This Week at Ramsey Farms

For week ending May 31, 2014

We are battling birds with the corn and bean plants - they keep digging up seeds or even entire plants! I believe it's the mischievous blue jays making trouble. Chief Farmhand, Chris made a tent  out of scrap wood and some tulle I had laying around and that seems to work great to protect the plants from the dastardly birds, but only covers less than half our crop. So he also fashioned some protectors from plastic drink and juice bottles to help insure we get to eat some corn this summer. We reseeded all the corn, beans, sunflowers, summer squash, okra, and peppers that haven't popped up yet (or were wrestled out of their snug soil bed by crazy birds).

Most of the lettuce is finished it's growing season, however we are still harvesting lots of carrots, radishes, onions, garlic, and herbs! Looking forward to lots of late season radishes, beets, potatoes, and another round of sweet peas coming soon.

The bakery has sure been getting busy with a handful of new customers! I need to invest in an order of paper bakery bags to ensure all the bread I'm selling or giving away is nicely and consistently packaged.

Flour Tortillas

Our daughter only has 6.5 days of middle school remaining. My son graduated from his 4 year old preschool class this week. He was delighted to give both his teachers a loaf of homemade bread and a jar of homemade strawberry jam! And those were the last of the strawberry jams - they went so fast. I did manage to hide a few jars for myself for later in the year when I really need that "spring time in a jar" flavor!

My daughter made up a batch of laundry detergent and dishwasher detergent. I know it's been close to about a year since I've bought dishwasher detergent and I bet it was 2012 the last time I purchased laundry detergents. I love that my clothes just smell clean, not like perfume and our dishes are super clean and we aren't harming the environment or our pocketbooks! Win-win-win!

Yum! Chicken tacos with organic lettuce & homemade tortillas

I have been using apple cider vinegar (ACV) as a conditioning hair rinse and am really amazed that something like vinegar can make your hair so darn super soft! No expensive conditioners have ever come close to this kind of softness!! So if you read Andy's Lotions & Potions post a few weeks ago, I can vouch that ACV works wonderfully as a hair conditioner. Wash and rinse your hair, work the vinegar through your hair, leave in for about 5 minutes, rinse. And that vinegar smell does dissipate quickly. Try it - you'll be so shocked! What other recipes and ideas have you tried from Andy's article?

Be sure to check out the homemade croutons recipe, garden pics, and cold frame pictures.

And keep your fingers crossed, do a wish-dance, say a prayer or incantation, but oh...I so want to sell this house. Somebody, somewhere needs this little place and I wish they'd come find it and make their offer. My Big Farm awaits me and I find myself daydreaming about all the things we plan on doing on the farm...adding a back patio and screened in porch by the pool, building the chicken coop next to the river in the shade, putting the rabbit hutch behind the storage shed in the back, watching my kids run wild on their own 14-acres or play in the tree house or swim in the pool or play in the creek, laying in a hammock in the front yard shade trees, baking bread in another kitchen, thinking about where the goats might go or the hogs or a barn or a camping area or cabin or deer cleaning station...my poor mind wanders away to this place and my body just can't wait to get there. It's coming, right? It has to...

"Knowing I cannot and must not simply submit to the standards imposed on me, and merely conform as "they" would like. This I am convinced is wrong - but the pressure never ceases." ~ Thomas Merton