On this final day of 2021 (while mourning the loss of Betty White), I’m posting for the first time in months. Why? This is my post to finally “come clean.”
You see, we celebrated our first Christmas in six years just a few days ago.
Coming clean
Grapes? Grapes. Grapes!
Since we moved here in May, I’ve been irritated at the 20 feet of vines growing along our front fence perimeter. The rest of the fence line was completely clear, so why did the previous owners allow this to grow so wild? About 3 months ago, we were about to pull onto the road when Tim said, ”Wait, are those grapes?” We stopped the car, got out to investigate, and sure enough – those vines were grape vines! Thanks to my handy plant identification app, I discovered that they were California Wild Grapes. Since then, we’ve left them alone until this past Monday, when it was officially harvest time.
Continue readingHarvesting, property updates, and dirty feet
Blueberry harvesting has started, and it’s obviously going to be ongoing for a while. Our smaller plants are mostly ready, but the larger plants still have a bit to go before the berries are ripe. Right now, I’m just picking, rinsing, freezing, and storing, but I plan on making some freezer jam in the near future. We eat a lot of fruit with granola and yogurt for breakfast, so I likely won’t have to buy blueberries for a very long while. I’m giving some berries to a friend, but we’ll still have more than two people ever will need. I also harvested some spinach, oregano, and lemon thyme this morning. I’m excited!
Update! Gardening! Farming! We have a name!
We moved in seven weeks ago today, and I can honestly say that life has changed drastically since then. We were overwhelmed new homeowners on an unfamiliar piece of property with no plans to utilize the greenhouse. Now, though, we are making large, grand plans for our future gardening/farming operation, as well as the addition of a new barn/loafing shed.
We have gone super-small this year since we obviously got started late, so we have two types of peppers, two types of cabbage, lettuce, spinach, fennel, broccoli, tomatoes, and several types of herbs growing in our greenhouse, in addition to our 12-bush blueberry crop that has what appears to be roughly 7,230,437 blueberries growing at the moment.
Continue readingWelcome to our farm!
Well, the home search is finally over. Our old house is sold to a new family with three little boys, and we closed on our new home eight days ago. The move was completed six days ago, and unpacking has begun in earnest. So, without further ado…
Welcome to our farm!!!
Continue readingSo close… but not yet
Sitting in my inbox is a link that, once clicked, will take me to the documents to sign an offer on a house. It’s been sitting there since last night, and I’ve opened it a few times, but I just can’t click the buttons to start signing. And it’s breaking my heart!
Reawakened dreams
Since I was about 24, I’ve wanted to live on a homestead. It’s been dream for nearly half my life, and one that’s been out of reach for most of it. I’ve tried to make my home a bit more “homestead-y” wherever I’ve lived, but I’ve never actually had much land to do anything with. Still, I was undeterred and tried to grow some of my own veggies and actually use the land a bit. But it never worked out because there wasn’t much to be done with a patch of grass.
That is likely changing soon.
Continue readingGrief and the holiday season (2020 edition)
Due to the fact that I’m a Jew, and I am still coping with grief, I have an incredibly complicated relationship with this time of year. Last year, the holiday season was horrible. I was bombarded with Christmas greetings and music and messages and, more than once, I ended up in a puddle of tears because of the memories of my childhood and the people – my brother, my father, my paternal grandparents, my mother-in-law – that have all died in the past four years. Add to that that I literally had a Salvation Army bell ringer yell at me because I didn’t wish her a “Merry Christmas” back, and I simply couldn’t handled it. I made a vow that in 2020, I would not be subjected to the onslaught of Christmas cheer and memories that were too painful to enjoy. For months now, I’ve been making plans to ensure that I didn’t have to get anywhere near a store between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day.
The thing I hadn’t planned on, though, was that in a year, I would change. I would heal. I would feel better.
Continue reading
Life on Wild Hare Farm 