Untouched Photos of our lovely walk about....

Wildcrafting and Cheap Entertainment

On of the ways I am expanding my pantry this year is to explore the natural resources in our timber. Look what I found....

Wild plum and elderberry. I found these while taking a walk with the girls on Friday. Last year a friend made me elderberry syrup that I used whenever I felt a cold coming on and I was the only one in the house who didn't really ever get sick last winter. Awesome. I hope to make some syrup of our own for this winter.

The wild plum was unexpected. It is in a place that it should have been obviously blooming in the Spring and we totally missed it. How is that possible? Very excited about the plums.

And.....I have these in flower vases. My girls love to pick flowers and these little beauties are EVERYWHERE. Flowers really do make me smile and a tiny girl with both hands full of flowers for mama makes me smile bigger than I ever imagined was possible.

Here they are riding along side of my walking. Lily is teaching Holly how to "drive".  Taking long walks in our back yard/woods is a wonderfully simple way to spend an evening. We packed some peaches and juice and called it a night.

I think with all the entertainment options for kids and adults alike we can easily forget the free option of a nice walk outside. We did this when we lived cityside too. And while taking these walks in the city we would meet neighbors and find fruit trees, much like we do out here in the country. Right now our neighbors are breeding cows and harvesting silage and hay.

There are hidden resources to be discovered. What are some you have found?

These Little Piggies Went to Market

We saw this display at the fair, if you click on the picture you can actually read the words. When you take a drive in the Iowa countryside and see these buildings, now you know what they are! I didn't until about 3 years ago. I wondered how Iowa could be a top state for hog production and yet I'd never seen any pigs on farms. Cows? Yes. Horses? Yes. Even sheep in fields. Never pigs though. Now I see them all over the place. It really is big business.

For us too. But we do things differently. Our pigs also have constant access to clean water and food. Our pigs have shelter that protect them from extreme temperatures, plus their natural behaviours. Predators? We've not yet had a problem. The herd tends to look out for themselves plus our fence is pretty decent too. We also care for our animals, but we also care for additional needs like playing and happiness. I do think that happy animals make better food. They have room to run and play. They actually like sleeping outside under the stars. The self regulate for hot and cold. They are really quite clean and have not destroyed the pasture as we were warned they would do.

See?

Pigs running!

Pigs gathered to eat.

Pigs nosing things up in the pasture grass.

Four of these happy pigs went to "market" today. They spent 3 weeks eating mostly whey, milk, walnuts, apples, and peaches. They ate very little grain, after filling themselves up with the good stuff. Transporting them to market was a new challenge and Chad learned a lot about the process. On my end, I learned a lot about the order forms. Tomorrow very early I find out if the pigs were big enough to provide jowl bacon. Later in the day I drop off order forms and verify information. It's all very exciting!

Sample Sunday!

On Sunday we set up our farm booth at Prairieland Herbs and answered questions about our pork! It was lots of fun.

One of the ways we had the table set up. It changed throughout the day.

There was a tie dye station and a hula hoop demonstration and lots of good smelling things to eat.....our booth was next to Ebersole Cattle Co. and Shanen showed us the ropes, literally.  We met face to face some of our customers that we'd only known through facebook or through mailed checks! We sampled new soaps and scents.

Dawn the amazing hula hooper!

Things I learned that we need if we do this again: Samples. Duh. Sample Sunday? We are all out of our own pork until fall harvest so we simply had nothing to provide as samples.....except lard. So next time we will bake little apple pies or jam tarts and shortbread cookies made with lard. That was Chad's brilliant idea.

Shanen showing us the many uses of dry ice....

We also need a banner or poster for our farm name. Something that is upright and has large print. The name and description on the table did not draw people in the way that a large sign might? Also brochures with pictures, price data, and time lines would be good. I had not even thought of that until I saw Shanen's.

Next up, we will prepare for Farm Crawl 2010! I should have our cookbook ready to preview by then, I hope!