Another Sledding Day

The Blog Mistress is back!!! Phew! Took a while there...Faith was on a role with her gardening and chicken posts and I couldn't get a word in edge wise! =) She has done a great job though, hasn't she?

Well, back to current things....

Here are some pictures from our latest sledding adventure. Yes, we did go back to "Suicide Hill" and lived to tell about it again!
The only injuries to talk about are bruised backsides and maybe a couple sore ribs for Faith who was the only one who really took a serious tumble and got her wind knocked out. =O

Besides that we enjoyed a beautiful day with the hill all to ourselves and the wonderful fellowship with friends.

Enjoy!

Upon arriving at the top and seeing how slick the hill looked no one was to keen on being the first to go down.

The brave one. Go Dewey!!


Mr. Shepherd was very courageous on his little saucer.

Thanks to a party that had been there the night before there were some hot coals left in the fire pit and Mr. Reiche got a nice toasty fire going for us!

Christianna and Nicholette...happy as ever!

Staying clear of the bumpy side of the hill us girls found great enjoyment in running the toboggan down the smoother side. [photo credit to Faith]

Here we come!!!

Yahoo!!! Holding on for dear life, screaming to save our lives and having a blast...here we are flying by Mr. Shepherd with the camera.

There we go!

Dad, Faith and Mr. Reiche plowing down the hill.

I went for a quick walk on the trails again wanting to capture some images of a little stream I noticed last time.

How refreshing and beautiful the whispers of flowing water.

Ride 'em cowgirls! The moms and Nic bringing the toboggan down one last time.

Seedling Sketches

Eccl. 3:2 "A time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck what is planted."

Outside it is cold and snowing . . .
Inside I am sketching seedlings, and dreaming of spring.

Isaiah 61:11 "For as the earth brings forth its bud, as the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all nations."

In the Garden (Part 1 1/2): Of Seeds and Such

This blog post contains photos that may cause you to be discontent with your present lovely surroundings (if you are in Michigan or somewhere else cold and snowy that is), so please proceed with due caution.

Well folks, it's that time of year again.

Spring is just around the corner . . .

(o.k. so I'm being optimistic here) and our mail boxes are being inundated with seed catalogs. Or at least mine is. Mom commented the other day that there seems to be as many seed companies as there are letters of the alphabet. Choosing the right one to order from can be a bit confusing, if not frustrating.

Please don't think that I am the final authority on this, but for what it's worth, here are my "two cents" about the whole thing; take it or leave it.

Organic? Heirloom? Open-pollinated? Hybrid? Help!!

Unless you are planning on getting your land certified, or will be selling your produce this summer and plan on touting it as organic, don't worry about getting certified organic seed. This is where IFHO comes into play. (In Faith's Humble Opinion) I am all for chemical free gardening, and only use natural fertilizers on my plants, (fish emulsion, liquid seaweed and other great smelling stuff like that) and I have yet to do an in depth study on how/if the chemicals in seeds are passed to grown plants, but when the price of certified seed is two or sometimes three times as much as the regular seed, (and the "regular seed" doesn't mean it is chemically grown, but just not "certified" organic - read the fine print in the catalogs.) I'd rather buy the "regular" seed and save the money.

That said, here are a few certified organic seed companies for you to check out:

~ Seeds of Change

~ Peaceful Valley

~ Park Seeds - Organic

Some other seed catalogs have an "organic" section so look into that if you want more options.

Although opinions vary on how old a variety should be to qualify as an heirloom, most consider seeds grown prior to 1950 as heirlooms. I decided to try to grow almost all heirloom vegetables this year, primarily so that I can save the seeds for next year, (only heirloom and open-pollinated seeds will come true to seed) and save on the garden bill, and they also have many old varieties with flavor and other qualities that the modern hybrids can't touch. Plus it is a good start in learning how to be self sufficient. Heirlooms also have nostalgic properties, for us sentimental people:-).

Here are a few places that sell heirloom seeds:

~ Heirloom Seeds (very original:-)

~ Baker's Heirloom

~ Victory Heirloom Seeds

~ Granny's Heirloom Seeds

Hybrids are "something of mixed origin or composition." And just because I touted heirlooms as being so wonderful, doesn't mean all the work people have put into making hybrids is for naught. Many hybrid plants have resistance to diseases that some of the heirlooms do not. You will have to decide for yourself. It isn't imperative to grow all heirlooms, especially of those plants from which it is difficult to collect seeds(i.e. lettuce, onions, etc.).

(click the banner to go to their site)

I have the terrible habit of second guessing myself when it comes to ordering seeds. Just when I'm sure I've found the perfect catalog; wonderful selection, great prices; invariably I happen upon another company that sounds just as good or better! Well last year, about a week or so after I had ordered my seeds, a catalog for Pinetree Garden Seeds arrived in the mail. I mentally kicked myself and immediately decided that this was the place I was going to order from next year. They grew naturally, had superb prices, and carried a fine array of heirloom seeds. So when our mail box began to fill with seed catalogs this year, I didn't even blink as I sat down to order from Pinetree Garden. And of course what did I find a week or two later? The above mentioned "Granny's Heirloom Seeds." Now, I'm still not sure that Pinetree isn't the best out there for me. Every one will have a company they are more comfortable with, for some reason or another, how else would they all stay in business! But perhaps next year I will have to do a bit more research and comparison.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
O.K. now everyone refocus your eyes and wipe that bit of drool off your chin . . . you have been staring at the computer screen for way to long. Sorry this got so lengthy, but once I get going, there's no stopping me. I hope you found this a wee bit helpful!

Take care y'all,
Faith

Genesis 2:8 "And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden . . ."

At the Cock's Crow

Here is a little video Josiah took of our head Rooster "Big Boy." He enjoys crowing . . . at all times of the day. :-) He has one sassy hen who talks back to him sometimes. The large Barred Rock you see in the nesting box is Sphinx. (Don't ask about the name) Shortly after this filming, she laid a large egg, with light purple speckles! I kid you not!

~ Faith

The Chicken and the Egg

Hallelujah!! The Chickens are laying eggs! We have been collecting 6-8 per day, the last few days. Most are quite small, but are getting bigger every day. It is so satisfying to have your own source for home "grown" eggs!


Here is a sweet little Buff thinking about it.

She gets some company from a pesky Rhode Island Red. They argue in subdued chicken voices for a while, before the Red finally decides to move to the next box.

Well, pluck me and call me a chicken!! Did I just do that!!

A precious egg! Free-range, organic, fertile . . .chicken egg. Yum!

Here's looking at you, Chick!

~ Faith

PETA: People Eating Tasty Animals (Rated PG14)

Dear Friends and Family:

This post contains some potentially disagreeable content. Please be advised that those of you with a weak stomach might want to just skip it. I apologize in advance if anyone is offended.
(Two animals were harmed in the making of this blog post.)

We are now full fledged farmers, country folks, red-necks, backwoods-men, or bloodthirsty murderous villains . . . whichever you prefer. We also now have a very real appreciation of where our food comes from, and that life on a farm is not always glamorous, but at times, and of necessity, can be a bit gory.

Once upon a time we got some cute innocent little chicks. Who, with our loving care, (and hundreds of pounds of food!) grew into big chickens. (no really!) This is the "End of the Story" for two of the five roosters we raised. The above picture is our very high tech "Butchering Board" that Dad made, along with Joshua's Bowie knife. It is the before photo, and below is the after.

I won't go into details here; let's just say that we learned a lot about how not to butcher roosters, and that a shark's death roll, ain't nothin' compared to a chicken with its head chopped (or shot) off.



Whew! Once the nasty work was out of the way, I enjoyed the plucking and gutting part . . . kind of. The headless horsemen . . . um . . . I mean Rooster, was dunked in a large pot of hot water and then plucked clean. Let me tell you something folks; the smell of hot, wet feathers, is not exactly one of the finer scents in the world.



Next I cut the feet off. Baby, who was very attentive during the whole process, greatly enjoyed the scraps we tossed her. It was quite amusing to see her trotting around with a chicken foot hanging out of her mouth.



O.K. so I had never gutted a chicken before. The laptop came in very handy as Christianna read me cut-by-cut directions from a website. It actually was easier than I thought. Granted it took me over half and hour to finish the first bird, but I didn't rip the intestines or cut anything that I wasn't suppose to, and the second one was a whiz.

Here he is, all clean and packaged for freezing!

And here they are, nice and comfortable, in a bed of veggies, rubbed with oil and seasonings ready to be popped in the oven . . .



. . . for a tasty Sunday dinner! And boy were they good!

And to all you real PETA people out there . . .Get a Life! (and eat some fresh, farm raised, roasted Chicken) Genesis 9:3

~ Faith

Sledding Fun!

Yesterday we went on a sledding outing with our friend Mr. Reiche for Josiah's birthday. We have been wanting to try out this new hill we heard of recently but never had the opportunity, or the park was not open due to the harsh weather conditions until yesterday.

Heading to the hill.

I stayed at the entrance to grab some fast action pictures while everyone else headed up to the top and gave great exclamations of amazement as to how steep the hill looked...we soon found out how bumpy it was too!

The birthday boy went down first on the tube. We quickly realized that the tube was pretty much the only thing you could get all the way down on because of how bumpy the slope was!

Josh ended up outside his sled about half way down most of the time. Then Faith and Christianna would follow and the same thing would happen resulting in shouts of frustrations from them and laughter from us at the top because of how comical they looked! =)

Heading back up.

The view from the top. You can't see them but this part of the hill had the appearance of a mogul slope with all the lumps on it!

Christianna zooming down. She finally made it all the way down by finding a path that skirted the bumps.

The toboggan made a few runs down on the less used side of the hill.

Sorry Josh! You should have heard him afterwards though! He wanted to come back and bring all his friends...to experience the thrills of getting bruised I guess. =)

This picture was a chance capture. Check out the flying ball cap!!

They finally persuaded me to take a ride down. Unfortunately we were not allowed to use snowboards and I wasn't about to kill myself on the moguls so I took the "train" instead.

Taking a break from sledding we took a walk through the woods surrounding the hill to find the skating pond.

The birthday boy!

After a few more runs down the hill we headed on home...thankfully without any injuries to speak of then though today everyone is announcing their many found bruises! However, I'm sure we will be back for a visit again soon and bring some friends to share in the adventures at Suicide Hill!