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| Homemade Double-Crust Chicken Pot Pie |
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.
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.
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| 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!
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