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Earth, Wind and Fire

By on March 11, 2013 in Farm and Garden

Saturday was a most magical day, full of community, plants, good food, demonstrations, sharing and learning.  So many people came out, we estimated over 100!  I however did not have a chance to stop and take one single picture all day.  Lucky for me two of my friends are professional photogs and they volunteered to come out and capture the event on film er photos.  As soon as they get them to me I will be posting the event but already we have decided that opening our homestead to the benefit of others is a good thing and are planning to do it again next year.

The day before, Friday, was spent getting things ready.  Signs needed to be made, grass needed to be cut, tents put up and baked goods made.  We also had a huge pile of wood that needed to be burned and would be a hazard to have with the farm open to the public.  The days before had been much too windy to light a fire but this day seemed calm and the first day that was not too cold to work outside all day. Since we would be outside to keep an eye on the fire, we lit the match.  Everything began to burn down and after a few minutes of admiration for the flames, we got back to other outside chores.  All of sudden, the winds changed direction and began to blow hard.  With the absence of rain around here the grass is pretty dry and also brown from winter freezes.  Before we knew what happened, a large area of grass was on fire.

The burn pit is quite a ways from the house though in the picture it seems much closer than it really is.  The big boys jumped into action with Eddie running for the hose which was hopelessly tangled and Nick grabbing a pail and scooping up water from the fish pond running back and forth to the fire putting it out as we all cheered and screamed.  In the 6 years we have been carefully lighting fires here, this is the first time we have had to spring into action against the flames.

The grass is pretty charred but will grow back and we will always remember our small fight against, the earth, wind and fire.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or follow me by email at the top right hand of the screen to have future posts sent to you. Tricia (Crunchy Catholic Momma)

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Stash Bash – New garden beds

By on January 24, 2013 in Farm and Garden, Stash Bash

I’ve never met a crafter without a stash of some kind. This year my goal is to use up all the craft supplies I have spent money on that are taking up mental and physical space in my life. enclosed the barn for the wedding, I have been thinking of ways to use the other half of the barn which will be used for farm stuff.  It dawned on me that the backside of the barn is not seeable (I just made it a word, OK?) from the rest of our land and so it is a perfect place to do something and since the roof of the barn drips water there every morning, I decided to use it for planting.

There is a pile of wood planks leftover from another project done two years ago which has been sitting in a pile and in order to not buy anything and use up what we have, Eddie and I thought up a way to use those planks and whatever posts we could find.  Since we are using up leftover 4 foot planks, it was hard to keep it straight and after all, neither of us is experienced in any way with things like this but it felt really good to use up some of that wood and make something useful with it.  It is wood that we paid for years ago and using what was leftover not only saves money but it uses resources that are already here.   It isn’t perfect, it’s a little wonky but it will work great.  We meausured, cut, nailed and this is what we came up with.  It is about 16 feet long and did not cost one penny to create.


I am so proud of Eddie, he has become indispensable around here.  He is one of my children who will never say no to a request for help.  He rolls up his sleeves and jumps in with me whatever the project is.  

I received some play money for my birthday from my momma and I will be buying lots of new seeds and plan to grow lots of perennials here intermingled with greens.  The next step is to fill it with layers of newspaper, hay, peat moss, compost and repeat.  This is how I fill my beds, it’s called layer gardening.  It is fast, easy and lots cheaper on the wallet since we try to use materials from here on our farm.

So what have you been up to? I love to see what you come up with. I have added the Mr Linky to the bottom of this post for you to link up your Stash Bash projects.

Here’s what to do. There are no rules. 
Just use what you have and try to not buy new supplies, unless you need it to complete a project that you are making from stuff you already have in your stash. 
Take a 

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