Eleven O'Clockish

I wanted to share with y'all a quote that I just found that sings to my heart.  I was looking at the presenters for the Utah Farm Conference.  Vernie DeMille, one of the presenters said this in her bio, "I am the sum of my efforts and not my failures."  Isn't that beautiful?  We are planting elderberry cuttings today, fun times:) I wish you the best!  Happy Thursday!

It snowed!  Just in time for Christmas.  We only got about an inch, but it is beautiful.  Murphy, our new dog, has never seen snow before.  While it was snowing he sat on the porch with his mouth wide open and tongue licking trying to catch the flakes.  Then he walked around licking the snow off the ground.  He is pretty cute. In my family it is a sort of tradition (we do it some years) to read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens before Christmas.  We didn't this year, but I revisited some of my favorite parts, the last stave, the "mankind was my business" speech and some of the parts with the ghost of Christmas Present.  It was a lovely visit back to old favorites. Merry Christmas to you all!   

On the farm we have been working on our new no-till beds.   We started them in the spring, but we are reconstructing them.  Before we had a layer of straw on top of the dirt and then compost on top of that.  We got the compost from the county (We later discovered that the compost was unfinished.) We had two or three heads of lettuce grow in the beds this summer, nothing else would.  We think the failure was a combination of all the nitrogen being tied up in digesting the unfinished compost and the lack of direct contact between the compost and the soil.  The beds that have done the best with this compost are the ones where the compost is touching the soil.  We think the direct contact helps transfer the soil organisms.  We have been calling our struggling beds the Frankenstein beds. This fall we tore out the Frankenstein beds, tilled, then made new beds with a compost/soil mixture, and are now applying a layer of our home-made finished compost mixed with the unfinished county compo

Happy November everyone!   I've had a cold over the weekend, but things are looking up.  I had a nap in the sunshine with our house kitty, Muffin.  It was just what the doctor ordered.   We got cats pretty soon after moving to the farm.  A farm isn't complete without it's felines!  Now we have four cats, one at the house and three down to the barn.  The barn kitties are Mitten, Betsy and Rusty. Rusty is Murphy's pal.  Murphy licks Rusty and follows him around the barn yard.  It's pretty cute:)  Hope all is well with ya'll.  Have a wonderful Tuesday.    

The other day, I was feeling all knowing about the constitution and asked my brother if he had the preamble memorized.   He said yes, then rattled it off, making only one mistake.  Instead of saying, "Do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America," he said " to the United States of America."   Even though it was a small mistake, it got me thinking.  One of the things that occurred to me is how there are principles in the preamble that can apply many places in life.  Not just politically but in private life as well.   Here are three examples.   First, "Insure Domestic Tranquility."  On the average day, I don't think, "I am going to insure domestic tranquility."  I might think, "I am not going to fight with my family today."  There are many ways we can insure tranquility but there are three that we all have done at one time or another.   We can praise our family, and do it sincerely.  Receiving

Whew!  Here we are, the maiden posting.  I'm excited to share my thoughts and happenings with you all.  By way of introduction, I live on a twenty acre farm in the deserts of the western United States.  My family and I moved to the farm when I was ten, and what an adventure it has been since! In our time on the farm we have had cows, goats, chickens, turkeys, pigs, guinea hens, dogs and cats.  We try to practice earth friendly farming, which includes no-till gardening and rotational grazing.  Along with farming, I mentor a theater class of super awesome kids.     Today we are going to the local trunk-or-treat to socialize our newest addition, Murphy.  He is our massive, sweet, seven month old guard dog.  He is a Great Pyrenees/Newfoundland cross.  My parents and I have discussed several costume ideas we could do together for this event.  We were thinking of doing Wizard of Oz, with Murphy being the lion and Chloe being Toto, but I think we are going to go with us all dressing u