Catch Up -Tractor Time!

Gunnar has been on a no nap kick which of course means no blog posts. I tell myself I sill do it once he is in bed but that never seems to happen. He is blessing me with a few minutes right now so let's see how much I can catch ya'll up!

After all the flack G received from riding in the Barbie Jeep in Tulsa I was super stoked to find a John Deere ride on for him on Craigslist a few weeks ago. It was a super deal! When I first emailed about it the woman told me someone else had already called but she would let me know if they flaked out. Bummer! However, after the library that weekend I had a missed 503 call on my cell phone. When I called back it was the tractor lady. The original buyer didn't want to drive that far. So G and I loaded up, drove the 3 hour round trip and are now the proud owners of a pint sized tractor.

He is still a bit big for him but that is good since he is growing like a weed. A few shots of it in the house:

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Back to basics

Moving to rural Oregon from Brooklyn NY really has been a dream come true for Nick. Sometimes I think it was a dream he had not been fully able to even dream in NYC so it is awesome watching him explore. He is constantly trying to think of ways to decrease our dependence on outside support systems. From gardening to hunting, raising livestock and producing bio-diesel his mind is always going and with him being such a capable person the experiments are amazing. It seems like every week the library calls that another book on sustainable something or other has come in.

His most recent find is a documentary called The Farmer and the Horse. I watched it last night and really enjoyed it. It is a very informative so even for those who think "living off the land" is nuts you should check it out. Your local library probably has it. You can check it out and even purchase a copy here and I really encourage you to.

Enjoy. Some great food for thought!

Gotcha

Nick has been on extra mole patrol while our neighbor is out of town. He got a record kill this week of THREE moles. His friends bought some new super fancy mole traps and they caught nothing. Very fun to rub that in. Yes, that is the excitement of farm life. I keep teasing Nick he needs to have a stole made from the pelts. He could be a pimp with a mole stole for Halloween!

For the birds

This morning we delivered the remaining brooded chickens that were not ours. The family they went to had done an amazing job with the coop. It had nicer windows than we have on our house! Lucky chickens! While we were there we got see the pigs they are raising. Hilarious! Our dog Truck really must be a pig mix as they rooted, snorted and pranced around just like he does. Gunnar was cracking up.

Here is a pic of the result of all of our hard chicken raising work - beer butt chicken. Delicious!

More Developments

We have lots of LIFE going around the farm as well. Nick is so amazing and it is all due to him that we have such a wonderful farm. Here you can see a lot of his hard work paying off.

Yesterday Nick did some yard work (blackberry pulling) for a friend who in turn paid him AND gave him a ton of starts from his green house. The garden is coming along beautifully with:

Bell peppers:

Baby upside down tomatoes:

Pole Beans:

Early giant tomatoes and basil:

Tomatoes and asparagus beans with cherry trees to the side:

Little giant corn:

Eating grapes ready to go in:

Those itty bitty strawberry plants are now the strawberry JUNGLE:

The new gorgeous compost bin to keep the cycle of life going:

And last but not least, all that grass seed we planted on the east side of the property has come in beautifully:

It will probably be ready for its first mow next weekend. So gorgeous back there. What an improvement from an overgrown thorn patch!

Chicken Process

Two weekends ago we went to our friend's farm to process our chickens. It was a long day of hard work but the end result (delicious chickens) was well worth it. Here are a few shots of the fun:

The before:

These chickens were BIG. They have clearly enjoyed their free range lifestyle and it paid off in some beautiful body weight. This photo was even taken a few weeks before we processed so you can imagine how big they got. Check out the chicken in the middle right!

We raised the chicks with our neighbor who came up with the perfect transport carrier. He and Nick loaded them into the bed of his little pick up, added some fencing and voila - they were ready for the ride to Corbett:

Of course upon arrival they probably should have weighed the pros and cons of that adventure. Step one everyone into the killing cone:

It was a family affair in every sense of the word. Here is Ray and his son Jake working on the cleaning:

Of course Gunnar joined in:


Gunnar and I took a break to walk around the property a bit. Laura has 40 beautiful acres filled with beautiful creatures.

Here are her Icelandic sheep enjoying the shade. As a labor trade Nick is back on her farm today to help get these guys sheared:

Her bull glaring at the cows below. "Just a few more weeks ladies" was clearly what he was trying to say with all his snorting:
All in all it was a long, hot, messy but productive day. Kudos to G for putting in a long napless day! We now have 20 gorgeous chickens in the deep freeze to get us through to next year. Nick grilled a "beer butt" chicken and the consensus was that it was DELICIOUS!

Fun on the farm

Things have been quiet here on the blog because there has been so much going on on the farm! I did manage to document a few projects so for your viewing pleasure:

We were really lucky a few weeks ago that our neighbor showed up with his industrial tiller and tilled the entire wooded side yard for us. This is the same space that Nick ran the skidder through last year and has been slowly chipping away at some trees but it was still quite a mess. Now it is GORGEOUS! Here is a shot of the tilled pathway that we have now seeded with grass seed:


The hardest part was that apparently under all that brush was approximately one million rocks! After all was tilled up we raked, tossed rock and seeded with the rocks going into the creek bed and pond we dug last year. Just to give you an idea of how many rocks we are talking about:

Our backs are still sore!

Nick made a super cook rock stack in the pond:


This past weekend was the last weekend for backyard burning so we FINALLY got the remains of the males and fir we fell last year cleaned up. Our brush piles went from three to just one of firewood to finish splitting and stacking. I don't have a shot of it's current state but here you can get the idea:


Needless to say the neighbors are thrilled with our spring cleaning! Did I mention our sore backs?

Not to worry, it is not all work and no play. Truck did an excellent job of supervising whole working on his tan:


Gunnar tested out his birthday swing:


And helped with the kitchen organization:


Still on the list: chicken slaughter, new compost bin, berm planting.....PLENTY!

A hint of spring

What a wonderful May Day! Sunday was a TPTGTP day (too pretty to go to Portland day) so Gunnar and I skipped swimming lessons for a little spring cleaning on the farm.

Here are some pics of pre spring happenings:

My die hard daisies already making an appearance:
A friend gave us literally a hundred strawberry plants thinned from a neighbor's yard so we now have a fully stocked berry hill (which the deer continue to destroy), berries all along the back fence of the garden and a berry corner. YUM!
We moved all the chicks into the large stall in our barn. The reds are getting so big!
Nick tilled our side yard and planted some seed just in time for the wet week ahead:
And it is so much fun he tilled the neighbor's yard too:

Latest Addition to the Herd

Meet Chucky the Chukar!



Nick's friend managed to trap this Chukar who was causing a nuisance in his neighborhood and relocate him to our farm. They really beautiful birds and quiet unless in danger. The chickens bully him so he has taken to roaming during the day and then returning to roost at our place in the evening. We will see if he stays.

New Beginings

Spring is trying to make her appearance here in the West and Nick is more than ready! He has begun his starts in the green house and baby chicks just arrived today. We are brooding our chicks plus additional for our friends with the neighbor. We are trying out black sumatras for our new layers and the broilers are some sort of red chicken. They sure are cute when they are little.

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Gettin' it done

The Cub Cadet is sadly out of action right now but Nick's friend Tom was kind enough to loan him his skidder to clean up the side yard. Here are some shots of Nick in heaven:

Indian Summer

Today marks the second day of seventy degrees with clear blue skies on the mountain. Oh...this is what summer was SUPPOSED to be like! To celebrate I went out and harvested more blackberries this afternoon. These are going to be a welcome remembrance of summer come this winter!

Granted I had on jeans and a black tee but I even started to sweat! Just a faint glimpse of those Oklahoma summers growing up swimming in ponds and licking blackberries. I can't wait for Gunnar to have wonderful Oregon summer memories!

And there is more

Here you can see two other projects currently in the works at London Acres. Nick is working on a wood shed plus putting down bark dust on half the backyard:

Timber

Today we finally had the dead trees in the side pasture taken down. The tree climber who did it was at least 60 and definitely gave Nick a run for his stamina's money!


This guy can't figure out what happened to his home. It was right over here...

Summer?

This has been a very weird summer for the pacific northwest and it has wreaked havoc on our garden. To put things in perspective, we have used the heat off and on throughout the summer and today I have on my fleece! So far we have been luck enough to enjoy our lettuce, kale and most recently squash from the garden. In the green house we have ONE small tomato that is trying to turn red. The funniest thing is that Nick started some watermelon from seed and we actually have a couple of watermelons on the vine in the greenhouse. I was going to post pictures but Nick had a good point that no one else would be impressed. Maybe we will get enough heat and sun here at the finish line to actually get some fruit. Otherwise we will be focusing on greenhouse crops as we gear up for winter.

There is always next year!

Taters!

Nick was out watering this morning and was sad to see that some of our potato plants had died. He decided to pull them up and found.....

They weren't dead, just done. YUM!

Morning Rounds

This morning while Gunnar and I were doing our morning farm chores the dew was so beautiful on the strawberry plants that we had to share:

The picture really doesn't do it justice but I am sure you get the idea.

One of the wonderful things about our small town is that we have the most amazing neighbors! Here is Gunnar enjoying the rocking chair given to us this week by our neighbors:


Closeup for extra cuteness:


Notice the pillows? That is my idea of restoring a chair. Nick has big plans for it involving wood, sanding and such which will be amazing but for now it suits us just fine.