Wordless Weekend

Honesty Policy

Since moving to the farm we have sold many of goodies by the roadside. We had a farm stand one summer followed by a pumpkin stand that fall. We have sold eggs in a cooler and the kids have sold crawlers a couple of Springs including this past. Some people come and go, others like to chit chat if we are outside. I like both kinds of people. The one thing they all have in common thus far is that MOST people truly are honest. It is nice to be able to leave a jar out and not have to tend the stand, it is nice to know that a good many people are honest. Maine Man is sold out of peppers but he has a few more tomato plants to sell. When I was in town the other day I saw single tomato plants selling for $3.99. We're not looking to make living, it is just nice to recoup some of money we have in seeds. Next year we will have more of a selection.

Open for Business

John set up the stand once again. We sold about $80 worth over the weekend. We had an honor system vegetable stand for 6 weeks during the summer taking in $50-$60/week. It was a learning experience but I think we will do again next summer. I realized quickly that selling veggies is not a huge money maker and does require some effort. I hope that as the kids get older they may take it over. It will be a good experience for them and a way to make some money. It is also nice to chat with the locals and a good way to get rid of extra produce. We also sell eggs on a regular basis when we have extra at $2.00/ dozen. We put them out in a cooler by the road with a sign. The cooler is always empty within a few hours. All these little things we do helps to pay for grain for all the critters.

We had an eventful weekend carving pumpkins and cooking the seeds....

....painting pumpkins. I am am working on a witch one, pictures to come.

Leah's ghost

I forgot to mention we sold all those chicks right after I posted the OMG we have 200 chickens post. We have 30 left that will be in the freezer in a few weeks.

A First for Everything

Another first. I dried some zucchini with my dehydrator. I would like to try experiment with a few other vegetables such as green peppers, onions, and tomatoes. Anyone have any advice, do you or have you dried vegetables. What was your process and how did you utilize your goods. As you hear lots about sun dried tomatoes I'd have to say that is where most of my interest is.
First year growing garlic. We have about 3 times the above and it is amazing. How do you all store it? And the trick to braiding it? I read up on it a bit but still didn't quite get it.

Farm stand update: We made $61 our first week. Doesn't sound like much but it is a start. What we've observed so far. Best sellers, corn, tomatoes, eggs, and cukes. Zucchini, garlic, and yellow squash we've sold very little of.

I will end this post with a recipe for some kick a@! cake I made John for his birthday. He requested chocolate cake with PB frosting and that is what he got. Homemade at that, in previous years it would have come straight from the box with a jar of frosting. You do what you see. I do not ever remember my Mom making cake from scratch so why would I?
We started eating this at 5:30 am and it was gone by 8 that night. We celebrate John's b-day early before I headed to work. I usually do not over eat but I did with this cake. A must make for anyones upcoming b-day!

The Perfect Present Buttermilk Chocolate Cake Recipe
www.The-Perfect-Present.com

Ingredients	Preparation
2 Cups Flour	Preheat Oven to 300° F (This is not a typo! This is a slow bake chocolate cake recipe.) Use Crisco Shortening to lightly grease and flour the 9 x 13 in. Baking Dish. (It's a one layer chocolate cake!) Place all the ingredients on the left into a mixing bowl. Mix at medium or medium high speed until all ingredients are blended and smooth. Pour into greased and floured baking dish Bake for 1 hr. Test by sticking with knife. If it comes out clean, it's done! Allow to cool. Scroll down this page for the simple Recommended White Vanilla Icing...
2 Cups Sugar
¾ Cup Hershey's Cocoa
2 Teaspoons Baking Soda
2 Eggs (I use large eggs)
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Cup Buttermilk Remember that you can freeze buttermilk so you have to make another buttermilk chocolate cake recipe.
1 Cup Mazola Oil
1 ½ Teaspoons Vanilla Extract
1 Cup Boiling Water

borrowed from:
http://www.bestmoistchocolatecakerecipe.com/


(I cooked it for 50minutes and it came out perfect, my stove seems to over cook a bit)

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter (softened to room temperature)
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Directions

1. Cream butter and peanut butter together.
2. Add half the powdered sugar and blend.
3. Blend in milk and vanilla.
4. Add remaining powdered sugar.
5. Stir until smooth and well blended.

frosting recipe borrowed from
http://www.recipezaar.com/111131

Bad and Good Eggs!

This morning I went out to tend the farm stand and there I find our "Honesty Policy" jar empty and on the ground and barely a vegetable left on the stand. I always take the money in at night but last night I did not. Details for that to follow. I usually keep $5.00 in the jar and whatever we had made that night. Not the money that makes me mad it is the principle! I put that stand up as a way to get rid of excess veggies, provide local produce to my community, teach the kids about making money, and of course to make a little pocket change. Lesson learned today by Luke and Leah. There are lots of dishonest thieves in this world! I was so steaming mad I moved it right in front of the house where it is easy to see and I will wheel it in every night. You should have seen me putting the post in. On a normal day I probably would not have had the strength to get it so deep but get me mad and watch out!
LESSON LEARNED!

Why I did not pick up my money jar. I was sick! I brought the kids and the neighboors boy to the movies to see WALL-E and believe it or not I got motion sickness. I was so close to loosing my cookies I almost had to leave the theater. I have only had that happen one other time at the movies and it was in an amphitheater. Regardless, I like the movie. If you haven't seen it it is about how poorly we humans treat the earth, it makes fun of big box stores and us as humans dependence of others. I would like to watch again when it comes out on disk because I did have to close my eyes a bit on the second half.

Below is the pickled egg recipe. John ate all the ones I made. He said best ones yet. It was a first for making them with our own farm eggs, that was the key!

Off to freeze some beans, attempt to make some bread, and if time allows make some mustard pickles. Finally caught up on responding to my comments on the last 6 or so posts, I will try and do better with that, sorry! :)

Ingredients

• 12 hard-boiled eggs, peeled
• 1 large empty sterilized glass jar
• 4 cups vinegar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon pickling spices

Directions

1. Put the peeled hardboiled eggs in the large jar.

2. Boil the remaining ingredients together for 5 minutes.

3. Pour over the eggs in the jar.
4. Cover; leave on counter overnight.
5. Keeps in refrigerator for weeks, in theory.
6. In reality, if you love pickled eggs, these will disappear.

I added 1 cup of beet juice.

the recipe came from:
http://www.recipezaar.com/29150

Tid Bits

Isn't the size of that critter just amazing. Luke found him in the garden. Please excuse his dirty little hands!

The garden stand has been a success so far with customers each day. It has been fairly easy to maintain and the kids have been right into it. I think it is a good lesson for them to learn about making money and as they get older if they are interested they can expand on this idea.

This weekend I had seriously contemplated attending a local kneading conference

and could have participated at discounted rate under a farmers scholarship. Instead I knew we could use the cash so I earned some money by picking up an extra shift rather than spending more. I regret that I was not able to attend but my plan is to learn a bit about bread making on my own and next year I will attend this event. I am currently reading/skimming through a library book called Bread Alone. I may attempt to make a loaf over the weekend without using my bread machine.

Lastly, I want to make reference to a blog I came across the other day called Seasons Eating Farm . I only had time to read a few posts but if you have interests of chickens and eggs this article was very informative.

Todays egg count was 20!!! Have a great weekend all! :)

We are open for business

We finally have enough produce to get the stand up and running

It took me all day painting signs but by 5 pm we were ready to go

We are doing the honor system method for now. The kids have had good luck selling crawlers and cornstalks last year doing this.

I have yet to see anyone around with fresh corn so I bet we sell out. Last night was our first meal with it and I must say it was Delicious!

Garlic, mint, cabbage, and I only have a few red tomatoes but we will have many more to follow!

All you locals come on over for some farm eggs & veggies!

Flight of ideas

Does anyone have any ideas on what kind of tree this is? I have never grown much for flowers except marigolds, sunflowers, and dahlias and that is only because they are hard to kill. John is the green thumb in this family. I am the assistant, picker, and preparer. Don't get me wrong, I love flowers and often have cut flowers throughout the house in the summer. Actually I would like to sell cut flowers at our farm stand this summer and have asked hubby if he could till me up a spot just for planting flowers for that sole purpose. He did a bit of an eye roll but I think he'll do it.


We went to Lowe's today for fencing and we walked out with 2 dwarf apple trees (1 red delicious & 1 yellow ), 20 strawberry plants (so they say it's a small box I've yet to open), and 2 blueberry bushes. I am SO excited and sure we'll be planting tomorrow. We have never grown fruit before only veggies. We had some apple trees that we planted at our old house but we were not there long enough to harvest.







On to another topic ....I am looking for some type of canopy for my farm stand. Any suggestions? I was thinking about getting something like this white one if I can find something similar for a good price. Also below is a a web site I came across when researching farm stand info, which there is not to much of on the world wide web and there are NO books on the topic either. I told John if I was ever to write a book it would be about starting a farm stand and he chuckled and said it is not rocket science. Call me nuts....I just like to research things and learn from others experiences. Back to the web site, neat concept...community garden with a free stand to low-income individuals.

http://www.permaculture-sf.org/freefarmstand.html

Lastly I wanted to share a recipe I came across last year when we harvested our beets. I made it tonight with canned beets, it was still yummy.

Onion Beet Salad

• 12 whole fresh or canned beets (chopped and if fresh cooked)
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 1large red onion chopped
• 1/2 cup balsalmic vinegar
• 1/3 cup red wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tespoon salt
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper

Mix ingredients together,chill for 2 hours and serve.

Raising your own

We received a shipment of Cornish Rocks. This is our first experience with meat birds. Like I have said in previous posts my goal is to get to the point that we are raising a good deal of what were are eating...we have a long ways to go! We bought 200 and have already sold 60 and someone is buying 100 sometime this week. We plan to keep about 20 to freeze. As you can see these chicks are very cute. When I went out to see them I could not believe how cute they were even compared to layer chicks. Their bright yellow color reminds me of the classic chicks you see around Easter time. A couple interesting facts on these creatures, they are ready to harvest at 6-8 weeks of age. Another FYI is for the first 5 days of their life you have feed available for their consumption around the clock but at day 5 of their life you take their feed away for 12 hours per night continuing this "minor feed restriction" program until the time of slaughter. Failure to follow these feeding guidelines may result in "heart attacks". Sudden death syndrome or "flip" as it is sometimes called can result because of the very rapid growth of the Broiler chicks. I'm glad John read up on that valuable piece of info.
We have had fun this Spring selling chicks. Not that we are making a killing, but our birds and some of their feed is paid for. We have met some interesting people, everyone has a different story to tell and if you listen closely there is a lot to learn from others. I look forward to starting our garden stand for that simple reason, I love people and think it will be a lot of fun to be involved in the production of our communities food supply. Today my neighbor told me was looking forward to having the convenience of getting farm fresh veggies just by crossing the street. I am excited to get it up and running and wonder how it will all work out. Turkeys and Pigs are the next potentials on the farm.

Spring At Last

It was a beautiful day!! When I walked outside after work today the feeling of the warm air and sunshine was refreshing. We had had a long winter but Spring is here. I worked the last 4 days so now I am off for the next 5, YEAH!
Above, was my first glimpse of green grass on the farm. The lawn and the back field still have a white lining but there are some visible brown patches. I should not be whining the folks up north were hit the hardest. Channel 13 news said "the blizzard pushed Caribou's seasonal snowfall to 192 inches of snow, breaking the previous record of 181 inches in 1955. More snow is predicted for this weekend." That is amazing!
Below is the beginnings of our farm stand. John's parents gave it to us a couple weeks ago. We will cover it with some type of canopy. I can see it now, the shelves filled with overflowing baskets of vegetables and coolers filled with farm fresh eggs. I have a vision of how to make this happen but I think this year we will learn a great deal by trial and error. We have always grown a good size garden but I think this years' will be by far the biggest. Especially with plans to do a lot more preserving along with having a small roadside stand. The reason for the stand is not really to make a great sum of money but a way of making a few dollars to feed and maintain the critters. For example, to make our laying hens pay for themselves we will have to sell approximately 3 -4 dozen eggs per week. We plan to keep 36 hens so we will have plenty to sell and still have enough to supply our family with fresh eggs.
This idea came about last fall when the kids and I tied up some cornstalks and gathered up some of our extra squash & pumpkins and put them by the road with a few homemade signs. Luke & Leah were looking to make a few bucks as they were saving up for their goats. They made about $60 in two weeks time. We put an honesty bucket out so that we did not have be home to tend the stand and when we were home we went out to greet our customers. Luke & Leah were always on patrol and yelled out "Customers" whenever anyone even looked like they were going to stop, even the mail lady who actually turned out to be one of our best customers. For a last minute project, it was a great experience for all, especially the kids!


These pictures came out pretty good considering it was pitch dark out and the shed is not equipped with lights yet. I used the "night" mode on my camera.