I am probably the worst blogger ever...

because I get SO busy...

But, I still love to blog when I think about it or have something I'd like to share, and a few times this spring I've wished for my blog back so I could write about what was going on here at the farm. We've had flooding (!!), baby goats (always exciting, no matter how many times we've gone through kidding!), new goats (again, always exciting), put in our garden, and had lots of other interesting things happen.

We're making yogurt and kefir from our fresh milk. Ice cream, too. We also just made our first batch of mozzarella and ricotta cheese (I'm encouraged that we will get better and better at cheesemaking with time.) Our hens are getting old and not laying so well, so we have some younger pullets started and some more chicks coming this week. This time we chose an old timey breed; Buff Orpingtons. Hopefully at least some of the new ladies will go broody and hatch their own eggs and we can have a self sustaining flock of layers. We ditched the old row crop method with our garden this year and put in raised beds (check out http://www.squarefootgardening.com/index.php/The-Project/how-to-square-foot-garden.html , it's so easy!) We are super, super happy with them already and hope to eventually have our entire old garden plot filled with boxes (that won't happen this year, though.) We've used recycled lumber on them where we can. I've been *trying* to get back into my old habit of baking our bread, but again, I get so busy that I don't always manage it. I've modified two different recipes into one that works well for our family (three loaves of freshly ground whole wheat bread in about an hour!!) but need to work on keeping it made. I'll post the recipe sometime, with pics.

We're always busy here and we're never caught up (ever, lol) but we're content, and happy to have something to do all the time. We don't get bored here! I don't know if we will ever reach our goal of a self sustaining mini farm, but it's fun to try, and super satisfying to produce at least part of our own food and know that what we are feeding our children is healthy and pure, and teaching them that food isn't a product that you pick up off of the shelf at the grocery store.