Starting more gardens

Goodbye hayfield. Goodbye softball field. Hello more gardens. Thanks Farmer Pap! 

Lettuce

This is how we cut lettuce:

No, not really. 

Farmer John was cutting all the lettuce that was too old. He fed it to the pigs, and we'll wait for more to grow. 

It's a girl!

A calf was born today.  We were lucky enough to have some friends visiting when Farmer John found her this evening. We all hiked up to see her, and took lots of photos. We also covered her in fly spray, since flies are getting pretty thick right now. Keeping  flies off newborn calves can help keep the calf alive. 

The mom and calf appear to be very healthy, which makes us very happy. 

Blog update

We love sharing our stories and photos from the farm with you. Thanks for returning to read our farm adventures. 

A few notes about the blog:

1- Have you noticed the new page at the top? I added some of our most popular posts under the "Favorites" tab. Outtakes + Pumpkins + Pigs and Prom dresses!

2- Reading your comments makes my day! Our wonderful brother/IT Guy wrote some directions on how to do just that. Click this link for his very thorough directions.

3- Finally, I have a way to view the blog "Stats", they include which countries are viewing the blog. The United States is always in the lead with the most views. However, I love the breakdown from around the world. A lot of international views come from random countries and I have no idea how they would have found us. But, my favorites come from countries where I know who is looking at the blog - Belize, Portugal, Tajikistan, Greece, and most recently Hong Kong. It always brings a smile to my face when I think of those far-away friends and family reading about life on the farm. 

And to thank you ALL for reading, here is a picture of an itchy cow:

Close-Ups

We hung out with the herd for a while last night. A few of them came trotting right up to me when I got out the camera.

The calf is healthy and growing bigger everyday.

In my opinion, this is the best-looking bull we have right now. His hair is long and silky, and makes him look so rugged when the wind blows. 

Last night was one of my favorite parts about farming. We weren't busy doing chores, and the herd seemed content to have us around. It's fun to hang out with the animals and just enjoy our land. 

Do you have a card?

Why, yes. Yes, we do.

I mentioned a gift in this post. It was this beautiful illustration from K at Little Alexander.  We are thrilled to have our farm represented with this image. Expect us to be passing out our new cards as often as possible! (Bonus points if you catch the typo)

Spring Greens

The garden by the house is taking off. Farmer John dedicated the majority of it to early crops, mostly greens.

There are three rows of radishes,

four bushy rows of spinach,

and several raised-beds of lettuce mixes.

And I've been thinking about something. If I had the chance to do it again, maybe I'd carry a bouquet of Spring-fresh asparagus down the aisle (with broccoli, lettuce, and Swiss chard too!) But, then I'd run the chance that Farmer John might eat it!

Dinner with the herd

Friday!

This video is a bit out of focus, but I hope it will give you a laugh anyway. 

Little Alexander

This weekend I did some business-y work for the farm. The Farmers Market will be up and running again soon, and I'd like to have new business cards and egg carton labels ready. 

While working on this, I got to thinking about K+A over at Little Alexander. They have been some of our biggest cheerleaders and have played an important role in helping the farm get to where it is today. 

K+A have been at the farm to help with weeding the garden and unloading our first beef. They've also helped from very far away - encouraging us to start this blog, lots of business support and ideas, and one other BIG plan (more to come on that). 

I should also mention that I've been friends with them since elementary school. Farmer John has been friends with A since they went swimming in Lake Superior. A few years later K+A drove all night from Seattle to join us for our wedding on that same shore. 

If you haven't done so already, I would encourage you to take a look at the Little Alexander shop on Etsy. They make beautiful notecards, postcards, and notebooks. I have a particular fondness for the rural-themed illustrations. And I have the green one of these full of notes and Belize adventures. Farmer John keeps crop notes in this. They gave us a beautiful gift recently, and we're excited to share it with you soon. In the meantime take a look at their shop.