Greenhouse Fun for CSA

This weekend we were able to move our plant starts into the greenhouse, with the help of a few extra layers. Proeun designed a great frame for our tables in the greenhouse. The greenhouse is much larger than anything we have used in the past and last year we struggled to heat it. This year we are starting plants earlier then before. So we are working on a system to save a bit of money by using extra plastic to make a smaller space to heat.

It wasn’t easy but we had lots of help and in the end lots of fun. Oh the benefits of working with children, especially when they come up with just the right solution we adults couldn’t see. Anyway the plants are now in the greehouse and I almost have room in my sewing room/studio (currently the germination room) to work again.
 

Effie finding ways to keep herself entertained while we prepare the plastic to go over the frame.

Two helping keep baby Pray satisfied while we work.

Sorry for the long absence from the blog. Our sick kitty is doing so much better it has taken a huge weight off my shoulders. Now I am ready to focus on our CSA and the fun of a changing season.

A Sick Kitty

It was quite the weekend–a teaching weekend to say the least. On Saturday morning our chicks arrived. Though I have done it couple times already it still makes me nervous handling those little chicks and dipping their little beaks in water and releasing them into the brooder. Exciting but scary.

Then we had a sick kitty to take to our vet. Remember here when I talked about getting two kittens for the children right after Mavis was born around 4 years ago. Those kittens became babies and were carried around the house just like them and became part of the family and the children’s best friend. Well one of them had been loosing weight and vitality. I hadn’t really noticed the gradual change since I see him every day. Then it got to the point that it was too noticeable to miss. And we were off the vet with a sick kitty right after being up early with chicks. I thought maybe he just had worms, but after some tests the vet thought he might have feline leukemia or liver problems, but we would have to wait an half hour to find out. So we did our weekly shopping and it was seriously the worst shopping trip of my life. The children kept asking about Austin and I am the type that imagines the worst so I am thinking we might have a dead kitty by the end of the day.

Of course when you have children it is not only your own grief you have to deal with but model healthy grief to teach your children how to deal with the sad things in life they will inevitably have to encounter. I was praying like crazy for the strength to deal with not only my own grief but the childrens.

After the tests came back it was the liver but not a chronic problem. So we are trying to flush him out with fluid and getting him eating and drinking and some energy. This means hourly feedings and some fluid injections. It was quite the weekend, but better then I expected. At one point Avril said to me, “Are you doing all these things for Austin because he is my cat and you know I love him?” Yes baby yes I am.

But also I want to model the care and service that will give you a fulfilling life. Nothing like saving a life over the weekend–even a cat’s life to make you realize that a life of service is not a drudgery but very rewarding. I hope that I can teach to children that taking care of the gifts God has given us is definitely the best use of our time. Austin is not out of the woods yet, but he is successfully eating and drinking through a syringe and I am hopefully that with continued assistance he will soon be his old perky self.

Family Circles

The weather around here is getting a bit warmer. While I of course am looking forward to the coming season I feel a bit sad to leave behind the short days of winter spent close to home and surrounded by family. Nothing like the winter to allow you to slow down and contemplate life a bit. As I said here this year I working on centering and bringing the important things of life into focus.

Part of that is a focus on homeschool. The children are getting older and their work is getting progressively more indepth. Then next year I will add a 3rd child to our homeschooling circle not to mention an infant and pre-schooler. So it is time to get organized and focused. One resource I find invaluable is Family Circles from Doorposts. Doorposts is a Christian resource for families. Family Circles however can be used by everyone. It is a great tool for focusing your attention on spending individualized time with each of your family members.

I started using this and discovered that I really don’t talk to my children. . . I mean really talk like know what they are thinking and dreaming about and taking the time to explore the feelings behind behaviors. Since starting using this and other resources from Doorposts I am happy to say the atmosphere is getting wonderful in our house. It is multi-fold, relationships and intellects growing and children glowing.

So I am hanging on to winter a bit longer, I think it will probably end up being my favorite time of the year. So I encourage you before the warmer weather, and busy traveling and growing season make sure you take some quiet time to sit and talk with your kids–read a great book, play some board games, make a special dinner together, and most importantly talk. And once you develop the habit keep on keeping on.

Incredibly Beautiful

When we were living in the city we would have to drive a ways to get views like this so snow storms were not much fun. But now views like this are right out our back door. Also we have successfully parred down our schedule so it is not difficult for me and children to be home for days or even weeks at a time–plus there is still plenty to do so cabin fever really isn’t an issue.

I was talking with a woman in New York and she was sharing about the massive snow fall. I explained that we lived on a farm and were concerned about our water table. So we welcomed the snow. We even got some extra snow shoes to celebrate. We are loving today!

8th Annual Immigrant and Minority Farmers Conference

“If you are not growing you are dying.” – Ellen G. White (paraphrased)

This is one of my favorite quotes. The author preceeds by saying we are much like plants and when we are not growing we are dying. But the author adds that this is the same for our mental and spiritual capacities as well as our physical. I find that there are few better ways to grow as a human being then to spend time with people from a variety of backgrounds.

This weekend we were blessed to participate for our 5th year now in the 8th Annual Immigrant and Minority Farmers Conference. This was also my 2nd year on the planning committee and 2nd year as a presenter. It is such a rewarding experience to be surrounded by people from all over the world speaking many many languages but who all acknowledge and crave a connection to the land. For these farmers it is not about trends or politics or ideals that brings them to the land it is about survival. They understand that without this personal connection they would somehow be less then who they were meant to be. That’s why they come to this country as refugees and immigrants–citizens at the lower end of the totem pole if we are honest with ourselves as a country. And then they chose to enter a professional that is not known for it’s financial security.

Along the way they face language and cultural barriers certainly and sometimes discrimination and racism. But they do it because that is who they are.

This year the conference included farmers from Africa, Asia, Central and South America. And there were alot of young farmers. As the USDA acknowledges that the average age of farmers is aging at a fast rate, there are at least some young people interested in farming. Here are some pictures from a great weekend.


 
Glen Hill, Executive Director, Minnesota Food Association, Ly Vang, Executive Director for the Association for the Advancement of Hmong Women, Minnesota Commissioner of Agriculture, Dave Fredrickson, State Senator Foung Hawj, after the welcome on Saturday.

Farmers visiting booths to learn more about resources, funding, organic certification and more.

Aaron Blythe showing farmers a hand transplanter from Japan.

Hmong farmer getting a close up view of t he transplanter.

The conference is held the 1st weekend in February in St. Paul.

New Year: DIY Hard Lotion Bars

As you probably remember most of my goals this year revolve around better health. While most people think about eating right and exercising as keys to good health (and they are definitely a priority for me) I am realizing what I put on my body by way of personal care products have a huge effect on health. There are some great companies out there run out of homes and producing excellent products for health, Blue Vervain is one of my favorites, but I am a Do It Yourself (DIY) kind of gal.

Luckily Erin at Blue Vervain totally gets that and offers great classes locally on how to make some wonderful products and keep your family healthy with herbs. She is also the one who introduced me to Brambleberry for supplies–another great company.

So this Christmas Proeun and I decided to get serious about our personal care products as well as other areas of our health. I have had a great time researching recipes and essential oils and best of all trying stuff out.

This weekend was our first foray into soap making, but that will have to wait for another post since the soap isn’t yet ready to come out of the molds. Anyway while I was prepping the oil and lye solution the girls were gazing whistfully at the kithen wanting oh so bad to be a part of the making. However soap is definitely not child’s play. So we started a different project that I hope was just as fun–Hard Lotion Bars. I found this simple recipe here. I made it of equal parts coconut oil, beeswax and shea butter. The measuring and using the kitchen scale were the fun part for the girls.

Then into my makeshift double boiler to melt together. Once melted we picked out the scent. The instructions didn’t recommend citrus scents for outdoor wear–something about amplifying the suns effects. So I let the girls pick from my non-citrus scents. They picked Rosemary, who would have thought, wish I could get them to eat it.

Anyway then they picked out the molds and we poured the melted mixture in to harden.

They are so proud of their work. Proeun complimented me on my soft hands last night, they are super fun to use and smell and feel great but it does take a little getting used to after using liquid lotions my whole life. It is great for hands but I need to get better at moisturizing legs and arms and such.

New Year: Back to Cloth

It all started when Proeun and I were just married. We were at the insurance office getting me added to Proeun’s policies. It just so happened that it was right next door to Peapods. I was killing time and went in to look around and saw an amazing selection of cloth diapers. I remembered my mom and grandma talking about using cloth diapers on their babies and how much cheaper it was. I had a new sister-in-law expecting and told Proeun we should buy some for her. That was my first cloth diaper purchase. When we had our first baby a year latter we got those cloth diapers back. I loved using cloth and while I occasionally used disposables (like when my son was born premature and those cloth diapers simply didn’t fit and for heavy wetters at night) I preferred cloth for the next 3 babies.

Then baby #4 came along. We were farming and oh so busy. I was on bedrest for the end of the pregnancy and then had a difficult birth and recovery period. Also our washer and dryer were not working. With the previous baby I had had to hang the diapers on the line, I was no longer willing to do that and so baby number 4 was almost always in disposables. I loved the convenience of it but not the expense or full trash cans.

I knew I wanted baby #5 back in cloth and so started inventorying and adding to my supply. Once he was born I realized the additions I needed to add to my stash. I looked at prices on the internet and planned. Then I came across some great patterns on etsy and Diaper Sewing Supplies and started my journey to making my own diapers. 

Effie is in the Trimsies trainer pattern and Pray is in the this diaper pattern.

Here are some of my handmades and favorites–prefolds from Peapods and Contour diapers from Kissaluvs, some more trainers and the Rocket Bottoms Cover Pattern.

 

Pray sleeping on my lap in his new diaper.

All these patterns were pretty easy to make and they turned out oh so cute with the personalized fabric from diaper sewing.

Here is more information about cloth diapers from one my favorite blogs.

New Year’s Resolution

I have never done a New Year’s Resolution. But I have been doing lots of things the past couple of years that I have never done before and I suppose in actuality this is not a New Year’s Resolution, but a life resolution, part of the journey I have been on with my family.

We now have our dream farm, but I want to enhance it with an increased focus on health, peace and tranquility. It is so easy to get caught up in life’s busyness and forget to take care of our health (both physically and mentally) and our relationships. In the interest of full disclosure our journey to the farm hit a low point when we were commuting back and forth to rented land. We were still living in the city, we were surrounded by a very fast pace of life and living one ourselves, even though almost every day we got to go to the country to farm. We were busy, busy, busy. Often on the way back from the farm as we were rushing home for Proeun to go to his “day” job we had to stop and grab fast food. Yes here we were farming wonderfully healthy food but not having the time to cook it, or even harvest any for personal use.

We were way out of balance. As you can imagine our health suffered, physically obviously but also mentally with all the busyness and feelings of not living the way we really wanted, we were on a journey but not there yet.

Now we are where we want to be and it is time to reclaim our health, vitality and love for life. This winter has been like a healing balm as we have been able to slow down, evaluate what is missing in our lives and make plans for achieving our goals. So this year we will take time to slow down and enjoy, eat better, exercise more, breathe more, love more and focus on sharing all these goals with the children. I want a healthy, vibrant life that is also full of peace and tranquility.

Already we are seeing some good results just by changing our focus. Throughout the year I will start posts about our specific goals with the title New Year. I hope you join us.

2013 CSA season begins

Wow, I am blown away with how blessed we are. Today, December 31st marks an important landmark for our family, for this day one year ago we were moving from our home in St. Paul to our dream in Rush City. In some ways it is really hard to believe that we are actually here living our dream and in others it seems like we were always meant to be here.

Today as we did the chores I looked at our goats and chickens and black lab “puppy” Jack who is now a little over a year old, none of them were here last year, but we have all come together to make a home, farm and family, wow, what joy!

None of this would have been possible without our CSA members, some have been supporting our CSA since it began, talk about dedication! Old or new friends though you all play an integral part of Crazy Boy Farm and we wanted to take a moment to thank-you.

Now as the new year begins we are launching our new season. The talk of plans and additions to our CSA have been going on for several months already and we have already had some shares coming in, what a great way to start the new year. I have updated the information on our CSA page. Thank-you so much for your support and supporting local agriculture–us or any farm. It supports a great way of life for a family, thriving communities across the country and the kind of food we were all meant to eat. 2013 will bring great things.

Homemade Christmas 2012

Have I mentioned how much I love a homemade Christmas? In all honestly as a child I had my list of gifts I wanted and would pass them out to relatives. There were few handmade things on the list. But now as an adult I fully realize that I have everything I need and love to see what my family and friends have made. I also love making things for my family and picking out just the right project. This year was a little more difficult since I was honestly absorbed in other things until early December, but it is a great way to get in the Christmas mood.

Here are some of the projects we worked on. For my dad felted clogs, leaf coasters for my sister and a mini quilt for my mom. I purchased the kit at out local quilt shop. The clogs and coasters I had made before and got requests for more. That is always fun.

For the girls I made doll slings so they can carry their babies just like I carry mine. The pattern is from Handmade Home by Soule Mama. The scarves are from one of my aunts who always has the coolest handmade gifts. Thanks Auntie Janice. Auntie Patty also has great gifts and I love her food gifts. For the men in my family they all got my smokehouse almonds from last year and the ladies got some scented epsom salts. I discovered the wonders of epsom salts while recovering from Pray’s birth this year and found a super easy recipe if you want to try it here it is.

Scented Epsom Salts

1 cup epsom salts for every 1 tsp of essential oil.

Stir, stir, stir.

Super easy huh? I made a batch of lavender and a batch of grapefruit/tangerine.

But still the best gift of all according to the children is also coincidentally homemade.
 

According to Avril baby Pray Grant is “so much better then a baby doll!” But daddy told them not to try and put him in their slings. Hope you had a great Christmas.