Feeding the family

One of the big reasons for getting the farmlet, in addition to having the horses with us, is to provide more of our food. At our house in the city, we had 5 hens for eggs. However, they couldn't provide enough eggs for the four of us - we looove eggs here, and I use them in baking all the time. So, we wanted to expand our egg producing flock. Currently, we're at 10, 5 of which are laying and 5 of which are about 2 months old. They should start to produce late this spring. Eventually we'll get up to about 20 or so hens, but we'll build up to that as time goes on.

One of the hens dust bathing in the front flower bed (ok, there's no flowers, but someday it might be a flower bed).

Also, I want a garden... a really big garden. I've tried a bit of gardening at our city house, but had problems with rats, poor soil, and of course, lack of water. The new house has a small garden already, with some deer-proof fencing around it. I haven't planted anything in it yet, but I was walking around the other day and noticed a few onions that have somehow made it over the winter. Check these out!

Surprise! There are about 6 volunteer onions in the garden, in amongst the weeds. I wonder what else will sprout when it gets a bit warmer?

One thing we won't raise ourselves is beef, in part because we don't have enough space and in part because we have a fantastic supplier, Paidom Meats. He's not quite as local as we could get, but the quality is always top notch and he delivers state-wide several times per year. Last week we cooked up a roast beef that we ate for four days. Delicious!

We also do most of our shopping at the Sunset Valley Farmer's Market, which we can actually walk to from the new house. Someday, I would love to ride the horses to the market - how neat would that be?