Spring

Easter is a celebration of spring and all of its inherent new beginnings.   The easter bunny always brings us seeds and plants along with the requisite chocolate. 

This year a peppermint plant and some fennel seeds - both noxious, yet very tasty, perennials - were in our basket. Next to Rhiannon's purple Peeps were seeds for yard long Asian beans and Joseph's coat Amaranth.

The day was relaxed and enjoyable.  After feeding the various animals and moving the new chicks outside we relaxed, taking Riley for a leisurely walk and eating the traditional ham dinner.  Although I had planned on planting peas, Jerusalem artichokes,  and potatoes with the girls, but the daylight seemed to be gone before we got around to it.

The chicks with their new beginnings out of the bathtub and in the coop. 

This I realize is the part of my life that makes me not a real farmer.  The luxury of procrastination.  If I feed the animals enough one day I can sometimes skip the next, knowing that there is food & water to tide them over until the following morning.  The seeds can be planted tomorrow, or the next day.  I have put off harvesting daily, shrugging off the lost harvest.  This is not a personal trait I am proud of.  I think successful farmers must be type A personalities - of which I am most definitely not.  In the beginning I am always full of grand ideas that fade into missed opportunities.   Making a change always seems to be with the handful of other tasks never crossed off my to do list.

I sound so melancholy.

I'm not.

I want this year to be different.  I want to harvest enough peas to freeze some.  I want to store enough potatoes to eat through Christmas.  But these two items are perfect examples of how I am improving.  Two years ago I had only a handful of snow peas - last year we had enough for a meal or two.  The potato harvest of 2011 was nil - last year we had a meal and I stored 2+ dozen small ones well enough successfully to use for this year's seed.

I revel in the cliche of  baby steps.

Chickens are officially mainstream

Available at my local Costco.

Too big for the bathtub

We have a e-store!

We are now on Etsy.com.  It is a craft and vintage online store with thousands of vendors.  We don't have much up yet.  Each of us in the family will be making various items and they will be available for sale.  So far only Chris and Indica have things available.

We are starting to keep track of our "farm" expenses and  hope to offset the costs of feed etc with sales from the store.  Also we have things on our wish list (a greenhouse for instance) that we can save for.  This is our first step to the ultimate goal of an urban farm store.

The link is to the right under our 2013 goals list.