January 2008 Archives

I've been dreading this day for weeks.  This is a photo of the last egg from my hens.  I took it on Friday, after breakfast.  One lonely blue egg, all by itself in the cardboard condo built for 12.

Back in September, when we were collecting three dozen eggs a day, you would never have convinced me this day would come.  I know hens need 12 hours of light, either sunlight or artificial, to continue to lay eggs through the short days of winter.  And yes, I did get nervous around Thanksgiving when my inventory dropped to three dozen, with all the holiday baking coming up.

But for the last month, my sweet girls have only been laying one or two eggs a day.  Three would be a big day, worthy of a kitchen cheer. 

So you can do the math.  Breakfast for four people who like (or at least eat) eggs.  Pancakes. Bread. Cookies. Cornbread.  Many days were a net loss for eggs, with me using the freshly laid ones and pulling a few out of my dwindling supply.

Which leads us to Friday morning and one lonely Aracuana egg.  Which I cracked and baked into a lovely pone of yellow cornbread Friday night to soak up all the juicy goodness in the beef chili/stew that simmered all afternoon. 

You didn't think I was going to let it stay in the fridge all night long by itself, did you?

Greetings from NW Georgia.  I hope you've been pouring over the seed catalogs and placing your seed orders in anticipation of your spring and summer garden.  I've placed a couple of orders and look forward to another great summer of fresh garden berries and produce.  Here in the South we can get a bit of a head start when it comes to frost date and planting.  I'm also a bit of an impatient farmer and as a result I've learned some lesson(s) with late frosts and frozen tomato plants. 

In the past, we've started seeds in our basement.  Our plan to expand production, along with the mess and hassle of working in the basement, has caused us to rethink this process.  Our solution to the problem has been to purchase a greenhouse.  We took delivery of the "kit" several weeks ago and I have spent the past several weekends working on assembly.  I'm a bit overwhelmed by the boxes of parts, connectors, tubes. fans, heaters etc.  What looks great in the catalog with smiling well dressed "models" is a huge undertaking to assemble.  So far we have: 

• Measured, squared, laser leveled (thanks Larry Holcomb) and sunk the ground posts for the 12x20 frame.
• Connected the side and end boards
• Run irrigation and electric line for the electrician (not me)
• Spread plastic and then gravel for the floor
• Assembled the end and interior rafters with the some of the hundreds of tek screws.  Tek screws (see photo) are self-tapping screws that are very difficult to install.  It takes several minutes and heavy pressure to get these through two layers of metal.  Keep your cordless drill charged and hope that your arm stays attached.    
• Installed several rafters and the purlins today.

I've had some great help from folks in the building process.  "Paw Paw" (Grandpa Pierce) has been a big help.  He suffered a bad shin scrape while tripping over a ground post and is currently on injured reserve...hope to have him back in time for the Super Bowl.  "Farm Babe" (Mrs. Burns) spent some time today helping me set rafters between taking care of kids and tending to the hens.  Eston has provided excellent company while I'm working and does an great job of hiding the tools.   

The goal is to be finished with this project in the next two weeks.  I need to start plants soon!  Perhaps we'll get some sparkling cider and have a toast inside when we are done.   

 

 

 

 

Once in a while we get a dose of snow here in Northwest Georgia.  The snow is usually just a dusting that quickly melts the next day but it's enough for some boys to battle in a quick snowball fight.  This was the scene tonight when we got home from our Wednesday night small group.  I launched the first volley and it was "GAME ON"!  I lasted about 10 minutes until the lack of preparation (i.e. gloves) got the best of me.  William and Cooper lasted a little longer until they saw my hot chocolate.

Enjoy your winter wherever you are!

Last weekend I managed to pull (ok pry) the boys away from their Wii video game system to get outside, enjoy the milder weather and soak up some vitamin D.  The task for the boys was to pick up all the black walnuts that had dropped to the ground -  they did a good job.  They relocated the walnuts to the edge of the woods (as opposed to the middle of the yard) so the squirrels could still find them for food. 

I spent some time weed-eating and determining how many of my new Triple Crown Thornless Blackberry starts survived our record drought.  I have already ordered more and requested some replacements from our vendor.  I'm looking forward to the production bump we'll get in the next 1-2 years - especially without the thorns.  The Triple Crown variety is very close in size and flavor to my Kiowa variety.  It is one of the sweetest you can grow and we enjoy eating them right off the canes. 

 

 

 

I checked on our three types of Garlic - French Rose and Chesnok Red, a stiffneck variety, and Chet's Italian, a softneck variety.  This is our first time to grow garlic and so far it looks like we have had good germination.  We covered them up during our short cold spell last week and have uncovered them again in hopes of collecting some rain tonight.  We'll keep you updated on the progress and hopefully in June we'll have a large garlic harvest from four of our box beds.

We have been enjoying our collard and turnip greens this winter and continue to pick them often for a healthy treat. 

Lastly, we have purchased a greenhouse for our seed starting operation.  We ordered a Solar Star Greenhouse Kit from Growers Supply.  This will allow us to get a start on the season with several crops without having to move plants around every day. 

In our next post, we plan to have made some seed choices for next year, so stay tuned!  If you have any suggestions in that regard, please hit the comment button and leave us a note.