Ditch burning & new sheep

Ditch burning actually appears to be a very common thing in South Central Iowa. So this is a more intentional burn we did in our ditch, and is more like what it is supposed to look like! It has been just astounding how much burning people do down here, there was never so much up by Ames. It seems like every ditch and pasture down here gets a fresh burn. It's nice though, because burning can be very good for the native grasses. 

We also got three new ewes, who are between 5 and 8 years old. Ryan was really worried that the 5 younger, stronger ewes (shown in the foreground) would take over all of the older ewes' feed. Instead, the older ewes push the younger ones around! We are weaning them off of the winter ration (hay and a little cracked corn) as our grass greens up. We will start moving them around the pasture soon, I can't wait! We are also supposed to get chickens this week, we hope they come Wednesday instead of tomorrow. We're just not ready for them yet!

Winter's last hurrah (we hope!)

After the prairie burn, the grass was coming back so nicely. All green and rich and beautiful. But I didn't get a good picture, and now it's under 2" of snow or so. Sigh. So we're very much hoping this is it. 

 In quilting news, I had a super productive week. I got one of my quilts that I've had for a very long time back from my machine quilter (Kelly VanVliet), this is the first quilt I've had quilted by someone else. I just didn't want to hand quilt all the seams, and it's just a little big to quilt on my machine. 

Unintended Prairie Burn and Crocus

This past Tuesday, Ryan decided he was going to burn one of our brush piles out in the pasture. A few hours and 3 fire trucks later, we now have a freshly burned pasture. Really, most of that is that Ryan didn't call them right away because we actually did want to burn off the pasture (it's good for the prairie grasses) and for a while he had it contained. Once the fire department got there, it was out in 20 minutes. No one was hurt, no buildings burnt, no livestock was injured. But it was an exciting day, and I didn't even know about it until it was over!

 On a more cheerful note, spring is starting finally! It's a beautiful day today, and this is a picture of our crocus. It's about time to split them, I think. We've also started a few garden plants indoors, we'll have to see how that goes. So far we haven't really hit the whole "garden" thing out of the park, but we'll keep trying...

Roosters, updated website, another quilt

Well, I got our website updated, so now it has the correct and working order form for our 2009 season (with dates)! So go check it out to order for our upcoming season. 

Our roosters (we had three) have been getting cabin fever, just like everyone else. They've been fighting a lot, so we had to get rid of one. I'd put up a picture for this, but it would be gruesome, so I'm going to continue the quilt picture trend. 

This is a quilt I made for me, called "Swallowtails in the sun." Ryan doesn't like it, never has. But ah well; perhaps it will go in my quilting room. Ryan has nicknamed my quilting room/the guest room "the girl cave" which really is a fitting name for it. 

Conference Season

Well, it's conference season for the sustainable ag community! I like conference season because it's a chance to see what other people are doing, talk about your ideas, and learn and network. The PFI (Practical Farmers of Iowa) conference was in early January, and the INCA (Iowa Network for Community Agriculture) conference was last weekend. (www.practicalfarmers.org and www.growinca.org) Based on talking to people at these conferences, I think we're going to try to do a few things for our business and our customers. We're going to try to make our currently annual newsletter reflect more about our beliefs and goals as well as what we're selling. I think we'll also try to make it a little more frequent. We've decided not to do pork this year, but it's still on the horizon. We did also join the Iowa Food Cooperative which has pickups monthly in Des Moines, and I think that will be good for expanding our customer base. 

 On another note, I finished a little quilt for my friend, Aubrey Ewalt, who is due soon. It's not very big (about 30" square), and it's the first quilt I've machine quilted; which was interesting and kind of fun. I usually hand quilt my work. I've decided to start posting quilts I finish on this blog, with the exception of those that are for other people who haven't seen them yet! (Kate Pickett, I'm talking to you.... I have one done for your currently nonexistant wedding!)  :-)

Eggs!

On Christmas day, our hens gave us the gift of our very first egg! I would have posted this exciting news earlier, but I could not locate our camera cable to get a picture to this post. So we now have over a dozen eggs, and the picture is of our first six. They are all different sizes and shades of light brown, and they are wonderful. Now that the hens have made it inside to the cozy area Ryan made for them in the lean to, they can lay to their heart's content. We're not quite ready to sell the eggs yet because they are mostly small, but we will be soon. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season! Those of you in Iowa, it's now time for the long haul until March...

The elm tree comes down

Today Ryan is taking down the big elm tree between our shop and our lean-to. Our neighbor, Cornie, came over to help and the two of them are working away with chain saws. You can also see the back end of our "new" truck, a '94 F150. 

The latest thing to die in our house was the water heater. So this year to date (the first year we've been here), we're up to the following things to die:

The well

The main electrical on the pole

The truck (a '92 chevy)

The water heater

I'm sure I'm missing something, but the bottom line is: save up cash when you buy a house!! Other than that, we're mostly just working to get ready for winter here. The few remaining turkeys and other animals are moving into the lean-to until March or so (the lean-to is the building in the picture). Two of the male ducks really don't get along well in close quarters, so we're actually hoping to get rid of one of them. We're down to 4 ducks now, and we'll see if we end up with baby ducklings at some point or not. If so, I'll post pictures!