Category: mini-farm

my favorite season

by Ariana Peters, posted in baby, kids, mini-farm

Yes, my favorite season in Fall for its beautiful colors and crisp weather.

However, as I now have a baby and and am growing food and raising chickens I find myself looking more and more forward to the end of fall and the beginning of winter.

Don’t get me wrong, I know I am so lucky to be able to grow food and raise chickens and feed my family good, whole food…..but from spring planting through to fall harvesting there aren’t many days where I don’t give up a minimum of 30 minutes to the yard. 30 minutes doesn’t seem like much but when you have a little one 30 minutes out of your day can be a lot.

That 30 minutes doesn’t include the days that I am actually preparing beds, planting, harvesting and preserving; that is just daily maintenance. That takes up a lot more time.

Again, I love pulling out homemade and homegrown food in the middle of winter and early spring when everything in the grocery store is shipped from who knows where and harvested who knows when; so, I am most definitely not complaining, but the slow season of winter is absolutely calling me.

I love watching the rain fall while I drink a cup of coffee before everyone else wakes up. Make it snowfall and I love it even more.

Reality vs. fantasy: Fantasy (or should I say my pre-baby reality) in the slow winter months I read more, slept in more, relaxed more and sort of hibernated. My new reality: I am guessing winter will also have its challenges such as where do I put the baby when it is raining out and I need to change the chickens food and water? What do I do when the baby is grumpy and its raining and this is when we normally go for a walk to settle him down? We live in the Pacific Northwest so rain is a big factor for us in the winter hahahahaha.

We will see how reality and fantasy hammer out this winter.

August Garden Update

by Ariana Peters, posted in baby, food, healthy lifestyle, mini-farm
Jalapenos
Tomatoes
Serrano peppers
Peas not doing so good this year
Thyme
My helper
Chickens eating the last corn that the dog didnt destroy
Cucumbers, zucchini, pumpkin and watermelon all torn out by the dog. But volunteer tomatoes are here
Bell peppers are doing great
2nd carrot planting……and somehow tomatoes
1st carrots and leeks. I am pulling these as we need them. I need to devote a day to Dehyrating and freezing them soon
Celery going to seed
Lima beans
Some kind of beans, don’t remember what I planted lol
Cherry tomatoes
Baby eggplants
Sweet potatoes
2nd onion planting
Cabbage and Brussels sprouts totally bug infested so chickens will get them
Aloe
Dill, smells sooooo good
Raspberries
Chives
Eggs from our chickens!!

A productive weekend

by Ariana Peters, posted in food, House/dating/life, mini-farm, school/studying

I needed some energy gels for our long runs so we hit up REI and they were having a sale.

Sports bra for $30! Score!!!!

Stocked up on gels, jelly beans, and chews to get me through to the half marathon.

 

Making pulled pork!!!!!

Also another batch of tomato sauce in the slow cooker. We are running out of room in the freezer. I will have to can the next batch hahahaha.

Making some oven dried tomoatoes

The finished pulled pork. It was soooo good!!!!

Also made tomato and rice soup! Though it is so thick its probably more of a stew.

The finished tomato sauce before i blended it.

The Iron Nun!!!! She is sooo cool!!! No lie i kind of have a girl crush on her.

Finally started watching 13 reasons why and I am in love with it!! Only on episode 6 and i cannot wait to find out who the other 7 people are!!! And where does Clay come into it? With school slowly coming to an end i should hopefully be able to finish it in a reasonable amount of time.

That being said I have 1 essay, 1 discussion paper, 2 quizzes and 1 final left and i will be done for 5 weeks!!!! So stinking excited!!!!!

Garden update 8/1

by Ariana Peters, posted in mini-farm

Happy August 1st!!!!

Traffic was not horrendous today which was nice. Got home, a quick snack and changed into partial workout gear hahaha.

She is impatiently waiting for us to go do out watering in the yard.

Raspberries!!!! Well raspberry plants, they are still growing but not really producing anymore.

One of Brandon’s newly panted areas. The front yard is mostly his domain and he wants it to look presentable.

More newly planted flowers…..that i got free from someone at work woohoo!!!

broccoli!!!!!!

mixture of lettuce, flowers and my herb garden. we have basil, sage, thyme, rosemary, and oregano along with my little fig plant that is very SLOWLY growing.

My pear tree is having a growth spurt

Another area that Brandon has created. He has a good eye for yards actually.

Pea season has definitely come to an end. I am slowly getting one or two peas here and there that are no where near as sweet and wonderful as the ones at the beginning of the season. I have a bag in the freezer that i am slowly adding to, it will be good to throw in soups over the winter.

These tomatoes are finally starting produce a bit. The artichoke plant is still just there lol. The cucumber plant is hanging on, i have gotten one cucumber off it so far. The bell pepper plant is just starting to get its first pepper. and the chive are new and doing pretty well.

She LOVES to roll around in the grass. She never did this before we moved here. I think she likes it a lot.

2nd batch of onions, they are surviving!!!!

Pepper plants!

Summer squash…….do you see it?

My 2 lone pumpkins. I have cut them from the stalks and they are starting their curing process. I don’t need them to last months though, just until classes are over then i will cook with them.

This is our neighbors plum tree, i would say 1/3 is hanging over into our yard and i am watching like a hawk for ripe plumbs i can take from out side!!!!!!

Zucchini is still producing like crazy!!!!

Look how many are starting to turn colors!!!! Just a few more days!!!!

That is a cucumber plant growing in among the tomatoes, snaking its vines wherever it can find space.

The last bit of lettuce is holding on in the heat and letting us get a few leaves here and there as we need them.

That is the garden currently.

Today i made zucchini bread and zucchini pasta salad for lunch tomorrow.

Ran some sprints for run training……..my fastest sprints were in the 8 min mile time frame hahahahahaha this is hilarious because that is a lot of runners normal or slightly pushing it pace……there are people who run marathons doing 5 min miles and i am dying doing 8 min for 45 secs. But you know what………I AM DOING IT!!!! And i am proud of that no matter how slow I am.

I am about 1/2 of the way done with my essay that is due tomorrow at midnight but it is 10pm and that is my bedtime if i don’t want to be a zombie tomorrow. Plus the due date is tomorrow so i can afford to go to sleep.

Thank you for following along!!!

Hope you had a wonderful day!!!!

July 29, 2018

by Ariana Peters, posted in mini-farm, school/studying

I feel like I did so much and yet so little this weekend. Got two great workouts done and spent hours out of the house exploring and also spent a full afternoon/evening doing HW. But I got NO housework done, no meal prep, no canning/food saving. It was a successful and unsuccessful weekend hahaha.

We have been hot here this week, mid to high 90’s the whole time. Today we are supposed to get close to 100 then we start swinging down and are supposed to be in the low 80’s by Thursday.

My drive to work.

Every day a few more tomatoes are starting to turn a light orange-y, pink meaning in just a few more days they will be ready to pick. Zucchini are still going strong, I just pulled 3 HUGE ones from the bottom of the bush that had been forgotten. I need to pick a few peppers and oh man, our cucumber plants are just really starting, i have 5 pint jars of refrigerator pickles in the freezer and 4 cucumbers on the counter i need to can.

Chili for dinner!!

I have 3 weeks left of school, the next 2 are going to be a bit crazy because i have something due every day except Saturdays. With that i can feel the garden gearing up to explode more zucchini and tomato on me and i am just praying it can hold out for 2-3 more weeks when I will be able to devote a lot more time to canning and dehydrating and preserving.

And now i need to get back to school work. I currently have A’s in both my classes and i am keeping it that way!!!!!

When you should do more HW and workout but you are tired so you stop in the middle to watch Chuck, be a dork and go to sleep early.

Good night.

July 26, 2018

by Ariana Peters, posted in food, healthy lifestyle, mini-farm, school/studying, training

Hello!!! So happy it is my Friday!

I have HW to do tomorrow then I think Saturday we are going to go visit his grandparents on their farm. I LOVE where they live. I think they are on about 10 acres and have like 10 cows. I think they got 2 calves this year, I can’t wait to see the baby cows!!!! They also have a million blackberry bushes so i will be bringing homes like 20lbs of blackberries. But i’ll stop before I get carried away, you can see it all when I blog about it hahaha.

Today’s plan:

Try and get some more HW done at work to make tomorrow go a little easier.

1.5 mile run with sprints…….in the 98 degree heat (date night!!! lol)

Taco salad was the plan but instead I ate some cookie dough and homemade guacamole and was way too full. I wanted to puke a little during my run. But I got through it.

Now a movie at home to complete the date night.

And babe made some fried zucchini that was to die for!

July 25, 2018

by Ariana Peters, posted in healthy lifestyle, mini-farm, school/studying, training

Our first handful of tomatoes have arrived!!! Pictures to come.

I have also given away 4 zucchini this week, we still have 1 in the fridge, 3 on the counter and at least 2 more ready to pick. 3 cucumber on the counter. Time to make more pickles!

Our lettuce is also getting ready to flower and we didn’t make salad last night so i cut the tops and brought them to a coworker.

Tried to find motivation to do some HW at work today, I have a relatively easy but time consuming project due on Friday for my writing class.

I had planned to go home last night and do some HW and workout and basically just be productive, but I got hit with a wave of sadness.

10 years ago this last Monday they found a tumor on my dad’s spine and less than 2 months later he was dead. We are rapidly approaching the decade anniversary of his death and that is really hard. My family is also currently planning a memorial for my brother who died in January to have in our home town in September so emotions are running high all around.

Sometimes you just need a night cry and let it all out. I took that last night now its time to get back to it.

July 24, 2018

by Ariana Peters, posted in food, healthy lifestyle, mini-farm, school/studying, training

I know we are still smack dab in the middle of summer but since I am out watering every day and plodding away in the garden and watching my food grow; I can already see and feel fall coming in the mornings and evenings. Which I am super excited about because Autumn is my favorite month but for the first time I am thinking, “Summer, don’t go too fast…..I want more food hahahaha.”

Here in the pacific northwest by the time the summer solstice hits we have sun from like 4:15am to 10-10:15pm. Now just over a month past the solstice the sun is behind the last houses by 9pm and it is just starting to peak over the horizon when I get a quick morning water in at 5:40am to stave off the 98 degree weather. A quick hit of the hose in the AM means I don’t come home to wilted plants at 5pm. I do the major watering after i get home from work.

Today is a medium busy day for me, I am working until mid-afternoon then meeting my friend for a coffee and a chat

then heading home to get in a quick 1.5 mile run

then making some delicious stuffed zucchini.

We opened our first batch of homemade refrigerator pickles and they are DELICIOUS!!!! I wanted to eat the entire pint jar in one sitting……and no I have not been a major pickle lover my whole life.

Got tomorrows HW done today for the win! Staying ahead is game changing.

July 23, 2018

by Ariana Peters, posted in food, House/dating/life, mini-farm, school/studying

Had a quiz tonight for my writing class, though I think quiz was a reach, it had no time limit and was about academic honesty. I think classes just have to follow stupid rules about having a certain amount of test/quizzes……and yet somehow I only got an 80 on it. It asked about citation formatting, need I say more?

Neither of us felt great so we got del taco for dinner and watched the 2nd half of Black Panther, we started it last night but didn’t finish it. Now it is early to bed for us and hopefully we