Well after a week of of 95+ days here in Mid-Michigan I am ready to move to Alaska!  The old saying of the corn crops being knee high by the 4th of July rang true this year plus some.  It looks like we have had enough mix of rain and sun to produce great crops so far this year.  Our garden is beautiful and for having most of it grown by seed this year thanks to our greenhouse, we are impressed.  Once everything hits it is going to hit hard.  There are about 100 green tomatoes out there just waiting for some water.  Our goal every year is to try and can as much as possible and try at least one new thing a year.  The new thing this year for us will be Ketchup.  You would be surprised how much ketchup a family of 9 goes through in a month.  It doesn't help that one of those 9 puts it on EVERYTHING she eats.  "She" shall remain nameless, but her name starts with R and it isn't me:) With the heat here at the farm comes extra work with ...

Today my friend Meg from The Coop  came to visit our little farm. She is doing a Michigan tour of all of the small hobby farms she can this summer. We had so much fun and her boys are adorable. She got to see how our little one acre farm is set up and runs. She is new to "farming" and so she hopes to gather as much information along the way to help her on her journey. It sounds like she already has a great start with goats, chickens and a garden. What more could a farm girl want than maybe a few more goats...or chickens;0 My sisters and I did our annual "sister's shopping trip" this past Saturday. We spent the day wandering the streets of Marshall, Michigan. What a neat little town! Tons of history and lots of little shops with unique and cute things in them! I bought one thing which was an antique yarn winder. I haven't figured out how old it is, but I am thinking early 1900's. I don't know where I am going to put it, but fell in lo...

With so much happening around the farm lately I have severely neglected the blog and I have missed doing it!  We are still doing foster care had have 2-2 year olds that I refer to kindly as the "Tribbles"  They are loads of fun and a lot of work.  I just went to court for one of them this morning and my heart breaks everytime I have to do that.  Just to listen to the junk some people have in their lives is too much for me.  One of them has both mom and dad incarcerated right now.  Sad.  But they are here, well feed, loved, and included in all we do.  Time will tell what is going to happen with both of them.  The most frustrating thing about all of this it the system.  I won't even get started, but it is so messed up and these poor littles get caught in the middle of it all. On a happier note the garden is in, the animals are sheared (that was quite the adventure this year see picture below...) and I am working on getting some interest ...

This is why every day is Mother's day.

We have gone from 80 degrees yesterday to the 40's this morning in Michigan. Brr. It is supposed to last through the weekend. I am not too upset as we have 2 alpacas and 6 pygora goats that need to be sheared and this will keep them cool until Sunday when we are able to get to it. I also have about 20 angora rabbits that I will be shearing starting next week as well. The bunnies just don't do well in the heat at all, plus that gives me more fiber to spin.  School finishes here for us next week. I am so excited, it has been a LONG year. I am looking forward to some time to garden, knitting and spinning and enjoying summer with my kiddos. Eldest moves home from college next week and 2 yr old foster son is still here and probably will be for a while;) He is a sweet little boy that is growing by leaps and bounds. It is amazing what some nurturing will do for a child. He turns 2 at the end of this month and came to us 10 weeks ago with NO vocabulary. We were concerned th...

I have an amazing Hubby.  He spoils me rotten.  I have a very long "Honey, I think we should do this list".  Sometimes he puts his foot down (like when I wanted to sell everything we had and live in a cabin in the woods), but for the most part he enjoys most of the plans I come up with even with all the work involved.  He says he likes the farm work, it is de-stressor (is that a word?) from his hectic, stressful day job as a chemist. We had an extra turkey pen sitting empty (after my grand plans of raising and selling heritage breed turkeys went, well, south).  I decided it would be perfect to enclose with plastic and make a greenhouse.  The girls and I were just going to go out there and staple plastic to the frame and call it good.  Hubby thought it best if he did a bit more that that, and oh boy did he!  It is awesome!  He even built shelves for us.  It is on the south side of our barn with lots of sunlight so it is perfect. ...