Thursday, June 23, 2016
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Wet summer!
Its been a very wet and muddy summer so far in North West Arkansas. Especially with a big chicken yard right beside the house. yes, you read that right, we built a huge yard around the 4 coops we have, so we can let them out every day and not worry all day about them. Haven't quite coyote-proofed it yet, but they'll have to work at it to get in, and by that time, we'd be home to lock the coops. The chickens, rabbits, ducks and guineas are in there together. There's no grass growing, but its not very overcrowded either. Its quite a nice area. I love sitting out in there with them and giving them little treats. Its so funny to watch little chicks grab big bones and race across the yard. :D
I don't have pictures today for this post, but I will try to get some for the next.
The garden is doing great, we've got lots of peppers! Not quite enough to sell them though. We've been selling beans however. Made $55 so far just by selling beans! isn't that just great?! Its such a liberating feeling, being able to make some cash from your garden, living and thriving off the land. We've cleared out red garden, the one by the highway. Cleared I mean cleared the grass that was as tall as we were and isolated the poor okra plants that were bring suffocated by the grass. Just a little worried about deer, really hoping they wouldn't notice the tall okra plants! ;)
Arkansas traveler tomatoes are doing pretty good as well. Had a few already, made salsa from ingredients entirely from the garden! and that's including the onions!
I don't have pictures today for this post, but I will try to get some for the next.
The garden is doing great, we've got lots of peppers! Not quite enough to sell them though. We've been selling beans however. Made $55 so far just by selling beans! isn't that just great?! Its such a liberating feeling, being able to make some cash from your garden, living and thriving off the land. We've cleared out red garden, the one by the highway. Cleared I mean cleared the grass that was as tall as we were and isolated the poor okra plants that were bring suffocated by the grass. Just a little worried about deer, really hoping they wouldn't notice the tall okra plants! ;)
Arkansas traveler tomatoes are doing pretty good as well. Had a few already, made salsa from ingredients entirely from the garden! and that's including the onions!
Thursday, May 21, 2015
5/21/2015
Well folks, its time to do a post again! My viewers may be numbered, but I've been itching to write something for the past few weeks. Writing papers was my favorite back in college (hah! look at me, "back in college" when I only graduated 5 months ago ;D ). I figured I learn a lot more doing research myself and writing papers than sitting in class for hours listening to someone babble all day long. Anyhow, I'm gonna stick to the one important thing I learned in Comp I, "Don't sway away from the topic" ;)
We've been enjoying every second we spend at our homestead. I mean, who wouldn't! We have gorgeous chickens and baby chicks, dabbling ducks, guineas that freak out over their shadows, cute little gobblers, kittens and cats, doggies.... oh I could go on and on. Their little antics make us laugh. It might be just that, what makes it worth it to us, to spend our whole budget on these animals. I can go outside and sit on a chair and a cute little easter egger with fluffy cheeks would fly on to my lap and perch. How awesome is that?! How many people in the world do you think would get to experience that?! It is worth it to me, to work 14 hour days throughout the week, get as little sleep as 5 hours a day, deal with snorty little bitches(this is an understatement, female dogs are much better behaved? than some of these people I get paid to deal with) at work, just to get to our weekend retreat. Its not easy being us, but lemme tell you, coming home to a broody mama with 8 little baby chicks peeping under her is just an incredible feeling. She sits there for 21 days and hatches these gorgeous babies that pop their heads out of... well all over her. ;D It amazes me how the broody hen knows how to call her babies, better yet, how the babies know how to come to mama when she makes this distinctive little cluck. Who teaches these animals how raise their young, or how to be broody is just beyond me.
Maintaining a homestead definitely comes with a lot of hard work, like, feeding schedules, cleaning and building coops, tilling, planting, deweeding oh its an uncountable amount of jobs that need to be done. We work harder on weekends than the whole work week combined. Mondays are officially named sore-days here at Urteaga Farms. All the physically hard work, and we get to enjoy meals cooked outdoors on a fire , yes, even the usual rice and curries. For some reason, food always tastes much much much better cooked on a wood burning fire than on a stove. When the weather complies, we cook all three meals outside on the fire. Oh, toast made on a cast iron skillet is just out of this world! After a day of hard work, sitting down by the fire, under the beautiful blanket of stars, with a beer in hand and dinner cooking on the fire, listening to the enchanting tunes of country music playing in the background is such a relaxing and peaceful feeling. The slow winds bring in the delightfully fragrant smell of nearby honeysuckle vines. Our neighbor is always invited for dinner on weekends because he helps us out a lot. We sit around the fire discussing various topics. He's much like us, and loves and appreciate what we do, so just having him around is reassuring to us, because our families (except Mike's dad of course) don't quite understand why we moved out to the country when we could have gotten a house in a neighborhood in town (yuck). Seriously, after almost a year my aunt says "when you grow up, in a couple years, you can sell that house and move to an actual house (not a playhouse-- these are her exact words) in the city". As much as I want to explain to her again and again why we do what we do, I just grind my teeth through the conversation and move on. I like to think that she's missing out on such a great experience. We don't like to deal with people around our house, we like and value the privacy. Family drama is poisonous, we stay away from drama as much as we can. Sadly, more drama they present us with, the more distant we get. Maybe its time to think alternatives. Family is important...
Speaking of, our little family in the homestead keep growing by the day. We have 28 breeds of chickens, 5 breeds of ducks and 3 breeds of turkeys so far. My addiction for collecting have kicked up a notch. But hey, that also means I have very valuable birds, going as far as $70 a trio. And I've got many many trios. ;)
Well, I'm gonna pause this here today, hoping by tomorrow we will have a website of our own, urteagafarms.com. Cheers!
We've been enjoying every second we spend at our homestead. I mean, who wouldn't! We have gorgeous chickens and baby chicks, dabbling ducks, guineas that freak out over their shadows, cute little gobblers, kittens and cats, doggies.... oh I could go on and on. Their little antics make us laugh. It might be just that, what makes it worth it to us, to spend our whole budget on these animals. I can go outside and sit on a chair and a cute little easter egger with fluffy cheeks would fly on to my lap and perch. How awesome is that?! How many people in the world do you think would get to experience that?! It is worth it to me, to work 14 hour days throughout the week, get as little sleep as 5 hours a day, deal with snorty little bitches(this is an understatement, female dogs are much better behaved? than some of these people I get paid to deal with) at work, just to get to our weekend retreat. Its not easy being us, but lemme tell you, coming home to a broody mama with 8 little baby chicks peeping under her is just an incredible feeling. She sits there for 21 days and hatches these gorgeous babies that pop their heads out of... well all over her. ;D It amazes me how the broody hen knows how to call her babies, better yet, how the babies know how to come to mama when she makes this distinctive little cluck. Who teaches these animals how raise their young, or how to be broody is just beyond me.
Maintaining a homestead definitely comes with a lot of hard work, like, feeding schedules, cleaning and building coops, tilling, planting, deweeding oh its an uncountable amount of jobs that need to be done. We work harder on weekends than the whole work week combined. Mondays are officially named sore-days here at Urteaga Farms. All the physically hard work, and we get to enjoy meals cooked outdoors on a fire , yes, even the usual rice and curries. For some reason, food always tastes much much much better cooked on a wood burning fire than on a stove. When the weather complies, we cook all three meals outside on the fire. Oh, toast made on a cast iron skillet is just out of this world! After a day of hard work, sitting down by the fire, under the beautiful blanket of stars, with a beer in hand and dinner cooking on the fire, listening to the enchanting tunes of country music playing in the background is such a relaxing and peaceful feeling. The slow winds bring in the delightfully fragrant smell of nearby honeysuckle vines. Our neighbor is always invited for dinner on weekends because he helps us out a lot. We sit around the fire discussing various topics. He's much like us, and loves and appreciate what we do, so just having him around is reassuring to us, because our families (except Mike's dad of course) don't quite understand why we moved out to the country when we could have gotten a house in a neighborhood in town (yuck). Seriously, after almost a year my aunt says "when you grow up, in a couple years, you can sell that house and move to an actual house (not a playhouse-- these are her exact words) in the city". As much as I want to explain to her again and again why we do what we do, I just grind my teeth through the conversation and move on. I like to think that she's missing out on such a great experience. We don't like to deal with people around our house, we like and value the privacy. Family drama is poisonous, we stay away from drama as much as we can. Sadly, more drama they present us with, the more distant we get. Maybe its time to think alternatives. Family is important...
Speaking of, our little family in the homestead keep growing by the day. We have 28 breeds of chickens, 5 breeds of ducks and 3 breeds of turkeys so far. My addiction for collecting have kicked up a notch. But hey, that also means I have very valuable birds, going as far as $70 a trio. And I've got many many trios. ;)
Well, I'm gonna pause this here today, hoping by tomorrow we will have a website of our own, urteagafarms.com. Cheers!
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Spring?!?!?! Maybe?!
Spring is approaching, and it is time to start gardening again! Woohoo! It is as much fun to plan the garden as to harvest from it.
Sad to say, but we have yet to order seed for this year. Difficulties arise as we try to get the farm together, but that's not a no to a huge garden this year! Looking forward to being able to go outside without the negative Fahrenheit wind chills. I've been drooling over my long droopy skirts in the closet. Oh well, enough about the cold days. Its all about the wait for the warmer ones!
These are the seeds we are planning on ordering for the Spring Garden. It is about time to start germinating!
Spring Garden
*French Breakfast Radishes
Cherry Bell radishes
*Carrots
*Beets
Cabbages
*Turnips (new this year! =D)
*Spinach
*Onions
*Lettuce
*Kohlrabi
*Kale
Snow peas
*Potatoes
*Broccoli
*Brussels Sprouts
*Beans
* are the ones we need to buy the seed for
The others, we already have the seeds!
Here's the plan for just the spring garden until we get the parts for the tiller, to repair it.
Very excited to garden as always, and looking forward to a wonderful year ahead. =)
Sad to say, but we have yet to order seed for this year. Difficulties arise as we try to get the farm together, but that's not a no to a huge garden this year! Looking forward to being able to go outside without the negative Fahrenheit wind chills. I've been drooling over my long droopy skirts in the closet. Oh well, enough about the cold days. Its all about the wait for the warmer ones!
These are the seeds we are planning on ordering for the Spring Garden. It is about time to start germinating!
Spring Garden
*French Breakfast Radishes
Cherry Bell radishes
*Carrots
*Beets
Cabbages
*Turnips (new this year! =D)
*Spinach
*Onions
*Lettuce
*Kohlrabi
*Kale
Snow peas
*Potatoes
*Broccoli
*Brussels Sprouts
*Beans
* are the ones we need to buy the seed for
The others, we already have the seeds!
Here's the plan for just the spring garden until we get the parts for the tiller, to repair it.
I do realize that beans are not quite a spring garden specialty, BUT, beans did so well for us last year, that we've got to try it this time as well. Plus, we have been buying beans from the store, and we're missing the crispiness of freshly picked beans so much! Now, I wish I could put Okra in there too, but Okra most definitely need the summer heat. =)
Very excited to garden as always, and looking forward to a wonderful year ahead. =)
Friday, October 24, 2014
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Garden
Last week end Mike tilled 3-4 additional rows, and now we have planted daikon, cherry belle radish, lettuce and cabbage! =) daikon and radish are already popping up! =)
-Charini
-Charini
New addition to the farm!
Just this morning we bought 6 guineas (5 pearl and one white), a white silkie (I LOVE SILKIES), a laying bantam chicken and a black tiny little chick (I'm not sure what breed she is, I'm assuming Bantam cz she's so tiny!).
So yeah, we're very excited to see how they get along... =D
-Charini
So yeah, we're very excited to see how they get along... =D
-Charini
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