Blog Posts

What a crazy couple of weeks!

2/9/2015

Our Kickstarter campaign was a success! We got off to a slow start, but picked up some momentum with just a few hours to go. We reached our goal of $10,000 which will allow us to purchase all of the seeds and gardening materials we will need for this year, which includes building our caterpillar tunnels. We will also be able to make a walk-in cooler to keep all of your veggies crisp and fresh until delivery or market day. We had faith that our campaign would succeed and we placed our order early for more chicks. They are set to arrive next Friday. I can't wait to see all of the fuzzy little chicks running around the greenhouse nibbling at fresh greens while waiting for them to feather out!

Brad and I have been on pins and needles the past few days and very emotional at times. Okay, so maybe that's just me! Pregnancy hormones are unbelievable! We slept peacefully Saturday night knowing that our dream of farming with our children and doing something that we love can continue for the upcoming season and hopefully many more to come. Thank you to all of you who supported us and helped to spread the word about our campaign and our mission to provide healthy food for our community!

To keep our minds off of the campaign we continued to keep busy with work on the farm. Brad has been working with the children and our intern, Stacey, on our small greenhouse. We built our own small 12x16 greenhouse over five years ago and have grown greens, peas, turnips, carrots, and spinach for ourselves over the years. They prepared the growing bed areas and I planted salad mix today. If everything goes according to plan it will be ready to start harvesting in early March and continue to produce for a couple more months before we put in another crop. Brad has also been working on the site where will will be putting the seedling greenhouse. The tomatoes that we started on January 18th are thriving and it won't be much longer before they can be moved out to the seedling greenhouse until they are ready to make their permanent home in the large greenhouse at the end of March.

10 days post germination

21 days post germination

This past week we started four varieties of cabbage, three varieties of broccoli, chard, and numerous pepper varieties. In just two days a majority of the cabbage and broccoli have already sprouted! As we speak Brad is busy building more shelving in our dining room for us to move the trays from the germination shelf to the growing shelves. We currently have our tray filling station set up in our dining room also. It's a bit messy, but at least it's a fun kind of messy. The children have enjoyed being able to help fill the seed trays with our seed starting mix and not have to worry about mommy freaking out cause of the dirt on the floor. It's the little things that make them happy and I'm happy to see them enjoying the process of growing food from the start all the way to harvest!

Isaac, Hannah, and Lindsey filling seed trays with our seed starting mix.

Broccoli just three days germination on over half the tray!

Three day germination on cabbage

Seed trays waiting to be filled!

Our very crowded dining room. This is not the final set up, just prep work!

Our Sunday picnic!

God's beautiful sunset overlooking the farm

It's time for me to go plant some more pepper seeds. This week we still have more peppers, tomatoes, leeks, and many more seeds to get started! We are busy, but we are loving it!

Until next time,

Tiff

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Spring cleaning or Cabin Fever?

2/3/2015

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If you are local and live in Kansas, wasn't the weather last week just beautiful? Seventy degrees in January? Yes please!!!! The whole family worked together outside a lot during that pleasant spring-like weather. We cleaned up some brush materials and miscellaneous items and burned them, Brad fixed the boy's bikes and put on new tires while I worked on organizing our back shed that we use for extra storage.

The rest of the house is waiting its turn for some one on one attention and I will eventually get to all the rooms. This weekend is supposed to be back in the 70's so I know we will be outside most likely working on our seedling greenhouse. Our first set of tomato starts are looking fantastic!

Once Mother Nature reminded us that it is still winter I no longer wanted to be outside cleaning. I didn't want to be inside cleaning for that matter either, but it had to be done. How can the house get so messy and cluttered if we spend most of our day outside? I told Brad that I was going to clean each room thoroughly. I feel like we have too much "stuff" and feel trapped and get overwhelmed by it. I decided to tackle my Spring cleaning while I had the time and was stuck inside versus doing it when it's beautiful outside and we are busy planting. I decided to tackle the three rooms we spend so much of our time in first: laundry room, school room, and kitchen.

Do you spend time on Pinterest? Brad says I do too much (he only says that cause I have 20+ tabs open of things to look at and decide if I want to pin for later). Anywho... I swoon over the beautiful looking laundry rooms that are bright and cheery. That is not my laundry room. My laundry room is our main entrance to our house. This means it is always dirty with shoes, coats, mud boots, miscellaneous tools, etc. I can hardly ever keep that room clean. I've tried. Everyone has a shoe basket, a tray for mud boots, and more than enough hooks for coats. It's getting better back there, but it's never going to be some glamorous room like you see on Pinterest. I call it a success back there as long as I can still get to the washing machine and not step on a muddy boot in the process! I worked on organizing it the other day. It's not perfect, but much better.and there is a clear path to the washer and dryer.

Next room to tackle: the school room. If that room is in disarray I find it very hard to be motivated to teach and I know they find it distracting to learn. I spent most of my weekend cleaning that room and whoa... are we ready to learn! My biggest hurdle for the school room is the game cabinet. The three youngest are always getting into it and pieces are everywhere. I spent probably two hours just putting the pieces back into the right boxes. That problem has been solved now... Daddy put on child-proof locks!!! It probably won't slow down Lindsey, but it will make it so Isaac leaves them alone for sure. My mother-in-law gave us the table we use as our main area of study. I had little desks at one point for everyone, but it is so handy just to have everyone there and I can circle around and help everyone. At times we are too close and feel like we are on top of each other, but rarely are we all working at the table at the same time unless it's an art or science project. Most of the time the youngest three and I will go to the living room to read books and discuss our lesson and then go back and do a worksheet or two. This allows the older two to work on math or reading without our disruption. Ray does most of his work independently, but still some guidance is needed. Sam can do his math and copy work on his own. We are working on his phonics and reading together. Sam has some speech difficulties so reading has not come as easily to him as Ray, but I think by the end of the summer he'll have his nose in a book as much as his older brother..

Our school room. The wooden shelf is full of art supplies, puzzles, games, and workbooks.

Mama's work station and occasional student desk when someone needs to be separated or wants to be separate from the others. The white shelf on the right of the desk is usually full of books from the library that we use for different subjects and topics. It looks like it's time to spend an afternoon at the library again!

My kitchen is never truly clean. It gets tidied up, but it never fails that my kitchen is always in disarray. I thought more counter tops would be a blessing compared to our last home, but instead I think they cause more work. I spread out and use every counter, or put stuff down on it and not put it away! (Hangs head in shame!) I read a blog post about clearing your counters off of everything for two weeks and see how it feels. Well, I cleared most of it. It's not feasible for everything to be moved. I like having my spices close by and my knife block handy. The grain mill and bread machine are too large to put away and our stainless steel Berkey water filter has to be on the island. I made the rest disappear though and it has been so nice walking into a nice, clean, orderly kitchen.

My lunch helper!

I did my spring cleaning with my new cleaning products that I got from a wonderful company called Norwex. I actually just signed up as a consultant in January. Brad and I are passionate about keeping as many chemicals and toxins away from our family as possible. We don't use chemicals on our farm, and we don't want to use chemicals in our home to make it "clean". Norwex has some great products and the majority of them clean with only water! If you are at all interested about learning about these products, please email me at serenityfarmcsa@hushmail.com or check out my website page at http://www.tiffanydilts.norwex.biz/ and I'd be happy to discuss them with you and show you how the products work. If you host a party you can earn FREE products! Now who doesn't like getting things for free?

Now it's time to go clean the rest of the rooms in the house. Happy cleaning to all of you!

Until next time,

Tiff

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A New Year

1/24/2015

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A new year is upon us and our family couldn't be more excited! The end of the year seemed to creep up on me and was gone in a flash. We had a wonderful Christmas with my family up in Iowa. The weather was chilly, but no snow. The children were disappointed since there is a pretty cool sledding hill near grandma's house, but we kept them busy doing other things. We played games, put together a puzzle, and watched movies. We were able to sit and relax and that was refreshing. It's always nice to get away from home for a bit, but it's always so comforting to come home too. My in-laws kept an eye on the animals and other than a short-lived escape from the lambs all was calm while we were out of town.

I guess Isaac didn't want his picture taken! Merry Christmas

The lettuce is still thriving in the greenhouse. With the temperatures getting colder at night it isn't growing as much as it had, but we are still eating fresh salads daily and it feels so good for the body. We have the lettuce covered with row covers to ensure a little more protection from the freezing temperatures.

We started over 400 tomato seeds this week.. In just 6 days, nearly half of them have germinated. These tomato plants will be transplanted into the greenhouse in mid to late March in hopes of having tomatoes to offer much earlier in the season. We just ordered another 130 Barred Plymouth Rock pullets. We should receive them in early February and have eggs from them in early August..

Brad has been busy working on our Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for further equipment and operation costs. We put together a short video that introduces ourselves and a tour of the farm to see what we plan to do. We also list what the funds will go towards including seeds, row covers, walk-in cooler for storing our produce, more greenhouse materials, and lots of chicks!!! Our fundraiser ends on February 7th so time is of the essence to help us out. We appreciate all the support we can get. Please spread the word to family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers! Here is a link to our fundraiser:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/serenityfarmcsa/help-bring-serenity-farm-organic-food-to-local-din

I haven't shared many photos of the kiddos much lately so here are some of my favorites over the past couple of months!

Daddy and his little man

Pretty in pink and ready to play in the snow

Isaac was waiting for lunch and Brad turned around and found that he fell asleep laying across our bucket of honey. His knees locked up and supported him. Brad carried him off to bed where he slept for another two hours. He was one tired boy!

Kansas sunset...BEAUTIFUL!

Big brother reading to everyone

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Family and Farm

12/10/2014

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I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We were blessed to host this year and had grandparents, aunts, and cousins over for a wonderful dinner. Post-dinner all the adults want to nap, but the kiddos seem to keep right on going. How does the tryptophan in turkey not affect them? On Friday following Thanksgiving we were surrounded by family and friends while we said good-bye to Brad's grandfather. He passed just four days before turning 98. It was a beautiful memorial with humorous stories about Harvey and his love of electric fences. Harvey was a proud father to three daughters, nine grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.

Lindsey at 18 months sitting with great-grandpa

Friday evening Brad and I were able to escape being mom and dad for a few hours and went out to dinner and a movie. It was lovely having a nice meal that someone else prepared, and no need to remind anyone about their table manners. After the movie I thought we were headed home for the evening, but Brad had a little surprise for me. He and my mom had been in cahoots! Brad surprised me with an overnight stay at a local bed and breakfast in Wichita! I was speechless! He is so good at planning surprises for me. When I try to plan a surprise he either figures it out or I get so excited about the surprise I tell him too soon. We had a lovely evening and breakfast was wonderful the next morning. I had the opportunity to sleep in a bit, but my internal clock woke up right on schedule waiting to hear the pitter patter of little feet running into our room in the morning. Luckily, I rolled over and went back to sleep for a bit! If you are interested in a night away also or guests coming to town who don't want to stay in a hotel, you may want to check out the Delano Bed And Breakfast. Tell them Brad and Tiffany Dilts from Serenity Farm sent you.

We celebrated Lindsey's 5th birthday on Saturday. Everyone was pretty worn out from all of the other busyness of the week that we kept it pretty low key. She was quite pleased with her owl cake and all of her gifts.

Some of our close friends purchased one of our mulefoot hogs and this past weekend we did the kill and butcher here on the farm. When Brad and I did our first hog, we really had no clue what we were doing. We had read a book or two, searched the internet, but for the most part we just winged it. Our friends took a different approach and as the pieced out each section they would watch a video on how to do it. Our pork tasted great, but their presentation of cuts may have been slightly more professional looking.

On Monday the temperatures were in the 60's and it was a beautiful day for us to be outside and finish cleaning off our garden. When the first freeze occurred we pulled all the green tomatoes off, but hadn't had a chance yet to pull the plants and stack the tomato cages. We got those taken care of and weeds pulled around the fence surrounding our garden. We pulled up some t-posts with wire hoops that we used for growing peas. It never worked really well and we struggled to keep weeds at bay. We will add more compost and cover with hay and this will be our potato patch next year.

This weekend we will be at the Farmer's Market at 21st. and Ridge from 8am-1pm. We will have fresh salad greens, kale, raw apple cider, apple butter, and fresh ground flour. Our oldest son Ray will have a few craft items he handmade for sale to continue to raise funds to grow his flock of sheep. We will be working on moving hogs and starting to mark off where growing beds for next spring will be placed this weekend also. It will be cloudy and gloomy the rest of the week and weekend, but our chances of rain look good on Sunday and next week. We welcome the moisture. The last rain brought 0.70 inches to Serenity Farm and we were quite pleased! Since outdoor work won't be possible with rain, I'll sit inside and browse the seed catalogs that are beginning to arrive and start dreaming up the plans for all of the fruits and vegetables to fill your boxes.

Until next time,

Tiff

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Thankful

11/26/2014

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I had this post ready around 4:00 today, but hadn't had time yet to publish it. Today was a busy day, like normal. Brad's mom and her husband are moving from the farm that Brad grew up on down the road from us and Brad went to get a larger trailer for them to load up vehicles and equipment onto. He brought the truck and trailer home to check over and make a small repair inside the cab of the truck. He came in to clean-up as we had to go to the family visitation for his grandfather that passed away last weekend. We were hurrying to get the children ready and they were heading out the door to get in the van when Hannah told Ray there was a fire. He looked, thinking it was just the burn barrel, when he saw the truck on fire. Brad ran outside while I called 911. Luckily for us, a passing car had already called the fire in and our volunteer fire department in Sedgwick was here quickly. They were able to put the fire out before more damage occurred. The Lord was watching over us again today. The wind was from the right direction and didn't catch our row of cedar trees on fire and it didn't spread to the new hoop building you see in the background with our tractor inside. It could have been a lot worse. The truck looks to be a total loss, although Brad did say the structure of the cab itself looked decent. We'll assess more in the morning and wait and hear from the insurance company. It appears that a pack rat nest in the dog house of the engine area (Truthfully, I have no idea what that means) was what caused the fire. Once the engine was shut down the heat from the turbo ignited the nest. Three units responded and there was a bit of a traffic jam, but we got lucky. It could have been a lot worse. Thank you Lord!

On to my original post! :)

We have so much to be thankful for this year. First, we are thankful to Lord and the prayers he has answered. Between illnesses and injuries, job changes, and major changes on the farm the Lord has always been there for us. Maybe not always in the timing that we wanted, but he is faithful in us as long as we are in Him. I am thankful for my wonderful husband. Through the ups and downs of this year we have been each others rock and we truly are stronger because of it. I couldn't imagine life without him. I'm thankful for our beautiful children. Life is crazy most days, but I couldn't imagine going through life without them all. They may make me want to pull my hair out some days and give up on home schooling, but then there are the moments everyday where they make me laugh uncontrollably, watch them learn and discover something new, and continue to grow in character that is pleasing to us and to the Lord. We are thankful to our family and our friends who have helped us along the way. To taking time off of their weekends to help assemble buildings, to giving advice how to proceed forward. Without them we wouldn't have gotten as far as we have this year. And last, but not least, thankful for the CSA members who stuck with us through the transition from Fiat Farm to Serenity Farm. We are so touched by comments we are hearing at the drops and through email from members about the excitement and the work that we are doing. Brad and I are passionate about providing quality food for our family and for all of yours. To continue our success we will need you and your support. Spread the word this holiday season with your family and friends and have them check out our website and see what they think about delicious, nutritious, local food that they could have each week starting next spring. I am thankful for the "down" time we have right now, but I am so excited to get our seeds started and transplanted and see new growth out in the field. I can't wait for fresh snap peas, mouth-watering tomatoes, juicy watermelons, and more pasture-ranged eggs than I can cook up for breakfast. The possibilities are endless this coming year and we know it will be hard work, but are so looking forward to providing you with the food that you desire.

We wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family and friends. If you feel like it, please share in the comment section what you are thankful for this year.

Hoping our day tomorrow is less eventful than it was today!

Until next time,

Tiff

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Brrrr

11/17/2014

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I don't know about you, but I was not ready for it to be this cold already. We knew the cold was coming for several days, but it never fails that every year there is a mad dash to get everything buttoned up. Maybe we were caught off guard since the first cold spell was so early, but more likely, we've just been so busy trying to finish things up outside knowing that the warmer weather would be done soon that we felt the time crunch. Our Monday in the nice 70 degree weather was spent getting the animals ready. Ray and Sam helped with loading hay into the wagon behind the 4-wheeler to fill the pig huts with bedding and some for the pigs to nibble on too. They also cleaned the stock tanks, refilled, and got the heated deicers plugged in. Next, the lambs shelter was modified and extra hay bedding was brought in. The chickens were left in their chicken tractors, but we wrapped them in tarps (the tractors, not the chickens :) to keep the cold north wind from blowing straight in. Ray and I covered the lettuces and kale in the greenhouse with extra layers of frost blankets to hold in the heat. Brad spent the afternoon putting foam boards into a wooden box so we could store the soaked pig feed with a lamp to keep the feed from freezing. We quickly sealed up gaps around the door frame of the greenhouse and covered the vents with foam to keep the wind from blowing through. When all was said and done, we were in for the night around 10pm, six hours after the front blew through the farm.

Before the weather changed we were able to complete the work on our tarp building. Around 5pm one evening the wind went calm so we called up my father-in-law and a close family friend and in four hours the tarp was set up, pulled over, and tied down with no complications. In fact, I ran into town to get some pizza for dinner since this was a spur of the moment event and dinner hadn't yet been planned and by the time I got back (I was gone only 10 minutes) they had the tarp pulled up and over. It reminded of me when I ran to the grocery store when they put up all the greenhouse frames before I got back. It was a relief that it went as smoothly as it did, so I won't complain about missing the cool stuff. The next day the plywood boards were put up on three sides. Now it's ready to be filled!

Since the spring season on the farm has always been a busy time for us, even before taking over the CSA, I always do a fall cleaning/purging of the home. I started in our living and dining room this week. I always hope that no one come to surprise visit us while I'm deep cleaning because it always looks worse before it looks better. I remember a couple of years ago I was cleaning the children's room and pulling stuff out of their closet. I had stuff everywhere and my oldest said to me that he thought I was cleaning their room, not making it worse. Sometimes to clean a mess, you have to make a bigger mess. Surely someone out there understands what I mean.

I hope you all enjoyed the snowfall we got. We got between 2-3 inches here. We will take any and all moisture we can get and if it comes in the form of snow, so be it. I know our children were quite happy to wake up on Sunday morning to a snow covered farm. We don't have any hills for sledding. A compost pile yes, but a true hill, no. So we make do and do it our own way. We hook up two sleds that Brad used when he was growing up and pull them behind the 4-wheeler in the field behind our house. Everyone comes inside cold, but happy. I have the hot cocoa ready and the wood stove is always warm and ready to sit by.

After a successful first drop a couple of weeks ago we are looking forward to our next this coming Thursday. We learned a lot about what works and what doesn't work when it comes to filling boxes. We will be learning more each time we do it and will have it down to an art by next spring.

Stay warm and enjoy the "warmer" temperature arriving later this week!

Until next time,

Tiff

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A little of this, a little of that

11/5/2014

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Life is very busy at Serenity Farm. Brad and I have been hopping from one thing to the next on the farm trying to get as much accomplished before the cold weather is here to stay. It finally feels like fall, instead of a long, never ending summer. The warmer temperatures were a blessing to us last month as it allowed our late planting for the fall to have some extra time to grow before the cooler days and nights arrived. We received our first freeze on Friday night into Saturday morning. Our tomato plants in the garden are a thing of the past and the sweet potatoes are now ready to be harvested. The row covers appeared to have done the job well and saved the small lettuces from freezing in the field. The greenhouse was nice and cool the next morning, but all looks well and is growing nicely.

Yum! Fresh lettuce!

Speaking of our greenhouse...we have discovered an excellent way to weed the areas where lots of grass was growing, but few to little crops, Chickens!!! Our personal broilers were being moved around the pasture each morning, but after having lots of weed/grass growth we decided to put them into the greenhouse and see what they could do. Wow! We were amazed. In a matter of hours they had cleared their section of grass, a few lettuces, and weeds and were ready to go to the next section. They created a nice seed bed for us and added a little extra fertilizer. That was a nice bonus! They should be ready for us to butcher in a couple more weeks. These chickens are the Cornish Cross and will NOT be the kind that we will raise next year for ourselves and members of Serenity Farm. These guys were at Orscheln's and we were able to get them for $1.oo a bird. That's pretty hard to pass up. They grow a little slower for us since we only feed once in the morning and then move them around for the day to forge for the rest of their food. We will be raising Freedom Ranger chicks next spring which are meant to forage on pasture, not huddle around the feed container.

Our Plymouth Barred Rock pullets are growing quite nicely. We did lose a few before moving them into the pasture and I believe I know who the culprit happened to be. Our mama cat and her babes. They hung around the chicken area a bit and I didn't think much of it until we went to move them and only counted 43 instead of 53! Naughty kitties! Four of these kitties have now been relocated to another farm and we are left with mama cat and her friendly baby.

Hannah checking on the vetch seeds

This past weekend Brad planted hairy vetch in our growing bed area and one acre where we will plant sweet corn in our field. Hairy vetch is used as a cover crop to add nitrogen to the soil, protect soil from erosion, help improve soil health, and provide weed control during growth in the spring and when left as a dead mulch at the soil surface. Hairy vetch can also be grazed or harvested as forage. Our plan is three weeks before we want to plant in the row beds to turn under the vetch and then cover with mulch plastic as a barrier for weed seeds to sprout. Three weeks is the recommended time you wait to plant after turning under a cover crop. We will do this to the beds as the planting time correlates, not before, in order to prevent weed growth and moisture loss. Hairy vetch can get quite tall and full. The flowers are edible.

Vetch in bloom

We have been working here and there on a hoop building for the past several months to store equipment and we are nearing completion. We are ready to put the tarp cover in place and add the wood sides. Mother Nature decided to delay our progress with several days of high winds. Trying to put a large piece of material up in high winds would be disastrous. When we were putting the plastic up on the greenhouse we got a very early start and we just barely got the plastic secured before the wind shifted and increased.

While up on the ladder Brad took several pictures of the pasture so you could see the work the pigs have done. They have literally destroyed our pasture, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. We have plans to reseed the pasture, but that won't happen until spring at this point. We have seed ready, but the pigs won't be off until it is too late to plant. From the pictures below you can see the area where the CSA pigs have been grazing. A couple days ago we shifted the fence to allow for a larger grazing area and separated our boars from the rest of the herd. They were getting a little too "excited".

Mama's little helper while moving the pig fence!

And, because he is just so darn cute, I had to include a picture of me with my "baby". My little boy, who really isn't so little anymore, loves to go where we go and while working on the pig fence this was the only way to have him tag along and keep him safe. He had a great view!

Until next time,

Tiff

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Apples

10/26/2014

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Fall is known for apples and the Lord has blessed us with many. A local orchard that we know, about 20 miles west of us outside of Burrton, allowed us to come pick apples. We picked apples until we couldn't see them anymore and came home with approximately 3,000 pounds! Some were fed to the pigs (they love apples!) but most were made into products for your family and ours to enjoy. We have pressed gallons upon gallons of raw apple cider, several dozen half-pints of apple butter, and several dozen quarts of applesauce. Our pantry is filling up quite nicely!

Last Saturday we invited some friends over for an Apple Cider Party. Everything is more fun when you call it a party! With their help and the help of our children we were able to press several gallons in about 4 hours. There were many steps in our processing set up. First there was the "apple pool" This is where our oldest daughter (and a friend) scrubbed the apples and waded through and put them into small buckets to send to the next station.

The second station was a quick spray of the hose to get remaining grass and leaves off and a quick dunk in a dilute bleach tank. The final rinse was a continuous flow of water where they were then taken to the cutting table and chopped. Our youngest daughter and middle son took turns here.

At the cutting table most of the adults did the cutting but our oldest helped and we did numerous finger checks and everything is still attached.

It was a beautiful day with family and friends producing a wonderful, healthy, sweet drink and snack for all to enjoy. We will be offering apple cider and apple butter to our CSA members and at the local Farmer's Market starting next month.

Until next time,

Tiff

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Greenhouse, Coming Right Up

9/18/2014

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The day finally arrived that our schedule and the schedules of a couple of friends meshed and we were able to get most of the greenhouse put up last Saturday. When I say we, I (Tiffany) was not involved, but Brad, Ray, Sam, our friend Mike, and our other friend Paul and his two sons were able to get a large part of it completed in just a few hours. I left with the three littles to go get some groceries and while driving up the hill to our farm I was in shock to what I saw. They had the whole main structure in place. In ONE hour! I couldn't believe I missed so much while I was gone. Luckily, Sam had the camera and took a lot of pictures (over 75 to be exact), but I'll share just a few.

His first "selfie" We don't have smart phones in our family so he has no clue what that word means, but he did a good job taking his own picture.

South end is up

The Supermen

Good job guys!

Working on number 3. Sam is standing at the north end of the greenhouse area looking south.

Digging a trench all the way around to put the bottom frame on to hold the plastic in place.

Isaac loves to climb and he would have gone to the top if we would have let him. Makes this mama's heart skip a beat!

It was a really long day putting up the greenhouse, but it's great progress being made on the farm. The greenhouse frame really changes the landscape of the farm. Hopefully we will have the ends on and the plastic up in another week or so. Then we can start growing some cool weather greens for our family and yours!

Until next time,

T

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Dreams Really Do Come True-

9/1/2014

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Tomorrow morning the family and I will trek out to the middle of Kansas to take down and load up a 30 x 60 greenhouse that will be the first step in many to fulfilling a dream B and I have had for years. We are taking over an existing CSA (Consumer Supported Agriculture). For those who don't know what that means, I'll give a brief description and in another post I'll explain how ours will operate. The idea of a CSA is that a customer/family pay a set amount for a share into your farm for the goods that you grow and each week for a certain amount of months per year they receive fresh produce from your farm. Most CSAs are fruit and vegetable base, but our goal is to grow not only the fruits and vegetables you need in your diet, but also your beef, chicken, turkey, lamb, pork, grains, eggs, sweeteners, and dairy products year round. We dream of being able to provide as much of our own and our customers daily diet needs directly from the farm and limiting the necessity to visit the grocery store to only the things we are unable to raise or produce ourselves. At times it is an overwhelming concept, to be responsible for growing food for not only our own family, but for over a hundred other people. We feel so blessed to be given this opportunity and we know that this is all possible because our Lord and Savior has guided us down this path. Many events have changed our lives this year and this is just evidence to how God shapes our lives and how He is in control.

Our camera is MIA at the moment so there will be no pictures in this post, but I'll make up for it in the next one.

Until next time,

T

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T

I want to be the best homesteader I can be, while teaching my children at home in the school room and outside on the farm.

T

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