Wonders of Spring on our Farm

 Can spring really be here? As I look out through the falling snowflakes in mid-April I  wonder at God's ability to meld one season into the next!

Spring on our farm is a wonder to behold! There are new chicks, flowers poking their "noses" through the soil, and many plans for the new season running through everyone's heads!

The last batch of chicks  that hatched in February now look like miniature full grown hens. They've enjoyed fresh grass and the warm spring sunshine since they could venture from the heat lamp during the late winter days. They'll prayerfully be laying eggs by early July! 

Inside the farmhouse another batch of chicks, ducks and turkeys are hatching in our incubator.In just

a few short weeks our flock will prayerfully have reached 350 laying hens in various stages of

After the family came home from church
on Easter Sunday, these newly hatched
chicks were brought to me in bed where
I was/am recuperating. 

development. We seek to serve our customers with the same fresh, natural country eggs we enjoy serving up at our 12' long farmhouse table!  

     With each child comes a different bent...different interests. Faith Anne (13) loves flowers. So with we're venturing into flower farming along with our Certified Naturally Grown vegetables, poultry, and baked goods.  We have flat after flat of flowers that will soon move from the greenhouse into the field. Breaking  through the soil now in the field are black-tipped wheat and muli-colored Larkspur.

This is a flat of branching sunflowers that are ready to be
transplanted as soon as I'm able!

We've purposed in our hearts to establish a farm commercial kitchen. With the Lord's leading, we have met with a state inspector to explore the building's needs and are researching equipment needs. We hope to have the same fresh ground whole wheat bread, cinnamon rolls, and canned jams and relishes at all of our 9 markets this season. Please pray for wisdom! If you know of used restaurant suppliers in the area or see a DEAL, please contact us. 

In the farmhouse sewing season continues. Faith Anne made her first apron totally
alone, and a dress for Easter with help from her sister Hope. We're so proud of her! I've made several

jumpers and aprons, with Charity at my side. At six, she's a remarkable sewer! She made a kerchief to hold her hair back, a one dimensional doll, and handkerchiefs with embroidery on them with very little input from me. She's delighted with a small drawer of scraps, buttons, and scissors. Oh, the bliss of little girlhood!

I've been trying to write all this... while trying to recuperate from a concussion. God IS FAITHFUL and was protecting me during  a farm accident. I was flown to Chattanooga and thanks to the prayer of sisters and brothers in Christ I was released with "only" a concussion. I've been trying to be "good" and heal, but it has been a difficult process. One doctor told me I was lucky...I believe I was protected by God's hand.  I've determined to finish this up today as I promised a group of young mothers I spoke to in Knoxville that I'd have some information for them online this month. Oh my, the month has FLOWN by! So if this blog posting isn't up to par, please be patient with me. :)

I spoke to a dedicated group of young mothers on gardening with young children...or children as a whole. I felt really connected with the group as I've been steeped in motherhood for over 30 years now, and have been where they are for all those years! I'm just now sensing a bit of release from having a baby at my side. God has kept me in touch with the blessing by adding Samuel (2) and Josiah (8 months), my grand-babies, to my life here on our farm.

I introduced the square foot gardening model to the group and how it lends itself so nicely to gardening as a family.  With raised beds we saved sooo much time, energy and frustration was averted.  Mel Bartholomew wrote a helpful book called, Square Foot Gardening that can direct anyone into growing fruit and vegetables in a miraculously small space. It has been proven that one\ 4X4' raised bed can feed an adult a great variety of veggies throughout the growing season. With this intensive method you can plant 1 tomato per square foot, or 4 lettuce plants, 9 bush bean plants, or 16 carrots or green onions per square foot!  I highly recommend a 2X4' bed for a preschooler and a full 4X4' for a budding gardener in grade school. There is soo much to learn in a garden...especially a square foot garden!

I HIGHLY recommend Mel's books and methods. They have their books, downloads, and DVDs on sale right now. I highly recommend their school package for $35. I have each resource offered in the package and you as a parent can use all the information and activities for your children over the years, especially if you home school your child. State that you home school if asked. Mel is VERY pro-family gardening! He has been very supportive to our family over the past 20 years. In fact, we won their national school contest one year and placed second another year!

Our older children each had their own beds at one time and enjoyed the wonder of growing their own snacks and side dishes for the family. It seems now that we used to live in our garden! Our boys took that knowledge and have used it and grown in their knowledge and farm full time!  Some of our favorites have been:  Easter Egg Radish, Sugar Ann Snap Peas, Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes, Juliet Grape Tomatoes, miniature white cucumbers, and green onions. If you can't find the particular varieties I've mentioned, don't let that stop you from buying any radish, or cherry tomatoes you can find online or locally.There can't be a better way to spend a warm summer morning than working in the raised bed garden, then flopping out on a blanket for a good story!  Make it part of your daily/weekly schedule to spend time in the garden with your child. The book I mentioned is full of diagrams, pictures and ideas to guide you. Mel makes the method so easy that he'll even tell you how many cups your child should pour from his bucket of sun warmed water onto his plants!

Some of our family's  favorite garden catalogs are Johnny's Select Seed, Territorial Seeds, and Baker Creek Seeds. We rarely ordered the usual...we liked finding the colorful, the odd shaped, or the rare varieties. It's fun to pull a radish...but it's always a treasure to find your favorite colored Easter Egg variety emerging from the ground! It's never too late to order a catalog or request one when you order online. They are a GREAT educational tool that is FREE! In our family the younger children never had a Sears Christmas catalog to page through repeatedly, but they sure wore out seed catalogs! 
            (I have received no remuneration for the links or recommendations mentioned.)

If you're like me, you are ready for the warmer days ahead!  I began this blog when it was snowing outside (and not dizzy) and finishing it up near the end of the month! I was looking forward to seeing my Redbud tree bloom at the beginning of the month, and now the late blooms are fading...Here's a look at early spring on Colvin Family Farm! 

We had "Dogwood Winter" earlier in
month where the temps dipping
to 25 degrees. Here we're covering crops
to protect them.

Faith Anne seeds the flowers for her market flower garden.

I'm teaching Charity how to cut
seed potatoes.

We planted over 2 TONS of seed potatoes. We had help from two SPECIAL families from Victory Baptist Church! Thanks ya'll!

Caleb harvests onions that we wintered over in the high tunnel
 for our last winter's markets.

Slicing onions planted for the season.

Luke helps  his big brothers plant
onions now that school is over.

Can you spot the queen bee? Isaac is our bee keeper, and
we pray to have lots of honey for sale this year!
He's been busy adding hives to both farms.

      

Fun in the farmhouse!
Joasiah (top) Samuel (middle)and
Levi with his homemade Lincoln
Log town (bottom)

An early planting of lettuce in the high tunnels. The drip tape
marks the planting spot, and the boys hand plant the
lettuce seedlings on each wet spot.

The Farmer's Wife

                                                                          Boys on the transplanter mid -month.

A view of our strawberries before the first cold snap with the high tunnels
in the background.

Charity is learning a lot these days...she's a big girl now
that Kindergarten is behind her!
Learning to sew and make bread are some of her favorite things
to do!

One of our new ventures with the farm is the addition of
organic pastured poultry. The guys have been building
these movable pens that will run alongside our vegetable
fields. Look for more on this as the season progresses.
The bottom picture is of 15 pens stacked and ready for
the chicken wire and tin roofing. Then they'll be moved to the other farm.

Cheap tarps are a great gift from Daddy!
The lil' boys set up a soldier's camp...then they march
around the yard barking orders to the Red Cross girls
who are also learning to march! (Charity and Faith Anne)

As the season takes off this week, we are looking forward to a season full of blessings...the harvest, relationships within our family, our CSA family, and with our customers, and sharing Jesus Christ's love and forgiveness with everyone we meet. Come share the season with us! Visit us at  http://www.colvinfamilyfarm.com/!  

Part of this week's harvest! Praise God!

" For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow
from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater. So shall my word be that goeth from out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please; and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it."
Isaiah 55:8-11

Abundant Blessings,

The Farmer's Wife

Val Colvin

March 2014

March 2014

Well, I’m back…it’s been a long while since I’ve written on my blog. When I first began I didn’t even know what a blog was, and had never read one! I just wrote a letter to an “empty” cyber space for the shareholders of our CSA. Now, this will be linked to our website at www.colvinfamily.com for our shareholders and readers alike.

 Unlike when I first began my blog I now read a few blogs when needful topics arise. I am keenly aware of the ABUNDANCE of information now available to families. It is OVERWHELMING! The knowledge being passed around isn’t new, only the flashy way it’s being shared to make money is new.

Many CAUTIONS arise in my spirit as blogs, “pins”, instant stream videos, and advertisements flood my inbox. How many of these skills and truths are really being lived out? Or does the “new idea” become just another pin on a Pintrest board? I know the impulse to pin an idea with the thought that, “maybe someday I’ll get around to trying that recipe”, “upscale my living room”, or “buy that dress”.  It seems EMPTY…the Bible calls it, “vanity”.

Don’t get me wrong, like I said, I read a few blogs when real life allows me. I’ve been inspired to decorate my home with common everyday articles given new purpose…I’m taught further how to use herbal remedies to strengthen my family’s bodies, and I pin many inspiring ideas for possible future projects… But will all the time spent reading these blogs, and pinning the pins really truly matter in my life or yours for eternity? Or will it be part of what the Lord Burns away when I stand before Him one day SOON?

I’ve been a wife for 32 years, and a mother for 30. Back in the “old days” (early 80’s) if I wanted to learn something I often watched an older woman do the needed skill.  If there was no help at hand to learn, I drove a half an hour to the nearest town and checked out a book on the subject from the library! At the time I was blessed with a few older women on the mountain where we live who really lived life…they cooked from scratch, they sewed, canned, gardened, simply put,“they used it up, wore it out or did without” using what the Lord blessed them with in a quiet, simple way.

 These true southern mountain women chuckled at me. I was the scrawny lil’ northerner that was funny to listen to. They knew I didn't know anything practical outside of my college education. Thankfully I had married into this southern mountain culture where the older “Titus 2 type woman” still believed in teaching the younger woman to “be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children.” And alllll that entails. (Titus 2:4-5) I believe that is God’s plan still today.

   So, here I am back to writing my blog. God has given me a burden for the younger women of this busy “internet age”.  I pray that I can pick up the “dropped baton” of my precious deceased “Titus 2 women”, and pass on a few REAL life lessons…before they become just another “pin on your board”.

                                                                                                                            

In The Farmhouse This Week:

We’re all gearing up for another growing season…PRAYERFULLY a better one than 2013! The boys raised a batch of tomatoes in their bedroom since it has been so cold. Now they are potted up (in bigger plug flats) and in the greenhouse. Now ginger is growing in their room. We've picked out our flower seeds as Faith Anne and I are trying our hand at flower farming this year for the markets. Seed catalogs keep coming to our mailbox…could spring REALLY be a few weeks away?!? I pray so!

We’re in our last month of school, so the final push on academics is on. Some of the children are finishing up their SECOND math book of the year! I’m so proud of them and could sing the praises of "Teaching Textbooks" ALL DAY! Schooling looks a bit different when you are a farming family…more like the schools of the 1800s where school was let out for planting or harvest. We’ll be working as a family starting in April, so we switch gears and enjoy real life-hands on education until next fall.

March means sewing season. We’re planning our spring/summer wardrobes and are beginning to sew. We wear a lot of aprons, so we’re starting there. This season Faith Anne (13) will sew much of her own wardrobe for the first time. Between her big sister Hope (who, with her family lives nearby here on the farm) and me; we’ll coach her through her newbie season. She’s warming up by making kerchiefs for her hair. With all the baking and outdoor work she does, she likes to keep her hair back with a coordinating kerchief.   

                     

Our first batch of Black Australorp chickens begin to hatch out of our incubator right in our school room!

                             

                                                                                                                                        Spring is just around the corner (it will be here by the time I FINALLY get this out!). At the beginning of the month we had over 100 chicks hatch out. We chose 80 of the best hens to raise for our farm. I love to working with the chicks and chickens! They are peaceable, and their laying of eggs daily for us to sell is like a private daily miracle. I love to count the eggs as I empty each nest! Sharing their lives from egg, to chick, to young chicken, and finally productive mature hens is one of my favorite things on our farm.

In the kitchen we’re all having fun trying new recipes. During the spring/summer/fall months the men are all too busy in the field to cook much. Faith Anne and I do the cooking, baking, and canning. We experiment mainly with vegetable dishes as we don’t have fresh vegetables to “play” with during the winter. But during the winter everyone has an assigned cooking day. I make all breakfasts as everyone works on their chores. We plan lunch and supper together…either old family favorites or something new and exciting! Our newest family discovery has been these Buffalo Chicken Rolls! If you love Buffalo Wings; you’ll love this twist!

Buffalo Chicken Rolls

Ingredients:

12 egg roll wrappers, 4 X 4” square

1 cup cooked and shredded chicken

½ cup buffalo wing sauce (any brand)

1 cup crumbled blue cheese

1 cup broccoli slaw, dry coleslaw, or thinly sliced cabbage

blue cheese dressing for serving (optional)

You can either bake these at 400 degrees, or like us deep fry them. Preheat your oven or get your coconut (or other) oil heating in a walk or deep pan.

*In a small bowl, stir hot sauce into your chicken until chicken is moist with the sauce.

*Mix a small amount (one tablespoon) of flour with about ½ cup of water in a mug. Put your pastry brush (looks like a small paint brush) in it.

*Lay out your wraps on the counter in front of you placed like a “diamond”. Work with two or three at a time to prevent them from drying out.

*First put a one tablespoon of the coleslaw in the bottom portion of your wrap.

*Next, spoon 2 tablespoon of the blue cheese crumbles over the chicken. Be careful to not overload the wrap.

*To make the roll, pull the bottom point up over the filling. Next, fold over each side.

*Brush the flour and water mixture around the left and right edges.

*Roll!

*Place each roll on a cooling rack to dry a bit.

*If you are baking the rolls, spray them with a bit of olive oil baking spray, and bake at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes until golden brown.

*If you are deep frying your rolls, place one or two at a time in deep hot oil. Fry until golden brown. Drain vertically.

*Optional: Serve with blue cheese dressing

Meet Our Cooks!

Charity (6) and Faith Anne (13)

Sunday – Caleb (21) and Adam (23) make Sunday dinner to be eaten as soon as possible after we come in from church. The family tradition of cooking a venison or pork roasts in the roaster oven, rice in the rice cooker, and 3 quarts of our canned green beans or frozen greens waiting to be cooked on the stove is what they specialize in. As the vegetable cooks and gravy is made, the family sets the table with the traditional Sunday plates and cups that make the day special. Within 20 minutes of getting home we’re sitting down to an old fashioned traditional Sunday meal.

Monday- Momma’s day in the kitchen! I clean out the refrigerator for

lunch, eating all the leftovers that have accumulated. This way we start the week out with an organized refrigerator. I sometimes invite someone to cook with me…or if I’m in a quiet mood I enjoy watching the UNO or Dutch Blitz games going on at the table as I cook alone.. I like to make artisan bread, do my weekly bread baking, and serve comfy winter foods.

Tuesday –

 Today is Adam (23) and Titus’ (17) turn to cook. These guys can cook! Put a recipe in front of them and they’re off. Titus is on a quick bread kick (we all love it!) and he made zucchini bread to with their meal.

Wednesday – Isaac (19)

 is on today alone. We have our big family meal at noon (dinner) since we’ll be going to church this evening. His specialties are Italian and Mexican. He says he likes to cook out of sheer hunger. Boys are sure motivated different than us gals! He is a blessing though as he will have a big meal on the table as we finish our school day around 1 p.m.! 

Thursday- Noah (15–) and Luke (11)

are the Jr. Master Chefs today. They are learning  new recipes this year and are more independent than ever! That's why it’s IMPORTANT to make out the weekly menu that must be stuck with unless permission for deviation is given!

Friday- Faith Anne (13 Her picture is up at the “Meet the Cooks” heading.) and a parent make the Family Fun Night dishes for today. Every other week we often have up to 30 people here on Friday nights for fellowship and fun.

We made 16 pizzas one night from scratch, finger foods on another night, and a Chinese night too with LOTS of egg rolls. Faith is learning a lot about entertaining. When we do have a quiet Friday evening with “just” family, she has fun experimenting with “pins” from my Pintrest board labeled,” Family Fun Night Cooking”.

                                                    

   Saturday- Caleb (21) and Charity

make a great team today. Caleb prefers to make cakes…so this is the day we have a sweet treat. Charity is getting good at breaking eggs, sifting flour and is a whiz at making bread from flour she sweeps up from inside the grain mill when we bake together once a week. Having fun with her big brother is the most important part of their cooking time. Time will flee much too quickly and he’ll be gone and she’ll not be a little girl anymore…heart strings are being tied now.

Before long warm winds will blow…the men and boys will be busy in the fields, school books will be put up until a rainy day pulls everyone inside. Soon the kitchen will be considerably quieter, and the seasons will change. As the last frosty dark evenings of late winter and early spring linger, I’m enjoying my inside days with my children closer to my side.  Anyone for a game of Bananagrams or UNO?

“Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.”

Ephesians 3:20,21

Abundant Blessings,
The Farmer's Wife
Val

Walking...No Writing With a Limp

Walking…No Writing With a Limp

I copy Scripture. I’m definitely not bragging here…just sharing how the Lord has slowed my Bible reading down so His words really sink in. I’m in Genesis 32 this morning and Jacob’s struggle with instant obedience to God’s will reminds me of myself. 

We find Jacob serving Laban, his father-in-law keeping his livestock. He's been at it for 20 years when God tells him to head back home.  The idea of meeting up with his brother who he tricked into giving his birthright and blessing from SCARES him! The last time they'd been together 20 years ago, Esau had threatened to kill him!

 First he sends messengers to meet Esau, and finds out that he and 400 men are heading this way to meet them. This sends Esau into a panic! He quickly comes up with a plan to appease his brother’s wrath. Gifts! That will calm him down, and help him to think favorably toward me before I get there! So off he separately sends the cattle, sheep, goats, and the camels with a message of appeasement before him.

 Then in the middle of the night he sends his two wives, womanservants, and children over the river to go between him and his brother whom he perceives to be out to kill him. Alone on the other side of the river he wrestles “with God”. No man has seen God face to face and lived, so this must have been a messenger of God (an angel). When the sun comes up, God blesses him. But he will forever walk with a limp as a physical reminder of his slow obedience to God’s command.

 Why do we wrestle with God when He tells us what to do? In my next blog post I’ll describe one such wrestling match I had “with God” and how He’s blessed me…”with a limp as I write.”

Read this story for yourself! To get the whole picture, start reading about Rebekah’s difficult pregnancy in Genesis 25:20. Then follow the boy’s lives up to their reunion. I’m sure God will have a blessing for you too!

From the Farmhouse This Week:

Snow Cream!

I love winter! As a child I loved skiing, sledding, building snow sculptures and MORE. Being from the north during my high school years you'd think I also would have known all about how to make snow cream. But I didn't have my first taste until after my first child Matthew was 2! We've  tried several recipes since then, but this year we've found the BEST yet!

Last Wednesday after church we headed back home up the mountain. At the bottom of the mountain highway there were police cars and fire trucks blocking the highway. The road was closed! We spent a restless night sleeping on our church's  pews.  When we got home the middle of the next day we celebrated by making a big batch of snow cream! The new recipe we had found had hung on the refrigerator awaiting a good snow.

 Give it a try if you like an EASY way to make ice cream...of course it's a different texture than ice cream, but this is the closest to the real thing we've tried. Another bonus is that it calls for everyday ingredients! So, if you don't have the expensive sweetened condensed milk on hand that the usual recipes call for, just grab a jar/jug of milk! We used half milk and half half and half for our batch. 

When it starts to snow, put a big bowl outside to catch fresh, clean snow. (We scooped up the top layer off our farm trailer since we weren't home when the storm hit.)

Ingredients:

1 cup half and half or milk
1/3 to 1/2 cup granulated sugar (we used 1/3  cup raw cane juice crystals)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
4-6 cups clean snow

Directions:

In a large bowl combine half and half or milk, vanilla, and sugar Stir until sugar is dissolved. Stir in snow a little at a time.  Serve immediately or freeze until serving time. 

Abundant Blessings,
The Farmer's Wife
Val Colvin