Winter Gear

I'm four fifths of the way through my five days off work for the holidays and starting to panic about not having time to finish all the things I wanted (needed) to get done. 

Some people have the impression that things slow down on the farm in the winter. The work doesn't, we just change gears. Each season has its own jobs, demands, workflow and pace. 

In the winter, I dye fleeces and yarns, because in spring we are too busy with lambing, kidding and planting and in the summer, it's too doggone hot to heat up the house with simmering dye kettles. Yesterday, I dyed turquioise all day, maybe trying to fill the need for a sunny sky that has been long absent. So, with that in mind, I started with yellow today. I'll run the yellow, orange, red, brown spectrum today. 

The new porches, under the new metal roof on the house, are nice dry places for drying fleece. But everytime I go out, it's a reminder that we need to put up porch rails, and I want to screen in one of them before summer. Front, back, we're still debating. At least painting can wait until its warmer.

We mostly have the critters in dry shelters now, though the bred angora does are not sharing well. We'll add another hoop house to their pen today, giving added shelter and a extra space for when kidding starts in March.

Hay is under cover and supply seems to be holding out well. I need to catch up on registrations for the Jacob sheep and dairy goats. That's a winter chore that I haven't tackled yet this year. 

I like to get ahead on my rug weaving in the winter, too. Weaving rugs is much more fun in the winter, when wool is warm and comforting, rather than in the summer when its hot. Two nice new mohair rugs done this week and I'll tackle finishing the beast of an all-farm rug today.

I've been spinning through Mo's alpaca fleece most of the year, off-and-on. I want to get it done. The bag is almost empty now, and I did get the warp on the loom this week for the blanket I'm weaving from the the fleece. Almost through the first 20" of natural, then I'll weave 6" of turquiose and recreate that band on the other end. 

Winter is the time of year when we are most optimistic about our gardens. The plans, research and dreams take up our evening conversations, but much of the stuctural work is done in the winter, too. Yesterday my folks came over and my dad helped put up the framework for our hoop house cold frame. We'll plastic it on the next sunny day... which I hope is soon. We are going to start greens, maybe cabbages right now. The baby plants under lights in February. In the summer, we'll strip off the plastic and use the hoop to grow green beans.

Lena and I tight fenced a little area in front to do a flower garden. I'm thinking herbs and dye plants, along with strawberries, but we are also looking at flowers just for pretty. We both want climbing roses for the front porch and are researching fragrant, disease resistant, drought and shade tolerant hardy climbing roses. She likes the peach and yellow, I like dusty purple.

But right now, I need to take mohair out of the dyebath and go fix the angora does shelter before the next round of rain.

Maybe I'll even find time this season to do some more blog updates. If you want to follow what's happening here on Havencroft farm, like the Common Threads Facebook page. I update that off my phone on the run. Happy winter!

Tech! - grr - and maybe I did need a new ram

It's been a beautiful summer here, enough rain to make the garden grow well and the lambs, kids, alpacas, angoras, Jacob Sheep and dairy goats are doing well. Lena and I have moved shelters to the best summer spots and fences for better grazing. In the garden I have hundreds of green tomatoes on the vine, have frozen a couple gallons of black berries, am watching the potatoes and garlic almost ready to harvest and enjoying the moderate temperatures. It has not broken 100 degrees yet this summer.

Early on in the summer, I was shopping for a new Jacob Sheep ram to breed our Canoe Lake Sonic Boom daughters to, but I decided that we could wait another year. Just like I've decided that my dairy goats are for giving milk, not for making more dairy goats, I have the sheep for their wool. Lambs are nice, but I don't have to breed the girls every year to get wool. I was ram shopping on the new Jacob Sheep facebook group - a modern way to find new bloodlines to keep our heritage breed vibrant.

I love to tell people in my work at the Ozark Folk Center State Park that we use and keep the traditional methods of making things by hand, but we also use and enjoy modern conveniences of internet and vehicles. We cherish our history and our unique culture. History and culture didn't stop in the past - we are living and creating both today.

My broom maker partner, Shawn Hoefer, was twice named champion craft broom maker at the Arcola, Illinios Broom Corn Festival. He and my daughter Lena (second place broom maker at the Arcola festival!) make and sell more than 4,000 hand-tied, hand-dyed, hand-carved brooms per year. Broom making is Shawn's vocation. And his other vocation is tech. Broomsquire by day; Geek by night. He designs awesome web sites for more than 30 clients. He swears he really needs all those tablets, computers and handheld devices to make sure his sites display correctly cross platform.

I, on the other hand, am a manager and interpreter by day. I have an awesome, creative job working with lots of people who I really enjoy. And, as you know from this blog, I am a shepherd, dairy farmer, fiber artists, cheesemaker, gardener and cook with the other 118 hours in a week that I'm not at work. I use a computer at work and I depend heavily on my handheld for many, many things. But I am not a geek.

Shawn offered to update the ram in my little Acer Aspire One about a year ago. I said I didn't need it. I like my little computer. I would be perfectly happy to keep using this same computer for the rest of my life. But over this year, it became so slow that it wouldn't accept software updates. So I'd open it and couldn't use it. (That's why I've gotten away from writing blog posts). So it sat in the pouch on my chair.

Finally, about two weeks ago I gave it to Shawn to try and get the updates installed. He fussed with it, cussed it and ordered a new ram chip, which he installed last night. I guess I did need a new ram, just not the wooly kind. My computer does seem to be faster, though now it doesn't want to save my pictures where I want them. Probably something to do with the updates. Several people have told me that my photo system is too old school and not supported any longer... but I like it and know it and it works fine for me!!! Or it did... that is one of the things that I wish we could figure out how to add to the tech world. I have a perfectly good 90 year old loom that I use daily, why do I have to quit using my beloved handheld device after less than 4 years?

So, I seem to have a working computer at home now, and should be able to go back to sharing updates with you from Havencroft Farm. I'm a little better a putting updates on our Common Threads page on Facebook as I can do those from my handheld.
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And now I'm headed out to milk and weed the blueberries. When I come back in after chores, I'll see if I can't find a way to get pictures to post here.

Sweet potato harvest

This happened a few weeks ago, but life has been so busy, I haven't taken time to share here.

We keep an eye on the weather for frost warnings in October for many reasons. One is that we want to give the sweet potatoes as long as possible to grow, but still harvest them before the frost.

So, the second to the last Sunday in October, with frost imminent that week, we decided to break into the straw bale garden. I called my dad to see if he wanted to join us. Their house is 15 minutes away from our farm. 

The kids went out to start the harvest. By the time I got out there, they were finishing up. My dad arrived in time to help them put the harvested sweet potatoes on feed sacks on the bed of the truck to dry. Easiest sweet potato harvest ever!

Good big potatoes from our own slips from last years potatoes.

The sunny side of the straw bale potatoes patch produced much bigger potatoes than the more shaded side. Something to remember for next years garden.

This is how I'm growing all our root vegis from now on!

Arjuna lifted the mat of sweet potato vines and broke open the straw bales beneath.

Love this one.

Robin's flatbed truck makes a good sweet potato drying bed.

One of the big ones. 1.5 pounds

Bigs and littles. My favorites are the fat ones.

Duck soup delights

This is not a post about supper or recipes. It is about the wonderful wet weather we've been having. There is water just laying all over the ground. More of that precious resource falls from the sky every day. I wish we had better ways to store this abundance for times of shortage, but for now, we'll just appreciate it. 

The sheep are enjoying their pasture between storms. We are checking the frequently for parasite issues. 

The figs, tomatoes and other fruits are splitting their skins from the abundance of water. 

The rain is dripping pink off the poke berries. 

Garden ties - more of 52 things to do with an old tshirt

And then there are the little bits left over

As I was mulching the baby blueberries and giving them some more of the wonderful used coffee grounds that they love, I could see that a few of them could us some help staying inside their supports. But they are delicate little baby blueberries. Baling twine would be too rough, ziplock ties too hard, cotton string too cutting fine.
Then I thought about the tshirt scraps left on my cutting table from the bag I'd just made. The perfect wide, soft, gentle blueberry ties.
The berries are hitting pink blush stage right now. Just another week... or two. I'll have a hard time sharing this year. After all, a plant that thrives on coffee grounds has got to be MY plant. And since I only buy fair trade, organic, shade grown coffee, I am very happy to share the grounds with my blueberry plants.

The strawberries have been giving me about one ripe berry an evening. Makes for a sweet reason to check the garden when I get home from work. Leesa's blackberries are getting huge. They'll be about the size of plums! But they are still green.
The black raspberries are ripening a few a day... and I have shared some of them with Shawn and Lena. They are delicious.

Tshirt soft - the best garden ties for baby plants.

I can't decide whether or not to let this year's little elderberries make berries. They have flower clusters, but I want them to establish roots, so I think I'll trim them back this year.
Maybe now that June is here and work is less frenetic, I'll have time to keep ya'll updated with things here on Havencroft Farm.

Blackberry winter

Every area seems to have its descriptors for weather. What exactly are the "dog days of summer?"

Here in the Ozarks, we have "Blackberry winter" every few years. That is the freeze that comes when the blackberries are blooming. This year's blackberry winter was mild, just a frosting on the tops of the hay stacks and the sheep shelters.
The blackberries from Leesa; elderberries from Melody C; day lilies from Linda W.;  and on around the garden are all fine. I love that my garden is growing into a passalong visit with my friends..

Growing my garden, organically

I just came in from planting the blackberries and Jerusalem artichokes that Leesa brought me from her home in Alabama. She also brought me some black raspberries. I thought I'd take a quick lunch and rest my back.  I grabbed the box of strawberries out of the fridge to go with my kefir. These are store-bought strawberries. Phooey! They are just about tasteless. I have three different types of strawberries in my garden, so hopefully I'll have some real berries soon. There is little that I like better than berries, berries that taste like berries!

Today I'm also planting sweet basil and Black Prince tomatoes and poke and stevia. A pretty eclectic mix. My sweet potato slips are growing so fast on the window sill that I can almost see them stretch. They'll be ready to go into the ground in early May. The Yukon Gold and Red potatoes are doing great in the garden as are the peas, onions, beets, rhubarb, chard and strawberries. We just picked all the flowers off the baby blueberries to make them put their energy into growing bigger and stronger this year.

I'm not planting a big garden this year, but I am hungering for real food, so I am being a little more serious about it. Last year almost everything I planted in the spring drowned in the very wet May we had. So, this year, I'm doing raised gardens. During the walkway construction at work, they brought in pallets with wire hoops holding rock for the seat walls. These hoops are now in the process of becoming my raised beds. I'm putting them in areas where it is easy to water them and where they will get the drainage that I think the plant needs and the amount of sun it seems to want.

My garden is growing organically, by working with the plants and our land. It is a process and I'm willing to accept that it is going to take time. Maybe the rest of my life.

My garden in progress 4-8-12. Wire framed raised beds, hugel kulture pile in process, rainbow chard, center left.

At the moment, my garden looks kinda like a junkyard with wire hoops and piles of lumber and dirt mixed in with both planted greenery and enthusiastic weeds. But, it's my garden, for my purposes at my home and I don't really have to worry too much what it looks like. And, I know the direction that I am going with it. I really do want it to be pretty, some year soon, but I don't want to push, plan, chart and organize it. I want it to grow, healthy, wholesome, tasty and naturally. And yet, I do find myself trying to explain and interpret it to anybody who comes over. I don't want to apologize for it, because I know how really cool it is, but it does look like a junkyard.

One of the big pushes right now at work is to collect, develop and publish a master plan for the Ozark Folk Center Heritage Herb Garden. The whole plan exists in many documents, posters and ideas that Tina Marie Wilcox has, and has had for many years, but it needs to be collated, communicated and published so that everybody in the park not only knows the direction she is headed with the gardens, but can share the whole wonderful concept with our visitors. This master plan is necessary, for the stage that the OFC garden is in right now and to carry it on into the future. I hope to help with it and learn from the development of this master plan. Maybe, in 25 years, my garden might be worth creating a plan for?

Meanwhile, I'll just write blog posts to share what I'm doing in search for tasty strawberries. I'm going back to my garden. Have a happy day!

Keeping the harvest - more living and learning

If you've looked at Lena's blog recently, you've seen the gorgeous tomatoes that grow on here Foxbriar Farm. Lena was enjoying them, but she wanted to see if she could save some for us. She said there was something wrong with the tomato plants, they were wilting.

In Colorado we would harvest all the green tomatoes off the plants when we had the first frost warning. We would wrap them in newspaper and store them in a colander in the pantry. They would slowly ripen over the next few months and that's how we had home grown tomatoes.
She asked if I thought the newspaper would work in Arkansas. "Try it," I replied, and promptly forgot about it.

Arriving back in Fox, we began saying our hello's to the neighbors and I asked several about the tomato plants. They are turning brown and not producing... kind of shriveling up. Do they need food? Is it the heat?

Most everyone looked at me strangely. "It's the end of tomato season," they explained. "The plants are done."

Tomato season? How weird to live somewhere that tomatoes complete a whole life cycle. They grow, produce and die, all before being felled prematurely by frost. Wow!

After Lena left for her visit to Colorado, I started cleaning the workshop so that we could unload all our stock and get back to work. There were some interesting things growing inside... As I cleaned the kitchen area, I pulled the big colander out to make room for some bowls. There was something black, slimy and foul smelling in wrapped up in paper in the big yellow bowl. "What the..."

Oh, the tomatoes.

Obviously, the newspaper trick does not work in Arkansas. I committed genocide when I burned the contents of the colander.

So, I am trying to learn new ways of food storage, without electricity (my freezer is full of fleece, it keeps the bugs off). We used to dry a lot of food, I am going to try drying some tomatoes, basil and jalapenos, but I'm not too hopeful. It is so humid here.

I guess I have to go ask the neighbors another silly question. How do you store the harvest here?

Wet drops

The sheep don't get out too often, they tend to drift out to the neighbors pasture looking for grass. They are very much grazers. When I am out working at the farm I let them loose for an hour or two. The pic above is the sheeps in the meadow.
The goats on the other hand, rarely get locked up. They are happy to browse right around the barn and help clean out the underbrush that is close to home. They seem to fit better on Foxbriar as it is now.

I've been waiting for a bright sunny morning to take a picture of the bee houses. (And then I was going to photoshop a ribbon on them for Summer!) but it hasn't happened yet. So here is a quick preview pic of the bee hives in their little clearing. They are in the spot where we will eventually like to put our house. The hive door face east and they have a nice wind break from the ridge behind them.
The bees are loving the black berry blossoms. They are out thick right now. blackberries survived the frost and are only a few weeks late. The grape came back, too and is growing new leaves.


They say the Eskimos have 50 some odd words to describe snow - I think our vocabulary should have more words for rain.
Rain covers the basics - drops of water falling from the sky.
But then we have to add all kinds of adjectives - soft, gentle, driving, hard, heavy, cold, warm, blustery... and the list goes on. It would be nice to be able to let people know if it was a good rain or a bad rain with just one word.


Right now it is raining a good rain - soft, gentle warm rain, just the thing for the new baby plants in the garden, perfect for healing the last of the frost damage on the trees and delightful to curl up in a chair with a cuppa tea and read to... so I'm not going to kick myself too hard for not being out digging sheep pasture postholes at the moment. Besides, with the new Postal rate change coming on Monday, I have enough computer work to do to keep me in my chair until then. The rain is nice to walk in, though...

Shawn's current fascination is mushrooms. Oddly enough it is one that I don't really understand or share. Morels are delicious when you find them, and pretty distinctive - but I have no intention of experimenting with eating fungi! We do have lots of them though and are finding new varieties every day. These are probably Inky Caps... maybe.