Suburban Farming

Our little farm is really taking off. Our chickens are happy and healthy. They love running around the yard. We live on 1/3 acre so we have a good sized back yard. Now that the chickens have explored around they pretty much stay in the back half of the back yard. It took me about a week of chasing them off of my porch before they got the idea and now they rarely come up to the house. Unless the kids have some sort of treat and the chickens are looking for a hand out. We have really noticed that there are way fewer bugs this spring. We are pretty sure it is thanks to the chickens.

This last weekend we picked out a goat! Penelope (we will probably call her Penny) is a 2 year old Nigerian Dwarf doe. She is currently staying at the place that we bought her from to be bred. Hopefully she will go into heat soon and take on the first cycle and we can bring her home at the end of June. Otherwise they will keep her another month and try again. This will be her first time as a mama. If all works out as we are hoping that we will have kids around the first of November and we will be able to start milking her.

This last week I went by the natural foods store and picked up a small container of raw goats milk and did a blind taste test for my family. We couldn't tell the difference between our regular cows milk and the goat milk. That bodes well for getting my family to switch over to the goat milk. We are currently paying $9 (!) a gallon for local raw jersey cow milk. So, we should be able to break even with our goat. That's the hope anyway.

I've been told that we need to keep 2 goats for them to be happy. We are going to try the one and see how it goes. If she has a hard time adjusting then we will get her a friend sooner. Otherwise we will plan on keeping one of the kids next Fall.

I am finding that I am a farm girl at heart. I am loving the changes around the "homestead". I am also finding that while I am fairly natural with the animals and feel very confident with their care my thumb is not quite as green as I would like it to be. We are trying square foot gardening this year in our first raised bed. Our plan is to continue with the CSA through this summer and hope that next summer we can raise all our own veggies.

We are trying to stay with heirloom seeds that we can harvest the seeds and reuse them next year. Lofty ambitions! So in our backyard we have red and gold raspberries, potatoes (yukon gold, russet, red, and blue - planted in a round wire cylinder - see above photo), rainbow carrots, lettuce mix, herbs, cucumbers, and tomatoes (still inside until we get some more warmth). We may even get some grapes off our vines this year. We will see. My husband and my mom's husband (thanks Ray!) are in the process of building an arbor over our patio for the grapes. Our vines have taken a beating, so I'm not sure how well they will come back this year. But we do have a couple of buds, so we are hopeful.

Spring is here! And Summer is just around the corner. I am so excited about this season.

It's all about the timing

Over time I've realized that much of life can be summed up by horseback riding illustrations. Most recently, my son. Or more specifically, my actions toward my son.

I love him dearly, mostly. Early last week, after asking a few questions and watching my kids for 15 minutes,  my son's pediatrician offered me Ritalin (for my son, not for me - I get wine).

I've tried many parenting approaches that I've gotten from friends and/or books but nothing has really worked. We have taken him completely off of artificial color and flavor which has helped a lot. But not enough. We have seen glimpses of the amazing person our son can be (and let me tell you, he is amazing!), but nothing lasting longer than a few minutes here or there. It is so frustrating.

Since I have more of a tendency to try the natural approaches I started reading about options. One of the books I picked up was Ritalin Is Not The Answer. Love it. Surprisingly it has very little to do with Ritalin. He explains why we should not use this particular class of drugs on our children, but most of the book is a new look at parenting and discipline. Especially for those kids that tend to have the ADD/ADHD behavior patterns.

I've ridden horses for 30 years and my passion is dressage. One of the keys to getting a horse to do what you want is timing. If you squeeze your left leg when the horse's left hind leg is on the ground the horse will push off with more impulsion and you will have more power going forward. But, if you squeeze when the horse's leg is in the air, the horse will step further forward and you will get a longer stride, thus extending the gait. It's all about the timing.

Reading this book I'm realizing that, parenting is all about the timing. The first step in the process the book lays out is positive reinforcement. This is a key point and one that, if left out, will hinder (or completely ruin) the outcome. But, it must be done at the right time. We must reaffirm our children when they are acting in a pleasing manner. Shocking I know! But seriously how many times do I not actually do that. For example, when my child is falling apart and puddling (those times when they are a mess on the floor), I see it as a time when I need to let them know that I love them, but that their actions are not okay. When, in fact, I should not give them my attention. And, certainly not tell them that I love them. This is a good time for a time out.

On the other hand, any (and every!) time that they are doing anything positive I should comment and complement them. We started this pointed positive feedback with my son last week and within a couple of days we started to see quite a difference. My first fear was that we would create kids that believe that our love is conditional. Instead, what I'm finding is that my son is getting more confident and secure in our love. He is also becoming proud of what he can accomplish instead of believing that he will just naturally misbehave.

Now, lest you think that in the past we have never said anything nice to our children, let me clear this up. I have always been a believer in being positive with my kids. I am just finding out that I haven't been doing it at the right time. I have now become more immediate and more sensitive to their actions at the time of the positive reinforcement and I am getting different results. It's all about the timing.

The second step is the discipline piece. Basically this is a time out, but done in such a way as to use the child's boredom against them. It is working beautifully.

I found myself a little misty eyed this weekend as I realized that, for the first time in months (if not years!), I was really really enjoying my children. Not just making it through the day with them. In fact, I even pushed my son's bedtime back because I was enjoying having him around so much.

We have only been doing this for a few days (we started the time out phase on Saturday). So, we will see how this plays out long term and I'm sure there will be rough days and battles ahead. Yet, for the first time I feel like I have something that really works for my son.

If you catch it...

My son went fishing a couple of weeks ago. I told him, "If you catch it, I will cook it."

We had a wonderful trout dinner that night.

Pinterest

It has been crazy busy here. My children have seen every one of their grandparents within a six week time frame. And, with the amount of fractures in our family trees, that means lots of separate family visits. Plus we fit in a nasty flu for my son and a head cold for me. It was a scheduling miracle.

Realizing that I needed more time I went searching for ways to fit a few more minutes into my day.

So I had this great idea that if I gave up Facebook it would give me enough time to blog. What I failed to realize is that I am still the mom of small children that create a mountain of laundry every 15 minutes and need a five course meal every 30 minutes. Facebook fits nicely into the 5 minute time slots. Blogging, not so much. Then, when I got sick and had to take it easy I was introduced to Pinterest. Oh, dear. It filled those 5 minute slots nicely (and then some).

I have a love/hate relationship with Pinterest. Hate it because it makes me feel like I should be working out all the time and eating amazing desserts while doing it. And, I feel like my decorating is insufficient. And my nail polish isn't creative enough. I love it because, well, um. Hmm, I'm not sure why. Oh, because it has redeemed itself with a few good project ideas.

Like the time I came across the rugs that people were painting. I realized that they were actually going out and BUYING! the ugly rugs that I had sitting in my garage (I bought them from IKEA because we needed a cheep rug at one time but I hated them and so they were relegated to the farthest reaches of our currently very messy garage).

So I excavated the rug and, look how nice it turned out! Thanks Pinterest (I hate you slightly less).

Spring continues to inch forward. We are trying a new idea for gardening this summer. Again, Pinterest inspired. We were going to try raised beds but couldn't agree on where to put them. Then I came across the idea of planting directly into straw. I'll keep you posted on how it works. We sign up for a CSA (community supported agriculture) we decided to start small with our home garden and only plant what we could not find easily. So we are planting 3 different types of heirloom tomatoes and 3 different types of rainbow carrots. Plus herbs and potatoes. Our potatoes are going into a round straw/dirt cylinder made out of wire fencing.

I think my extended family is starting a betting pool to see how many of my new projects actually produce anything edible.

Here is a photo of the bales of straw hanging out and mellowing to be ready to plant our seedlings in. I hope, if they ever sprout. I am trying to grow from seed in my kitchen window.

I have the bales on their sides (strings go around from top to bottom instead of around the sides) to retain moisture. The web sites I looked at had differing opinions on this. Some said to have them cut side up (the end that does not have the strings you can see distinct cut ends of the straw). But all agreed that if you have them cut side up you loose a lot of water. So, we will see how it works having them on their sides.

And, finally, a random kid photo. We did Easter photos, so here is a super cute one of my kids...