Storm Shelter Blunders and Waiting Projects

We are now entering our 6th summer living on the farm.  Isaac, just like each of the other kids when they were born, accompanied a major life change. (Which makes me a bit curious to see what will happen with this baby!) We moved into our partially finished house on the farm in October of 2008, and Isaac was born in November.

I would think that after 5 full years of living on the farm, we would be a bit more settled in. With Ethan still working off of the farm, however, and with the kids at home and homeschooling, there is still much settling in to do.

If you would switch one of the above - either Ethan being on the farm full time or myself being on the farm without kids, I'm sure we would be settled in.  The fact is, starting up our farm would be impossible without Ethan working extra jobs, and we have kids.

I have had a number of young couples considering farming and family ask me if it is a good idea to start a farm and start a family at the same time or if it is a good idea to start a farm with a young family.

My response . . . it is hard.  It would be so much easier for me to not have children right now so I could be a better help to Ethan in our farm setup. Either I could go to work and provide more income to allow Ethan to be on the farm more, or I could do more of the farming. Everything would move along so much faster - getting settled in, getting the business established, and turning profits sooner. But I wouldn't trade our kids for any of that. They are a blessing, and they add richness, joy, and fullness to what we are doing. I can't imagine farming without them.

So with that introduction, here are some projects that I worked on today. Projects that I wish were further along then they were, in terms of weeks and years, but they aren't. Projects that I'm sure would be done if we didn't have kids or if I wasn't expecting, but projects that will get done in due time.

First off, the storm shelter. The picture below (sorry for the post in the middle) shows the dirt work around our storm shelter before last spring.  It was roughly done with a skid loader when they installed the shelter in 2010, and for 3 years after that it was used by any animals that made it to the yard (which the cows and sheep did often before we got our yard fence in) for king of the mountain.

The dirt work badly needed to be redone, not just for visual appeal and the ability to plant on it as I wanted, but also to keep the storm shelter insulated properly to be used as a root cellar.  It had been put on hold amidst our settling in for too long, so late last spring I spent 8-9 hours one day with a shovel on the storm shelter moving dirt and shaping the storm shelter mound.  I remember vividly because it was about 98 degrees that day and I ended up sick with mild heat stroke that evening. (Yes, having children slows me down, but I am also very stubborn when I want a project done badly enough.)

Even so, I got the project done.

Or so I thought . . . until this winter.

One day, after a thaw and refreeze, I went to go get some produce from the storm shelter, which was packed with potatoes, apples, carrots, and squash. 

I would soon discover that with the dirt work I had done the spring before, I had made the lowest part of the storm shelter's base right in front of the door. Perfect for melting snow to collect and refreeze into a solid chunk of ice, making it impossible to open the door.

Thankfully, Ethan came to my rescue a couple of times and chipped through inches of ice so that I could gather up a couple week's worth of produce to store in the house to be used, but with his full schedule of off farm work, I only asked this of him a few times.

So the majority of the winter my produce was frozen shut in its cozy root cellar. By this spring, bags of potatoes has sprouted (I used them for my seed potatoes) and the squash and carrots were done for.  Thankfully, the boxes of apples remained good and are making rounds through my food dehydrator to be apple chips now.

This spring has been a slow spring for me.  Since the start, this pregnancy has knocked me down a bit more than the others. I have just entered my 5th month and have been over the sickness stage for a couple weeks now, but I can still tell that this pregnancy is effecting me a bit differently.  The humidity of the last week or so has especially been hard, mainly making the air feel much heavier and more difficult to breath than it has before.

All of that to say, I am a bit behind where I would like to be concerning all things outside. But it is a season, and one that is well worth it.

So this evening, seeing that the forecast was bringing rain, I decided to start my grass seeding - hoping that it isn't too late yet.

Over the last week I have very slowly been trenching out around the storm shelter to provide proper drainage in front of the door. I finished up tonight by tilling the area I trenched to smooth it, and then I seeded it.  My kids by the way, joined me by helping rake seed in and bringing the straw over in a wagon and spreading it. (If you look closely, you will see the rock walls I made last spring on either side of the door to prevent erosion, along with the fence that surrounds the shelter to keep livestock off! There are also marigolds starting to grow which self reseeded from last year's flowers.)

Along with tilling and seeding around the storm shelter, I also tilled up and seeded two areas of hard packed dirt on the side of our house, another project that has been waiting to be done since we built our house, as the construction equipment followed by heavy traffic areas of feet and market loading (from the sliding door) has prevented grass from growing. (You might also notice the tree cages stuck in the straw that I put together in the shade of the porch today - for trees that I wish I could have acquired and planted the year we moved to the farm.)

And then there is the garden. This afternoon, when my lungs were telling me to move at a snail's pace, I did a bit of weeding . . . or mostly eating strawberries straight from the patch. I am kind of embarrassed to put a picture of my garden up. Most everything is planted now, but it is all weeks behind schedule.  I would also like to have it mulched by now, but I will hit that the next cool/non humid week that comes up.

The reason for my post. My personality is one that likes to have my ducks in a row, things tidied up, and checks flying across the checklist of things to do. I often look around at all of the projects I would love to have done here on the farm.  Projects that fall behind running the farm and projects that fall behind being a wife and a mom.  Projects that I wish would have been completed years prior and projects that rely on seasons which are passing quickly.

But more important than seasonal projects are the seasons of life. And as I have been slowed down even more this spring, I have been remembering the gifts of the season that I am in. A season to anticipate another blessing in our family, and a season to invest in the 4 blessings we have already been given. 

A season that I wouldn't trade for a list of completed projects by any means.


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The Quest for Yard Trees

Way back when, I wanted to go into horticulture, but the Lord led me into the education field instead. (Which I have also grown to love.)  From early on, however, I loved working with plants, dreaming up landscapes, and looking forward to the time when I would have my own property that I could dabble with.  I always thought that this landscaping would be worked around tall, graceful trees on the property, or at least some kind of trees.

7 years into our marriage, the time came for us to purchase our first property. We bought our farm . . . A blank slate . . . Literally.

When we purchased our farm, it was 23 acres of prairie grasses on a hill with a 17 acre woodland bottom.

We built our house on the hill- the bare, treeless hill. 

The wise thing to do when you purchase a treeless piece of land is to plant some trees and get them growing.  After all, trees take time. We were very blessed that first spring to have been gifted an orchard, but much to my disappointment come fall, those were the only trees which had roots in the ground.

Okay, so one year won't make that much of a difference in establishing trees, right? Over the winter I began planning my landscaping layout so I would be ready to go once I could start planting.

The following spring I tried some saplings from our local NRCS spring tree order. The livestock tried those too.  The next year I thought that I should just purchase some taller trees that the livestock couldn't destroy.  After shopping around, I realized that idea would destroy our budget.  Although I did snatch up a couple $7 end of the season close out trees, I never thought that 5 years down the road I would still be dreaming of establishing trees on our property.

So this year, I changed my plan of attack. I managed to find a couple oaks and maples in the woods to dig up and move to the house. Two of them pulled through.  I was also given a gift to purchase some trees, so I placed an order for some smaller trees from the National Arbor Day Foundation and have tried to fence around them well for protection from livestock on the wrong side of the fence.

Even so, we are pretty treeless and a long way off from any sort of shade, as I don't foresee us purchasing any larger trees to plant.  Most likely, our children will probably be taller than the majority of the trees on our property for their growing up years.

The longer we are on the farm, however, the more Ethan and I both realize that this farm might be less for us and more for the generations that follow (if we continue to feel called here, are able to continue on that long, and here is where they wish to be).

So I am now planting my trees with, and for the next generation.

I found a wonderful source of seeds online at the DA Tree Store.  They are very reasonable and have a great selection.  I have ordered seeds for various evergreens from them, many of which will be for a windbreak. The kids and I learned about stratifying seeds (a cold treatment to mimic nature and break down the seed coat to allow the embryo to germinate) and started these seeds both indoors and outdoors this way. 





Last fall we brought home a bucket of walnuts from my parents, dumped them in the garden, covered them with mulch, and waited for spring.  The walnut trees that grew were then moved into various places in our woods, which is pretty void of walnuts.  Hopefully they will take off for the livestock and wildlife to enjoy down the road.



Since our walnut experiment went so well last fall, we have been collecting various nuts throughout the year this year.  The kids have helped me plant hickory seeds, buckeye seeds, various maple and oak seeds. and many other types of seeds and nuts we have collected.  We have even kept back some hardy fruit seeds from our area to stratify inside or start along the fence line of the garden.

To be perfectly honest, I would love to have trees to cast a cooling shade during the hot summer days.  I'd love to have a tree swing to sit on and overlook the pasture, song birds perched close by serenading our family, leaves for the kids to make nests in during the colorful crispness of fall, bare outstretched branches to collect the contrasting flakes of newly fallen snow.

Right now, however, our budget allows for some seeds. Some purchased, most collected. So I am trading my dream of tall, graceful trees for our family to enjoy for a dream of trees for the next generation to enjoy.

While doing this though, I am gaining.  I have gained precious and enjoyable times with our children as we have gone through the summer collecting seeds at the zoo, on walks with grandparents, visiting my home church, friends houses, parks . . .

Each of these nuts and seeds holds a story, and each of them are carefully marked as they are placed in the ground by little hands that are learning. Learning about stratification, learning about transplanting home grown saplings, learning about nuts and seed identification . . . about time together, about patience, and about investing in the future of others.

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Tools of My Trade
This is a great resource with wonderful illustrations.  If you are interested in starting your own plants with seeds, divisions, cuttings, layering, grafting, cultures, or more, this will be your go to book. When I first started propagating plants, I found much of my information on the internet.  I got a good start this way, but having this book on hand helped fill in the gaps for me.  Copies of this book can be found used or you can purchase a new copy from the link provided.