Another dinner outdoors

With so much wonderful cool weather, we've really been taking advantage of eating outside. Last night, Taylor and I fashioned a wonderful little grill made from bamboo and leftover chicken wire.

We grilled up some shishkebobs, loaded with tomatoes, mushrooms, beef, onion, zucchini, and squash. Marinated in a wonderful concoction of all kinds of sauces, it was just delicious.

Farina's new home

A while back we acquired this adorable little angora rabbit. I really wanted an angora so that I could use some of the fur for spinning yarn. She's such a sweetheart, but we really couldn't keep her in such a small cage. Instead, we shaved her (the poor thing was covered in matted fur), and put her in with the other rabbits. The lady we purchased her from had her in about a 1.5 foot by 1 foot wire-floored cage, and her bottom was completely matted and tangled. Now, she has about 75 square feet of space, and plenty of company. At first, she was terrified of her new cage mates (the females were being a little bit territorial), but now she's meshed in just fine. We've seen her snuggling up to Toby, and exploring quite a bit.

Turkey Day!

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us!

What are we thankful for?

Two wonderful people who give us the means to have our own little farmette. Our chickens, rabbits, and garden wouldn't be possible without them.

We're thankful for the wonderful weather that's allowing our crops to grow.

We're thankful for our families, of course, and our friends.

Up next? Christmas!

Little Cuke

Look what we found! As we were treating the squash's powdery mildew, we stumbled upon this cute little cucumber hiding underneath some leaves. We'll let it grow a bit longer, and then enjoy it on a salad.

Revenge on the snails!

Mr. Phils, our resident botanist, is tired of the snails wrecking his plants. We're tired of them eating our crops. I did some research, and it turns out, these common garden snails are perfectly edible. Once they've oozed out any toxins from poisonous plants they've eaten, which takes a few days, we can boil and bake them into a delicious dinner.

We've caught 18 of them, which took us about five minutes. We're not sure if we're going to breed them, or just continue collecting them from outside. Either way, it'll be an interesting culinary experiment.

Strawberries

So the snails have pretty much annihilated our two original strawberry plants, but we managed to rescue a few little offshoots. We've transplanted them into pots indoors, where they'll stay until they're big enough to make it outdoors. So far they're doing pretty good, and we check every few days for more rooting shoots to transplant.

Tour of Worden Farms

Yesterday, Taylor and I went with a group of New College students to go visit the only commercial organic farm on the west coast. We drove all the way out to Punta Gorda, where we found the 55 acre family-owned, Certified Organic farm.

After watching a quick film about the farm's history, we loaded up onto a hay-filled wagon and began our tour.

This adorable puppy decided to hitch a ride with us, too.

We got to see quite a few of the eleven fields where they grow a variety of crops. The lettuces looked delicious and we got to taste a few of the tomatoes which tasted just like candy they were so sweet.

They had a pretty big greenhouse filled with plenty of seedling trays waiting to be put into the ground.

All in all, it was a pretty cool place. It's great to see an organic farm so close to home. There were a couple of things that I didn't agree with. They ship in hundreds of tons of processed chicken manure from Perdue chicken farms half-way across the country. They don't use any of their wastes as compost for crops. They also use approved natural pesticides, and I'm really not sure how I feel about that. All in all, it's much better than the conventional agriculture going on here, and it's cool to see it available to the public.