New Life Organic Farm

It’s A Busy Life!

Don — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 16:45:06 +0000

I forgot how busy the Spring and Summer time months can be on a farm. Yesterday, our day consisted of butchering and processing some of the meat birds we have raised, picking beans and cucumbers from the garden, making pickles, canning the green beans, making yogurt and cheese and somehow, Emma and I found time for the pool and reading! It should be no surprise that we get up early and go to bed late!

We have been eating lots of very yummy hot peppers and our tomatoes are delicious so far! The green beans are amazing. Emma ate tons of them last night. Thanks to my husband, I am now addicted to all the yummy hot peppers he is growing. My breakfast is now an egg white omelet with a variety of peppers, onions, greens and tomatoes form our own garden. Then I top it off with some homemade salsa with Don’s habanero sauce. Delicious! It’s such a wonderful feeling to know that I can make meals for my family with the ingredients being 100% form our own farm.

We decided to raise our own meat birds (Cornish Cross) and processed some of them last night. The only part that continues to be very difficult for Don and I is the killing part. Luckily, my husband does that part while I hide inside until he is done. We do it as humanely as possible, and I know that if we are going to eat meat, this is the only way to do it. I told Don last night that if I had to do the killing part, I would just be vegetarian again!

Emma got our her loom the other day and decided to make her first potholder. Here she is!

And then she decided that my hair needed to be prettier:

We have lots of fun together!

WOOO HOOOOOO…. SO exciting!

Don — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 18:01:21 +0000

Last year Emma and I found a beautiful bi-color tomato in the garden that had the most amazing sweet/tangy flavor! The only thing is…. I have NEVER planted a bi-color!!
This was some sort of genetic fluke and we had no idea what plant it came off of.
I saved a few seeds from it and shared it with people from all over the world so we could grow out every single seed and see if we could duplicate it.

I told Emma that if we could stabilize it I would name it after her.

Well, here is “Emma Kathryn”, almost TWO pounds!!

Summer Fun (and some surprising news…)

Kim — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 22:22:59 +0000

Well, we have been super busy, as always, during the spring and summer months. Super busy in the gardens, and trying to have some fun since Emma and I finished her school work in May. We have been doing lots of fun things, including a trip to Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun, paid for almost entirely by the company I work for! I love that place. We also have a trip to Florida planned this August, and it will be our first family vacation together.

Here are some pictures of our summer so far.

We grew some amazing beets this year and made pickled beets with all of them. YUMMY!!!!! Tonight we are harvesting peas, garlic, carrots, cabbage and broccoli. Lots of goodies to store in the freezer! And we are making saur kraut – can’t wait.

SO glad it’s spring time!

Don — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 02:02:45 +0000

I got about 1/2 an acre roto tilled, planted TONS of plants, and even had time to roast a goat!

Wild Blue Phlox from our field and forest… we have TONS of it, and you should smell it!! Smells like lilac!

Our newest garden!!

Some of the garlic in our “kitchen” garden.

YUMMY GOAT….

The trade off with Emma was, that if we can eat her goat she get’s a pet gecko…..
Meet “Thunderbolt”

OUCH !!!!!!!!!!!

Don — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 19:28:21 +0000

C’mon SERIOUSLY…. how does a normal hen lay THIS and still walk upright!?!?!?!? This is not joke, I found this in the barn yesterday!

We are still hunter gatherers.

Don — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 19:05:19 +0000

It is a great feeling knowing we can go out on our property and gather any number of wild edibles!
Kim makes an AMAZING soup from the dreaded stinging nettle plant.

I also harvested wild garlic, and some turkey
I am not one of those hunters that cherishes the actual kill. In fact it still makes me feel bad. BUT… knowing that our food lived wild, un-caged, and pharmaceutical free certainly makes me feel better. Besides, then I am not supporting the cruelty that goes into mass produced meat. And the flavor of wild turkey breast leaves store bought turkey in the dust!!

WILD GARLIC

“A rolling stone gathers no moss”

Don — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 18:53:39 +0000

No Moss growin’ on the Pratt family!

Sometimes I look back at what we cram into our days and it makes me tired just thinking about it.

Kim got a new milking doe (Tinkerbell) I could take or leave goats, but “Tink” is really cute. It doesn’t hurt that she has a crush on me and follows me around like a lost puppy.

Tink

We are also putting in a new 1/2 acre garden, and the first year is always the hardest because you have to deal with whatever is already growing there. The peas are up, garlic is HUGE, all the salad green, and spinach are doing great. Potatoes have been planted, cabbage is up, onions are up, beets are “beetin” and all of my tomatoes and peppers are a foot tall indoors waiting for warmer weather. Below are some of my peppers. (no that’s not a new fertilizer, that is a HUGE bottle for size comparison.

The beginning of the new garden.

As if that was not enough, Kim and Emma are painting Emmas bedroom.

Working in the Garden – FINALLY!

Don — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:35:26 +0000

It’s the first day of Spring today, and we have been working really hard in the gardens for the past few weeks. We decided to expand our garden from last year by adding a HUGE garden in another area of our property. So we will have two gardens this year, plus my herb garden. So far we have planted beets, arugula, spinach, peas, cabbage, broccoli, kale and various other lettuces. Don has also started TONS of pepper plants indoors and our tomato plants have been started indoors as well. I just went to the deep freeze today and realized that we will probably run out of tomato products before our new tomatoes arrive. It’s always a very long wait for fresh tomatoes each year.

Here are some pictures of Don and Emma working in the garden yesterday. We were planting cabbage.

We traded computer work from Don on a neighbors computer that he got for them for a dump truck load of their manure. We are very excited to have all the manure this year. Does anyone else get this excited about poo??

And here are some pictures of two of my two favorite hens. The first one is a Jersey Giant hen and the other one is a Salmon Favarelle.

Two of our young roosters that we hatched out:

We didn’t think the one on the left was going to make it after he was born, but we took good care of him and he pulled through, and now is beautiful and healthy as can be.

Still no baby goats yet, and I am concerned that she may not even be pregnant. We’ll see what happens in the next few days.

Emma’s Gingerbread Cookies

Kim — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:49:50 +0000

Yesterday, Emma decided to make Gingerbread Cookies. I knew she was “baking” something in the kitchen, so I let her have at it, and whoa was I surprised at the mess! She did it under the table in the kitchen so that I wouldn’t see her if I walked in there.

We have a new rule in the house…no baking allowed unless mom and dad are there to assist you! Emma did not have as much fun cleaning up the mess as she did making it.

When we went to a friends house last week for a playdate, they reminded me how much fun and how easy it is to make homemade Play-doh. So we have been doing that this week as well.

I Have Waited YEARS For This!

Don — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:08:13 +0000

My husband loves me…he really, really loves me. Know how I know this? Well, I have had this crazy obsession to try a Durian fruit for years now. Unfortunately, you can only get them if you go to Asia. I have talked about wanting to try this fruit many times and my husband found a way to get one for me! He happens to work with someone that has friends in Asia that were kind enough to send this to him. Silly to get so excited over a fruit, right? Well, this fruit is known as the “King of Fruits” and also known as the stinkiest fruit on earth, with a very interesting and custard like taste. Here is some information about the Durian:

“The unusual flavor and odor of the fruit have prompted many people to search for an accurate description, with widely divergent and passionate views expressed, ranging from highly appreciative to deep disgust. Travel and food writer Richard Sterling says:

“Comparisons have been made with the civet, sewage, stale vomit, skunk spray, and used surgical swabs.

This strong odor can be detected half a mile away by animals, thus luring them. In addition, the fruit is extremely appetizing to a variety of animals, from squirrels to mouse deer, pigs, orangutan, elephants, and even carnivorous tigers.”

What can I say? I am a sucker for nutritious foods, no matter how strange they may seem.

The Durian is very high in Vitamin C, Thiamin, Fiber and Vitamin B6. It has a high sulfur content, which is also very good for you.

So last night was the night to crack open the fruit. Emma and I waited patiently for Don to get home from work so we could all join in on the fun. The fruit smelled quite good before it was cut open. The outside of the fruit is covered with very sharp spikes that can cut you if you are not careful. The spikes punctured my skin and Don’s. Once it was cut open, it let out this very strong smell. The smell immediately reminds me of how natural gas smells. And an onion. It didn’t turn me off at all, and I couldn’t wait for the first bite. The texture is soft and smooth and very much like a thick custard. The taste is very unique. Fruity at first, but then the aftertaste is a lot like onions. I loved it! The fruit is huge, so we ate a bunch and then froze the rest to put into smoothies. Emma and Don loved it as well. I added it to our breakfast smoothies that I make for us every morning which usually consist of OJ, bananas, blueberries, strawberries, cod liver oil, cacao, and greens of some sort (kale, spinach or parsley). It’s a nutrition packed smoothie.

Here are some pictures of our Durian tasting.

So if you ever get the chance to try this “King of Fruits”, I highly recommend it. It is like nothing you have ever tasted before.