Farm Life

I think we showed our 7 guests this weekend a pretty good farm time. Highlights included:

-fresh eggs for breakfast (with ham and cheese on an english muffin) served with hot lattes. Nathan and I got a taste for what it would be like running a bed and breakfast.

-a bbq and campfire in the paddock - a 3 minute walk from the house but we drove over in the back of the truck for farm authenticity.

-target practice with Benjamin and some old coke cans.

-a sudden downpour right at the end of the bbq that lasted just as long as it took us to get soaking wet rushing everything inside.

-roast chicken, pork and veggies for dinner served with garden fresh salad and plenty of beer, wine, rum and whiskey....which led to

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-a sheep naming contest in which the winning choices were Ewean and Eweneequa....

-a quick ride on Molly

 -multiple tours through the greenhouse (this basil made a big batch of pesto for all of us and barely looked touched after pruning).

-a taste of the first few ripe strawberries.

-almost everybody (including me) seeing a head of broccoli growing for the first time.

- chicken handling 101.

-an adventure hike along a creek to the ocean.

-4 extremely happy and tired dogs.

Tomato Tomahto

Today Nathan (with his Australian accent) asked our landlord's daughter how her 4th birthday party was. She looked very confused and asked him, "what's a birthday potty???". I almost fell over laughing.

Back to Tomahtos - one of the best parts about being new to all of this is how exciting everything is.

For example, OUR FIRST TOMATO!

It's a Sweet Million tomato - they're the seeds that I started at the beginning of March. Apparently the plants can grow over 8' tall. Good thing they're tied to the roof of the greenhouse (they're about 2' right now).

A mesclun mix started from seeds in one of the grow beds is doing well (the 2nd row).

Thai Dragon hot peppers like the greenhouse heat.

 Watermelon growing vertically.

The strawberry tower.

I guess we do have pollinators in the greenhouse (I still want bees).  

I'm pretty confident in my chicken sexing. 

Cockerel:

Pullet:

WTF:

WTF x2. What ARE they??

First Visitors

Happy "Put Your Mother to Work Weeding" Day!

My parents came for a visit this weekend - plus their dog, Lucy, and cat, Darla, too.

Lucy (all 8 lbs of her) tried really hard to intimidate Woolly Bully and the cows but she wasn't too successful. They didn't even blink at eye. It didn't help that she was running away in fear while barking...

We got a lot done in the greenhouse. I weeded everything and staked the smaller tomato plants up using bamboo posts. I also finished planting the rest of the row with some pumpkins, eggplant, more tomatoes and a few of the brussels sprouts (just to see how they do). Our landlord cut a big vent in the top of the greenhouse to try and keep the temperature down on hot days so hopefully it won't be quite as extreme as it was this last week.

Nathan built a strawberry tower with five plants going up the length of pvc. Water trickles down through each pot from the top. I'll take pictures of the completed tower tomorrow - it's really cool.

We were admiring our hard work this evening when we heard a funny noise behind us. Ryan was lunging/pouncing at a Garter snake. He didn't quite know what to do with it (kind of like how we think he would make friends with a bunny, if he ever actually got close to one. All he wants to do with the chicks is lick them...). 

We were all interested in the snake.

Dinner time! Quiche with baby greens, ham, spicy sausage, tomatoes, cheddar and parmesan. Yummy.