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Spring!!

By Amy Rae on May 8, 2016
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Wow!  Spring is here, which means I should have done so, so many things yesterday - if not last week.  I've been frantically trying to get the garden in, while getting the spring hoophouse out, so I can get the summer hoophouse in...  and of course everything else I need to do -- pasta, soap, milking, cheesemaking, occasionally feeding my children, you know!  It's been pretty crazy for the last few weeks, I've been getting up around 5:30 or 6 and washing eggs or making soap or pasta before breakfast, just to get it out of the way.

Almost-Final Kidding Update

By Amy Rae on April 22, 2016
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Well, our streak of near-constant goats kidding is maintaining pretty well.  No one had babies on the 16th, 17th, or 18th, (and prior to that the 7th, 10th, and 11th) but otherwise there's been at least 1, usually 2-3 a day since the 4th, 27 mamas done with 2 left.  I emailed a local playgroup about the babies last Sunday, inviting anyone who was interested to come out - and we had 27 people show up throughout the day, another 3 on Monday, and 8 more on Wednesday (2 of those were repeats)!

It's Spring!

By Amy Rae on April 3, 2016
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Well, we did get a frost last night, another one expected tonight, and there's still the usual cold snap in May to get through - but my personal spring signal has popped up.  The asparagus is here!  We'e only had 3 edible spears emerge so far, but that means there's more on the way, and if you get down close to the ground, you can see dozens of baby stalks furring the bed, where they snuck through the mulch last fall and waited until now to pop up.

The Many Faces of Sweet Potatoes

By Amy Rae on November 28, 2015
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I thought a post about sweet potatoes was appropriate for Thanksgiving.  We are still digging ours, we planted a lot of them this year, and it's been really fun.  There are a number of regular old straight ones, but most of them are twisty, curly, gnarly things.  Often I can't  separate them without breaking one.

CNG

By Amy Rae on September 27, 2015
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Dry Goods

By Amy Rae on September 20, 2015
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The weather has been beautiful this last week (as long as you're not watering a garden!) - cool and dry, and great for curing the last of our corn, and a good bit of the beans.  I've also finally had a chance to dry some herbs, the overgrown basil in particular.

Expansion

By Amy Rae on August 17, 2015
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We have exciting (though daunting for us) news here at Solace Farm - our house addition is finally underway!  There have been numerous delays, the norm for the construction business I know, but since we're only hiring the foundation dug and built (cinder-block) and then we're doing the rest ourselves, every month it got pushed back was extra-frustrating.

Summer of Squashes

By Amy Rae on August 3, 2015
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Every summer, I usually plant a few winter squash.  I really like butternut, they just seem more prolific and hardier than many others.  I get a lot of squash vine borers (grubs that drill into the stems and kill the plant) and squash bugs (beetles that eat the plants and damage fruit) and we don't use chemicals (and not many deal with these bugs anyway) so survivability is pretty important to me.  This year, I planted a variety of butternut, I think it's Burgess or something.

Tomato Time

By Amy Rae on August 2, 2015
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July is when the garden really hits its stride, I've been cutting basil for a few weeks now and picked a few squash and okra, but the tomatoes in particular are coming in strong.  

I'm Still Here!

By Amy Rae on July 26, 2015
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Well, so much for trying to post 1-2 times a week!  My excuse this time is that, while I've been busy as usual, it wasn't farm stuff much, so I didn't have farm blog material - or time to write it.  I've been going to the market, a board meeting, driving to Pennsylvania and back, and basically taking a breather before the garden produce starts pouring in.  Here's a quick review of the last couple of weeks...

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