The sun made a nice appearance today.  Seems a bit like late April, early May around here in terms of weather.  Of course, the date on a calendar is not what matters.  We’ve got tons of things to do.  I like this time of year.  It’s not generally too hot, yet the sun is shining and the grass is growing.

Our little place is looking so good.  The appraiser came out on Tuesday, and if all goes well, in the next week or so, we will officially own our farm.  Not that it doesn’t feel like we own it now, but it is nice to have the piece of paper that says that it is ours for good.  No more of this leasing business.  That said, we are SO grateful to our seller for allowing us to take our time to buy the property.  She is, no doubt, ready to move on with her life, but she has nicely agreed to work with us, we really appreciate that.

The strawberry pick is still on.  After getting the first 30 pounds in the fridge yesterday, we headed back out for another 36 pound pick today!  I estimate that we are about half way done.  I was thinking yesterday about my progression in preservation of food.  Ten years ago, I bought a flat of strawberries at the farmer’s market, and that was my yearly need for fresh berries all year long.  This year, we’re hoping to get a 100 pound pick!  Julie and I pooled our berries to start some strawberry wine.  It’s now mashed, sugared and waiting for some yeast to send it off.  This should be a fun project.  The rest of the berries are going in the freezer for today, but the next pick will be to make a gallon or two of strawberry syrup.  We’ve decided to stop our dependency on maple syrup in the house since it is so easy to inexpensive to make our own berry syrups.

We headed off to the farmer’s market, but for the first time ever, came home empty handed.  Julie swears that she’s never going with me again because I yak and yak with all the farmers around.

We had a nice dinner with the kids’ godparents.  Linnea is headed off to the south for the summer, and we will miss her.

When we finally made it home, the kids and I worked on getting some chores done.  I cleaned the cow stall a little bit more, which meant more potato hilling!  I’m getting close to getting done.

I also fixed the sprinkler so the garden got a nice thorough soaking!  Add some sun and we might actually get some food!  It’s time to start planting the winter garden OH MY!

Our house is looking a little junky, so I spent the remainder of the daylight hours cleaning it up.  I did manage to clean out the milk fridge really well, so as of now, the milk will be in the new Cast Iron farm, milk fridge!  Very exciting for us.

My neighbor (who also gets milk from me) called me and said she was having some problems with a goat that had just kidded.  The mama’s udder was all plugged up and the kid wouldn’t nurse.  I headed over to help out.  It is so nice to have a like-minded neighbor.   She is so sweet, and she offered to help our around here as she could.  Now that’s what I call community.

Lots to get done tomorrow…

Finally feeling better after almost two weeks of being sick.  What is it with the sickness this winter?  Everyone has been sick several times, so I was a bit broadsided with yet another illness in June!  the house has now been aired out and we are all spending at least an hour in the sun a day, so hopefully that will keep everyone well.

I finished processing the first 30 pounds of strawberries we picked.  It translated into 17 pints for the freezer and 2 quarts dehydrated.  Of course, we ate a bunch as well.  Fresh Oregon strawberries are the BEST!

Julie came over and we weeded the corn and replanted any that had died or been eaten.  The birds are eating some of the small plants in the garden, so I encourage the sun to come out and make them grow!

I realized that my sprinkler is a piece of garbage, so I am now in search of something that will actually suitably water the garden.  Yet another expense.  The sprinkler search is tricky because out water pressure varies so much from one place to the next that not all sprinklers work out in the big field.  I’ve got to get this remedied because the plants are getting thirsty.

The kids and I worked on cleaning out the loose hay on the ground in the barn.  This worked very well to use to hill up the potatoes that are now growing very nicely.  The potatoes are about 75% hilled and the barn is getting cleaned, I like how these projects supplement each other.

The cows finally made it out into the grass field, which I like.  I went out and drove some stakes out for them and they were out from 6am to 9pm.  They really liked being out in the tall grass with plenty to eat, hopefully it increases my milk production.

The fridge came back from the painter, and it is beautiful, a nice shade of yellow, and it’s got the Cast Iron Farm logo on the front.  It’s now sitting on the front porch, and people can come get milk and eggs from it without having to come into my house.  Yes, I like this arrangement very much.

I’ve been giving the goat pasture a rest for a while and the goats have been in, but I finally felt bad for them being in while it was so nice out and I let them back out.  There is plenty to eat again for them, and I think they will be happy.  Of course, it started to rain the second I let them out, but that’s life, right, oh no, it’s just farming.

The dairy goats were reassigned the task of eating down the blackberries in the chicken coop.  I suppose another day or two in there and they will get to go back out with the cows to work on the blackberries and the thistles there.

On my way into town to celebrate my birthday dinner (it was postponed because of illness), I noticed that a farmer had cut some lovely clover hay I’ve been watching (and admiring).  I stopped by on the way back and left a note asking if he’d have the hay for sale and also asking if he might consider coming on down to cut some hay in our field.  It was a bold move for sure, but I wasn’t getting anywhere by sitting and watching the grass go to waste.  Next year, it will be fenced some more, so it wont need to be hayed, but until then, it would be nice to have a barn full of hay for the winter.  Now if only we had a hay elevator to get the hay up off the constantly flooding barn floor.

We are approaching the solstice, and it’s lovely.  I love those cloudy 70 degree days.  Jared and I just went outside at 9  to sit and enjoy and admire our beautiful farm!