Name that Grass - Round 1

Okay all of you homesteaders and farmers out there.  Here's a little challenge for you.  I went on a walk with my kiddos last night and brought back seed heads from some of the grasses along the way.  We are going to try to identify them, learn their names, and hopefully learn some facts about them. 

I realize it helps to know their height and see their leaves, but how can you do on naming them, going from left to right?  As of tonight, I'm certain of 2, fairly confident of 3, and have some ideas for 2 others.  

You can click on the photo to see it larger. Feel free to leave a comment here on on my original post on Facebook with your guesses or expert answers! 

And for being a blog reader, I'll give you some insider information.  These grasses were collected on the part of the pasture that has not been heavily over seeded by us. It had been in the CRP program for 10 years and had been planted with native prairie grasses.  The area includes high and dry land as well as land that stays fairly moist from a small spring and runoff from rains. Round 2, which will be coming soon, will have more grasses from the area that we have over seeded.

Have fun! :)

p.s.  Sorry, there is no prize but the satisfaction of knowing that you know your grasses.

I've Become a Soapmaker!

Way back in October of 2011 I wrote a post about rendering lard.  I mentioned that I had a project up my sleeve, and a year later I finally learned how to make soap from a soap maker.

Since the beginning of the year I have been enjoying making what I call "Crooked Gap Farmcrafted Soap".  On our website, it is described as:    

Our Crooked Gap Farmcrafted Soap is unique in that we strive to use as many ingredients as possible produced on our farm, gathered from local sources, or commonly found on a farm. Our soap is not only crafted on our farm, but from the farm. We are confident that you will find our farmcrafted soap to be like none other!

I've taken some pictures along the way, although not a tutorial on how to it, they do show some of the process.

This first picture is the fats melting on our wood stove.  The majority of the oil that I use is lard that I render from our hogs.  I also add in a bit of coconut oil for some extra bubbles and cleansing qualities.  I wasn't really sure what lard soap would be like, but we get quite a bit of it with all of the hogs we take in.  I've you have followed my blog, you might have noticed that I am quite frugal and like to put as much as I can to use.  It only made since to use our lard to make our soap, and I have been so impressed with the qualities of it!  (Our customers have been as well!)  This is the first winter I haven't had cracked and bleeding fingers in the winter for 10 years, even while I have been doing cloth diapering, which dries out your hands quite a bit (all of the moisture being drawn out of your hands when folding.)

One of the things that fascinated me the most with the soap making is watching the glycerine form.  This photo shows the glycerine forming in my soap, which turns back to white after the saponification process.  The glycerine is what conditions (helps your skin retain moisture) in the soap.  And lard soap produces a lot of glycerine!


I also enjoy creating new "recipes" for my soap. It's a fun little challenge to think of what farm available ingredients I can use and how to use them.  I was excited this week to use spinach from our garden in one of my soaps. (The bottom brick in the photo.)

Once the bars have hardened (mine take a good 24 hours or more), they are ready to be cut.  This is also one of my favorite parts of the process. It's almost like opening a Christmas or birthday present. I have an idea of what I've put into the soap, the methods I've used to combine the ingredients, and I can see the top, but it is still hard for me to guess just how that bar will look when I cut into it.  Maybe I'll be able to predict more as I have more soap making under my belt, but right it is usually a surprise.

After the bars have cured for a month, they are ready to sell.  We sell them off of our farm, at the Downtown Des Moines Farmer's Market, and I also ship them. This is a photo of some of the bars I have made, although the patterns are hard to see when they are displayed with the tags on.  You can head over to my webpage to see what they look like without the tags.

In my pre-farming life I enjoyed scrap booking, card making, and doing other creative things.  That has kind of disappeared since we started the farm.  One reason was that with starting the farm from a blank piece of land, having more children - who were also growing to ages where homeschooling was more demanding, and then taking care of the farm, there just isn't that much time to be creative.  The other reason is that I did not feel comfortable buying things for hobbies, and there were just too many farm/family things needed to put on gift lists too ask for supplies for projects too. So this soap making has recently filled a little creative void for me lately, without me having to feel guilty about spending time or money on being creative.

It has also been a lot of fun to learn another skill, and I am enjoying educating a little on it as well. (A little since I am still educating myself!)  If you are interested in learning a bit more, you can check out the info I have included on my webpage, listed a couple times above, and maybe someday I'll find/take the time to do a post in photos of the whole process . . .

Landscaping Advice Wanted :)

Things around here have been a bit crazy, to say the least, the last 4/5 years.  We are now into the start of our 5th year on the farm, and I am (hopefully) able to landscape the entrance to the house, and the rest of the homestead this year.  

Apart from our mudroom entrance and lawn, the entrance to our house has been a mixture of mud and weeds.  This week I tilled up the random weeds and had the kids help me bring some stones up from our ravine.  I have a general idea of what I want to do for the walkway to the house and walkway between the porch and mudroom door, but I can't figure out what materials to use. (I can think of many things to use out of our budget, just not within.)  So I am asking for a blogging brainstorm from any followers that are still out there!

You should be able to click on the photos to enlarge.

This first picture shows the walkway to the porch from the drive.  The stones I put there temporarily are to keep feet from being muddy.  They are too soft of stone to be permanent stones (one is already broken). The triangle area with the bell will be ornamental grasses with the bell on a post.  There is also another walkway behind the bell leading to the mudroom entrance.  The flower bed against the house will be for roses. (It is on the east of the house).

This picture shows the walkway to the mudroom.

This picture shows the full area.  The flower bed separating the drive from the lawn will be for some shorter bushes and spring bulbs. 

So for my question?  What would you do on with a low budget for these walkways and the borders for them.  I would love to do large flat stones but our farm's stones are too soft, and I'm pretty sure buying them would be majorly out of the budget.  I have thought of pea gravel.  Not my favorite choice because of winter shoveling, but it would work.  I have also thought of scattered flat stones with pea gravel in between. I think that wouldn't hit the budget either.  As for the borders, I was thinking stones again, but more rounded ones.  I could probably scrounge enough of those up here and there.  I do know I want it to look natural - cement is not high on the list at all.  What do you think??

Thanks so much!

Happy Easter 2013!

We are patiently awaiting spring here. It is almost the end of March, and we still have snow on the ground - the last batch coming just this past Sunday.  Today Ethan had to take another trip to the woods for more wood (an important thing when you don't have a furnace!)

Even though it doesn't feel like spring, the animals know it's coming though.  Our chickens have kicked into Easter Egg mode, hiding their eggs all across the farm in an effort to steal a nest and hatch some chicks.  It is fun for awhile.  The key word, awhile.  I will admit that it is also kind of fun too when I don't find a nest, and momma hen proudly appears later with a batch full of trailing chicks. 

Since Easter is this Sunday, I thought I would share spring's Easter Egg hunt at Crooked Gap Farm. :)

Behind the roll of wire

On top of the feed wagon

Between some tin

Over the sow, on a straw bale

In the hay stack

In the feed trough

Outside, between a board and our brooding building

And all washed up!

The Beginning Farmer Show - New from the Beginning Farmer!

I can't tell you the number of days I think of things I would like to blog about, photos I would like to take and post, stories I would love to share.  Awhile back, however, when I told my kids "Just a minute, Mommy is busy," one too many times while writing a blog post, I decided that blogging would need to wait until the kids were in bed and the house/farm work is done for the day (to avoid the same phrase the next day while catching up on dishes or laundry due to blogging in the evening.)

As you can see from my lack of posts . . . my days are full.

I wanted to take a quick break tonight, though, as a birthday present to Ethan (his birthday is today!), to share about a new farm project he has going on - his podcast called The Beginning Farmer Show. You can see his first post, copied and pasted below, or head over to his blog and view and listen to them both.

Enjoy!

The Very First Episode of The Beginning Farmer Show!

This is something that I have wanted to do for over a year now, but never had the guts to go out and accomplish it. I thought about it ... planned for it ... gathered the equipment to do it ... and finally just as I did with farming ... I had to just get out there and do it! With all of that being said, I'm not completely pleased with this very first episode and realize that I need to work on my audio quality, iTunes integration, feeds, and so much more. I am glad to have at least one episode out there though ...

On this very first episode of The Beginning Farmer Show I share a quick update on how the farm (and myself) has handled the winter so far. It has been a winter that hasn't gone exactly as planned and I'm sure I'll be playing catch up because of that this spring. After the quick Crooked Gap Farm update I dive right into a discussion of Heritage Breed Livestock and why I believe they work for my farm, but how they may not be exactly right for your farm ... that is a decision that you will have to make.

Finally, there are many lessons that I have learned since we began the farm almost five years ago and I want to share some of those lessons with everyone in hopes that they don't make the same mistakes. This weeks "Hard Lesson Learned" actually goes hand in hand with my main topic of Heritage Breed Livestock as I talk about some of the mistakes I made in purchasing some of the initial stock for the farm.

If you are interested in learning more about Rare or Heritage Breed Livestock please check out The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. As always you can follow along with The Beginning Farmer and Crooked Gap Farm by checking out these links ...

• Crooked Gap Farm
• Crooked Gap Farm on Facebook
• Crooked Gap Farm on Twitter

I would love to have you interact with the The Beginning Farmer Show. Feel free to comment on this post with your suggestions, questions, ideas, or even podcasting tips! You can also always reach The Beginning Farmer through e-mail.

P.S. If you know about podcasting, Feedburner feeds, and all of that good stuff I would love to hear from someone about why two posts that contain links to .pdf's are showing up in my subscription to the show. It is very frustrating to me!

Thanksgiving Thankfulness from the Farmer's Wife

Every year we have so much to be thankful for, and every year that we are able to continue farming is counted as a blessing - this year especially.

At the beginning of the year we were having to take a good hard look at the logistics of even being able to stay on our farm.  Ethan had a transition in his town work and had been working retail for a year.  It became apparent, however, that his retail job was not a job that would fit with keeping the farm going.  After many long discussions, we decided to be open to the possibility of a move for Ethan to be involved in a ministry job. And so the applications started going out and the interviews started, up to 2 hours away from our farm - which of course would mean selling the farm.

Right as we were in this process, however, Ethan was approached out of the blue by a church within our town.  Ethan met with the leaders of this church to find out what their vision was as they were wanting to learn more about what Ethan's ministry passions were.  Before we knew it, Ethan was offered a full time position, which he started within a month. Not only did this offer allow Ethan to follow his call to ministry, but it also allowed us to keep the farm.

I was amazed and humbled with the timing of this job.  It started the same week that our Downtown Des Moines Farmers' Market started. To be perfectly honest, I was a little worried (read very panicy) as to how farming/farmers' market season/retail job would work for our family.  After 10 weeks of Ethan's new job, I had learned that I really shouldn't have spent so much time worrying.

And then it happened.  One fateful evening at our homeschool softball game, an evening I had stayed at home with the kids for some reason, Ethan tore his achilles tendon. (He did make the out though!) As we sat in the ER trying to process the injury, the questions popped up once more (as they have multiple times, yearly, since we started the farm).  Do we keep going?  Do we sell the animals and keep the land?  Do we just sell it all, buy a small acreage in the country, and become a boating/fishing family once more? 

Thankfully, my good friend, who had driven Ethan to the ER where I would meet up with him, looked me in the eyes and told me not to worry - people would rally behind us and help us get through.  And that is just what happened.

Ethan ended up in a splint for 3 weeks, followed by surgery and a cast for 6 weeks, followed by a walking boot another 3 weeks.  After developing planter faciatis, he was taken out of his walking boot to start physical therapy (which he continues).  I won't lie and say I was not frazzled, completely exhausted, and sometimes went a little nutso from taking over the farm work this summer, but I will say that the Lord provided for our needs.

We were never without family, homeschool friends, and church friends to help us out with things I couldn't get done myself - loading hogs and lamb for the locker, setting up new fence, doing improvements on the farm, manning the market booth when Ethan couldn't, etc.  I also had a meal a week provided to me once each week by my homeschool friends.  I can't say enough how I looked forward to that night of no cooking after early morning chores, hot afternoon chores (did I mention we had historic heat and drought this year), and after supper till the sun went down chores - all while trying to keep the housework up, garden growing, and husband and kids loved.

Ethan kept reminding me it was temporary.  And it was.  One day, shortly after the Farm Crawl (where 1000+ people visit our farm) and as homeschooling was starting, Ethan took over the chores again, be it ever so slowly and carefully. And then our 6 months of Saturday farmers' markets were over.  And now we are in a time of "rest" (for those who have town jobs and farm as we do, you know rest is said in relation to the rest of the year).

Today is Thanksgiving.  Each and every day I am thankful to the Lord for His sacrifice on the cross, which paid the penalty for my sins, and for His resurrection that promised life eternal to all who would follow Him . . . for His sacrifice and promise to me.

But today is a day where I also count my blessings from Him - for Ethan's new job which allowed us to keep the farm.  For family, friends, and our new church family who helped keep our farm afloat this year.  For our customers who cheered us on and blew us away with our best year yet and an increasing demand for our meat. And for what the farm has provided for our family - including the lessons learned.

It seems appropriate that this year is the first year we have had a Thanksgiving meal made completely with food from our farm.  I am reminded of the grace that was given this year to have a meal like this, in a year of drought and injury, and of the grace to be yet another year on the farm.

From our farm: sweet corn, broccoli, carrots, pickles (cucumber and dill), potatoes, sweet potatoes, heritage breed chicken, green beans, cooked carrots

Our sweet children, who were troopers this summer and helped me with growing, harvesting, and preserving each item above.

Follow The Beginning Farmer's Wife on Facebook for additional personal peeks at building a family farm.

To Clean Out a Clothes Closet

As I have said many times, it's not as much the size of house or number of people in the house that makes a house overfull . . . it's the amount of STUFF in the house.

We are in a constant battle of making room in our house, and just this fall I have come up with a way to keep our closets from getting overcrowded. 

To start with, you will need to be semi organized - keeping long sleeves together, short sleeves together, dress shirts together, etc. Once you have gotten that taken care of, you are ready to go.

When you put away your clean clothes, hang them at the BACK of the area where they belong.  Next, make a habit of choosing your clothes from the FRONT of the type of clothes you are wanting to wear.  Do likewise with your dresser - stick the just laundered clothes on the bottom of the pile, choose from the top.

It will soon become apparent as to which clothes you are continually skipping over because you have something you like better in back of them.  These skip over clothes are the ones that you seriously need to ask yourself why you keep them. 

Two helpful questions when dealing with stuff:

1. Is this adding to or taking from my life. (The taking from usually shows itself as taking away time with shuffling it around because it is in the way or shuffling more important things around because the lesser is taking up space that could be used otherwise.)
2. Could this item bless someone else more than it blesses me?

So there you have it.  Since I just hung up Ethan's clothes and told him the method to my recent madness, I thought I would share with you as well. :)