Things for the farm

So after over 4 years since leaving Ames, we finally sold the Nevada house...Thank the heavens!!

Selling the house allowed us to purchase some badly needed items for the farm like a nice snowblower, drill, and saw and a few things to just make life easier!!! Like our super awesome pull behind tiller purchased at Sears. Tilled 6 of our garden beds in less then 30 minutes and most of that was devoted to the learning curve. Can't wait to really test it out next year!!!

So I got a little busy....

I had great ambitions to keep this blog up to date....alas....busy.... but we did have a lot on our plates including the addition of Mason Owen into our family in July. His birth was a bit dramatic and involved being sent home from the hospital only to deliver him myself in the front seat of our minivan with my husband driving us to the hospital. Yikes..oh well...we all did well and he is a sweet, happy, healthy baby.

What happened on the farm??

The Carmine Jewel Cherries have done phenomenal, despite our hard pack clay dirt. They literally went from twigs to about 2 foot tall!! So excited. The other interesting thing we noticed is they were unphased by the japanese beetles. Unfortunately, the nanking cherries didn't fair as well and were completely defoliated by the beetles. Prior to the beetles they also went from a twig to nice bushy little 1.5 foot high plants. Honeyberries are in and living, but not thriving like the cherries. Goumi has also out done the honeyberry plants. Will likely do some more soil amendments with manure next year.

Other news from this summer include the addition of a cow and selling a horse. After much debate over the years, I finally gave into the fact that I don't have time for a young horse...and it only took me six years to figure that out. Kayla found a wonderful home with a young girl who just graduated from college and is planning to do dressage and eventing with her. I will say having only the 2 horses has changed they dynamic of the barn completely, much calmer and quieter and much less competition. Also much less poo to clean up!!. So I sold a horse but added a cow. My reasoning is I don't have to feel quilty about not riding the cow and at the end of the day I could always eat the cow. After looking and looking, I finally found a miniature Hereford heifer we could afford. We decided our future herd would be named based on gemstones and jewels and so our first little cow is Ruby. The plan is to breed her in about a year to something small...maybe a miniature jersey...if we got a heifer it could be a good little milk cow. Although, there is nothing to stop me from milking the hereford for table milk.