storage farm

Our farm is officially in storage now! We got it all packed up with help from our friend Paul before we headed out for our vacation. There it will stay until we figure out where we're going to settle.

this is from when we got started, I don't have a picture of it, but the unit is now packed to the edges. including the loft.

Jared and Paul figuring it out

Abbey's a big help, as usual... ;)

The birds new homes

We have officially closed up shop for the farm! All the birds have new homes, and we're in the process of packing up all the stuff. We're getting the new larger storage unit on Thursday and we'll have a Uhaul this weekend to move it all out!
We've thoroughly enjoyed being able to learn on this property and are very much looking forward to getting everything into storage so that we can focus all of our attention on deciding where it is we want to land, so to speak. I have almost all of my Christmas shopping done as well, I'm very excited, as this is the first Christmas in 3 years that I will be able to buy Christmas presents, which is my favorite part! I'm actually looking forward to it this year ;)
I've also made Abbey her spay appointment. I'm hoping that it will help curb her aggressive behavior. She recently has had no tolerance for children, which simply will not do...

Well, in case I don't get a chance to blog before, Merry Christmas everyone!!

Chickens and strawberries, chickens and strawberries...and ducks

This last weekend I started digging the strawberry plants. We will be leaving one row for the property owners, and the rest we will attempt to sell.
We had one family out to dig last saturday, and I managed to pull 200 (or so) before it started raining/got dark. I hope to pull more on sunday, I'm just hoping to get most of them out before it freezes too hard!
We also sold our first 5 birds to one of our former CSA families. I hope they bring them much joy and eggs in the coming months and years. I also have a friend who would like 3, and received an email about someone interested in possibly taking 11 more. 16 to go!
I've also found a home for our ducks at a (reletively) nearby dairy who already has a small flock of the same breed. fingers crossed that they will  get along with the rest of the flock.

So in the mean time, I'll still be commuting. One direction for the farm,

 nannying in the other...

Eggs and Strawberries!

I was super bummed I didn't get the garden up and going before I hurt my back, but summer is making such a slow approach this year, I might not be too late after all, and I definitely want to get a jump on some over wintering.
Currently we have strawberries and eggs! I had mentioned in an earlier post that I wasn't sure if the strawberries would produce this year, and they very much are! yay! I absolutely love fresh strawberries, so I'm so super excited!

Here's a few pics, Eggs, fresh from the nest, and our modest 'farm stand' (AKA  "the blue cooler")

 here's the strawberry field, a few strawberries on the vine, and fresh picked!!

I also have a small row of potatoes going (that's a surprise volunteer to the left there) and some Italian culinary sage that overwintered, and is now flowering with pretty purple flowers! (the chickens lay their eggs in there sometimes too! :)

I never got my chives planted, but they seemed to do pretty well in the wheelbarrow ;)

the bunnies are back too! caught this one with the camera as it was getting away...

Whenever I start to get bummed about our short growing season here, I catch a glimpse of something beautiful that makes me grateful for the place I live...

Anyway, I'm hoping to get some tomatoes and a few other things going in the green house, but I'd also like to get beets, carrots, and greens going for over wintering in one of the green houses as well. Lots of work to do and plants to pick up! hope the farmers market is still brimming with viable starts like it was a couple of weeks ago, fingies crossed!!

Hooray for the sunny weekend

Spring is definitely upon us here in the PacNW! It's been beautiful and sunny this last week/weekend, but my allergies have been bothering me in varying levels of severity since last Thursday, and I noticed when Jared and I went to Portland last week (which for some reason didn't make it into my last blog post) that our car was covered in yellow dust. The cedars. wonderful. I love the cedars, but when they pollenate, holy moly. It was worst last thursday, and better ever since. I'm hoping to inundate my system with homeopathic remedies, and lots of sleep and exercise. That usually does the trick for me.
I was able to get a bit of rest this last week/weekend in the midst of getting-ready-for-tour craziness this last month. As I mentioned, we did a mini road trip to Portland last week. It was a whirlwind, there early and back by the evening to move the chickens (which did make it into the last blog, lol shows where my mind is). As for this last weekend I kinda took it easy. Saturday I had dinner with a couple of friends I hadn't seen in too long (we definitely need to make it a monthly thing!) and then spent sunday with my Mom. We went to lunch at one of my favorite places in bremerton, then on to the farm so I could get a little work in.

I got a row of potatoes planted,  hope to get at least one more in that section....fingers crossed for more sunny days!!

my mom played with Abbey, who looks like she got some sweet air a few times! Go Abbster!!

It's rainy today, but I wore my new (to me) supercute summer dress anyway. I decided on a tshirt and faux leather bomber to go with since it's blustery and coldish, and I think I made it work. What do you think?

v-neck t-shirt: Old Navy; Dress: vintage (Ebay store: ebay store: that makes me feel pretty); Jacket: xhilaration; loavers: Tods

Jared is back in seattle today and tomorrow for two nights of shows in town, then back on the road. My current Jared-is-away movie obsession is breakfast at Tiffanys... I think I might be scared if I actually knew how many times I've watched it so far! ;)

I'm baaaack!

ok, haven't posted in a while, but I'm back! The husby leaves for tour today (although they will be back in a week for two days) and it wraps up the first week of June. It would seem that I have plenty to keep me busy though! lol... There is much farm work to do so I'm crossing all fingers and toes that I get some sunny days off to get this done! 

We are out of the Highway 3 property (woo! Finally!) The last order of business was completed. We had to get out the ground rods for the old electric fence set up we had there, and 6-7 chive plants that we established last year.

 

Chives

We also had to move the truck and some last few things we had to collect. Much thanks to our old (*tear) neighbor Ron for all of his wonderful help. What a great guy!

So all of the focus is on the Lincoln/Stottlemeyer property now. Nigel couldn't handle being across the street from the noisy banty rooster and they proceeded to 'call and answer' each other every morning starting at around 4 am. Thanks much to our long suffering property owners for putting up with his crowy ass for 3 days.  So now that they're in a 'new' spot, I'm hoping they stay in their fence, otherwise Lucy (aka 'killer') the resident golden retriever will be waiting! (haha)

There's also a lot of Asian greens, lettuce, cilantro, and dill to get transplanted. I'm still hooping and covering, using remay instead of plastic for now. Last night I noticed that it had blown off the bok choy I already got in, so this will be the test to see how many bunnies the fence can keep out, they love those greens! 

I should be getting a few days off, the boy and fam are going to visit relatives, so I hope those days are sunny! 

Speaking of the boy... we have made some significant progress! He has 5 going on 8 teeth, and is standing a little here and there all on his own! Very busy little bee over here...

 The Boy

Abbey is also going to be with me every day too, so I'm hoping to find some sweet spots to take her to get her wiggles out. She's a good girl, as long as she gets some exercise, otherwise, MONSTER! And although we like taking walks together as a 3some, I don't usually have the time (read: patience) to take her on daily "walks"

 I may look sweet...

So it's back to the alone schedule... Work and ferry 4 days a week and farm and friends 3 days a week!

 My commute isn't so bad!

 

I hope you look forward to hearing all about how I spend my time alone! I plan on getting together with a few of my friends I haven't been able to see in a while, and will be watching my favorite movies back to back to back to back as usual..... good times!

busy busy busy

 The last couple of weeks have been pretty bonkers.  Jared has a show tonight, is leaving for europe tomorrow for a week, then will be home for 5 days before leaving for the US until early June. We've had tons of errands, a memorial service, dentist appointments, and work work work. Our jobs have kept the both of us pretty busy, and although I miss Jared like crazy when he's gone, I'm looking forward to a couple of days alone to decompress and a couple of more days to get everything clean and straightened out, after the craziness that is Jared preparing for tour.  My spring cleaning is long over due and I am very much looking forward to going through all my clothes and restocking my closet spaces. I also need to clean out both of our cars and our entire living space, including the refrigerator and pantry cupboards.
All of our strawberries are planted, all 5400 of them!  I'm very much hoping that next sunday or wednesday is sunny so I can get our greens planted that are ready to go. The chickens keep hopping the fence and eating the starts (grrr) I also need to get the live traps set for the little bunnies that keep risking the shock to hop through the electric fence (double grr). I will be sure to post pictures of my adventures to come. Lots to do!

sun!

Today was an awesomely sunny day! I didn't go into the city until this afternoon, so I got to spend the morning transplanting strawberries with jared, 4 rows down, 2 to go! We hope to transplant the rest, and get some most of our other transplants in the ground tomorrow.

 Strawberry Patch

 new transplants hardening off

I also got to take the BI ferry into Seattle, it was gorg!!

 Seattle Piers, to the North of them there ferries

d'oh

This weekend was kinda nutty. It was rainy and poury all day on saturday and part of the day on sunday, but mostly massively windy, which equals cold, which I hate. I'm pretty much always cold anyway, so when it's actually cold, it puts me in a foul mood. Jared was not happy an angel tho.  ;)  We seeded some trays of veggie starts, I'm so super stoked to get this season started!

 the row on the left is the starts still on the heat mat waiting to sprout, 

and the ones on the right are already sprouted starts!

 cilantro!!

 kale!

 broccoli!

 this one's a new one! kholrabi!

 this one's new too, radicchio!

big bag'o strawberries!!

We also spent a few hours putting plastic mulch on the rows where we'll have the strawberries for some time. We tried planting 300 of them 'au naturale' 3 years ago, but found battling the weeds was too much, and they were left much to their own devices, which means we have many more now than we started with. We tend to not use plastic whenever possible (which is hard to do sometimes) but, strawberries only get moved every 3 years or so, so we figured we'd get our money out of the plastic on those. We also realized that after we'd spent much time in the windy rain putting said plastic on rows that we had neglected to lay down the irrigation lines, and they're essential. Blast. So Jared spent most of the day monday peeling up the plastic, laying down the drip lines, and replacing the plastic. He said he got it much tighter too. (Good man)

 if only we'd realized....D'oh!!

 Abbey, patiently waiting...

 Nigel (click here for his facebook page)

 injured duck and Henrietta.. 

it's not what it looks like...unless it looks like a stare down

then it's exactly what it looks like

 the rest of the ducks

 dust bath!

 our favorite australorp

Monday, I was in seattle with the boy. It was a pretty rainy dreary day as well, so we mostly stayed in. Tuesday I went over in the afternoon, and it was sunny when I arrived, so I thought a walk would be in order. I packed up the stuff (since you can't go ANYWHERE with a 9 month old for very long without lots of stuff) so we get about a third of the way around the block, and it starts POURING down rain. I'd also had the brilliant idea to bring Stella (the dog) with us. By the time we got all the way around the block, I was soaked, Stella was soaked and stressed out (weather scares her...I don't know) and the boy's blankets were soaked. He literally gave me this look like, "wow, that was fun. O_o" We tried again today, since I needed to make a trip to trader joes (which is about 4 blocks away) and it was much more successful. It had started to shower when we got there, but was back to sunny all the way back home. Done and done!

So as I mentioned earlier, I am always cold/hate being cold, so (kind of) needless to say, I usually wear many layers. Today's outfit is a perfect example of that. I have a ferry/bus/walk situation to and from work every day, so layers are pretty much a, well, must. I also had leg warmers on over my jeans, in addition to my tan thigh length trench and bright red pashmina, it was pretty cold this morning. (I want to say in the mid 40's, and I'm not exaggerating)

Glasses: generic walgreens brand, foster grant?(idk); cardigan: american apparel

shirt: alice temperly for target; t-shirt: swag/merch for ghostland observatory :D

Jeans: max&miley; belt: american eagle; driving mocs: ugg