Our neighbor just down the road is a cattle breeder and has over 150 head of cattle. Recently he had a cow die during calving due to a ruptured artery from uterine prolapse. Luckily her little calf survived. That was on St. Patrick’s Day so he was named Patrick. And here he is!

Because Patrick does not have a momma he needs to be bottle fed. He gets 5 pints of cow formula twice a day. In between he goes and roams in the pasture and sleeps in the barn at night. When it comes to feeding time he gets very excited, hopping around, head butting you, and sucking on your fingers thinking he’s gonna get milk. Once the bottle is ready Patrick is all over it!

(Apologies for the sound but it was pouring rain and the barn has a metal roof.)

Look at that tail go! Such a happy calf.

We’ve fed him a few more times since and Patrick is quite the character. If he’s out in the pasture and you call him he will come running over. He’s easy to spot because he isn’t tagged like all of the other cows. Since he was born he’s almost doubled in weight. Sometimes when a calf loses its momma it doesn’t grow as well but not Patrick! Here’s to more feedings and watch this little guy grow into a big, happy bull.

And now we till!

Meet the Sod Cutter 5000. OK, so that’s not the actual model number but it is a sod cutter. My wonderful hubby shoved this thing around the massive patch of grass I paced out for the crazy number of plants I have decided to grow. About 2-3 hours later and all of the grass to be removed had been sliced from the earth. That would be the easy part of this phase of the process.

Next came raking. And more raking. And more raking. All of the cut strips of grass needed to be removed and as tractor-less farmers here is where good old manual labor came in. We raked until all the daylight was gone and there is still a massive amount of grass to clear out. I’m sure there is a more efficient way to accomplish this but using the tools we have on hand is what we are making due with.

But as toiling as the work is I couldn’t help but think that the Agrarians were onto something here. Working the land to bring about a harmony between Man and Nature. To put your entire life into the soil and pray to God, who brought both Nature and Man into existence, to bless your efforts so that one could continue to live on and honor all that He has given us. And it is through this simple labor that I have found an inner calm and peace that I think only this direct connection to the Earth can bring.

And so tomorrow brings another blessed day. Another day of labor and sweat. Another day of bonding with the land and connecting to Nature. Yes, the Agrarians were definitely onto something.

Meet our storm shelter Bunky. Bunky is quite spacious inside and with a little more provisioning will be just perfect to weather any storm that might try and roll through.

It’s not much right now but I have been working on improvements as we move into “tornado season”.

The table and benches were already there and I had just added the storage shelf and lantern a couple days before the storm rolled through. These seemed like the bare minimum items to have. Moving forward I plan to stock it with more comfortable chairs, some blankets, and emergency food and water supplies. All of those items will be stored in large plastic totes on the shelves to keep the creepy crawlies that love to live down there out of them. It could also do with a good pressure washing to really knock off the dust and whatnot that has accumulated.

I hope to never actually need to use this thing but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared when Nature decides She wants to come and mess with you.

As I stated in my Thistle post we have around 20-ish acres of pasture land on our property. We currently do not own any cattle but that is a future investment. So we lease our land to our neighbor for his cattle to use. Last year his cows were here from about July through September to rotationally graze through our lands. Rotational grazing is different than your traditional grazing. Rotational grazing is “a system of pasturing, whereby livestock are moved to portions of the pasture, called paddocks, while the other portions rest.”[1]

Last night the cows returned!

Our neighbor and his ranch hands along with us helped to drive 120 head of his cattle onto our property and down by our creek. Last fall he had sowed some rye and oats on the other side and they are now ready for cow chompin’.

Cows are a herd animal so they tend to follow each other around. To get the cows to go where they need to go they lead them with the feed truck and honk it’s horn which is the cow equivalent of “dinner’s ready!” They follow along with ATVs to keep them in line and drive the ones that don’t want to get with the program back in line. Seems straight forward but we’re talking about 1,000 pound animals that are running.

Jo: Cow. ‘Nother cow.

Bill: Actually I think that was the same one.

I started with my San Marzano Tomatoes. Here they are in all their seedling glory. They were planted on 2/13/22 and I ended up transplanting them on 3/7/22.

Taking the seedling cells out of the green portion of the mini-greenhouses you can see how extensively their little root systems have already developed. This is why they needed to move into a larger home.

And here are their new homes. These are 4 inch plastic trays that I picked up at the local nursery.

To transplant these tomatoes from their old containers to their new ones I added more moistened seed starter soil to the new containers until they were about halfway full. I then removed one of the seedling clumps from its cell. You can see in the picture below what a single seedling clump looks like. I had sown 6 seeds per cell in groups of 2 and luckily most of them sprouted.

Tomatoes have hearty root systems but I still gently separated them into groups of 2 and planted each of those groups in one of the new, larger 4” cells. Tomatoes will grow roots on their stems as far up as you cover them with soil. This is beneficial when transplanting because they can easily grow more new roots. Below you can see them in their new homes.

These are where they will grow until it is time to transplant them directly into the soil outside. They just need to get a little bigger with some secondary and tertiary leaves along with the weather cooperating outside. Come on Spring!

In the picture above the first row is the dry peat pellets out of the box and the second row is what they look like once fully soaked in water. Once soaked you simply make a small hole for your seed, pop it in, cover and you’re done!

These seeds are the largest that I have started so far. The rule of thumb regarding how deep to plant seeds for starting is roughly double the width or diameter of the seed. If you plant your seeds too deep they may fail to germinate due to a lack of warmth, moisture, light, or air. For these squash seeds the package said they needed to have soil temps in the 70F to 75F range. To achieve this I put them in one of my mini-greenhouses and popped them onto the seed heat mat.

And now we wait. Again. The package said 6 to 10 days for germination. I’m placing my bets on 4 days based on my current track record. We shall see how accurate I am.

Herbs can provide powerful flavors to our foods to enhance their deliciousness. But their seed beginnings are very humble. To give folks some perspective on just how small some seeds can be I took some pictures of my herb seeds next to a quarter.

Yes, those little pinhead size specs are actual seeds. Amazing how such tiny little things can grow into something so tasty. I only planted 8 of each, 2 per cell, in my little greenhouses. Roughly 4 days later seed magic has occurred!

From left to right is Oregano, Thyme, then Sage. The Thyme has taken off the most with 5 sprouts so far, followed by Oregano with 2, and Sage lagging at 0. I did poke around a little in one of the Sage cells and saw a little plant starting to uncurl out of its seed, so they just need a little more time. Fingers crossed they continue to grow from tiny to mighty.

Now I’m not a pasture expert by any means but one of the first things I noticed in our pastures when we moved in was a plethora of these:

This is thistle. There are many species of thistle and I’m not exactly sure which one this is. What I do know is that it is PAINFUL. Don’t let those pretty purple flowers deceive you. These Siren weeds have sharp thorns that give even the best pair of gloves a run for their money. They are also massive growing 3 to 5 feet in height causing them to choke out the healthy pasture grasses.

And that is why they had to go. Cows can’t eat thistle and the thistle keeps their grass from growing. For weeks my husband and I hacked away at these evil weeds to clear them out. They were especially heavy in the back pastures and along the tree lines. Some of the thistle looked like they had been around for quite a while based on their size. I never thought I would have a use for a machete in my life, but thistle whacking has changed that.

Once we had hacked them down to nubs, we went back over them with a weed killer made for thistle killing. They can have a pretty extensive root system that makes them hard to eradicate completely and is one reason why they are so invasive. Here are our second round of thistle killing tools.

It was a lot of work and pain to clean the massive overgrowth of thistle out, but it got done. Now that Spring is right around the corner we are once again on thistle watch. Their life cycle is to grow rosettes in Winter that then shoot up the spiky stalks with the deceptively pretty flowers in Spring and finally in late Summer let their plethora of seeds fly. Alas, the devil weeds are trying to return. Here are just a couple of the way too many rosettes we have found in our walkabouts. They have been dealt with and we continue to find more. Sigh.

One final interesting note on thistle is that they are edible. I have zero plans to eat any thistle I run across, but the internet does actually have recipes for cooking thistle. Who knew?

Nope, not a typo. Today we are going to talk about kombucha. That sour, fizzy, probiotic filled hippie drink that is becoming more mainstream on market shelves. It also comes with a pretty decent price tag. Fortunately, homemade kombucha is relatively easy to make and is a gift that will keep on giving as you will see. This makes it a wonderful addition to the pantry.

Kombucha is basically fermented tea. All you need to make it is a 1 gallon jar, black tea, sugar, water, and a magical creature known as a SCOBY.

What, pray tell, is a SCOBY? This is a SCOBY:

I’ll give y’all a moment to process what you just saw.

SCOBY stands for “Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast”. The best description I’ve read was to think of the SCOBY “as the coral reef of the bacteria and yeast world”. You can make your own SCOBY but I bought mine from a company called Fermentaholics. The SCOBY comes in a bag with a starter liquid and from this you create your first batch of kombucha. Just follow the directions. Once it’s mixed up you put it in your 1 gallon jar and cover it with cheesecloth to allow the fermentation byproducts out and to keep anything else from getting in.

The hardest part of making kombucha? Patience. Yes, another food project that takes time. Once you have your batch mixed up you let it sit for roughly 2-3 weeks. It all depends on how sour you like things. I like sour so I let mine sit around for longer. Here is the current batch that I have fermenting.

Once it develops the taste you like you get to bottle it. At this point you can add other juices for flavoring. My family personally likes to add ginger juice. We make this by juicing the fresh ginger root that you can buy in the store (for which I am also very tempted to figure out how to grow my own). Around 2 tsp of ginger juice added to 16 oz of kombucha gives us a pretty close flavor profile to what we were buying in the market for a fraction of the price.

This is where your SCOBY becomes the gift that keeps on giving. When you go to bottle you remove your SCOBY and put it in a clean container with 1 cup of your kombucha. This will be the starter for your next batch. Thanks creepy SCOBY!

One bottled you let it continue to ferment for another few days. This is what builds up the carbonation to create that refreshing fizziness. Once you think the carbonation level is good you can chill your newly bottled kombucha down in the fridge and then enjoy!

Mildred is one of my original six chicks that I ordered when we first moved into our new home. Hatched on 6/1/21 like her other 5 “chicklings” she made her way to us in a USPS box. There was no way to tell any of them apart when we first got them, so they did not inherit their names until they were older and started to get some more distinctive features. Two of the most distinctive features of any chicken are its comb and wattles. These are the flashy, fleshy, typically red, parts on a chicken’s head that most folks are familiar with. The comb is the part on top of the head and the wattles are the two flappy looking things below the beak. They also have fleshy little earlobes on the sides of their head.

It’s in the combs where I can tell my chickens apart from one another. I’m the only one who can even though you will see that all of them have very distinct features. Mildred’s comb is one of the larger in my little flock and also the floppiest. It’s on the thinner side with 4 points.

Mildred is a very friendly chicken which is a typical trait of the Orpington breed. I call them my feathered dogs. They come running over whenever someone goes outside. Here Mildred ups her game because she loves snuggles. If you sit down she will come over and hop in your lap and settle in for some petting. I’ve even had her fall asleep on me she was so comfy. You would never think of this from a chicken until you actually have them.

And that’s Mildred. Stay tuned for new editions of The Feathered Files.

Aside from the Kale these are the most common herbs that I use in cooking so I figured I should attempt to grow my own. This way I can have fresh herbs and plenty to dehydrate and store away.

As I type this I am realizing that I forgot to get rosemary. Sigh. Guess I’ll just *have* to make another seed order. Oh the horror, the horror.

Once I have the seeds started I’m debating if I should sow them into the ground or use my Mr. Stacky to grow some of them in. If you are now wondering what a Mr. Stacky is here ya go. It’s a vertical plant grower.

Most of these seeds have a 4-6 or 6-8 week indoor start time prior to last frost which puts them in the ball park of getting them started now. Parsley is the exception at 2-4 weeks. Add these to my other 4-6 week seeds and I’m going to be quite busy getting everything ready to spring for Spring.

No, that’s not me but it does reflect a common trope of modern life. It would seem these days that cooking and baking have become lost arts. Why make your own when you can pop a pre-made box in the microwave or order up on your favorite delivery app? But you lose so much in doing this. You lose the fun of trying out new recipes. You dampen the creative spirit of what the kitchen can bring to your table. You lose all connection with your food and where it came from. And this disconnect from one of our most basic relationships with Nature is not good for the body or the soul.

Growing up I was always watching and helping my mom cook in the kitchen. I especially loved baking. Probably because I loved sugar as a kid. Can you blame me? Now that I have my own tiny humans I am looking to pass on my love of cooking and baking to them. Recently I pulled out my cookie cookbook and had my daughter pick out a recipe for us to whip up. What did she pick out? Watermelon Slice cookies. These definitely scored high on the cookie cuteness scale.

More than just a simple drop cookie these babies had some assembly and fridge time to them. Ah the delayed gratification of enjoying your final product because you wanted to be creative. And can I pause for just a second to give a shoutout to the forearms of all our grandmothers and their ancestors? I’m surprised they didn’t all look like Popeye from mixing everything with a spoon and their hands. Baking is such a snap with a Kitchen-Aid mixer.

Baking with my daughter is more than just mommy-daughter time. It’s also a time to learn. She practiced her reading skills reading the ingredients and steps of the recipe. She learned about measurements and the tools used. She learned about the science of certain ingredients such as baking powder. Learning is easy when it’s fun and tasty!

Behold the final product! (Yes, they taste as good as they look. No, they do not taste like watermelon.)

My daughter was so proud of her cookies she took some to school to share with her classmates. Some of them thought they were from a bakery!

So let’s all get back into the kitchen some more folks. It’s fun. It’s tradition. And most of all it’s delicious.

I am not a patient person so waiting for my seeds to germinate was literally like watching grass grow. Of all the seeds I planted most said 7-10 days for germination. The exception was celery which said 21-28 days. Celery is just weird. So this was me pretty much every day.

But regardless of my ability to be patient my seeds did not fail me. In fact they overachieved their packaging. On day 4 of my seed vigil a broccoli was born!

The two tomato varieties followed shortly thereafter. My jalapenos and sweet peppers were another story (more on that in another post).

It’s amazing to watch things come to life right before your eyes. To nurture them into what will someday be food for my family. Now I just have to not kill them and prep them for their future lives outdoors.

But back to the present. I had been researching the best breeds for egg laying and friendliness prior to our departure and had settled on the Orpington breed of the Buff color. Here are some basic Buff Orpington facts. You can also read more here.

Did you know you can order chickens through the mail? Yes, yes you can. You just have to go to the post office to pick them up. And that’s just what I did on 6/3/21 for my 6 chicks that were hatched on 6/1. Look at these little fluff puffs!

And boy do they grow FAST!

That last photo is our first egg! She definitely has the “what just happened” face. We now get around 5-6 eggs per day out of our ladies and they are the best eggs I have ever eaten. Everyone should have some chickens.

I started these seeds on 2/13, 2/14, and 2/18. The 2/13 planting consisted of San Marzano Tomatoes, Sweet Million Cherry Tomatoes, and Early Jalapenos. The 2/14 planting was Broccoli. Lastly the 2/18 plating consisted of more San Marzano Tomatoes, Sweet Peppers, and Celery. Always remember to label your seeds once planted!!!

These seeds were selected from my plethora of seeds at this time based on the recommended amount of time they should be started before the last frost. According to the Farmer’s Almanac the last frost is roughly around March 25th for where I live. With the exception of the celery all of the above seeds stated 6-8 weeks. Celery said 10-12 weeks so I’m a touch late on getting that started. C’est la vie.

Maybe for those pre-grown plants you find at your standard garden center but if you are going to start from seed apparently you need to give them juuuuuuust a little bit more lovin’.

Now I’m not the person to try and wing it on something like this so I took to the interwebs to get some more deets on the best way to grow and not kill your seedlings. One of the better videos I found on this process can be found here. The jist is you need the right container, soil, temperature, and light to get your seeds to germinate and grow into little baby seedlings. So let’s start with the containers that I am using to germinate my seeds.

These were procured from Amazon and essentially act as little baby greenhouses. Next up is soil. Your average outdoor dirt won’t work since it is too heavy and will crush your little seedlings before they can even get above the ground. You need to get a special seed starter soil. This is the soil that I picked up at a local nursery.

It’s nice and fluffy with peat, pearlite, microbes, and earthworm castings aka poop. Apparently this makes for a seed nirvana.

Heat and light are the last two main components. It’s still winter here and definitely not baby plant weather. Germination likes to occur when the seeds are warm and snug in their earthworm poop beds. To help facilitate this I bought a seedling heat mat for them off Amazon.

This mat provides gentle warming to bump up the temperature to just the right happy spot for seeds to get their sprout on. Finally, LET THERE BE LIGHT! But not just any old light. We need light that mimics the actual sun using fancy terms like lumens and Kelvin.

These were handily picked up at the local Home Depot.

And there you have it folks. The “basic” things I picked up to give my seeds the best chance at living their best life and mine as well.

Now that I have my own little country farm in North Texas I am once again pursuing the cultivation of the earth to produce even more of nature’s bounty. Instead of a postage stamp backyard I have more space than I know what to do with for growing food and that has led me to visions of grandeur for all my crop growing desires. The array of seeds I have to start looks to be a lot of fun.

From left to right and top to bottom I have the following:

Silver Queen Corn, Green Leaf Lettuce, Jalapeno, Yellow Onion, Romaine Lettuce

Sugar Pumpkin, San Marzano Tomatoes, Sugar Snap Peas, Carrots

Squash, Watermelon, Sweet Peppers, Bush Beans

Broccoli, Cherry Tomatoes, Cucumber, Celery

This is just the beginning. I have more seeds on the way that are on the herb side of the plant world and kale. How I forgot to order kale seeds to begin with is beyond me but they are currently on their way!

So hurry up Spring! The Game of Farms is about to begin.