Look out, Nashville!

Our very talented neighbors, the Howard family assembled a group of friends to create this country music video in hopes of cheering Jacob up while he was sick. We can safely say that it truly did the trick! Olivia is responsible for the artsy videography and design. We have the eloquent Bruce the Bard to thank for the clever lyrics and the....ummmm..."singing" ;0) The rest of the gang just went along for the ride. Obviously, they all had a blast! And they managed to keep it all a secret, too! What a hoot! I reckon' we're the only farm around with our own music video. Eat your heart out, Josh Turner!

A Wee Highland Lassie

Jacob's cow Thistle had a calf this week! She's tiny and adorable. He hasn't named her yet, so you'll have to wait until later for that. We discussed names briefly yesterday. If you want to read the story Mom wrote about how we found her, sign up for our newsletter. Thistle is very tolerant, and doesn't mind if we pet her baby. She doesn't like Hoss getting close to her, though.

She's so cute that I imagine you'll be seeing lots of pictures of her in future.

Here she is with her mama.

-Tricia Ann

Have you ever seen an artichoke plant?

I never had until I grew a few this year. Funny looking, aren't they?!?

Maybe we'll have artichokes in our 2011 CSA baskets!

-Tricia Ann

Farmer's Market Booth Re-design

We have a corner space at the Farmer's Market this year, so our set-up had to be changed. Plus, we needed to make our booth look really nice, so we'd sell more veggies. We now have two "pop-up" tents to shade our produce (the phrase "pop up" is deceiving, but that's another story :). The front is for our display of veggies for sale, while the side/back is our CSA pick-up area. So far it's worked out really nicely. We also made new matching price tags, which we laminated so we can write the prices with dry-erase markers, in case we have changes. I designed three banners so our farm can be easily identified. After they were printed, I sewed velcro onto them, so we could just stick them to the sides of the tents.

All in all, I think it looks very nice and much improved.

We're still under the pavillion this summer...yay! It feels about 10 degrees cooler under there than out in the parking lot.

Microgreens have been a big hit this season.

Here's our CSA pick-up spot

"Hit him on the head!"

"More broccoli?"

-Tricia Ann

Clean-up and Fencing

As I said in the last post, during the flood, we lost all our perimeter fencing in our main pasture. We anticipated that it would take a lot of time to put it all back up...a lot of time that we didn't have because of all the garden work that had to be done. Our CSA season was just beginning. We even thought we might have to sell the cows because we didn't have a place to put them.

But, as always, the Lord provided. We had people come from Illinois, Alabama, and all over Tennessee to help us! Some of them we'd known a long time, and others we'd never met! They cleared all the brush and debris out of the fence-line and helped Jacob put up a whole new barbed wire fence! There were also ladies who prepared meals for us and all the workers; and people who helped in the garden while Jacob and Daddy worked on the fencing. It was a lot of work, but I think everybody had fun. I know I did.

Thank you to all the folks who helped us out...we'll never be able to thank you enough! May the Lord bless you for serving Him through serving us. We are so blessed to be surrounded by such wonderful friends.

"Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken."

-Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

I don't have pictures of everyone that helped, but here are the ones I do have:

Per advice from local farmers, Jacob decided to attach the barbed wire to the trees this time. Hopefully that will hold up better in floods than fence posts have.

The guys rigged up a clever barbed wire reel.

Here's a section of knocked down fence with mangled high-tensile wire.

We used a lot of staples.

We also used a lot of red cups. :)

-Tricia Ann

Flood 2010

Apologies to all our readers for keeping you so long in the dark. We are just fine, but very busy with farming. Also, our internet has been pretty haywire lately. For now, we'll bring you up to speed with a few posts about the happenings of the past couple of months.

On May 2nd, there was an epic flood, not only here, but in a lot of middle Tennessee. Beaverdam Creek, which is the border of our big pasture, rose and covered the entire pasture. Water flowed through like a river. It knocked down all Jacob's high-tensile fencing again, took out our whole potato crop, washed up all sorts of debris, and dumped large amounts of sand and gravel in our lower garden spot. Thankfully, we got all the animals, and equipment up to higher ground, out of the reach of the water. We were very blessed to make it through with so little damage. Many people around us lost their cows, farm equipment, cars, and their houses.

The power was out for about 5 days, but we were able to use our generator to keep our freezers going and to pump water from our well.

Dad and Jacob walking across the road

Here's our lake...I mean, pasture.

It was a perfect time for Superman to show up. He's standing in a hole that the water made in our driveway.

Here's the fence by the entrance to our driveway.

During and after the flood, we got to meet a lot of our neighbors. Everybody was making sure everybody else was okay. It was really neat to see the community coming together to help each other. Also, lots of people came to help us clean up and repair damage. Stay tuned to see pictures of our clean-up and fencing crews.

-Tricia Ann