Preparing

It's hard to believe that we are approaching the third summer of living in our house. Ever since we began talking about building our home and starting a small farm, we have talked about chickens. Finishing up our house, a surprise baby, and our first year of gardening has set this goal back a little, but this is the year!

Now that we have two kids, our requirements for chickens has changed slightly. We absolutely *need* docile chickens as our daughter loves on all animals. An aggressive hen or rooster won't cut it. And we are drawn toward the bigger breeds. 

In our quest to keep things as local as possible, we have found several local farmers who hatch chicks. One in particular raises Buff Orpingtons, which is at the top of our list. We've put in a request for chicks. Now it's just a matter of spring coming!

And we love to read as much as we can about something before we jump in. What are your favorite chicken books?

Fresh Ground Paprika

Winter means seed catalogs. As a homesteader and farmer, your hopes and ambitions are high when the temperature is low. Last year we were definitely dreaming big as I was overly pregnant and had a case of serious cabin fever. We pored over catalogs. And Dan came across these beauties. Paprika...why not?

We had some beautiful plants, in fact the paprika plants were the healthiest and seemingly most productive of our peppers. We would have gotten more, but our little white tailed back yard friends liked them more. Rotten deer.

But, I digress. We collected a number of peppers, seeded, and sliced them. We don't have a food dehydrator (it's on the wish list!), so we used our oven at the lowest temperature. The peppers roasted for about 10 hours. We didn't need any ground at the time, so we simply put them in an airtight container and put them in our pantry.

A few weekends ago, we decided to grind them up. I wish I had more pictures of the process, but the smell had us mesmerized. We used our small food processor, but it might have been a little more efficient with a coffee grinder. Live and learn! If you enjoy growing your own herbs and spices, paprika should be on your list!

CSA Thursday

After a little break over the holidays, CSA weekly drops are back! This week brings fresh greens, a big golden beet, sweet onions, garlic, carrots, potatoes, and dried shiitake mushrooms.

I've heard so many people say that they only eat salads in the summer. But, boy what a treat the winter greens are! There are so many other great veggies available in the summer that I prefer to enjoy my greens in the other seasons :-)

It's a bit chilly

Yep. It's cold. -4 cold. But the woodstove is keeping us nice and warm. A 78° difference between inside and out! I'll take it!

How's the weather in your neck of the woods?

Never gets old...

One of the things that I love more than anything about where we live is the sunset and sunrise. While I'm not always as thrilled about the sunrise, I do love a good sunset. Today was a lovely day for both.

Even the western sky was pretty this morning.

And I don't think I'll even get enough of the sunsets. My family loves when we're in the middle of dinner and I hope up to grab my camera (really, my phone...but it has a rocking camera).

About That Decorating Stuff

I've been so excited since we started planning our house for decorating it. I joined Pinterest when it first started (that probably explains my 60 or so boards). With being pregnant when we finished up and subsequently surviving our first year with two kids, decorating took to the back burner.

I'm a fan of the shabby chic type decor as well as the farmhouse look. And vintage. And cottage-y. So, I guess you could say I'm eclectic.

After we took down our Christmas decorations, I started brainstorming how to decorate above my kitchen cabinets. Our kitchen is kind of my baby so to speak. I picked out the style and design and held out until the Ikea 20% off sale! I knew I wanted to incorporate my love of milk glass and blue Mason jars. And I really want to bring more of nature indoors this year.

So, inspired by a favorite blog of mine (Chickens in the Road), I set out on a walk with the kids to collect things for winter themed bouquets. Stick here, pretty piece of dead grass there. And some random blue berries! I found some red as well but they were on a rather prickly vine.

We brought our haul back to the house and I got to work. It was a lot of fun! And I'm thrilled with how it turned out. What do you think?

Now...about all those things I have pinned on Pinterest....

Looking Back, Moving Forward

Whew. 2013 was a whirlwind year for us! We reflected on some highlights last night.

1) We became a family of four! It's been an adjustment, but life is fun with two kids.

2) We had a successful first year gardening. We grew a lot of fun stuff and have some of it put up for the winter. Butternut squash anyone?

3) We finished work on our master bathroom. It was a lot of work and ran a little over budget, but we couldn't be happier with the results!

4) Blogging! I started this blog 2 years ago, but have started getting serious about it. It's fun to share our story. And I love being able to blog for Grit!

And now for our "goals" for the new year!

1) Finally get those darn chickens. I've been in contact with two different local farmers who hatch chicks in the spring. I'm excited to avoid hatcheries and keep it local!

2) We want to expand our garden. Last year got us hooked. While we could do without weeding, the results are more than worth it. We'd like an herb garden, strawberries, and a test flower garden. We'd like to start a small flower farm and hope to test the waters this year.

3) Kole will be having a small tent at our local Farmers Market! He's so excited for it. We will be picking out seeds and helping him along the way.

4) We will be starting our vineyard. Our eventual goal is to make wine with our own grapes. We will start a few vines each year to reach that goal.

5) Continue to improve and finish stuff around the house. I'd like to do some landscaping and start doing some decorating inside. I might finally get around to some of those Pinterest projects after all.

What about you?  Will you be getting chickens? Starting to bake bread? A small container garden? Let me know in the comments!