Quiver Full Family Farm

2010-07-07T16:10:00.003-04:00

For the first time ever Karin and I extracted honey from our bee hives. It was exciting watching the honey flow from the comb as we extracted it. We've learned a lot and had fun at the same time.

2010-07-07T15:57:00.004-04:00

Dad and I planted our popcorn with my grandfather's Black Hawk planter. It did a fine job and planted very evenly. We have a very good stand of corn..

2010-07-07T15:43:00.002-04:00

Dad and I started planting potatoes when the weather warmed up in April. Dad is 87 and still loves to cut the potatoes to be planted. With the help of family friends we finished the same day.

Wintertime activities

2010-02-06T16:05:00.009-05:00

MAKING CANDLES

We decided to make candles for the first time using beeswax. We filtered the heated wax before we dipped the candles. It was extremely interesting and fun.

This was Karin's first attempt at dipping the candles and they turned out great! She's making them for our daughter's wedding in June.

The chickens greeted me at the door of the their house.

They love to be fed.

Our last activity is to gather the "hen's fruit".

Fall Harvest

2009-09-28T10:34:00.001-04:00

We are finishing up the 2009 season. Tomato season is winding down, while the plants are still producing, each day we see less and less coming on. It has been a great season and we are very thankful. This week we are bringing plenty of Whole Grain Pancake Mix and Granola. We will also have dried tomatoes, popcorn, cornmeal, and pastry flour. Ofcourse we will have our colorful heirloom tomatoes and pints of blackberries. Thank you to everyone who has supported us!

Preparing for the North Market

2009-06-29T11:28:00.002-04:00

This is a busy week for us as we prepare our farm products for the North Market. This week we plan to bring:
Potatoes: Yukon Gold and Red Pontiac varieties
Granola: varieties include raisin, cranberry, mixed berry
Fresh Ground Whole Wheat
Blackberries: just starting to ripen, be sure to be there early!
Fresh Brown Eggs

Here are a few photos of our heirloom tomatoes. They are really coming along well and soon have delicious varieties of tomatoes.

Harvesting Potatoes

2009-06-29T11:18:00.002-04:00

Today we are harvesting the potatoes, Yukon Gold and Red Pontiac varieties. This is the largest harvest we've had of potatoes. Here we are using our potato picker- it makes it much easier to harvest!

It's Popcorn Time

2009-05-28T07:57:00.003-04:00

We planted our two varieties of Popcorn, Ruby Red and Shaman Blue to give us the scarlet and gray popcorn. As you can see it takes the whole family. Our grandson, Austin, had a great time "navigating" . We used my grandfather's planter which still works and does a great job.

To bee, or not to bee....

2009-04-20T13:32:00.003-04:00

One of the nice things about being retired is that you have more time to pursue "hobbies". A friend at church encouraged James to attend some beekeeper meetings, and that's all it took to convince him that we needed a few hives. But beekeeping is more than a hobby. Living on a farm we have noticed that the population of bees has diminished over the years. Since we raise quite a few acres of clover hay, and have a small orchard, it only made sense that we need to encourage honey bees for polination. Besides, we use plenty of honey for the granola I make and sell at the North Market over the summer months. I am excited to learn more about 'the secret lives of bees'. I am posting some pictures which were taken the day we received our bees.

Planting Potatoes

2009-03-23T16:26:00.007-04:00

Today feels like the third day of Spring. Temperatures have been favorable to warm up the soil. Ever since the weather began to improve, James has been itching to get in the dirt. We're tired of just looking at seed catalogs! Last week he hauled 8 loads of cattle manure in preparation for today. We planted about 250lbs. of Yukon Gold, Red Norland, and Red Pontiac potatoes, with more to put in at a later date . We like to dig them early so we will have something to sell at the market before our heirloom tomatoes ripen. Fortunatly, we had lots of help, in fact, we had four generations of workers on the job today. What a joy to be able to labor in the fields with the ones we love! Our work becomes our play;-)

Snowy Winter

2009-02-28T18:28:00.004-05:00