Category Archives: Aimee’s Journal

Making Home

When we bought the farm three years ago I had grand plans for the house, it was built in the early 2000’s and had been unkempt and unloved for many years, she looked a bit dated and shabby (along with other issues, but that’s another post). Of course life gets in the way and our little house got put on the back burner, but that’s looking like it is going to change some.

One of my favorite rooms in the house is the dining room. It has these huge windows that look to the north and west, beautiful views of the whole valley. For the last while we had a simple shade on the west widow to keep the setting sun out of our eyes during dinner, but nothing else.  The windows are quite drafty and after this winter I decided that we could wait no longer and had to get some sort of window covering that could be closed in the winter to help keep the cold out and heat in.IMG_5831

I love this view, it needed a beautiful frame!

I love this view, it needed a beautiful frame!

So after much searching I finally settled on a look I love.  I have always liked sheers and long floor to ceiling cutains, so for beauty I went with a long sheers under and on top a thick cotton that drapes beautifully and will help with the draft in the winter.  I think it is a lovely effect, and my favorite room just became even more dear to me.  As I finished up everything and set out a nice center piece on the table (something I always had before we moved here, but never here) Dadzoo commented that he liked that I was making the place pretty, it made it feel more like home.

IMG_5834

Bareroots

Saturdays in the springtime are very busy on the farm.  Building a no-till, permaculture, working farm, along with raising eight children and Dadzoo working a fulltime job takes a lot of time and work. Springtime has us doing a lot of clean up and building garden beds in a mad rush to be finished before planting time.  This past Saturday was no exception, we had everyone outside, some clearing old weeds, others picking up accumulated garbage that had blown in, another cleaning out the chicken coop after the long winter, and Dadzoo hauling load after load of manure from our neighbor’s horse ranch.

Towards the end of the afternoon, the FedEx truck arrived with two big long boxes.  My Starks Brother’s order had arrived ahead of schedule.  I was so excited.  I love getting my plant and seed orders in.  We have ordered from Starks Brother’s before and have been happy with their bareroot trees and shrubs, so naturally when looking to add to the orchard we went with them.

IMG_5866
One of the things I like about Starks Brothers is that not only do they carry your typical varieties of fruit trees, but they also carry heirloom and speciality varieties.  From a permaculture stand point, using different  varieties is important, it creates biodiversity, and biodiversity is healthy.  Also on our farm we will be able to produce and sell varieties of apple that no one can get in grocery stores or the big produce stands. I also like the feeling that I am helping  keep a once thriving variety of tree or bush from extinction.

Current and Elderberry bushes. These will provide food and medicinals for us and birds, shade, and biomass.

Current and Elderberry bushes. These will provide food and medicinals for us and birds, shade, and biomass.

IMG_5868

Five different varieties of apple tree: Granny Smith, Candy Crisp, Smokehouse, Cinnamon Spice and Wine Crisp. All different flavors and colors.

IMG_5878So that evening we made a quick run to our local hardware store and picked up potting soil, I don’t like to plant my bareroots right in the ground, I have found I have better success planting them first in pot and babying them for a few months, then they will go to their forever homes.

Ladies on a Stroll

I always enjoy watching the chickens in the springtime, they are much more adventurous after the long winter and tend to range much farther. Today they followed me as I wandered the Orchard Meadow, I was looking around, my usual springtime hunt for the first signs of green life, they settled under the Mother Tree, scratching around, enjoying a dust bath and early season bugs. IMG_5826IMG_5827

Piled High and Deep

Because the soil is so poor here we have to do a lot of amending to create enough fertility to grown anything successfully.  This may seem like a losing battle, who can realistically bring in tons of compost every single season?  That is why we are using no-till and permaculture methods, once we bring the compost and other amendments in and get the soil to produce, not tilling, mulching and leaving spent plants in place at the end of the year, fertility will naturally come year after year with little addition. But for now, we have to bring in composted manure, and a lot of it, and it was quite the dilemma at first, where to get it and how to afford it.

IMG_5872We were blessed to become acquainted with and soon friends with our neighbors across the road, they have been raising horses for many years and naturally horses produce a lot of manure and they have graciously allowed us many, many loads.  Dadzoo spent a good part of Saturday morning hauling load after load to our garden.  Beautiful black fertility.

IMG_5871

For some strange reason the kids aren’t quite as excited as I am over a huge pile of composted manure….

We will now be spending many evenings and Saturdays sheet mulching our garden beds preparing for summer planting and building a dynamic ecosystem of fertility.

IMG_5873

Chicken Tractor

The little sisters have out grown their brooder, things were getting squishy in there and squishy chickens get bored and ornery and start causing problems, like pecking and feather pulling. Along with that we like to get the new sisters out on real ground as soon as possible, it is much more natural and healthy for them, and our pasture benefits immensely from their scratching, pecking and pooping.

Dadzoo put together a new chicken tractor for our new little sisters, its very simple: a covered area for shelter and an open area, wired in, for fresh air and sunshine, the bottom stays open so they have free access to the ground, grass and bugs.

IMG_5851

IMG_5852Every morning, at chore time, the chicken tractor is moved to fresh ground, keeping the impact of the birds on the pasture at a minimum, while providing fresh grass for the chicks and spreading their manure around evenly.

IMG_5875

This crazy festooned lady is becoming a fast favorite.

This crazy festooned lady is becoming a fast favorite.

Even chickens, when properly managed, can be used for much more than meat and eggs.  They too have a purpose and job in maintaining  and restoring the land.

Ladies in the Spring

IMG_5816

Scratching around the dill patch, eating old seeds, bugs and new seedlings. Soon they will be fenced out of this area, but for now they can enjoy the forage and we have the benefits of their scratching and manure to fertilize.

 

Our chickens at Quail Run Farm are free range all year long.  At nights we close them in a coop to protect them from predators, but every morning the coop doors are open wide for our girls to explore and feast on fresh grasses and bugs, the natural diet of chickens. In the winter the girls tend to stick very close to home, they don’t like walking in the snow, so they either hang out in the coop or under the coop where they have shelter. When the days start getting longer and warmer, and the snow starts to recede the girls get adventurous again range widely across the farm, enjoying the new fresh grass, a welcome variety to their normal winter ration.

 

IMG_5814

Working hard turning the compost pile for me, eating bugs, worms and old seeds.

 

Early Spring

The weather on the farm has been really mild the last week after a very cold, very snowy winter season.  The air is moist, full of melting snow and the ground is saturated with water.  It’s an interesting time of year, an interesting feeling to the air, being in the high desert typically the air and ground is dry, except in the early spring as old man winter and jack frost make their retreat and the lady of springtime moves in. Water drips, drips, drips off the eves of the house and runs into collection barrels, or collects in swalls and hugelkulturs, making the ground soft and the mud deep.  Shallow puddles collect here and there in small depressions in the ground, a tease for soon the long dry summer season will be upon us.

On of my very favorite early spring activities is playing hide and seek with the earliest of my green ones, just making their very first ventures into the mild spring air. They taunt and dare the hard freezes to come back and the snows to cover them, knowing that while there may be an attempt, the strong army of winter has retreated and will bow to the freshness of spring.  I’m always amazed, that under blankets and drifts of hard cold snow, life quietly sleeps waiting for its moment.

 

My baby Yarrow, her blooms will grace my meadow this summer and my tea cup next winter

My baby Yarrow, her blooms will grace my meadow this summer and my tea cup next winter

 

Today I took a stroll in my orchard meadow, this little project has a special little place in my heart. It is where we have planted a variety of fruit trees creating fertility around them, not only by spreading composted material, but planting beneficial herbs, flowers and grasses at their feet.  Most of my medical herbs are there, and a huge juniper tree that I lovingly call “The Mother Tree” presides over my orchard meadow, it is a place of healing, a place growing, fertility, birth and magic. I carefully looked among the roots of my darling fruit trees searching for the first signs of life, of my little herbs that are gathering strength and stretching out of a deep sleep. I was not disappointed.  I found the soft feathery leaves of chamomile, the broad green of plantain, the tiniest leaves of yarrow that I had babied all last season, and of course the bold spears of daffodils making their first appearance.

Bold Daffodil, these are the first spears of about two hundred bulbs planted in the meadow, we will soon have to watch our step.

Bold Daffodil, these are the first spears of about two hundred bulbs planted in the meadow, we will soon have to watch our step.

 

I love the first quiet days of spring, before the heavy work of preparing bed and planting seeds starts, when the world wakes up and beckons me to come watch a while.

Chamomile, was only sleeping under its blanket of snow at the foot of an apple tree

Chamomile, was only sleeping under its blanket of snow at the foot of an apple tree

 

Tippy

tippyWe got a dog. Her name is Tippy and we have pretty much fallen in love with her, deep, deep love.  We’ve wanted a dog for a while.  We thought it would be fun for the kids, and we felt a need to have a livestock guard dog, just to keep the ‘yotes and raccoons away.  When we first moved to the farm we got a puppy and it ended up badly, we learned that we are not good puppy owners and that we didn’t have enough time to properly train a dog to be around livestock, so I had put the idea of a dog out of my mind, figuring that the right dog would come around when the time was right….and it did.

Tippy came from my uncle who has a cattle ranch and has working dogs. Tippy was brought to the ranch for that purpose, to help work cattle, but proved to be too timid.  However, she was so obedient, loving and great around kids, perfect for a small farm and family with kids, perfect for us!  She has been with us for almost a week and it seems like she has been here the whole time.  She blends right in, she is great with the animals, comes when calls, likes to chase cats a bit too much (but the cats are showing her who is boss), chases jack rabbits, enjoys long walks and loves the kids so much.  We are so happy to welcome Tippy to the farm!

Soap

IMG_5641


Goat Milk soap, newly un-molded and cut, ready to be moved into the curing room

I have made our own soap off and on for about seven or eight years now.  It was one of the first projects I tackled when I decided that I wanted to learn the lost arts of homemaking.  There were a few bad batches, some lye burns and wasted oils, but at the end of it all I discovered a craft that I love and isn’t too common (unless you look on etsy, then it seems like everyone makes and sells soap).  I made it for our home and occasionally for family and friends.  A few months ago, after a bit of a break I took up the craft again, but this time I really started to experiment with different scents and herbs.

I think I have found my art.

I love crating new flavors of natural soaps, using only the best ingredients.  Making soap is a mix of many loves: the botanical world, natural living, lost homemaking skills and serving others. I enjoy experimenting with different herbs and essential oils to make lightly scented soaps that are gentle and nourishing for the skin as well as the soul. I believe when you use natural ingredient when caring for our homes and bodies it imparts a bit of the spirit of the plant into the space its serving.  In a world full of artificial, petroleum derived objects, “foods” and self care items, bringing a part of the wild, natural world sooths our frazzled souls and imparts beauty and peace into our environment. I put a lot of myself into my soaps and I pray that when people use them, especially those I love, that they will feel the spirit in which it has been crafted.

 

IMG_5640

Goat Milk soap

Goat Milk soap curing

Goat Milk soap curing

Juniper and Cedarwood soap curing

Juniper and Cedarwood soap curing

Tea Tree soap curing

Tea Tree soap curing

 

The Little Sisters

IMG_5770

 

About two weeks ago we received our first order of chicks from the hatchery.  When we got them home we realized that twelve of the chicks we ordered weren’t there, it seems the hatchery wasn’t able to hatch enough of this particular chick.  We got a credit with the hatchery and ordered more, I want at least thirty six new chicks for the farm this year so we can up our egg production. Seems there is a demand for farm fresh eggs and I can sell every single egg I produce. In the meantime something was wrong with the chicks that did arrive. In the first two days we lost half of our little flock. They were earing and drinking fine, then they would get lethargic and die within about an hour or so. It was really strange, we aren’t new at this baby chick thing, we’ve been ordering and caring for them for years now and while I expect a few losses early on I had never seen this type of loss. After a quick call to the hatchery (they seemed to think it had to do with stress during shipping, or they got too chilled during shipping) we soon had twelve more chicks added to the order I had placed to replace the chicks that we didn’t receive in the first place (clear as mud?).

This morning I got the call that my chicks were at the post office waiting to be picked up!  When I got them home I added them to the brooder with their big sisters, hoping that it wouldn’t be a problem, sometimes adding new chickens to an established flock can be troublesome, but so far the big sisters are doing great, even letting the little ones huddle under their wings for warmth!

Yay for forty eight new chicks!  I can’t wait for them to start laying this summer!

IMG_5768

Little sisters mingling with the big sisters

IMG_5765

Little sisters huddling under the big sisters to get warm

IMG_5767

My little fluffies exploring the brooder