Life on our little farm.

Fulfilling the Dreams of Long Ago.

2013-04-30T13:43:00.000-07:00

Life is Good

Best Friends

I know that I have shared with you all that when we moved out here ten years ago I was starting my recovery. My folks had come to us with an idea. There was forty acres for sale in the country. They had the money, Michael had the know-how to build a house. The rest, as they say, is history. We moved out to the middle of nowhere, I took my name off of our bank account and relinquished my keys. I went into rehab. When I was finished with that I came home and started to reclaim my life and to help build this home that we all love so much. We built this duplex, which we share with my mom and dad, out of a big warehouse that was already built on the land. It's funny, it took me and my mom years to stop calling it "the warehouse" instead of "the house". This might sound a little strange but being homeless at different periods in my life had a much bigger impact on me then even drug addiction. I didn't care if it was on old warehouse, it was my home. Something I could leave to my kids, and them to theirs. Like it used to be in a different time. When men and women built their homes and carved out a life for themselves. It then was passed from generation to generation. A place where there would always be room for those who needed it. That is what we have always pictured for this place.

The Red Bud we transplanted for mom when we first moved out here.

Once we got things done with the house I turned my attention to cooking. After all, I was out in the middle of nowhere, and I had given up all my play mates. Taking care of the kids and getting to know my folks again was a joy. However, I needed something else. In my recovery I really strove to not only stop the addictions, but to take it to the next level and really try to get healthy mentally, spiritually and physically.
The quest to eat healthier led us to the knowledge that so much of what we eat is garbage. Not even the "fresh" produce in the stores is as healthy as it should be. Hence, we built our gardens so that we could grow our own crops. That is what led me to become a Master Gardener. I struggled with growing food in Oklahoma and I needed help. I needed a LOT of help. I was so blessed that Fran and Brian and the board of the Tulsa Master Gardeners saw fit to allow me to be a part of this wonderful organization. I've been in churches that didn't have people as nice and welcoming as the gardeners here in Tulsa.

The best farm hands in the world!

We came into our chickens about the same time I had learned that the Master Gardeners gave classes to become a Master Gardener. I had come across them in my many attempts to learn how to garden here. I had to wait a year till the class was open again. In fact our first batch of chicks got here while I was still in class. The coop and run had already been built for awhile. If you've read any of this blog of mine at all you'll know we do everything in stages. We decided to get them because I had watched a documentary on how they raise, feed and slaughter them and on everything that is injected to them or their feed over the short period of their lives. It completely freaked me out! I could not feed that to our kids! "We've got the room! If you (meaning dad and Michael) will build it then the kids and mom and I can take care of them" I begged and pleaded. Long story short, that is how this whole farm thing started.

Our babies.

I tell you all that to lead up to this: At our latest "Farm Meeting" as we were going over all of our thirteen projects that we have on the board right now, to get an assessment of where we were on each one, what it would take to finish them and to put an order to them I made the comment to my mom and dad that I was not worried about it. "It's not like we're going to be on the Tulsa Master Gardeners Garden Tour for at least a couple of years" I said jokingly. My parents both laughed and replied, "This is important and we need to get them off the board and in to operation." Well I am all for that! We went over the list and assigned responsibility for the next steps to the right person or persons and concluded the meeting.
After Michael had already left and dad and I were still going over some things he stopped and said, "One of these days, after your mom and I are gone, it's going to be the first Thanksgiving with out us. All of you kids are going to be sitting around the table, with all your home grown and raised foods and you are going to look at each other and say, ''Remember when mom and dad were pushing us so hard to get all these crazy projects that mom and I dreamed up done? It didn't matter how complicated they were, if mom and I could dream it up then dad and Michael could make it happen." Yes, tears immediately sprang to my eyes. It's a day I don't ever want to come. My parents top priority, in their golden years, is to insure that all their children and all that have and will follow in the coming years will have a the ability to feed themselves healthy foods and have a beautiful place to live while they enjoy it. To look around and see so many projects completed and so many so close to completion is truly the realization of the dream we all started so many years ago. Thank you mom and dad. I love you so. Now, on with the show!

The love is palbable isn't it?

Life on our little farm is moving right along. We are even getting a real tractor! Now if that doesn't make you feel like a real farmer then nothing will. I'm running through my mental Rolodex and the first thing that comes to mind is WE GOT OUR GOATS! Yes, it happened and we are the proud parents of Isabella and Pepper. They are sill on one bottle a day and will be till the 11th of May. Then they will be weened. By the end of this year they will be ready to mate and we will be in fresh milk, and all the yummy stuff that comes with it, next spring!

Pepper and Isabella

They are Nubian goats. they really have the personalities of puppies. It has really surprised me how intelligent and loving they are. They are also very playful. We are going to be building some ramps for them to climb in the middle of the pasture and they love to play with basket balls. They have made the most wonderful addition to our farming family.
Getting all the fencing set up was quite the project and took several weeks. We did ours just like the goat farmer that we got them from did his. We keep buying 5-10 panels every time they go on sale at Tractor Supply just so we can keep enlarging their pasture.

You can't see the goats, but the kids are feeding them.

Some more of the goats.

We are on our second batch of meat chickens. Boy did we learn a lot this time around. It is much easier to get them at the first of September and butcher them mid November. This spring has been so cold and we have lost a few to the extreme weather changes. A few nights ago it was freezing and barely broke 45 degrees the next day and today was 90 degrees.

Second batch of meat chicks.

     The very first night we got them we went out to dinner. We had planned the dinner a few weeks ahead of time. It was a Sunday. Our chicks were not supposed to be here the next day, Monday. So dinner time rolled around and we decided to bring the chicks out to Nate's trailer and put a heat lamp on them till we got home and could bring them back inside. We have five cats that love to eat the heads of little birds. When we got home and brought them in there were thirteen that were dead, or so we thought. They had gotten wet and had slipped into hypothermia. We noticed some of them moving and quickly grabbed the heating pad, turned it on and laid them across it with a towel over them. One at a time we blew them dry with my hair dryer. Sarah and I spent the entire night bending over them and flipping them and feeding them water with eye droppers every fifteen minutes. We brought all but two of them back. We were so excited.
     Then slowly but surely, one here, two there, one there... we lost four more. Two were Buff Orpingtons and one was the exotic we always get and one was a meat chick. Then three more died once we got them out to the run. Any way, after the four we are down because of today's heat it puts us at 39. So basically all the ones we saved are dead now any way. I think that going through something so extreme at two days of age is just too much for them.
     I do need to share with you that at butchering time the whole famn damily is in on it and it is quite the experience. The best things about raising your own meat chickens? The chicken we raise blow the doors off the store bought chickens in both flavor and health. I know what they have eaten, how they lived their lives, The cleanliness of the way they were butchered and exactly what HAS NOT been injected into them or their food over the period of their lifetimes.


My girls and their boy.

As for my layers, they are wonderful and a joy to have. We are selling eggs faster than my girls can lay them. In fact, project number one on the board is expanding our layers coop and incorporating the goats pasture into their chicken run. Yes, we will be selling pastured eggs instead of the free range we are now! They will also do a great job of keeping all the ticks and fleas off of my goats. We currently have 20 RIR's that lay for us. (wait for it...) We placed an order for four Buff Orphingtons with the meat chicks. Three are left plus the exotic is also a hen. That puts us up to 24 layers. (wait for it...) We just placed an order for fifty, yes, you heard me right, 50 Leghorns this past Sunday that will be here the 20th of May!!! This is very, very egg-citing, wacka, wacka, wacka.

The starts of our hoop house.

The next big break through here on the farm is our 16' x 20' green house that will house a 300 gallon fish tank and 2 12' x 4' x 1' beds that are raised three feet off of the ground. This will house our aquaponics system. For those of you who are not familiar with aquaponics I will do my best to explain. It is the act of growing plants with out soil. Instead you use a fired clay medium and the water from the fish tanks. The fish provide all the nutrients that the plants need and the plants clean the water for the fish. It is by far the biggest project on the board. We will start with only one of the beds operational. This will give us 48 cubic feet of space to grow. However, once I get the kinks worked with the first one out we will get both beds going and bring the total to 96 cubic feet of growing space that only uses 10% of the water that traditional soil beds use. The biggest help I've received in

The grow beds for the aquaponic system.

this effort is the book "Aquaponic Gardening" by Sylvia Bernstein. I have wasted so much money on buying "programs" from people that do not offer everything you really need to know to do it right. I even spent 25 -30 minutes on the phone with Sylvia herself who was kind enough to help me work out the final kinks. If you are looking to do something like this you need to buy this book. You don't have to start out with a system this big. We did it because we have the room and we all believe in the cause.

Getting the sweet potato field plowed.

Russel, the wonderful friend who plowed our field.

There is a couple of other things that I would like to wrap up with. We are planting a field of sweet potatoes in the spring. We already have the field plowed and are preparing the soil for planting next spring. My dad's friend Russel was kind enough to bring his tractor over and plow it for us. It's great having wonderful friends. There are two reasons that we are doing this. 1. 95% of all the corn on the planet now is genetically modified. It is in 90% of all processed foods. It is horrible for all of us. We, as a family, are working towards not eating Frakenfoods any longer. We do however eat our livestock and the things they produce. Sweet potatoes are good for all of us. We can replant them without Monsanto suing us, and most importantly it is real food! 2. Our feed bill from the feed store will reduce drastically when we, our dogs, cats, goats, chickens and what ever else we end up getting are eating food we grow. Thank God we have the room to do this too.
We have also planted a good variety of fruits this year. As it stands right now we have three different kinds of apples, plums, peach, mulberry, raspberry, black berry, black raspberry and pomegranate, lemon, lime, and orange trees. If I'd done it from seeds six years ago when I thought of it we'd already be getting fruits. Oh well, we are doing it now.

The field of dreams.

     These last two items I wish I had pictures of because they warm my heart so. The first being my Master Gardener in training, sweet Sarah Anne and our future livestock manager, awesome Austin. She's going with me to many of my MG events. She'll be the first one to tell you why she's there. I can't step out in the gardens or out to work with the farm with out her being by my side. My grandson Austin is the first to step up with the livestock and the tough jobs that go with it. By next spring he wants to be raising and selling his own goats. They both do. I hold high hopes for the future of

Poppa teaching Austin the ropes.

this farm with the generations that are coming up behind us.
     The second item is the field trip that we had out here this last Saturday. A group of MG's from the new class came out to meet us and check out what we are doing here on the OSM Farm. We've got another one scheduled with a very special group from Crossroads in Tulsa penciled in for September. I am both blessed and honored to be able to pass an anything that can help others in their journey to living healthy. You don't have to live on a farm to do it. You just have to start where you are.

God bless and God speed till we meet again.

One of the best investments of my time I've ever done.

2012-12-07T14:09:00.000-08:00

Nine months. Seems a little bit hard to believe. I could have had a baby since I last wrote anything. I tried to keep this up quarterly. You wouldn't think that writing something once every three months would have been all that difficult. However, in the infamous words of my grandson, " Oh contraire butt hair."

Once the hole was dug we placed the tarp.

Then we weighted the edges down with dirt.

The finished product holds over 1000 gallons of water.

In reviewing my last post I noticed that there are several things I need to catch you up on. The "water hole" that we dug worked out great. The deer love it too. Every evening we can find them out there just after the sun has gone down. It holds the water great and it's nice to have in case of emergency. We did not get the bee hive. The long and short of it is that we could not afford it. Maybe one of these days we will but for now there was something else I wanted more. We decided to put the money into fencing. We did not plant any wheat or oats. We discovered that we need to get rid of the sand burrs. We also discovered that there are only two times of year that you can spray for them and only one product that you can use that is effective on them. We will be spraying in January and again in April of 2013. We will be doing that for two years before we will start to notice any progress in getting rid of them. This year was HORRIBLE with them! They even started creeping up into our yard. It's hard not to bring them up though when we use the same mower on the yard and the fields. What can you do though? Buying a tractor with a bush whacker attachment comes to mind but the money is a problem. Another thing goes on the "wish list".
Also, we did not get the cows. We met a goat farmer through my grandson's Scout Club. We went over to his farm, picked his brain and checked out his fencing. During the outing we learned several things. The first being that it only takes 5-7 minutes to milk a goat. Woot, woot! This is much better than the 45 minutes it takes to milk a cow! I can handle 5-7 minutes twice a day much easier than the other. We also learned that we will get approximately a gallon of milk a day from one female. We really need two gallons a day. When you consider that there are eight people in our family and the kefir we make every day, not to mention the butter and cheese we will need you can see that the milk will go fast. We're going to start with one female and one male, then mate them and go from there. We'd like to get up to two females and one male. Keep one male for mating and the rest will go to meat. We've got all the fencing. We will be setting that up in March when we get the goats. I am very excited about it all!

My girls.

One days worth of eggs.

The meat chicks.

They are growing so fast!

The eggs are so beautiful!

The Cornish chickens at eight weeks. They weighed 9 lbs.

Our chickens, or my girls as I affectionately refer to them, are doing fantastic! They are giving us the best eggs I have ever tasted. I learned quickly that some hens lay more than one egg a day. We have 19 hens and one rooster. All summer long we were getting two dozen eggs per day! I think our highest daily production was twenty-eight. It has been a real blessing because we have been selling the eggs and the money has helped pay for their food. I sell a dozen eggs for $3.50 and eighteen for $5.00. Even with winter here we are still getting an average of ten eggs a day. I am very proud of my girls.
We also raised and butchered 50 Cornish chickens. The meat is delicious and even with the cost of the chicks, shipping and the food it is still cheaper then if we had bought it all from the store. Once we get the goats going we will have chicken, rabbit, goat and deer meat in our fridge and freezer. Once that happens we will no longer be buying any meat from the grocer. I am thrilled about that because we will not be feeding our family any meats that have been pumped full of steroids, antibiotics or hormones. That is a big deal worthy of celebrating!

You've got to love the full freezer!

As to our new composting system with the leaves was a HUGE success!! With what we saved up last year we kept the chicken run full all winter long (it helps to keep their feet clean and gives them lots of stuff to peck at instead of at each other, lol) and made enough soil to top off all of our eight raised beds, mom's flower beds, the flag pole garden bed and my herb bed as well. We still have about two full trailers worth. I'm donating them to a fellow gardener to top off her beds. The way we figure it we will never have to buy a load of dirt again. We are not growing anything this winter in order to give the beds a rest. I'm calling it the "spa treatment".

The soil we made with the oak leaves from last year.

The chipper shredder that we put all the leaves and compost through to make the soil.

Straw mulch in the beds. Really helped with the water retention!

Installing the hoops and wires.

The first shade cloth up and operational.


Shade system opened up.

The new things in the garden are quite exciting this year. We designed and built a shade system that worked perfectly this year to help with the heat we had this summer. We will need to replace the shade cloths with a better material but the concept worked just as we had hoped. It kept the heat off the blooms enough to allow them to go to fruit as well as keeping the moisture from evaporating from the soil too quickly. We also mulched every bed very heavily with straw. That was also a great idea. The straw kept the beds wet for three to four days after each watering. It effectively cut our water bill by one third. The rain barrels did great this year as well. The ones in the garden need to be redone however. They need to be raised up on cinder blocks and the pipes need to be taken apart and cleaned out. That's not a big deal though. With everything we do we learn something new or a better way to do things next time.
The herbs did really well this year. The heat never seems to affect them much at all. I wish all the veggies we grow did as well. I love the way harvest time makes our home smell.


Harvest of the herbs.

Rabbit hutch.

The new shed.

Building the new stall.

The new stall finished.

       We did get the new stall built. We turned the old one into a shed and built the new one on the back of it. We also built some new hutches for the rabbits and a new run for the meat chicks. The next project we are planning for now is a good size green house. We'd like to be able to grow our vegetables year round and get to eating seasonally.
     Well, that's about all that has gone on here the last nine months. I hope everyone else has had as productive a year as we have. See you next year!

2012-03-01T11:08:00.000-08:00

These are the seeds we have started for the cold weather plants.

This is our little greenhouse.

This is the little freezer we picked up for fifty bucks! We'll use it to freeze the 2 liters that we have saved up this winter. What will we do with them? We'll keep the chickens and rabbits cool this summer. Last summer was brutal and this summer is expected to be the same.

These are our chickens. We are expecting eggs this month!

MM did a fantastic job on the coop and run. Haven't had a predator get in yet!

Potatoes ready for planting in the tires.

Potato tires.

This is our new compost area where we are making the most of all the oak leaves and used straw from the chicken coop.

It holds about 100 bags of leaves and straw with room to spare.

This is the huge hole we are digging to capture additional rain run-off. Once completed we will build a form and pour cement in it. We can then use our sump pump to water the back yard gardens.

I forgot to take pics of the rain barrel system that MM built me. They work fantastic and inspired this hole.

This is my son Nate and my sweet Sarah Anne digging the hole.

What a wonderful way to spend a lazy Sunday.

2012-02-14T12:08:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting here, listening to a Dave Mathews concert and getting ready to review all the things that have happened over the last five months. We have been very busy.

The last time I checked in I had just been accepted into the Mater Gardeners internship. Wow, was that an intimidating period of time! It was such an intense time of study and learning. The first few weeks I thought I had really gotten in over my head but as the time progressed I realized that either the weekly tests were getting easier or I was getting smarter, lol. The first thing I learned was the difference between dirt and soil. Dirt is what you sweep up off the floor and soil is what you grow your plants in. I have always loved gardening and when I lived in Idaho I had thought I was a great gardener. Then I moved to Oklahoma and quickly learned that I had been an average gardener that had been gardening in great soil. Down here in Oklahoma we have to make our soil. Taking that class was one of the best decisions that I have made. The people that are fellow gardeners are some of the most wonderful people I have ever met. What I enjoy the most is the sincere desire of the O.S.U. extension office to help us learn to grow our food. No matter what the question is they will take the time to find an answer. You would be surprised how many younger people are calling or coming in to find out how to rediscover all the lost knowledge of growing food. In talking to them I discover that it is the economy that is driving them to do so. Then they taste the difference in flavor of home grown food compared to corporately grown food and they are hooked!

We got the chicks in late October. They have been a joy to raise. The kids and I have had so much fun watching them grow. I'm not quite sure how we are going to proceed in regards to butchering them and restocking. It would be easier to just buy them, raise them, get the eggs while you can and then butcher them and start all over again. You can't introduce chicks into a group of grown chickens or they will kill them. I guess we could have a hatchery area. I don't know... I'll have to put some more thought into that. They will be laying eggs by next month! I am excited for that to start. Once we can sell eggs we will be able to cover the cost of the feed. I'm sad to say that we lost our camera and have not been able to replace it yet so I will not be able to post any pictures of all the wonderful times that we have shared in this new adventure. I spent a lot of time yesterday reading up on all my chicken blogs and learned so much! I will be adding a couple of wheelbarrows full of our oak leaves to the run. It will accomplish several things. The first being to help keep their feet clean. Secondly, they love it and the bugs it brings. Thirdly, it will help slow down the erosion from all their dust baths and last but not least, it will break down into compost for the garden.

Speaking of composting, we added a new feature this year. While I was still in my MG classes I got the chance to pick Steve's brain. He's the compost guy. Until this year, we have always burned about 100 bags worth of oak leaves every fall. When Steve heard this his face got this flustered look and the first words out his mouth were, "Shame on you. Don't you know that oak leaves are like gold for your garden?". So, having been properly chastised and motivated, this year we created a 25' x 25' area to compost them. It was relatively easy and inexpensive. Wish I could show you what it looks like. Once we get another camera I will catch up everything. We bought a hundred foot section of the orange material they use on construction sites to keep the debris from blowing off the site. It's not the prettiest thing to look at but hey, this IS a working farm/homestead and it ain't always pretty. By next fall I'll be able to restock the soil in the raised beds and I won't be spending the money on having a load of soil brought in! Yep, I'm feeling pretty thrifty (and proud of myself, in case you couldn't tell) about it. Between that and the double-barreled tumbler composter we have I don't think we'll ever have to buy another load of soil.

We are going to start breeding the rabbits this week. We will be providing meat for our household and one of my brother's as well. They have been the easiest and the cheapest to raise. Were you aware that rabbits are only pregnant for thirty-one days? Lucky ducks, or rather rabbits, lol. Another cool fact is that you only raise them eight weeks before you butcher them. Easy! If I could find a butcher that could handle rabbits I could eventually sell the meat to local restaurants. That would be another stream of income for the farm.

We will be getting a bee hive this spring. Did you know that honey is the only food that never spoils? Not to mention how expensive it is. If there was enough honey produced we could sell that as well making yet another stream. It will also help revive the honey bee population in this area and help with the pollination of our own crops. I am allergic to bee stings but as I've gotten older I learned that if you don't freak out they pretty much leave you alone and if they don't then squirt them with the hose and they will. My new son Nate has agreed to harvest the honey for us and seeing how he has done it before I am more than happy to let him.

This spring we will be building a new stall (we turned the old one into a storage building) in preparation for getting two cows, one male and one female. Why? Meat and milk silly! Speaking of real food, here are a few sites you all should check out.

http://farmfoodfreedom.org/
http://farmfoodfreedomfighters.ca/
http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/
http://nourishedkitchen.com/
http://www.thecompletepatient.com/journal/2012/2/13/maybe-dan-allgyers-decision-to-shut-down-his-pa-farm-will-he.html

We are also trying to find some one to plow a few acres for us so that we can grow some wheat, hay and oats. Hay to feed the livestock in the winter. Wheat for the grains and for the straw that we use in the coop. Oats to feed the chickens and us. Haven't had much luck. If you know of anyone please let me know. Luckily, all three grow well in sandy soils. Another crop that likes sandy soils are potatoes. We will be doing the tire method this year. I learned it from "Mother Earth News". It is one of my all time favorite magazines. They have the scoop on everything we are doing here and can help you too. Here is the link for them. http://www.motherearthnews.com/ We will be starting them this month along with the rest of the crops that do well in colder weather.

MM has finished all but one rain barrel on our rain water system. I am really pleased with it. We get 1500 gallons off of our roof for every inch of rain we get. Amazing isn't it? If you are interested in finding out what your roof sheds here is the link. http://www.csgnetwork.com/rwcollectioncalc.html I am really hoping to make a dent in our water bill this year with the barrels we collect. I'll let you know how it goes.

The morning is foggy and I’m home alone, listening to Natalie Merchant and enjoying myself immensely! It's the perfect time to finish this post. The kids are at the Tulsa Air and Space Museum. It’s a nice break from the homeschooling and I get to sort my seeds and get things ready for starting for the spring garden this year. We got the portable green house set up in front of my living room windows yesterday. I have the perfect windows for starting seeds. They get light from the time the sun comes up till it sets in the evening. It still surprises me how we live in such a small house, filled with six people, three dogs, five cats, a rat, snake, and a lizard. You’d think that it would be impossible that we could fit an area to start our seeds into the scene. Yet we do, every year. We, me and MM, always make the room, be it human, animal or vegetable, lol. I really like that about us. I get to live in a home of light and love, surrounded by the ones I love more than life itself, doing the things I love to do, living the life I never dreamed of yet can’t imagine doing anything else. It is all I could ever hope for or desire. It is so good to be me. It is my prayer that this finds you all feeling the same way. Till next time, God speed.

I have been accepted into the Tulsa Master Gardeners Internship!

2011-08-29T14:28:00.000-07:00

I am so excited! It is a very intensive, weekly class that starts September 7th, and runs through December 14th. Once I pass the class, and I will, I will be an intern for one year. I am really looking forward to learning everything about gardening here in Oklahoma!

On another note, the last time I cleaned the rabbit cage I did not do the latch right and they all got out. Two were killed. I was left with one doe. After spending three and a half hours on the phone last week, calling Texas, Missouri, Arkansas and ALL over Oklahoma, only to find out that most of the New Zealand rabbits have died due to the heat this summer, I finally found two five miles up the road from our house. The bonus is that they are two months older than the the ones we "lost" so we will still be right on track for babies in the spring!

We are ordering our chicks this week. The weather is finally starting to cool off a bit. The nights are even beginning to be quite pleasant. I love it when a plan comes together!

Our fall garden is in. It is the smallest we have done in years. I'm going to be doing beans, kale, cabbage, lettuce and of course, tomatoes. I am refusing, yes, REFUSING to do any vine crops! I'm going to try and starve the squash bugs out of my garden. I'm not going to plant any vine crops until next summer. Unless I learn some awesome way to get rid of them in my Tulsa Master Gardeners class that is. LOL!

Enjoy the cooler weather everyone!

I can not believe that it has been three months since I wrote anything here!

2011-07-21T20:09:00.000-07:00

Don't fool yourself though, just because there haven't been any posts doesn't mean that there have been many idle days around here! The garden has been a frustrating adventure this year. The heat has been so hard on the plants and the people. The plants are growing, a little, and producing, a little, but most of the blooms are falling off before they can fruit.

The heat has been so extreme that at times it's been difficult to justify the water bill by the produce harvested. This is the second year in a row that has been this way. I say this every year but next year I am going to do things differently. Next year I am going to get my cabbage, red potatoes, lettuce, spinach and peas out of the early planting. For the summer planting I am only going to do peppers, melons, okra and strawberries. They are the plants that love the hot weather and are producing in this heat. I am already clearing out spaces and planning for the fall garden. Last year it was my fall garden that gave me the most. I hope that it will do the same this year. One of the wonderful aspects of gardening in Oklahoma is that we have an insanely long fall. Last year I was harvesting tomatoes clear into October! It still gets warm in the days but the cooler nights are what gives the fall garden the advantage over the summer garden. The water seems to go a lot further as well.

These are all the materials needed.

I did step it up in the garden this year and take two of my beds and really do the "square foot gardening". I thought I could do it by eye-balling it, which is what I tried to do with the other three beds, but BOY, WAS I WRONG!!! This year I actually did the square foot dividing and it blew my mind how much more I got out of the two beds I did the right way and the three beds I "eyeballed".

Dividing the bed into square foot gardens.

Needless to say, I will be doing all my beds this way next year. Thankfully, the community garden that we joined has been wonderful! We have gotten peas, broccoli, beans, kale, Swiss chard, all kinds of lettuce, collards and turnips so far. We can buy all of the produce at wholesale costs and even lower if we go out in the heat and pick the stuff ourselves. We always bring the kids to help so it doesn't take us nearly as long as if it was just me. I bring them home, separate out enough for dinner and then clean, blanch and freeze the rest. Now we are getting ready to head out there and pick zucchini, yellow, and flying saucer squash, okra, tomatoes, peppers, onions and other summer goodies.

Sweet Sarah helping with the beans.

Add caption

Grammy harvesting some beans.

Sybil podding the peas.

We have gotten three New Zealand rabbits, one male two females. They are reported to be excellent meat rabbits. My brother, Shawn wants to start selling rabbit in his restaurant, Amicci's Italian Eatery. That is what inspired us to start raising them. I figured he's got to buy them from someone, might as well be me. They are the easiest livestock to raise, not to mention that they are sweet mannered and adorable. I told the kids when we got them that they could not name them. Once you name them they go from livestock to pets.

Each female can have up to twenty four babies per year. They are pretty inexpensive to feed and once they start breeding you only keep the babies for eight weeks before butchering them. Ours should be ready to breed by next spring. MM will be building a permanent hutch for them as soon as he is done with the chicken run. I love being married to a man who can build anything!

We have also added the chicken coop to the property. We will be ordering New Hampshire Reds mid-August. Can you believe that they MAIL them to you? Dad says they have always done that. That is how they use to get their chickens when he was a boy, he's seventy-three now. Fifteen hens and one rooster. They are good for both laying eggs and are big enough to get some decent meat off of them. We were going to do it now but I am worried about the heat. We have some neighbors that have had some chickens die in this heat. Babies are fragile. I want to be careful. Besides, by doing it the end of August we will still have three more months of decent weather. By the time snow hits they will be fully feathered.

Michael has done a great job on the coop. He has built it like a house. I joke and tell him that if we threw some insulation in it we could rent it out when times get rough. This coop will easily last twenty to thirty years.

Sarah has been his little helper through out the entire process. Any time that Daddy is home I know where to find her. To tell the truth, I really love that.

I'll post pictures of it when it's finished. The door and the window is in and it is primed and painted, sage to match the house and stable. The only things that are left are the ramps and the little hole they go in and out of to get to the run and the run itself. We have the materials it is just a matter of MM having the time in between his work to do it. Since I won't be letting the chicks out till they are at least eight weeks old anyway, we have a bit of time to get it finished.

The next projects on the board will be the rabbit hutch, the aqua-ponic fish garden and the rain water barrel system. Slowly but surely we are getting closer to be self-sustainable. Woo-hoo! Hope this finds all healthy, happy and making the most of your summer!

Saturday was a perfect day!

2011-04-18T13:50:00.000-07:00

Mary Ann, me, MM, Sarah-bear and Jimmy went to the Annual Herbal Affair in Sand Springs, OK. It is our fourth year in a row and is now to be considered a tradition. I love those! There is something so comforting and fun about them. We start the day with making everyone an excellent coffee, meet up at Mary Ann’s house to load her wagon. Everyone gets out to go and look at their garden. Bob did a great job at building her raised beds! We’re about tied now in the square footage. We have a bit of a friendly competition going on between us. Then, we all load up, girls with the girls, boys with the boys and head out to spend the day in the sun, finding all of our deals. As always, I bring my camera and get a pic of us unloading the wagons but nothing else till I’m home. I always get too excited looking through all the plants for my little treasures that will complete my well-planned masterpiece.

I was able to find every single plant I wanted except for one. I was also able to get quite a few new and exciting ones as well. Wrap the outing up with a ten dollar pizza from Pizza Hut and head home to plant the beautiful bounty we purchased. It only gets better, Bob has volunteered to come over and help MM fill the final bed!
There is something so special about an empty garden bed. When the soil is ready and beckoning you to fill it. It’s like a canvas screaming for some paint to fill it’s emptiness. We are taught that we were created in His image. Man and woman in His image. He is the master creator. So, it stands to reason that if we are in His image, when we create, anything, that we are at our finest. I sure feel like it brings out the best in me

Can it get any better than that?

Yes, yes it can! I get the house straightened up, Mary Ann comes over to our place, helps me plant, we have a blast, my mom brings home armfuls of clothes for me and Sarah-bear’s grow-up box from garage sale hunting and a gorgeous new rug for our living room! To top it off MM helped me get some sentimental plants of mine out of the full sun. They just aren’t ready for it yet and if anything happened to them it would make me cry. Yes siree, today was a perfect day

A good friend of mine said, "In order to write you have to sit down and do it.",

2011-04-12T13:16:00.000-07:00

and all I can think is "ouch". They are true words indeed. So this is me, sitting down and writing. I have thought about writing for the last month. Things have been very hectic around here. I've always had a good excuse not to write, after all, I am a very busy woman! However, enough is enough, so here goes.
Many things have been done around here since I last posted. The two additional raised beds have been built in our garden. One of them has even been filled. It was a huge job that the whole family helped with. That always makes it better. In spite of the occasional whining the day was fun. I've had to change the plans a couple of times, but I'm flexible. The seedlings have been transplanted, except for the tomatoes that will go in the last bed.

That makes a grand total of seven beds in the winter garden. I call it that because it is the garden we use year-round. We also got the composter put together and in use. I love being married to a man who can do anything! It is a wonderful device, however, the fourteen day compost is only achieved when you shred all your materials and add it all at once. That's okay though. I'll get there eventually.

The flag-pole garden has been dug out, lined and refilled with better soil and less rocks. It has also been planted with carrots, radishes, beets and carrots and onions.

We also got the vertical beds put in two of the winter garden beds. I am very excited about the extra space we will have to grow things. It has effectively doubled the growing space for the beds!

On a different note, some of you might remember me mentioning that the farmers I buy my milk from, Rex and Marie, have a community garden that they host all year, every year. For either $50.00 or seven hours of weeding members can buy their veggies at wholesale costs. We have decided to become members of that garden. It has been so wonderful eating the seasonal crops that they are turning out. I throughly enjoy every minute that I spend with them. They are wonderful people who enjoy what they do. They are a real inspiration to me. I took some pics of their hoop house. We bought some kale, collards, and swiss chard and had the most wonderful salads for the next week. If any of my locals would like the info on the community garden,please, feel free to contact me.

I have learned that foods eaten, when in season and local,are more nutritious simply because they are fresher.

What's in season now?

Wednesday, December 1, 2010 at 9:02 AM

| posted by Monica Reinagel, MS, LD/N

Eating with the seasons is a great way to maximize nutrition and minimize the environmental costs of our foods. Foods that are fresh (i.e., in season) and locally-grown are going to be more nutritious because nutrients degrade during shipping and storage. It's also better for the environment (and the economy) because the alternative (shipping foods long distances) uses so much energy.

Makes total sense eh? I'm looking forward to the fresh fruits and veggies coming up in our garden! I am including a list of the plants we have planted currently and some that will be added soon. Also, some pics of my garden plans.

Okay, so the list is too long for me to do today. Sorry about that but the day is ticking away and there is still laundry to do and dishes to put away. Hope this finds everyone enjoying spring time as much as we are!

God Bless our blooms!

This is an exciting time of year for us.

2011-03-01T14:54:00.000-08:00

I've really come to enjoy this time of preparation. Getting the soils ready, planning out the different harvests, what we are going to do or plant or start, the possibilities abound! This year we have some really big projects on our plates. Some are going to be easy, some a little tough. You never know for sure how much everything is going to cost. The money never lasts as long as you think it will. The first thing on our agenda is:
1. The soil in the existing beds has got to be built up!
A. We got the peat moss today. It was $10.00 dollars a bag!
Still, it was cheaper than a load of top soil. Besides, our soil is just about perfect this year. We had it tested last year. We had done a great job of getting it up to par. As a result, instead of buying a load of dirt, which is very expensive right now, we have decided to get peat moss and till it into our beds. We got all the raised beds weeded today and two of them turned and tilled.

   B. We have been doing a compost barrel for the last year. We have a great "recipe" going on that has not stunk up the area one time.
   C. Getting the cold weather plants planted and springs plants started. This year we broke down and bought a couple of four-level small green houses. I'm thrilled for that because this year I won't loose our kitchen table for 2-3 months.   Pics
2. Chicken coop, with a run, big enough to house 24 chickens, built.
   A. We are getting all the measurements down tomorrow and the materials this weekend.
   B. We are buying the chicks in the next couple of weeks.
   C. Still have to research the best layers and fryers to buy for longevity in this area.
   D. I have been pouring over plans for the coop for days now. I think we have it narrowed down. I love being married to a man who can build anything. (big smiles) I can't say enough about www.motherearthnews.com and all of the affiliates they work with like Herb Companion and Grit magazines. They are a great for a venue for people who are trying to re-learn to provide for themselves. I've been doing this for five years. It is a lot of reading, however, it is so worth the time.
There are many, many more that I would be happy to pass on.
3. Closing in existing garden to hoop house.
This is the plan we have decided to go with this year.
   A. We were considering doing the new hoop house deal but several things came into play.
   1. Money. Why do a new one when we could easily and cheaply make one out of garden area we have already?
   2. We are really trying to work towards a year-round garden and we can't do it with out some shelter.
   3. We can always build more beds for the seasonal gardening at a later date.
   4. If we were to get in to aquaponics we would need the shelter as well. http://beforeitsnews.com/story/409/749/4_Best_Methods_for_Off-the-Grid_Food_Production.html.

It may seem a little extreme but is hitting it hard-core when it comes to things that we should be doing as Americans. I believe that at least one person, per generation, in a family, should be supported while they learn how to grow food and livestock, and the room to do so, so that in the event that we loose the convenience of our super markets that the family will be able to survive. Here is a link to a site where a family of four raised 7,000 lbs. on 1.5 acres last year. They even have livestock and the like!

http://urbanhomestead.org/ They are an amazing and inspirational family.

4. Building additional beds.
   A. That has been moved to the back burner.
5. Look into aquaponics at gardengurus.com.
6. Look into grey water.
   A. I have a dishwasher and two sinks that are on the wall that runs along the garden.
7. Get the rain gutter system up to par for watering the gardens.
   A. We just got the seamless guttering system. I was AMAZED at the amount of water that came off of our roof on our first storm with the new system!!!
   B. Now we need to buy rain barrels for all the spouts.
   C. It is our goal to eventually install an in-ground tank to accumulate all the rain water.
8. Order the real tumbling composter.
   A. Got the composter ordered today. Should be here by Friday- Monday. Got it with Dad's free shipping! So excited!!!
9. Expand garden areas. More on that later as well.
10. Purchase the garden planner from Mother Earth.
   A. What a blessing to the farmers that do not have generations of wisdom being handed down generation to generation.
11. Check out Farmer-to-Consumer laws for Oklahoma.
12. Flea Markets.
13. Purchase pomegranate, peach, apple, plum trees to plant here.
14. Purchase pecan and walnut trees.
15. Purchase all kinds of berries.
a. we started pomegranate, black berry, blue berry last year. Hope they make it to this year.
16. Concentrate on perennials.
17. Learn to butcher chickens from Rex and Marie.
18. Build a green house.
   A. A new hoop house is not happening this year. Or at least not a new one.
19. Learn how to milk cows from Rex and Marie.
   A. Will be doing that this spring. I have decided that I will not get my own cattle for meat or dairy until I know how to do it and teach it to the ones that are following me.
(yes, they are some of the coolest and helpful people I have ever known!)
20. Once the beds are tilled and ready then fertilize with horse manure to start with to get the plants grown and then fertilize with chicken manure to get all the plants to go to seed. More to come on this later.
21. Start the cold weather plants in the ground and pot-start the spring plants.
   A. We got four racks of starts done today. We will keep doing this daily until they are done.
   B. We have the mini-greenhouses up and ready. It will be very nice not to loose our kitchen table for three months this year. Mom has plenty of room for them by a sunny window at her place and besides, it will encourage us to work together and allow her to still be a part of the gardening process. Sweet Sarah is so excited to be my assistant this year again and helped mom plant all the starts today.

Well folks, it's been fun but it's been a long and productive day and I still have to pull some cheese. I have an order for some basil mozzarella, ricotta and some of my brother's famous breads.
Enjoy the days!

Man, do I have some cool things to share with you!

2011-01-21T14:07:00.000-08:00

First of all, I have some good news/bad news/great news. The bad news is that Mr Thompson sold his cows. The good news is that he sold them to a wonderful couple right up the street. The great news is that I just spent the most wonderful morning meeting them. I wish I had remembered my camera when we were all sitting at their kitchen table. Their names are Rex and Marie and if anyone wants their contact information, it will be listed at the bottom of this blog. They are such wonderful people and so willing to share their knowledge. I walked away literally bursting with new ideas!
They do many things. They have their cows and chickens. She's made all kinds of great cheeses, which she was kind enough to let me sample, and yogurts, cottage cheese, butter, I could go on and on! One of the things that I respect the most is a members only, u-pick garden. Now that might sound a little daunting to start but let me clarify. You can pay the fifty-dollar annual membership or you can work it off with seven hours of labor in the garden. It is very important to her to provide this service to people. I hope I do it justice in sharing it. She has been through tough times herself. She remembers how hard it was to buy the healthy foods her children needed. Fresh fruits and vegetables are quite expensive when you are on a tight budget. For fifty dollars a year you can buy the produce you pick at wholesale prices. For example, if Wal-mart is selling tomatoes at a dollar a pound, you can get them at sixty cents a pound. Here is the kicker. These vegetables blow store-bought vegetables out of the water with better flavor! We all know that everything always taste better when it is grown at home!

She also gave me a start of Kefir grains. No, it is not a grain. It is a culture. It contains all the good bacterias that our bodies need. You put some in a glass of milk, top it, let it set on the counter over night. Then you strain the kefir out and start tomorrow's batch and add honey to the first batch, shake and refrigerate. It is thinner than yogurt. I had a glass and it was delicious. What is it good for? When I got home I googled it and here are the results I came up with from http:/www.yourkefirsource.com/kefir-benefits/kefir-health-benefits

Here are some of the known kefir health benefits:

Strongest natural remedy against any allergy
Strongest natural antibiotic without side effects
Treats liver disease
Treats gallbladder, dissolves gall bladder stones
Clears the body of salts, heavy metals, radionuclides, and alcoholic products
Cleans the body of chemical antibiotics
Treats kidney stones
Good bacteria in kefir are able to fight off pathogenic microorganisms
Lowers level of LDL cholesterol
Cleans the gastrointestinal tract
Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Treats gastritis
Treats pancreatitis
Treats ulcers
Prevents and treats colon cancer
Improves digestion
Improves the body functions
Improves the human immune system
Cures Candida
Cures hypertension
Stops growth of cancer cells
Speeds up healing process
Treats psoriasis
Treats eczema
Treats inflammatory diseases
Reduces size of tumors
Treats heart disease
Reverses calcination of blood vessels
Clears the blood vessels
Boosts the bodies energy
Natural “feel good” food
Treats lung infections
Normalizes metabolism thereby can be used as for weight loss
Cures acne
Has anti-oxidants and anti-aging properties
Nourishes hair
Treats the gum disease parodontosis
Lessens effects of medicines
Replenishes body of good bacteria after antibiotic
Balances the microflora of the body’s digestive system
Regulates blood pressure
Lowers blood sugar
Lowers blood lipid levels or cholesterol and fatty acids
Treats diarrhea
Treats constipation
Promotes bowel movement
Anti-stress properties
Treats sleeping disorders
Treats depression
Treats attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
Improves the brains neuro functions like reflexes, memory retention, attention, the five senses
Reduces flatulence
Lactic acid fermentation enhances the digestibility of milk based foods. People who cannot otherwise digest milk, can enjoy the vital calcium rich Kefir.
Treats yeast infection
Eliminates vaginal odors
Cures wrinkles
Treats arthritis
Treats colitis
Treats gout
Cures migranes
Treats rheumatism
Treats other stomach disorders
Detoxifies the body
Improves protein quality of milk, and enhances absorption and digestion
Good bacteria manufacture B vitamins such as B3, B6 and folic acid.
Aids in treating tuberculosis
Treats stomach cramps
Treats chronic intestine infections
Treats liver infections
Treats asthma
Treats bronchitis
Treats sclerosis
Treats anemia
Treats hepatitis
Healing effects on catarrh, digestive nodes, astral nodes, bilious complaints
Treats leaky gut syndrome
Prevents metastasis
Cures bad morning breath

Pretty impressive eh? Especially considering how expensive all these yogurts are getting, aka: Danactive and Activa, it is so nice to know that I can give my family the same benefits and still stay on budget.
   I have touched on this next subject a couple of times. There is a real battle going on in this country over real food and whether or not we have the right to eat it. As I have gotten more into my gardening and learning to be self-sufficient I have come across it more and more. If the FDA had their way, we would all be eating processed everything. There will never be a processed food that will give your body what it needs to function properly. I am going to list a website that is right smack in the middle of this battle and I hope that you will take the time to read about.
realmilk.com  Another great site is http://nourishedkitchen.com/28-day-real-food-challenge-the-end/  We all need to be a part of this movement.
   It has been a good day. Hope your's all were as well.

January, 2011. Fresh Starts.

2011-01-08T13:27:00.000-08:00

January, 2011

So the new year is upon us and I am filled with anticipation! There is something so special about fresh starts, second chances or "do-overs", as we used to call it as a kid. The good Lord knows that I have gotten more than my fair share of all of the above. Moving out here was a fresh start in and of itself for me. It was out in the middle of nowhere. Too far for me to walk to town. I gave up my keys, took my name off the bank account and checked into rehab. After 60 days of that I came home to start rebuilding my life. That was 6 years ago. I've said before and I'll say it again; Sobriety rocks! It's been the best six years of my life. I am living proof that God can take you where ever you are and start from there. I thank the Lord every day for the life he saved for me till I was strong enough to start living it for myself. I have known so many souls over the years that lost their families due to their addictions and had to rebuild their lives alone.

I have learned a lot since my first post. The biggest lesson has been how hard the American farmer has been put upon by the powers that be. If the FDA had it's way, none of us would be eating real foods. They do not think we have the inherit rights to choose the foods we eat. I pray for them all daily. I learned that it is illegal for restaurants to use cheese unless it has been pasteurized. I have learned how to pasteurize the farm fresh milk. Next week my bff, Mary Ann and sister-in-law, Nancy will be attending a women's business seminar put on by http://www.rurlaenterprises.com. They are a wonderful group that encourages small businesses here in Oklahoma. Mary Ann and I are doing the cheese together and Nancy has a beautiful shop in Bixby, Oklahoma aptly named "Vintage Abode" where she sells antiques, transfer-ware, hand carved furniture and many other beautiful things. Nancy also has a blog as well that is one of my favorite reads. Here is the link. http://www.nancysdailydish.blogspot.com You need to check it out. I always love networking with other women. It is my hope that REI will be able to help me with the labeling and marketing of my cheeses. Once those hurdles have been overcome I will be ready to go.

I started planning this year's garden the other day. I am really going to move things up this year. I am incorporating some new aspects that we have not done before. The first being fruit trees. We will be planting peach, pear, apple and plum trees. We planted two pomegranate trees last fall. I also heard that the state will donate pecan trees to anyone that wants to grow them. I will be checking with the Department of Agriculture to see if that is true. We also planted blueberry and thorn-less blackberries last fall. This spring we will be adding strawberries and raspberries. I'm really working on getting some perennial food sources going. We want to get a beehive to put in the meadow to help with pollination of all our garden areas. It blew my mind to learn that the bee population has dropped 90 percent in the last 50 years. They don't know why really but that is a scary fact to me. They are so vital in the food cycle! I am allergic to bees but as I've gotten older I've learned how to avoid angering them and if we are going to have a thriving garden then we need their help.

Another new venue that we will be incorporating into our garden this year will be grains. We will be considering barley, buckwheat, oats, rye, corn and wheat. You don't have to have acres and acres to grow them. They can be planted in flower gardens just like ornamental grasses. Once I have mastered growing them I will move to the "field" planting method.

As always, we will be doing the herbs. I am also concentrating on perennials in that category as well. Oklahoma is perfect for sage, which will come back for about five years and rosemary and lavender, which will live for years and years. The mints and oregano I'm going to keep in pots this year. They both seem to want to take over the beds. The rest will be bedded. I usually get three to five harvest per year off of them when I do it correctly.

I'm going to be moving my tomatoes, and the vine plants out of the raised beds garden this year. I have plenty of room around the property to accommodate them with out robbing the other plants of sun and nutrients. That was probably the biggest lesson I learned last year. I nearly choked out a lot of my plants.

I will have the lettuce, chards, carrots, beets, onions, radishes and sweet potatoes in the ground in late February - early March. I still have cabbages, swiss chard, garlic, lettuce and spinach growing right now! I love the growing season here in Oklahoma. In April I will get the snow peas, tomatoes, grains, berries, cabbages, peppers, eggplant, rhubarb, beans, asparagus, black-eyed peas going. In June I will start the okra, squash and the rest of the vine plants (aka: cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, etc) The squash bugs are too invasive in the spring. Last year I had over 25 plants that were killed off by that stupid bug before they could produce! Yet, when I replanted them in June they did great and produced well and they (squash bugs) were all gone for the most part by then.

The other projects that we have on the burners right now are fencing in the meadow and building a chicken coop. The meadow will be put off for another year I fear. We just don't have the capital, unless I can get a grant or loan. The chicken coop will be done this winter. By fall I hope to be getting eggs and butchering some chickens as well.

Well folks, I think that is going to wrap things up for now. I hope this has been informative and entertaining as well. If anyone has a desire to learn how to do any of the things I talk of here, feel free to ask me. Here's hoping that your new year is full of love, mercy, forgiveness and grace.

God bless!

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
Galatians 5:22-23

I used to be a biker. Now I'm a hippie. The transition was not an easy one.

2010-12-22T15:06:00.000-08:00

Just ask my eldest. Those were the words she used to describe me to one of her friends and when she shared it with me I had to laugh. I feel a little overwhelmed at trying to figure out how to start this blog. I've never been a very good writer. However, this has been such an inspiring chapter for all of us that I thought it might be worth putting on paper, so-to-speak.

This chapter of my story started six years ago. We went into a venture with my folks. They had the money, Michael had the know-how to build a home. They bought thirty acres out in the country. It had an empty warehouse on it. Long story short; we built a duplex out of the warehouse and started our home in it.

It has been the best six years of my life.

Once we got the home done we moved onto setting up a garden. As we learned about growing our own food we also started thinking that we needed to learn how to become self-sufficient. Everything that we have done has been an attempt to be able to be so. I could tell you about the reason we did this or our goat and chicken stories and all we have planned for the future but I feel there will be time for that later.

Right now, I want to talk about cheese. Yes, cheese, mozzarella and ricotta to be specific. Several months ago, in the interest of learning how to make our food, my brother and I took a cheese class together at the Stock Pot in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The "Cheese Wench" taught the class. (You can follow her on facebook.com) I was hooked! The samplings of all the cheeses were so delicious! The two most important lessons I walked out of that class with were these: 1) ALWAYS use farm fresh milk, and 2) It'll get better every time you make it. She was right about that too.

As soon as I could I called my best friend Mary Ann. She had told me of a local farmer that sold fresh milk. The first batch I made was a bust. That didn't stop me though. I got online and with the help of youtube.com quickly figured out what I had done wrong (there is no such thing as a thirty minute mozzarella FYI) and dove into my second batch. It was wonderful. I flavored it with rosemary and lavender. We could not get over the difference between store bought cheese and hand-made cheese from fresh milk! It is so much more flavorful and creamy!

From that point on I made it any chance I could. I made rosemary/garlic, chili pepper/paprika, garlic, black pepper, basil/sage, cinnamon/cranberry, lavender/basil cheeses. I felt like an artist as I flavored my cheeses. All the herbs I had grown. I was creating delicious, home grown cheese! The downside was it only has a shelf life of seven to ten days so I ended up with more than we could eat. I started giving it away. I brought some to my dentist's office when I went in for my cleaning. They all loved it and told me I should sell in the farmer's market on Cherry Street. I gave more and more away and each time they were telling me, "I'd buy this if you'd make it for me." So, I did. This year we raised the Christmas money for the kids by selling cheese. My brother tasted my cheese and said, "That's it, I'm setting it up for you!", set up a store for me on etsy.com. I told him I'd sell my cheeses if he sold his bread. He agreed and we are now the proud owners of http://www.etsy.com/shop/thebistro2go. I have a handful of local clients that I am building on. I've learned how to pasteurize the milk and have two referrals to local restaurants. I'm renting a commercial kitchen, have gotten my food handlers permit and after the first of the year I'm going to start selling my cheese. I have decided to keep it to a local market only for this time. Shipping it is so very expensive. Maybe some day.

This is what blows my mind. Something that started out as a desire to live clean and be able to provide for ourselves and our families has developed into what looks like a viable business! Where it is going to lead is still unknown. As the old expression goes, "I may not not what the future holds but I know who holds the future." I'm not going to sweat it. I'm really looking forward to sharing our progress with you.