December 30

 

Evening Walk

Farm Decisions

Well, we finally made some decisions about how to balance the arrival of a new baby in May and what we have going on with the farm. After much deliberation, we are selling our Jersey heifer.



I knew early on that we didn't need to have a lactating bovine along with a lactating me. It took a little longer to decide to not keep our unbred heifer at all.

We have had some responses to an ad we posted to sell her, so I am hoping to have everything taken care of before winter sets in. As much fun as it was hauling 5 gallon buckets of water from inside the house out to the barn in two feet of snow and freezing temperatures last year, I thought it might not be *quite* as much fun while 6 months pregnant. But who knows, maybe I'm wrong...

Regardless, it was still a difficult decision and we'll all feel some sadness when Ellie finds a new home. We all know it is for the best, though. Just having her for the past 19 months has taught us so much about cows, farm life and ourselves. And honestly, one of the best lessons was learning that I think I may be more suited to having goats!

Next challenge will be to restrain myself on my garden seed order...

Our New Neighbors

We're all excited about the new abode on the farm!

 

It started out looking like this:

 

But with a lot of this:

 

It turned into this:
 


There's more finishing work to be done, but Ben (my brother) and Stacey moved in yesterday. And so the adventure begins- Ben & Stacey embark on their tent-living adventure and we all embark on our pseudo-communal-living adventure. Fun and challenges to come for all. I'll post more detailed pictures of the building process soon. They should be adding a working door today!

Strawberry Countdown

My coastal North Carolina friends and family are already enjoying red, ripe strawberries. It's true, I saw it on Facebook. And I salivated.

We're still waiting for the first hints of rosiness to appear here in our little patch. We have strawberries in all stages-- except ripe.

Just leaves
 


Dainty flower
 


Fruiting flower
 


Greenies!
 


I can hardly wait...
 

Growing a Blog

The self-imposed pressure of writing the perfect first blog entry is too great for a soul like me to ever hope to start a blog. Solution? Suck it up, intentionally write something imperfect, and get on with it.

Another challenge? The naming of said blog. I know I am silly, but the major obstacle to starting a blog for me has been the naming of it. How to decide? Seriously, I have been thinking of starting a blog for 3+ years, but couldn't get past naming it. Well, except for those three times I started a blog, name and all, but within a couple days (and before I could write the perfect first entry) decided the name wasn't quite right. You laugh, but I'm serious. I often try to hide my perfectionism (I do particularly well at this in the housekeeping department), but here I could not. I have word, language, grammar and naming hang-ups. Imagine the process of naming my three children. Thankfully, I have a husband who vetoed 99.9% of the baby names I suggested, so the field of choice was very narrow. But, I digress. Anyway, as someone who likes to rearrange as much furniture as possible on a monthly basis, who knows how long I'll be happy with the name, but for now it seems perfect, if somewhat grandiose.

Our endeavor here can hardly be called a farm right now, but our plans and dreams are big and with hard work and a little divine providence, I think we can grow into the blog's name. Besides, farmkitchentable was available and kitchentable was not.

So using the term "farm" in the title is a bit of a stretch, but the kitchen table connection is solid reality! Firstly, food and family take center stage at our house, and we currently eat all our meals at a beautiful, round table that graced my paternal grandparents' house as far back as I can remember. I imagine the topics of food and family (particularly my children's antics) will take center stage of this blog. Also, we homeschool our children, and many of our messes and masterpieces are created at our kitchen table.

Another hope for this blog is that it is a way to keep in touch with friends far and wide. One of my favorite ways to spend time with friends is with good food and good conversation around the table in a cozy kitchen. This little corner of the blogosphere will hopefully provide a small dose of that connection, albeit inferior to face-to-face company.

To top it all off, I just happened, this week, to discover and fall in love with a song by Tish Hinojosa titled, "The Kitchen Table."




So here's to all the celebrations of family, friends, food and all the messes and masterpieces I hope to record and/or create here at my little Farm Kitchen Table. And may I not be paralyzed by my desire for perfect grammar and phrasing of my blog posts.

Enjoy!

KM

P.S. Why yes, I have edited this entry 3 times after I first published it. Wanna make somethin' of it?