Is This My Once a Year Update?

Howdy!

I actually found myself googling, "Do people still read blogs?" before I sat down to write this. And whether they do still read blogs or not, I found myself compelled to add another post... even if only for my own "story keeping." 

Yes, we are still YouTubing as well, but here's a quick update as to all things TwelveAcres.

With the CRAZY stuff going on in the world today, I'm withdrawing deeper and deeper into our little farm. We are making growing our own food a bigger priority this year than ever before. The fragile food system that is crumbling before our very eyes, has jolted a lot of people out of their slumber. 

The fresh meat sections at our local supermarket. 

Because of that, we've upped our game. 

The garden is a little bigger this year, our incubators are constantly running, the rabbits are perpetually kindling... you get the idea. 

 Our "pig venture" is still proceeding. Darla, our York/Blue Butt cross is pregnant and should be due in July. Frank, the Hereford boar, is still as sweet as ever, and even teaching Darla how to love being scratched. They are growing ever bigger and we hope to be able to expand their pens yet again this year. And I'm learning all I can about hog pregnancies and birth!

Handy Husband has seen some employment difficulties this year, so another new venture of ours is making home décor and furnishings from reclaimed wood and pallets. We've opened up an Etsy shop for the smaller items; if you get a minute, we'd love to have you take a look at what we offer. 

One of our handcrafted "noodle boards," aka stovetop covers.  

Some new critters on the farm this year, are (FINALLY) turkeys! We've been talking about getting turkeys for years now, and we finally bit the bullet! We have 12, 4 day old poults: six Narragansett, and six Bourbon Red. We plan on raising a few of these for the freezer, and the rest will be kept as breeders to hopefully keep us in turkey for years to come. 

 I can't think of anything else new. We are still recovering from the housefire, believe it or not. The siding is about 90% done, and we have still have to paint. We also have two massive piles of debris to remove from the property, but without a truck it's not that easy. One day at a time! We'll get there eventually.

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I may update more frequently as the mood hits. Take care everyone and I'll see you back here next time! 

Spring Gardening Time!

We're so excited for spring to be in full spring. We had a nice thunderstorm last night with lots of rain, and with the temperatures being in the 60s, and even forecast to get into the 70s in the coming days, no doubt everything will start exploding with growth!

I didn't get my seeds started as early as I would have liked (no surprise there!), but I'm hoping I'll have enough time to get at least some of the spring crops before it gets too hot for them. 

I did some cleaning and rearranging in the greenhouse, which will also double as some a storage space for my housefire-salvaged "stuff". 

These lettuce and brassicas over-wintered in the hoophouse and will be 

transplanted into the main garden. 

First time growing onions! Hope they do well!

We'll have about 75 tomato plants this year! I plan on doing a LOT of canning!

Blackberries are coming in nicely!

Lots of seeds started for the summer garden!

The boys helped me with some new mulch for the rose garden. I want to keep it well managed this year- last year it pretty much grew wild and the weeds and grass were out of control!

Summer Flowers

 Despite having bouts of drought, and attacks from Japanese beetles, and the lawn getting far too overgrown from issues with the mower, we did manage to have some pretty decent annual flowers in our yard this summer.

The roses, on the otherhand, didn't fare so well.... 

The Knockout roses only had their leaves stripped, but most of my old fashioned roses have died back completely and are having to grow back from the ground up. It's very sad, since the same thing happened last summer. I wonder if they'll ever be as big and full as they once were. 

A Rose is a Rose

I love my roses so much, I just can't stop taking pictures of them!

Old-fashioned Beauty

I love these old roses that have probably been growing for decades. I rarely do any pruning to them, and every year they are adorned with the most beautiful, fragrant roses.