and goats on her small parcel. She showed us how she planted for coppicing (cutting and bringing) food for her goats and spoke of the importance of biodiversity. Eaglesong is a good friend and neighbor.

Our next stop was to SongCroft where I showed the group the land. Shared our vision for perennial food sources as well as season extension so we can harvest year-round. They are ground cherries from the greenhouse and walked the trails. I was able to tell them about out classes and courses offered and also about our summer camps, like Farm Camp (that’s the summer camp we have for families.)

We ate lunch in the cabin around a nice warm fire. It was good to have the time for people to connect and get to know each other.  After lunch, introduced our cottage business, Blissfully Natural, a personal care product line. We finished our time at SongCroft by walking the trails and visiting the rabbits, goats and poultry. We hope that our visitors found something here that inspired them.

Our next stop was Alderleaf Wilderness College where Jason and Kerry Knight run a nature education center and wilderness survival school. http://www.wildernesscollege.com Okay, I can admit it, I wish I had their land. They have a big creek and lots of room for their outdoor classrooms, gathering areas, food production and livestock. It is a sweet set up. They showed us where they teach different topics from flint napping to tracking, We even saw a bear print while we where there.

Our next destination was Gil Schieber’s place in Snohomish. http://www.borealislandscape.com/home.html It was getting dark yet his massive number of apple trees, table grapes, evergreen huckleberries, and aronia berries that he has been propagating was impressive. He has a lot of potential there for interns and a huge space for growing food. Gil has a gift for grafting as some people have a gift for music. I wonder if I stand next to him enough, some of that magic will drift over to me through osmosis?

It was a long day. I had been up by 5am and did my chores by headlamp. I watched the sun come up as I fed the ducks. The day was cold and I ended up outdoors for the better part of 13 hours on a cold damp day but when I’m on the land the time goes by fast. It was a good day.

Thanks for all who participated!

The weather has changed and it feels like Autumn. The air is still warm but the rains are back. These rains are different than our summer rains. The energy is different. The sky is grey yet it is not a depressing landscape.

As I walked along the forest edge this morning, I enjoyed the many different types of moss. I could almost hear their “Ahhh…” as they took in the cool moisture both in the soil and in the air. The birds were twittering loudly so I could tell that something was passing through on the bottom of our land.

Today I will be at the Snohomish Farmers Market doing a presentation on Food Preservation. Folks who are interested in buying their peaches, tomatoes, pears and such will have a chance to ask questions before they go home and can or dry them. My hope is that those who weren’t thinking of preserving some of the local harvest will be inspired and purchase produce from the farmers while the market is still open. There are only two more market days this year!

If you want to find out more about home food preservation, come on by the market demo booth. I’ll be there, just like every other year, giving advice and sowing folks some of the possibilities for eating local!

If you can’t come by the booth, you can subscribe to our newsletter to get lots of information on similar topics.

http://songcroft.com/index.php/the-songcroft-self-sufficiency-newsletter/

High 75 Low 50       Absolutely beautiful clear blue sky!

It is late August and the winter vegetable garden has been planted. Broccoli, kale, cauliflower, collards, chard, beets, spinach, lettuces and more are all in the ground. The trick now is to keep them moist during our bursts of warm days and safe from slugs on our wet days, at least until they are larger and sturdier than they are now.

Winter gardening is for the moment, what I look forward to most in the garden. Don’t get me wrong, I love my garden year-round. The warmer seasons bring colorful flowers, berries and all types of heat-loving beings. I enjoy a homegrown tomato at least as much as the next girl but life is so busy in the summer with kids activities, campers staying on SongCroft, the milk flow and all that the slow paced winter garden is when I can really breathe.

Also, we are still in construction on various projects on our croft so we are often busy doing related projects on dry days.

There is also the fact that the Farmers Markets are booming with fresh local produce right now, at reasonable prices, but in the winter it will be hard to come by. Not many folks tend a winter vegetable garden here when prices go up to $3 a bunch for kale and little is locally sourced! I find winter gardening the most “bang for my buck.”

Yes, I am definitely a fan of winter gardens. I hope you have put yours in too!

Registration for the 2011 Self-Sufficiency Skills Course is open! http://songcroft.com/index.php/the-songcroft-school-of-self-sufficiency/

High 84  Low 55  Clear with a beautiful blue sky!

It is high summer and the sun is out.The summer harvest is on. It is almost 85 degrees today and the rain has finally stopped. Not that I am complaining. We are fortunate to have the rain that we do. It’s just that we cherish every moment that that great yellow orb hovers above us!

We were in Nelson, B.C. for a wedding of a dear friend last week so I am a little behind schedule on chores. While we were away, our chickens got out and pecked away much of the Winter garden.  The rows of carrot seed that I kept moist and nurtured through the warm days, the meticulously laid out patterns of red and green cabbages with yellow beets between were all pecked and thrown about like a giant tossed salad.

Upon inspection, I could see that some of the carrots were still sprouting, so I left them. I replanted the rows with more seedlings. It will be interesting to see where the carrots end up. Perhaps there will be a secret message from the hens hidden in the carrot tops.

At any rate, we are harvesting summer cabbages, purple and green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, radishes, chili peppers and zucchini just to name a few.  I hope you are all enjoying your local summer harvest because it slips by way too fast!

Summer has come and the sun is warming the land. The milk is flowing and the hens are laying. We have tomatoes and cukes on the vine, every berry one could imagine and greens a plenty. This is a time of abundance and joy.

As I sit with my morning cup of tea, the calendula flowers are bright and cheerful. The bees are foraging for nectar and there is a slight buzzing all around.

I am thankful for the beauty in my life and these simple moments when a cup of tea is my world.

High  61    Low 49   Grey and overcast with showers on and off all day

I’m assuming you all have heard of rain gardens, cutting gardens, forest gardens, bog gardens and plenty of other types of gardens that follow a central theme or purpose.

Well, after all of the questions I have been getting form folks this year, I am proclaiming this the year of the slug garden.

Due to massive rains, the not so charming descendants from snails are abundant in the Pacific Northwest this year. To qualify my above statement, slugs can be charming and even downright pretty except when they are uninvited guests to my garden. By the way, some slugs aren’t bad but instead provide a much needed service. North Coast banana slugs, Ariolimax species, are a vital part of forest ecology, cleaning up debris and dispersing mushroom spores and native plant seeds. They are a valuable food source for the Pacific giant salamander.

But what about common garden slugs?

They wait in formation every night as we turn our backs and walk away to clean ourselves up after a hard days work planting and preening the rows. They chant songs of conquering the peas and lettuce and laugh in the face of our astonishment when we return in the morning to lacey leaved vegetables looking helpless and perhaps a little embarrassed.

Like it or not, this is the year of the slug. Consider it an opportunity to hone your skills at keeping these little creatures in check. After all, they are only trying to make a living.

If you want more information on slugs, check out this link http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/pdf/fs/fs277.pdf