24 Monday Sep 2018
Posted in Projects
Ok, so it really isn’t a lawn, and Sue only was able to use the lawn mower once, but it was still a “take care of the too tall grasses” day. Monday’s have got to be for something, right? We kicked around a few things: cleaning out the goat shed or the lean-to, planting pomegranates, pulling the straw out of the RCW… but settled on a good mow out in the fields. Continue reading
21 Friday Sep 2018
Not sure that pizza night has anything to do with farming, or chickens – since we didn’t do BBQ chicken pizza – but it was the evening’s fare. Sue had been craving it, so at breakfast, we made our dinner plan for pizza. Unfortunately, today was a late work day so dinner came later than normal. We both made it to dinner time, though, without withering away. And there is nothing like fresh baked pizza from your own oven. YUM-O! It felt especially indulgent because we each made our own, and this was a week that warranted a great, greasy, cheesy pizza – for me anyway. Not a banner week at work, but definitely a great week on the farm! Continue reading
17 Monday Sep 2018
Posted in Co-workers, Projects
We’ve had a pretty busy few days. Well, except for Sunday which is our Sabbath; the day we reserve for all things churchy and for taking it easy to refresh our bodies as well as our souls. We had a jammed packed Saturday and a very busy Monday. Are you ready for the news? Then I’ll tack on some insect photos at the end. I’ll try to keep it coherent. Continue reading
12 Wednesday Sep 2018
Posted in Projects
…wonder what we’ll be writing about today? It’s still a mystery to me. Although, it is Wednesday so that means a short report anyway. It’s never that nothing is happening, more that there’s nothing of import going on. Well, maybe not even that. Maybe more like the stuff going on is more mundane than anything. Not really the stuff of great posts. We’ll just do a quick overview and see what tangents we follow then. Continue reading
10 Monday Sep 2018
Posted in Co-workers, Projects
Well, we don’t think you can ever have too many eggs – but sometimes we can have too many orders for eggs! Right now, Tom the Baker is ramping up for the holidays. He’s wanting to start back up with 10 dozen each week. 10 dozen! We were able to fulfill that order today, but we had to wait until Sunday evening in order to get that many. We didn’t sell any to anyone else all last week so that we could get to 10 dozen by today… and we just barely made it! After we took the 10% out, we had exactly 10 dozen. When I dropped them by this morning, I said, “Just let me know what you need later this week…” and he said, “10 dozen.” All I could say was that we’d do our best. We have orders in from regular private clients as well. We don’t want to forsake everyone to make sure Tom gets 10. Especially those that purchase from us because they have allergies or are dealing with cancer – so they’re trying to eat more cleanly. What’s a body to do? We’re coming up on that time when they are really going to slow down for the winter. We’ll just do the best we can! Continue reading
03 Monday Sep 2018
I have a friend by the name of Wes Ellis. I love this man and his family. I don’t know if he even knows this, but he and his family, and their quiet and unassuming love helped get me through one of the more difficult times of my life. He is currently the Associate Pastor of First UMC of Tom’s River and I tell him, periodically, that he is still pastoring me from afar. We don’t speak very much, but I do follow him on Face Book and via his (occasional) blog “Searching for God in all the Wrong Places”. The other day I ran across this FB post from him, “Avoid pessimism. But avoid optimism too. Choose, instead, to be hopeful.” I read that and thought, “Wait! I’ve been trying to be so optimistic!” Even when you’re not – fake it till you make it – right. And here he is saying, just be hopeful. In the comments, he goes on to quote Jürgen Moltmann, “Genuine hope is not blind optimism. It is hope with open eyes, which sees the suffering and yet believes in the future.” To which I further thought, “Pffft. What the heck does he know? I’m just going to continue to be optimistic. It’s so much grander than simply hopeful.” At that point, I was thinking about my life and where it was going, but tonight I’m thinking of more mundane matters. This really isn’t all that theologically oriented – as his post perhaps was, but – I ended up putting optimism into play when I last talked about how many trees we were going to get into the ground this weekend. I believe I said, “most, if not all.” Seems I should have been hopeful, rather than so optimistic. Continue reading
31 Friday Aug 2018
You know, we decided to start this blog so the people at home – our friends, family, church members – who kept requesting that we “let them know what we were up to”, could indeed see what we were up to. We now have over 100 followers on social media of some type… I realize that this is not huge in the grand scheme of things, but for us it’s amazing. 102 people follow us on Face Book, a couple dozen people follow this blog by having it e-mailed to them, and 30 some just follow it directly on WordPress. I just want to thank family members, who indulge us by reading – because they have to, and friends, old and new, who have supported us in this adventure. It’s always such a great feeling knowing that you are following along and rooting for us; rejoicing when we get something right, and sympathizing with us when things go awry. Thank you so very much! Now… on with our regularly scheduled programming. Continue reading
27 Monday Aug 2018
I’m not going to do the weekend update until later. I’ll be traveling Wednesday and want to have something that I can talk easily about while I’m gone. I’ll be leaving for Phoenix tomorrow afternoon for a workshop over a couple of days. I’ll be back Thursday afternoon, but will definitely have time in the late evening, Wednesday to post. So I am not anticipating losing a day. Anyway, let’s talk about today and why these goats really, really, really want to come through the gate. Continue reading
20 Monday Aug 2018
Posted in Projects
Sue told me the other day that she thought the posts were generally positive – and I’m really glad that they seem to come across that way. Today, however, I’m just not feelin’ it. Although I don’t have any thing “bad” to report, I – personally – just have a general feeling of malaise. You know, it’s Monday and it was the longest, short weekend I’ve had in a while. I’m sure it’s just because I am dealing with some lingering effects of Shingles – and its got me a bit out of sorts. So, while I’m sure this will be a fine post, it probably will not be effusively upbeat. Guess I’m asking for your indulgence, at this point. Continue reading
17 Friday Aug 2018
Posted in Co-workers, Projects
…the number three. We’ll add chickens any chance we get! Who doesn’t need more chickens? Just three more, please. Today we’re going to pick up three Easter-Eggers from a church friend who is moving to Georgia. His wife is getting transferred, so they are picking up and heading East. They are the family that gave us the four hens earlier this summer. Well pick them up soon and put them in with
Eggers in holding bin
their “flock” this evening at closing time. We’ll start the process of changing them over to organic food, so we can add all their eggs to our ‘sellable’ stash. It only takes a couple of weeks for the old food to be completely cleared from their bodies and their eggs can be considered organic. I was surprised that it could happen that quickly. After three weeks we could be adding their super large eggs to our cartons. These are also the chickens we’re going to pair up with the 3 goat boys. Chickens and goats are supposed to get along quite well. That will be an interesting adventure for all, I’m sure.
Wing and a Prayer 