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or at least not a turkey! The hens appreciate that all the attention this week is on the turkey cousins! They are happy sitting back and being wallflowers. There'll be a few new wreaths with both evergreens and everlasting dried flowers available in the online store and to see in person this week. They help you feel festive all winter long even after the holidays are over! The mircrogreens join a few egg cartons this week as usual as I add projects to the fiber crafts list that I can hopefully finish before the holidays but will probably keep going through the winter! And, you guessed it! I'll be in Libby and Troy this friday, holidays and weekends are a far off land for farmers!  The chickens are glad that their turkey cousins get all the attention this week!  They even got outside for a little while to celebrate their wallflower status!  Jimi Hendrix and Elvis keep a sharp eye on everything they can see!  And everyone hopes the turducken craze is officially over!  The first of the everlasting+evergreen wreaths are here and they hope to bring lots of cheer for all of winter, not just the holidays!  Hella also, temporarily, put aside her homebody ways to gingerly walk on the almost iced over bit of snow. She could hear those gophers but she couldn't reach them!  But once she's been outside long enough, she lets you know to let her in my popping up in the window with a sharp MEOW!  She also got a brand new holiday outfit! It even jingles! I think she loves it! Don't you!!! What's available this week?
Where to find it all?
I'll be at Libby this Friday from 12-1230pm! I'll be at Troy this Friday from 1-130pm!
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It's snow season and thus a time where I switch from shoveling soil to shoveling snow! And it was a great time for my snowblower to stop working, yay! After a few hours, some disassembly, some intense struggle, and then using my little monkey brain and available tools (a handy dandy cable puller) I was able to manually winch all 250lbs of it into the back of my truck and take it to the repair shop. Until it returns, I get to watch as the slightly warmer weather and subsequent rain help melt some of the inches away. The hens and ducks are settling into their pre-dawn wake up and post-dusk turn down services! Additions like a bathing station, daily treats, and fresh dry bedding will all help them along their path to recovery and increased egg laying! While we wait for nature to take it's course, there are always the Microgreens, Dragon's Balm, Dragon Clips, Wreaths, and Dried Flowers available! And no cute kitty pictures as I gave her the time off from photo shoot duty! She went to the vet this week for her booster shots and wellness check up (all good and healthy!) and after all that excitement she enjoyed some peace and quiet without me shoving my phone at her! 🤣  With no snowblower to clear the paths, I was left to slog through it all and strike out on my own which works as a good lesson in farm efficiency as I can see where the paths should be.  One of my favorite parts of winter are the icicles! They are like wild and free, all natural and organic house decor! And you need to enjoy them while they last, just like a beautiful sunset!  Bae takes a stroll to survey her surrounding and see if any yummy wriggly worms have surfaced in the water saturated soil!  I had almost forgot about the bathing stations! When they can roam in the summer, they always find the driest, fluffiest, softest soil to flap about and clean their feathers with. In the winter, with the wet and frozen ground, I bring it to them! This fluffy, soft soil was courtesy of the gophers who dug it all up for me (and the hens) under some old flooring that was removed.  The microgreens are a once and done crop, so who gets the leftovers of stems and soil and roots? The hens! If the microgreens weren't so yummy, I would just grow them for the hens anyway!  Each week I make a few new wreaths and this week the evergreens will be part of the endeavor! They probably won't go up online until this weekend, but until then there are still a few that focus on flowers available.  One of my favorite ways to eat Microgreens (that isn't on a salad) is to use an entire small bag to make a bed of greens on the plate before covering it with a stir fry, scoop of casserole, or even pasta! Here I have a stir fry of steamed Red Kuri Squash from Hoot Owl Farm, Green Cabbage, Shiitake Mushrooms, and Roasted Cherry Tomatoes in Olive Oil. It might look like a mess but it is a yummy mess! What's available this week?
Where to find it all?
I'll be at Libby this Friday from 12-1230pm! I'll be at Troy this Friday from 1-130pm! A week of snow means some projects will be put on hold and others will just require me to slog through it. Construction projects in winter take much longer as they require clearing the snow away and taking time to warm cold fingers and toes. But the very last of the planting, the eagerly awaited peonies, arrived and got into their wintery homes! Now the only planting that happens until spring is what I can do inside, like the microgreens and some rooted cuttings. I sometimes think I mainly keep them growing in winter as an excuse to get my hands dirty and feel the soil between my fingers! The lights are on in the huts and runs, so in a few weeks the hens will start laying a little more frequently and I'll have to trot out every few hours, or sooner depending upon the cold, to scoop them up and bring them in so they don't freeze solid! Don't forget to order your micros, eggs, or dried flowers for pickup or just stop by on Friday to see what I've got! It's all in the online store, which is open from now until 10am on Friday. Look for me and my snow covered black truck in Libby at the Chamber/Fireman's Park parking lot from 12-1230pm and in Troy at the Museum parking lot from 1-130pm! Be safe on those roads!  The lights are on! They help the hens and ducks stay active and warm in winter and in a few weeks they will respond to the extra light by laying more eggs!  They putter. They peck. Maybe scratch at the ice a little! All in the life of a hen in winter!  A little light in their hut and a little straw for softness and to ensure dry feet makes it all a little more bearable!  Peony planting under the snow! They finally arrived and I was ready! The soil was prepped and clear of weeds, covered in straw to block out the cold, and a tarp over it all to make it easy to flip the snow out of the way. The soil was lovely and soft with just the right dampness.  The microgreens are fresh and crisp! Sometimes the snow fills the sky as well as the ground and sometimes the clouds clear and the mountains appear!  The barn door has a cheerful new coat of paint, pretty in pink!  I got jealous of all the hens lights and decided to put up my own lights in the dark! And I loved my barn's new pink door so much I added it to the cabin too! What's available this week?
Where to find it all?
I'll be at Libby this Friday from 12-1230pm! I'll be at Troy this Friday from 1-130pm! Finally! The garlic is in the ground growing little roots in the dark under it's blanket of straw. The tulips and daffodils are in the ground growing their little roots in the dark, no blanket needed. The anemones are up and out of the ground ready to be dried and stored in the cool attic to wait out the cold of winter. And the hen huts are lined up in their cabin-to-barn corridor with their snow covers on and wind anchors in place! The farms ready! I'm ready! Bring on winter!  As soon as the snow left, the garlic went in!  All those little holes house 1 garlic clove. These are the little ones that I planted close together for springtime green garlic, like scallions or green onions but garlic instead because garlic is better are the little cloves won't make big bulbs AND who can wait until late summer for all that garlic!  After all those little (and big) cloves are tucked in their homes they get double-tucked into their blanket of straw so the roots have time to dig deep before the ground freezes!  This was the 'experimental' future grain/fruit tree plot that was tilled this last spring and then tarped. On the left was a clear tarp used for solarization (the idea that it heats up super duper hot and essentially sterilizes the soil). On the right was a black tarp used for occultation (warming the soil for seed germination but then they don't get any sunlight so they die). I wasn't sure solarization would work in my cold valley since it relies solely on heat. Annnnd I was right. Looks like I'll be pulling some weeds next spring! The anemones, looking sad and frozen. They don't mind some freeze but not a full winters! So I plunged my trowel into the soil (the top inch was frozen solid) and pried their corms up! I'll trim and dry them before storing them in their dormant state for winter and hope that the freeze wasn't too much for them to handle!  The Rainbow Hut crew is back and in order! It's a multi-day job to roll the huts and runs into place, cover, anchor, and electrify so they can provide a little comfort to the hens while they dream of grass and grubs. Just a few more runs to cover today and all the wires and lights and heaters to organize and plug in!  A big Drake in a tiny tub! Splishing and a'splashing away! Tying down the covered runs means getting to crisscross a lot of baling twine and making a lot of knots! As baling twine is one of her favorite things, I was lucky that Hella only discovered my activities until I was on the last hut, still she had to inspect the line to make sure it was all to her satisfaction! What's available this week?
Where to find it all?
I'll be at Libby this Friday from 12-1230pm! I'll be at Troy this Friday from 1-130pm! |
AuthorI'm Farmer Megan with a life full of cackles, clucks, quacks, weeds, crazy kitten, and one tiny, senior, blind dog. Archives
December 2021
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