This Week at Ramsey Farms 4.27.14

Monday*Tuesday*Wednesday*Thursday*Friday
We celebrated Easter on April 20 with the cooking of a succulent ham, mashed potatoes, deviled eggs, salad from the garden, homemade bread, and a number of other culinary delights. It was too wet outside to work in the garden so we focused on family and food. The Ramsey Farms Bakery was delighted to bake breads for several family's holiday meals! I hope you all had a lovely holiday with your family and friends and loved ones.

We are headed down to Georgia this weekend to tour a few properties that may...maybe....just might...be a prospect for...The Big Farm! Most of my week has been focused on coordinating this trip and setting up appointments to tour real estate (while still working full time and the kids are both home all week. Spring Break.)

Not much action in the garden this week. Simply tending to seedlings and plants, watering, harvesting a lot of lettuce, and reseeding radishes and lettuce.

Saturday

We had a whirlwind trip to the middle of Georgia and back all in just about 28 hours! :) We toured several properties, and I don't want to jinx it...but maybe I found "the one". Stay tuned the next couple of weeks will be hectic with some additional research, leg work, phone calls, and real estate details to see what the universe will bring.

Sunday, April 27
Truly another blur of days this week. I read a couple books during the past week or two that I wanted to share with you. One is Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L'Engle and the other is Gift from the Sea by Ann Lindbergh. Both were written in previous decades (Circle was written in 1972, Gift in 1955 originally) but many of the thoughts and struggles resonate with today's issues.

The gist of both books was that we live in such a progressively fast-paced world that our lives are becoming blurs of time. In order to truly enjoy this one life and live it balanced, content, and with reduced stresses we should slow it down, take time for ourselves, take time to listen to our own spinning thoughts, take time to sit and smell the roses, and simply take time.

Life is fast and finite, I for one do not want to spend the precious time I have rushing from one chore or meeting or errand to another. I want to relish and cherish every moment. I want to take that time to sit and feel the sun on my face, hear the birds singing, listen to the creek gurgling, watch bees buzz from flower to flower, see children running through the field. I want the special quiet moments in my own life to not get lost in the shuffle of busyness we tend to impose on ourselves.

This is my mission for my life and my family. Simplification. A slower pace. (I don't even have any clocks in our house.) A broader margin. A wider view. A little house surrounded by trees, pasture, and a creek with a 1,000-foot long unpaved driveway and hidden off a winding, country road deep in the heart of Georgia. Perhaps?

This Week at Ramsey Farms 4.20.14

Sunday

• Planted beefsteak and roma tomato seeds, basil seedlings, and geranium plants (4) in Row 1
• Planted hot and bell pepper, okra, cinnamon basil seeds and geranium plants (2) in Row 2. Basil makes the tomatoes, peppers, and okra taste better and the geraniums are supposed to keep the white moths away from the basil.
• Remember you can check out all the 2014 Garden Pics album by clicking this link.
• Completed all the aloe surgeries. All the plants and new babies are in pots and I have a few stem pieces remaining to plant. Click HERE to see all the pics of this little procedure.

Monday

• Visited the feed n' seed for some more fresh, local eggs and even took a new bread order while I was there!
• Covered the "back 40" garden row in plastic to keep it dry through the next day or two of April showers so we can resume tilling and planting this coming weekend.
• Baked one of the prettiest loaves of bread today, though I struggled with the dough for what felt like eternity and assumed it would turn out hard and dense. 
• Made my best-ever meatloaf today with a new way to keep all the nasty soggy grease off the loaf! It worked perfectly. Slice a few thick pieces of day-old bread to line the bottom of your meatloaf pan, add your meatloaf, bake. The bread will soak up most of the grease while elevating the meat loaf out of the gooey mess during cooking. When you serve the meatloaf, toss out the grease-saturated bread, put the meatloaf on a clean plate and voila! Beautiful with no soggy unsightly greasy mess!
• Served the meatloaf with homemade mashed potatoes, delicious farm bread, and steamed cabbage from the garden! Sooooo good!

Tuesday & Wednesday

• Prepared for a couple of 32/34 degree overnight temperature dips by covering the new herb seedlings with plastic two liter bottle cloches, plastic and terracotta pots over the geraniums, and straw over the potato sprouts. Brought all the aloes, cacti, and most potted plants back inside and closed up the cold frame for the first time in at least two weeks or so.
• The Ramsey Farms Bakery took several orders this week! I love sharing my "creations" with others and love the idea that one can actually make money selling something made by our own hands.
• Baked a beautiful braided wheat bread for an Easter gift for wonderful woman who has become like a third grandmother to my four-year-old son. 

Thursday

• Finally got to uncover the nasturtium seedlings in the kids' raised bed! The temps have been so cold this week they needed a few extra days under the plastic cloche.
• Hopefully uncovering my herbs, flowers, and the cold frame this morning will be the last time this spring I have to worry about frost and freezing temps! Until November at any rate...
• Baked dinner rolls and old-fashioned molasses bread in the bakery yesterday.

Friday & Saturday

• Friday was a busy farm work day and we got everything planted before the rain started to fall! What all did we get in? Corn, bush beans, great northern beans, cucumbers, sunflowers, yellow squash, zucchini, marigolds, and borage. The only area not planted is row 4 - that's the winter squash and cantaloupe that we won't plant until May 1.
• I gave various neighbors molasses breads, organic lettuces, and braided bread loaves.
• It rained all day Saturday so we took a little trip to a small town winery, visited some antique stores, ate lunch, napped, read books, built forts out of sofa cushions, and all in all had a lovely day. 

Be sure to check up the updated Cold Frame photo album here, the salad fixin's in it are growing so fast! Organic lettuce mesclun blend now available here at Ramsey Farms - c'mon by and see us! :)

Here's my final thought to you this week. I read Ms. L'Engle's Circle of Quiet this week and found it to be quiet thought provoking on ontology and life and the world around us. I highly suggest it as a read when you're in the mood for astute observations and theories that I found to be on point even some forty years later. At any rate, here is the quote for you to ponder on this week. Tell me what it means to you:

"If we are given minds we are required to use them, but not limit ourselves by them." ~ Madeleine L'Engle in Circle of Quiet"

The Aloe Surgeries

Mama Aloe "Before" (Mama Aloe is the plant's name)

Babies!

Aloe Pups

Mama Aloe with attached babies

Grandma Aloe - stem is so long the plant rested in the pot of "Mama Aloe" all fall and winter while babies popped up from the woody stem and from under soil roots

Grandma Aloe

Grandma Aloe

Actually no aloe plants were harmed during this operation - new growth can come from all these pieces

Other Aloe and Mama Aloe - After

Other Aloe (no name...what shall we call her?)

Mama Aloe - After

All the wee little baby aloes - 23 new ones!

 

Grandma Aloe - After

This Week at Ramsey Farms 4/13/14

Last Sunday 4/6

• Harvested the remaining kale; left some to seed
  
• Harvested 1/3 of the garlic to make room for the frame for row 4
• Installed the raised beds for Rows 3 & 4
• Big Mama Aloe surgery
• Planted borage seeds in newspaper pots
• Baked sourdough breads
• Made seasoned kale chips to go with hamburgers for dinner - my 4 year old loved these! Pour olive oil in a bowl, season with kosher salt, black pepper, your favorite fresh and or dried herbs and mix. Dip kale leaves into oil-seasoning mixture on both sides getting a good coverage. Place leaves onto oiled baking sheet and bake 5-10 minutes at about 425 degrees. (Watch closely! I burned a batch a while back - smells & tastes like burned popcorn.)



Big Mama Aloe Plants BEFORE Repotting

Monday

• Woke to dark, rainy, overcast day that lasted all day - high was only 56 today :( Come back Springtime!
• Baked cheddar cheese bread which was a big hit with everyone! 
• Delivered sourdough bread to customer
• Made sausage-potato-kale soup for dinner using herbs, garlic, scallions, kale from our garden

Tuesday & Wednesday

• The zinc oxide powder and Tahitian vanilla essential oil I ordered has shipped! Cannot wait for this to arrive! Any guesses as to what I may create?! :) 
• Baked some very sticky and delicious Boston Brown Bread that did not last long. At all. :) 
• Left a few cabbage plants for seed and harvested all the rest of the beautiful, purple cabbage. Cleaned them up and allowed the heads to soak in salted water for an hour to draw out any cabbage worms (there were none). Enjoyed some baby cabbage leaves in our fresh-picked garden salads Tuesday! 
  
• I was blessed to spend time with two "old" friends I hadn't seen in a long while Wednesday. Spent some time walking and talking for three miles with one and another friend popped over Wednesday for a garden tour and some sweet iced tea. It was great to spend time with both of these special women and catch up on life together!
• In the bakery, I experimented with some new recipes. Made a honey wheat bread and a banana-oatmeal style bread! YUM! Both are super delicious and may make the bakery menu for customers soon! :)

Thursday & Friday 

One Aloe AFTER Repotting

• I got three of the four biggest aloe plants repotted! The "Grandma Aloe" will be repotted Sunday as will any of the remaining pieces. I'm going to see if the original, now-cut-off root stem will live and produce more babies. Overall we had about 20 or 21 aloe pups that came off the existing aloe plants. I love using fresh aloe in my lotions and just by itself for burns and boo-boos. Pure aloe from the plant is also excellent for your face to heal blemishes, reduce and heal fine lines, tighten the skin, and improve overall tone.
• For dinner, I made herbed pork chops, baked potatoes, and made some yummy slaw with the cabbage picked yesterday.
• Then I got to make my sunscreen after everybody went to bed! Adjusted my original lotion recipe and added the zinc oxide powder and Tahitian vanilla (OMG it smells soooo good!) The consistency is runny so it needs more adjusting, but I look forward to trying it out this weekend! I used less than 15% zinc oxide (based on volume weight of lotion) so this is about 13-15% SPF. I wanted to go very easy on this chemical, though it is the safest of all the sunscreen chemicals. (http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/)
• Baked mega-herb sourdough bread that used about 1 full cup of scallions and fresh herbs from the garden. The aroma was tantalizing during baking and every time you open the bread container the smell is so wonderful and strong it can make your stomach growl and your mouth water!

Saturday

• Made scrambled eggs served with fresh homemade breads and jellies for breakfast. I'm ready to go get more fresh, local hen eggs this week from my new favorite feed-n-seed store!
• Chief Farmhand, Chris was back on the tiller for a good four or five hours. He reworked the unplanted area of Rows 1 & 2, fully tilled row 3, and fully tilled the unplanted "Back 40" section. 
• Added two pick-up bed loads of garden soil into the garden spaces primarily rows 3 and 4.
• Took up all the seed cabbage and have the flower/seeds drying for (hopefully) use next year.
• Weeded all the planted areas, reseeded celery and beets. 
  
• Tested my sunscreen! And though I did get a nice base tan on my arms and face yesterday, I did not burn. I reapplied my DIY sunscreen a few times throughout the day. Zinc oxide is also an active ingredient in many store-bought deodorants. When applying the lotion yesterday, I did apply it to my face, arms, chest, and even underarms. And I must tell you, this may be my new deodorant too. It was super hot and sunny and I worked outside most all day and didn't smell bad in anyway at the end of the day! (You know you wanted to know this! lol)
• My daughter and I made a baked pasta dish for dinner along with the mega herb bread and fresh salads from the garden!
• Don't forget to check out the ever-changing pics of the Garden and the Cold Frame.

I am thankful to the people in my life and grateful to spend my life centered in family. The speed at which modern society lives life may take many people far from the family members they love so dearly. When work and other activities begin to become the center of one's world, it is easy to find oneself off balance. We are human beings not human doings - doing more doesn't lead us to a better life. This week slow down, take a few deep breathes, remember what's truly important, clarify, prioritize, re-balance life. Rather than concern myself what what I think I should be doing this week, I'm going to work on being the person I am and want to be. Simply being. Who are you going to BE this week? Love, Ramsey

This Week at Ramsey Farms 4/6/14

Sunday (March 30)

Homemade Double-Crust Chicken Pot Pie

Today was a sunny, but cold, windy day. Chris constructed a gorgeous, innovative trellis for the sweet peas and nasturtium flowers. He was also able to turn over the soil in row 1 and 2 in preparation for planting. Row 2 is still saturated and soggy. Hopefully the sun and wind from Sunday along with temperatures in the 70s to low 80s this week will dry it out.

My kitchen was delighted to receive five large food-grade buckets from my grocer's bakery department! Twenty-five pounds of sugar filled a three-gallon container plus my pantry tub I've always had. A five-gallon former icing bucket is now (cleaned & sanitized &) filled with just under 25 pounds of bread flour. Thank you to Lisa at the bakery for giving me these treasures! :)

Monday
It's the last day of March!!! :) April is always a beautiful month with spring popping out all over in full bloom. Today I finally purchased my tomato and sunflower seeds and in my search for stevia and soybeans, I stopped in a little feed & seed store.

I love buying local and would prefer to pay a little bit more money to my mom & pop stores than to save a few dimes at the big box stores. This seed/feed store sells fresh, local eggs!!! I have been searching for a local fresh egg provider for some time now and am so excited to find them so close and at a good price, too. (Yearning for the day I can have my own hens!)

I bought a dozen mint green Americana eggs and a dozen beautiful speckled and swirled brown / pink eggs. I could not even wait - made myself a scrambled (green shell) egg with a slice of toasted homemade bread with some of last year's homemade strawberry preserves on it for my lunch.

Baked several loaves of Golden Sweet White bread Monday afternoon just so I could use a couple of these new freshly laid eggs! My Chief Farmhand informed me that this recipe is now his favorite bread! lol

I got the soil turned over again in row 2 and the back 40. Looks like it is finally drying out pretty well so we hope to do some planting this week. (Remember, you can see pictures of our 2014 garden by clicking HERE.) We ended our day with homemade chili that had been simmering on the stove tempting me all day, baked potatoes, and of course, homemade bread.

Tuesday
HAPPY APRIL! 
We have aloe babies! :) I successfully propagated five or six "babies" from the aloe plants, repotted one medium size aloe, and doctoring on two of the larger ones by removing the woody, overgrown stem with a sharp knife. The remaining part of the healthy plant and smaller cuttings for rooting are all drying for the next week so those can be planted. The two "huge" aloe plants may make it in for their long awaited surgeries this week.

Farmhand Chris got out the tiller when he got here from his day job. He spent about 2 or 3 hours tilling the unplanted portion of the back 40 and row 2 in the hot late afternoon. Hopefully one more day of 80 degrees and sunshine will dry those out completely and we'll be able to plant lettuce and radishes before the rains come in Friday.

The lavender, chamomile, and cilantro were all uncovered on April 1. I decided to reseed the chamomile and lavender to ensure a new plant or two. The nasturtium seeds were planted and  plastic cloches placed over them for two weeks. The high on Tuesday reached 84 degrees - a perfect Carolina spring day!

Spoke to a super nice Realtor in Georgia today and he is getting me some details on two properties and on the hunt for others in his area that fit my parameters. One of the homes he checked out today we already removed from our list - so nice to save a twenty-hour round trip drive for the properties that will really be right for our family.

Wednesday
Another gorgeous Carolina Blue Sky day, sunshine, and highs in the mid-80s! My shovel and I turned over the areas in row 2 and the "back 40" again - the soil is still so wet it's like pebbles or rabbit pellets, nothing you can plant in very well. I reseeded celery in the cold frame and lettuce in row 1.

The Ramsey Farms Bakery sold a few loaves of bread today. Some days I feel compelled to bake bread, so it's exciting to bake for others! I am thankful for the encouragement and support.

Thursday
Sixty-degrees before it was 9 AM today and I was outside in shorts, a tee-shirt, and flip flops watering my seeds! Birds were chirping and singing and foraging, all the trees are budding or blooming, the scent of pollen and life was in the air, and being out in the garden with my coffee and talking to my mom and my sister - life is perfect!

Friday & Saturday
The Ramsey Farms Bakery was busy baking bread on Friday for ourselves and a few customers, too! My friend, Julie and her daughter, Natalie came over for a long overdue visit. We were so pleased to give them a farm tour, talk about gardening  and send them home with a chocolate mint plant!

Saturday morning, I ventured out and found my Stevia plants at my new favorite feed-n-seed store. Also picked up some Dr. Bronner's bar soaps for making laundry detergent, hand soap, body washes, and maybe even shampoos and some delicious (salt-free, sugar-free) all  natural peanut butter at the organic health food shop.

trellis for sweat peas

I wish I had been timing how many hours Chief Farmhand, Chris has been on the tiller this year. That is a very tough, physically demanding chore and I'm super lucky he handles that for me. Maybe one of these days he'll have a big ol' ride-on tractor/tiller/plow to work the ground at the Big Farm! ;)  He did finish tilling row 2 and the Back 40 Saturday!! Only rows 3 and 4 to go.

My daughter and I baked bread together (she started it, I finished it) and her bread turned out very tasty! She doesn't love working in the garden so she helps by doing many of the inside chores while we're outdoors, which is ultimately very helpful in keeping everything running smoothly. The teenager did finally venture out of doors as everyone picked up sticks so Chris could mow the grass. (Being the Chief Farmhand at Ramsey Farms is a never-ending, hard job.)

In the garden Saturday, I reseeded carrots in row 1 and happily got the crisphead lettuce and scarlet globe radish seeds planted in row 2! In the Back 40, I seeded cherry belle radishes.

All this hard work makes a body sleep very soundly at night (and go to bed very early). I got up this Sunday (April 6) morning refreshed and excited for the day to watch the sunrise and water the garden...I hope you all have a fabulous and exciting day ahead of you too!!!

My final note this week. If you don't like something - change it. Don't love your life? Then change it - build the life you want and need and that makes your spirit thrive! Put yourself in a place that you love, doing the things you love, and around people that make you shine & sparkle! Love yourself. Love, Ramsey

Happy April! * March blog recap
So in March, more than 250 people visited my little blogsite! Thanks for dropping by! Most readers are in the US but apparently somebody in Argentina is a fan as we get a lot of views from that country?! (Weird, but very cool - thanks!) The Cold Frame page is still the most-visited article on this site and the most-viewed post in March was the March 16 This Week at Ramsey Farms! The 40 Minute Hamburger Buns recipe got a lot of hits last  month too, so if you missed any of those articles click the links to check them out!

~

This post ranked #5 in the 2014 top 5 blog articles.