Little Farm in the City

It's a Jungle Out There

2011-08-08T20:56:00.000-07:00

Wendy, Wendy, Lazy Blogger,How does your garden fare?With chard, kale, beans and lettuce,And cucumbers hanging in the air. (My take on an old nursery rhyme...do you recognize it?) I haven't been blogging much, but thankfully, the garden has been doing it's thing! Here are some photos sure to amaze. Well, they amaze me. Really...how can a person NOT be amazed at the miracle of Creation

Starting Tomatoes from Seed

2011-06-14T22:21:00.000-07:00

Part of a the crop from LAST year. This is the Year of the Tomato here on the Little Farm! We've got 70 (yes, you read that correctly) 7-0, little beauties in the ground out there and they are all looking great. If you are doing a bit of quick math in your head, you are realizing how many tomatoes we may end up with come September. Do we have a tomato death wish? Are we envisioning

Farm Report

2011-06-09T21:58:00.000-07:00

The Farm is 90% planted! We're about 2 weeks behind in getting the garden, but so are most other people around here as are the REAL farmers. Getting seeds and plants in the ground 2 weeks late isn't a big deal in some place warm, but on the Little Farm where the growing season is pretty short, it's a bit scary. We're hoping for a long, warm Fall. The bounty of our garden isn't our sole

Teaching Old Chickens New Tricks

2011-04-20T20:51:00.000-07:00

What's a golf ball doing in our chicken coop? Actually, there are 3 golf balls currently in the nesting boxes of our coop. The golf balls are teaching our chickens where to lay their eggs. It makes me laugh. This year's group of Gals were all about 1 year old and laying daily when they arrived on the Little Farm. As you can imagine, moving from one "farm" to another can be a bit

Yet Another First from Our Last Young'un

2011-04-17T21:45:00.000-07:00

Feeding carrots to the chickens before breakfast. Abby Grace is our littlest Young'un. She's very smart, really independent, astonishingly busy, pretty darn cute and extremely hilarious! Being the fifth child in a busy household, she's also has the opportunity to fly "off the radar" a bit. I mean, I just can't keep track of her all the time. I try and I even have help, but sometimes she's

The Chickens Have Arrived!

2011-04-11T21:15:00.000-07:00

The Gals have arrived on the Little Farm! They moved in last Saturday morning and have already given us 6 eggs and some laughs. We've even had some sessions of Chicken PE classes! This year's group are all less than one year old. We've got a Rhode Island Red, Americuna, Brown Americuna/Unknown cross and a Black Australop. So far, their eggs have ranged from off white to dark tan. The dark

Making Paper Pots for Starting Seeds

2011-04-08T22:06:00.000-07:00

The seeds have arrived! The next step, here on the Little Farm, is to get the tomatoes and eggplant seeds into some dirt so they can start growing inside. We can't put plants or seeds into our garden much before Mother's Day each year. This means our growing season is pretty short and we need to give some of our plants a head start if we want to have any veggies. Starting seeds usually means

Seeds: They Make Me Happy!

2011-04-03T21:59:00.000-07:00

On Saturday afternoon, our friendly mailman (I do know I'm supposed to call him a "postal worker," but he is a man and he was delivering our mail) knocked on our door and handed me a small, square box. "Could it be?" thought I. One quick glance at the return address and I knew. Our seeds had arrived! Oh the joy! Oh the hope! Oh the possibilities! I'm pretty sure I sensed the slight

What Does Hope Look Like?

2011-03-23T21:23:00.000-07:00

Hope - to expect with confidence of future fullfilment If you live somewhere which is perpetually green or at least mostly perpetually green, you might not get this. Here is what hope looks like to me... Those little green shoots poking out of the ground are the brave little daffodils which have started appearing in the last week outside our house. Again, if you're in a location where there's

Frivolous Friday: Things We Do to Our Kids

2011-03-17T21:59:00.000-07:00

Despite all my best efforts, I am sure I've done many things over the years which have traumatized the Young'uns. Probably for life. It's hard to be a great Mom all the time. We have weak moments. However, I can honestly say I've never been this weak... at least not when my camera has been around. Poor kid! This was his mother's cure for sunburn. I think it is cornstarch. Apparently, his

Sometimes I Think We're Too Trashy Around The Farm

2011-03-11T21:40:00.000-08:00

A Disclaimer: In posting this I am not wanting to enter into some debate on Global Warming and such topics. Really. I am not. Sometimes when I am hauling yet another bag out to our trash cans... Or better yet, sometimes when I am yelling for one of my sons to come and haul yet another bag out to our trash cans... I get a bit sad. Well, maybe disgusted is more the word for which I'm looking

This Is Why I've Been An Absentee Blogger...

2010-12-13T21:55:00.000-08:00

Little Farm Confections A friend and I have been baking our aprons off and earning a little extra cash. It's been crazy and fun all at the same time. I'll be back one of these days, I promise. I miss blogging. All those ideas are actually out of my head on paper because it seems like it might be a bit late for them this year... :) (The words "Little Farm Confections" above are a link, by

18 Years Ago Today: An Anniversary Post

2010-11-28T00:09:00.000-08:00

In January of 1992, The Big Guy asked me to share the rest of his life with him and, wisely, I said, "Are you serious?" (Yes, that's an actual quote.) Doesn't my Dad look handsome? On November 28, 1992, my sweet Dad walked me down the aisle (even though they had never arm wrestled) to where The Big Guy was patiently waiting. Little did the Big Guy know, this waiting for me was just a

Homemade Vanilla

2010-11-26T22:12:00.000-08:00

No, she hasn't been in the vanilla. She's just a bit odd. Thrifty, but meaningful Christmas gift idea #1: Homemade Vanilla Extract Yummy and SO easy. I actually shouldn't be posting this because I've given vanilla to friends and family as Christmas gifts and now they'll know that, even though it was a delicious and thoughtful gift which they loved, it really wasn't a whole lot of work on

Thrifty, but Meaningful, Chirstmas

2010-11-23T21:35:00.000-08:00

I know it isn't actually Thanksgiving yet and the Christmas season has NOT begun despite what every retail establishment has been telling us for weeks. However, over the past couple of weeks, I've been in some conversations with friends about Christmas and Christmas gifts and how it all goes around here on the Farm. A few of the conversations went the way of "Christmas is so crazy with all the

Thankful, but Still Complaining...

2010-11-14T21:50:00.000-08:00

'Tis the season of Thanksgiving and we're reminded we need to be/should be thankful every where we go. From the big inflatable turkey in our neighbor's front lawn to the stacks of frozen birds at the store to my friends who are listing what they are thankful for on Facebook, giving thanks is all over. This all is a good thing and I am happy to know the things for which others are thankful. It

JJ Heller - Back Home

2010-11-06T22:38:00.000-07:00

Today I'm Thankful for This Song I'm working late in the kitchen tonight and listening to my new favorite CD - Painted Red by JJ Heller. Have you ever heard a song many times, but all of a sudden, the next time you listen to it something hits you. The words speak to you in a different way... It happened to me tonight. This song, "Back Home," is one of those songs. I listened to it three

Forced Family Fun...and Fish

2010-11-02T21:56:00.000-07:00

The Big Guy announced Forced Family Fun again at dinner tonight. It was met with the usual cheers and squeals from the younger set and a tad bit of eye rolling from the older guys. Jake tried to lobby for Forced Family Fish Tank Cleaning Fun, but he was out voted.What is Forced Family Fun? All the exciting details are here... Instead of playing a "thinking" game, my creative husband told us

Tell Your Time - Just What I Needed

2010-10-31T14:53:00.000-07:00

Lately it seems the prayer most often escaping my lips is "Lord, help find the time to get this all done! Please!" I look at all the people and things vying for a chunk of my time - all of which seem to be good, if not great - and have no clue how to make it all happen. Something has to give. Is sleep really that important? Over the years, I've read several time management books, but with

And Now She is Three...

2010-10-26T22:17:00.000-07:00

Today, the youngest Young'un turned three years old. What fun! And whew! Birthdays are work, but it's good work. Elaborate gifts are something which doesn't usually happens here on the Little Farm. Mostly this is an economics thing - 5 kids x cost of elaborate birthday gifts = a big hole in the family budget. We try to make each child's day special in other ways. Afterall, it's not all

The 2010 Harvest is Done

2010-10-23T20:33:00.001-07:00

Tomatoes and Applesauce galore! Isn't it amazing that what's in this photo turned into lots of what's in the photo above? Whew! It's all in. The garden is cleaned out and put to sleep. (OK, almost cleaned out. We've still got some lettuces, kale and carrots which are still chugging away out there.) If you've read the Little Farm from time to time over this past spring and summer, you know

Chickens on the Farm, A Drama in Three Parts, Part One

2010-10-17T21:11:00.000-07:00

The Gals of 2009 This is our second year of having chickens here on the Farm. We like them. Not only do they provide us with yummy, healthy, non-contaminated (remember the big egg recall this summer) eggs, the Gals are also a source of entertainment and a chance for the Young'uns to learn a bit more responsibility and good work habits. All in all, chickens are a good deal. Last year, we got day

What I Didn't Do Today

2010-10-12T21:49:00.000-07:00

It's the end of the day and things have quieted down here on the Farm. In fact, the house is blissfully quiet right now as I'm the only one awake. Now is the time when I putz around tying up loose ends from the previous hours and laying out new ends in an attempt to prepare the coming hours. As I putter around, I usually find myself mentally taking stock of my day; going over my to-do list

Papa Ron's

2010-10-02T22:49:00.000-07:00

We eat lots of pizza here on the Farm...lots and lots of pizza. I can't say all of this pizza is made by my two little big hands, but 99% of it is. (In fact, we actually had a pizza delivered to our house for only like the 2nd time in our lives just 2 short weeks ago. It arrived at 12:15 am. Long story, but let's just say that the things people will do to keep from losing their frequent flier

Farm Report: It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times

2010-09-06T22:22:00.000-07:00

In a "normal" year, those posts you see here wouldn't be visible underneath all the green. That pretty much sums our garden up this year. We started with a bang - great warm weather, decent rain - everything took and off. There were vision of us being buried under mountains of tomatoes and chard dancing in our heads. When what to our wondering eyes should appear, but lots of big, dark, black