Beauty Farming Life

Vintage Poster:  Harvest Legume & Grass Seed Here's another fun poster (aren't they all?).  Found this one at another library archive site.  It was pretty simple:  Remind everyone to be sure and harvest legume and grass seed...for your use and the Nation's need. So they used this image of a strong man (John, you there?? LOL!) carrying a huge bag of seed after the harvest.  I understand the legumes being food, but I'm not sure about the grass seed and its necessity for the country. Still, great graphics and a nice visit into our history. Enjoy!

We had yet another rainy end of week and start of the weekend.  Saturday was a washout, a little over 3 inches of rain.  We didn't go out until yesterday and t his was the sight that greeted us when we got there to work on the yard: super saturated ground.  It's a great thing to see, it means the ground is so wet, it won't absorb more, but it also means I can't start on the yard projects just yet... There is a drainage path/depression that pulls water away from the house which is a good thing.  I believe 2nd Family did this for "Ma" a few years ago.  You can see it in this picture.  Our end of the property, where the house is located, is the high end, and so water eventually works it's way down toward the road...  This is the area near the burn pile we used recently.  It was very flooded, ankle deep water over a wide area.  To be fair though, it is part of the direction the water flows toward the drainage areas so I guess that's to be ex...

OK, let's try this again! 1. Where is your favourite place in the world? Tell us why? Other than our farm (even though it's not finished!), I would have to say it was a vacation spot we went to a few years ago; San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. If you've never heard of it, google it.  It's the most amazing place. It's in the mountains, it's an old town with cobblestone streets and hills and awesome old world European style buildings and gorgeous flowers and plants everywhere, beautiful weather and great food.  Oh and the friendliest people we've ever met. 2. What person has inspired you most? I would have to say my Mom.  We lost her a few years ago, and I miss her terribly, but she was one of the kindest, nicest, most generous people you'd ever want to meet.  She welcomed 2nd Man into the family just as if he was her own and never thought twice about it.  She had some major back problems in her life, several surgeries, etc, but...

If you'd like, you can prep it the night before.  Here I prepped it all the night before to make it easy to throw together before leaving for work. 1 lb white beans 1 lb sausage, diced 2 stalks of celery, chopped 5 whole sprigs thyme 2 small white onions, diced 1 glove garlic, minced pinch of red pepper flakes 8 cups chicken broth 2 cups torn/chopped kale 2 TBSP cider vinegar salt/pepper to taste The kale can be torn by hand or chopped into small bits, just be sure and remove any hard stems or woody pieces. Put about 2 cups aside in fridge until slow cooker is done.   Place beans, sausage, thyme, celery, onion, garlic, and seasonings in crock pot. Add the chicken broth and put the lid on.  Set your crock pot for 8 hours on low or 4 hours on high and forget about it.   It should look like this after you take the lid off later when the cooking time is done.   About 30 minutes before you are ready to eat, remove the lid, pour in your k...

Wall Mounted Coat Rack Found this WONDERFUL coat rack last week and got it put up over the weekend.  It mounts on the wall!  Too cool!   It's a metal rack, based on a vintage French design and is distressed to look old.  It's got four levels of hangers.  Coats, hats, umbrellas, and whatever else, right as you walk in the front door.  This seemed like the perfect location for it. Update: I've gotten lots of requests for where I found this.  Hobby Lobby.  On clearance.  Get there fast if you have one near you! Above it, I hung our first real picture on the wall.  This is an old oak frame that my Mom found once upon a time.  In it, is a really cool old print... ...a hen (rooster?) and her babies some ducklings in a pond.  We figured it seemed an appropriate "farm related" picture.  It's funny how when you start hanging stuff on the walls, it starts looking just a little bit more like home.  This entryway/f...

Driveway view In the interest of sharing, and seeing more of the property, here is a view (right after I mowed it all!) that I thought I'd share.  This is looking down our driveway toward the house.  It's from where 2nd Family's house is.  It isn't from the main road though because we share the main driveway that goes from the road to this point (about 3 acres away) with them.  Here you can also see, on the other side of that large post, where our property begins.  So this part of it is our driveway, all the way up to the house. On the left in both of the photos, you can see a fence line that separates it into what we all call the 'back pasture', which belongs to them (2nd Family).  We hope to someday share some livestock with them in that pasture.  Sheep?  Goats?  A couple of milk cows?  Pigs?  Time will tell I suppose. The photo below is about halfway up the driveway so you can see a bit closer view of the house.  We...

Homemade Bread Loaves 2nd Man spent the rainy day baking, and I spent the day running in and out of the kitchen taking pictures for the blog.  I'm sure he thinks I'm crazy.  :-) Here is some of the bread he made.  It was SO good.  We have had it sliced and toasted for breakfast the last couple of mornings, and a few slices with dinner.  It's so nice to wake up to the smell of bread baking in the oven... One of these days, I'll have to get him to give me step by step instructions and let me take photos...if he slows down long enough.