Sunflower seed order!

In the Field

Well, obviously, I am not in the field yet but getting ready for it.  I placed my sunflower seed order today.  I will still be growing at Meadowlark Heritage Farms this summer.  I have 6 - 100 foot rows there.  I am going to only plant single stem varieties this year and I am going to try and grow 3 rows of flowers in each larger row.  So, I am really packing them in because I want to see how "dense" I can plant and still get a good harvest.  I will be planting all direct seed into the soil this year.  Last year, I tried some transplants but I did not see enough of a difference to justify the transplanting (it was a little bit extra work...).

I went to the Johnny Seed website to place my order and found that there have been several new varieties out this year.  So, here are the "new" ones that I am trying this year:

Sunrich Lime - New!  Bright, lemon-yellow petals surround a lime-green disk.

Sunrich Limoncello - New!  Lemon-yellow petals with a ray of bright yellow at the center. The bicolor petals give the blooms an enhanced three-dimensional appearance.

ProCut Plum - Exciting new addition to the ProCut series.  Muted plum-to-cream bicolor blooms combine well with soft or vivid colors.

ProCut Red - It took years of breeding efforts to produce this impressive red ProCut sunflower. Early blooms are produced on long, strong, single stems. 

Sunbright Supreme - Blooms more quickly than Sunbright under short days.  More rounded petals and shorter, more rigid stems with reduced lower leaves make this an excellent variety for bouquet work.

ProCut Peach - Peach-colored petals with a dark disc.

I had no idea there were so many new sunflowers being introduced so this was a pleasant surprise.  I am most excited about the red.  In the past, the only red available was a branching variety which is not so great for cut flowers.  I am also planting 7 other varieties that I have planted in the past that are reliable producers.  I am so excited to be introducing some new sunflowers again this year!

Sad bee news...

Beekeeping

As you can probably guess from the title of this blog, our bees have died.  I know they were alive in December because we saw some dead ones outside the entrance of the hive.  This may sound contradictory but seeing dead bees is actually a good sign because it means that the bees are keeping the hive clean (and throwing out the dead bees).

Last Saturday, Joshua's 4-H beekeeping group had their first meeting.  Our leader, Alison, said she had 12 hives going into winter and that 4 were still alive.  Another family had 4 hives and 1 made it through the winter.  So, it seems that about 25% of hives were successful in our little group.  

The silver lining is that the bees did not get around to eating a lot of the honey so I think we can go in and harvest some out.  It looks like we will be starting over and I have already placed an order for new bees that should come in April.

We are not sure why the bees did not make it.  I don't think we did anything wrong.  It is just how it goes with honeybees.  It has been one of the coldest and snowiest winters.  That may have had some effect.  I just love this picture that Henry took of the beehive with all the snow.  

Business Plan...

Business Plan...

This is going to be a short (or long) post...I guess it depends how you look at it.  I am posting the business plan.  If you take the time to read the Business Plan...I guess that would make it a long post.  

This is our first draft.  I have gotten some feedback from one of my friends but I have not even had time to look at it.  I think we are going to take this year (2017) to perfect the Plan.  

I have sent the plan to the Small Farms U of I Extension personnel but they have not had time to get back to me.

I was at a meeting a couple of weeks ago and met someone from SCORE.

SCORE Spokane volunteers are real-world professionals with time- tested knowledge who donate thousands of hours to help small businesses like yours succeed. Counselors are experts in such areas as accounting, finance, marketing, technology, management and business plan preparation.

Services offered by SCORE include: 
Free face-to-face business counseling/mentoring -- by appointment only
E-mail counseling/mentoring
Workshops

He said I could send him the Business Plan and they would assign a Counselor to work with me through all the details of getting a business started and it's all free!  So, I am going to wait and get feedback from the Small Farms Coordinator and then make those changes and send to SCORE.

Here it is:  Business Plan

Constructive criticism is appreciated...happy reading!

Rendering Beeswax...

Beekeeping

Last summer when I was working in the top bar hive, I accidentally dropped a couple of honeycomb when I was trying to "fix" it and get it more straight.  I did not want to be wasteful so we strained out the honey and I attempted to collect the wax.  Let's just say it was VERY messy and not too successful.  I was just too busy to try and clean it up at that time.  I hear of a lot of beekeepers putting their wax in the freezer until they can get around to working with it.  So, that is what I did...

Last weekend, I finally decided to try and clean up that wax.  Also, I had added some more to it so I had that to render too.  Let me say that I was REALLY dreading this (and had been putting it off for weeks!).  It was not fun the first time.  It was a mess and it did not come out as "clean" as I was hoping.  So, I have just been putting this off.  I "googled" rendering beeswax and the first article that popped up looked promising and much easier than the procedure I tried last summer.  Find that tutorial HERE.

 I melted the wax down and then strained it though some cheesecloth into a cardboard milk carton.

 It was that easy and came out so nice and clean!  I was SO excited to find an easier way to harvest our wax!

So, what do you do with beeswax?  I used it to make lip balm and lotion bars for Christmas gifts.  Unfortunately, since I had not taken the time to render my own beeswax before Christmas, I just bought some.  Just add shea butter and coconut oil and you are set!

Here are a couple of recipes/tutorials that I used to make the lotion bar and lip balm...just click on the pictures and it will take you to the website articles...

Birthday!

As you may have seen on Facebook, Mark turned 16 years old this past week!  I did meet my goal of getting the business plan done.  I am going put it up on the blog in a couple of weeks.  I am sending it to the Small Farms Extension people at the U of I this week.

We went bowling for Mark's birthday and he really enjoyed it!

Christmas Gifts...

Christmas Gifts

I wanted to share some of the gifts I had made for Christmas but did not want to do it before Christmas (because I know my mom reads this...)

Bath bombs - I made these for my nieces and nephews.  I will probably make these again but I am going to stick to the smaller molds (like the Santa belt buckle on the bottom).  The bigger ones are pretty fragile and probably broke when put through the mail.

We have a pie cherry tree in our backyard.  I did make some cherry pie filling for ourselves and made the Tart Cherry Coffee Preserves to share with family.  We were told of an Italian Plum tree behind our house so I made up some Plum Barbecue Sauce (which is excellent to use in place of catsup/ketchup in meatloaf).  Also, I made the Italian Plum Conserve that I paired with a box of crackers and a small brie as a gift for friends here locally.  A little recipe was attached with directions on how to heat the brie and then add the conserve on top and serve with the crackers.

 I made this block puzzle for Myla (the baby in this picture).  She is now a year old so hopefully she will enjoy building this picture puzzle.  There is another picture on the back of just the kids.

My brother, Tyler, is working at eating healthy foods.  So, I made him a cookbook with easy, healthy recipes so he had some "go to" recipes. I also included some homemade seasoning mixes.

Here are some "spa" type products I made for the men and ladies.  There are some Herbal Bath Tea Bags, Hand Scrub, Lotion Bars, and Lip Balm.  

Also, I made some homemade Vanilla, Blackberry Liquor, and Green Tomato Salsa (I was so happy about how well this turned out!)

This is what my table looks like when I get ready to put together boxes of Christmas treats for family.  I put everything out and then pick and choose what goes into each family box!

Books to read and snow!

In the Kitchen

I am enjoying some much needed rest.  Yesterday morning, the first thing that Mark said was "pie".  So, naturally, I had to make a pie.  I made a cherry pie (I had made several quarts of cherry pie filling this past summer) and put a "crumb-like" topping on top...it was good!

Reading...

Now that things are slowing down, I have been doing a little bit of reading.  I don't really care for fiction books.  I read a lot more "how-to" kind of books.  

I happened to find this book called Locally Laid by Lucie B. Amundsen a few months ago.  Locally Laid is a humorous telling of this unlikely egg farm start up and through it, a painless lesson in America’s food system.  I really enjoyed this book so I started looking for other books that were about beginning farmers.  

Next, I read, Hit by a Farm by Catherine Friend. Catherine Friend was happy being an author and writing instructor. She always wore clean clothes. She never had anything disagreeable stuck to the bottom of her shoes. That all changed the day she agreed to help her partner Melissa fulfill Melissa’s lifelong ambition to farm in Minnesota. Catherine and Melissa embark on a rural odyssey filled with sheep, goats, chicken, llamas, and a host of other natural disasters. As it turns out, farming isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  I really enjoyed this one, lots of humor and real world advice about farming and balancing it all.

I found another book about chickens (they also have goats, alpacas, sheep and more) called Dirty Chick by Antonia Murphy.  The family in this book moved from California to New Zealand and started a farm.  They also have a child with a disability and I did not know that when I picked up this book but it added another dimension for me, personally, as I could totally relate to parts of the book when she is talking about school and other concerns.  An uproarious memoir chronicling the misadventures of a born-and-bred San Franciscan who leaves city life to become an artisanal farmer in New Zealand.

Lastly, I know that our local food Co-op has a book club but I have always been too busy to even look at the title of the book that is being read.  I noticed in my Facebook feed that the next book club book is 5 Acres and A Dream The Book by Leigh Tate.  This really caught my attention so I ordered it right away and I am just loving it and only have a couple of chapters left.  I am going to try and go to the book club discussion next month.

Snow!

We have gotten several inches of snow over the past week and more in on the way.  We had some leftover wood from last year and we have used it all up which is a little sad.  It is so nice to have a fire when it's cold and snowy.  I just could not justify spending a few hundred dollars for wood (when we might be moving soon...hopefully...).  

Coal in the driveway helping Henry shovel snow.

Beehive with snow!

Sunflower with snow hat.

I grew only one sunflower this past year to grow at our house.  This sunflower is for seeds.  Although I put all the sunflower flowers to bed, I never got around to harvesting my seed sunflower.  He seems to be holding up pretty well even with this big snow hat!

Future Farm and business plan update...

Future Farm

I will be going out on Thursday, December 8 to meet the owner of the property I mentioned in the last blog.  This property sits right behind the Walmart in Moscow.  I will try to describe it.  Walmart sits mid-way up a large hill.  The hill/road actually extends above Walmart and there is a Quick Care and surgery center located at the top of the ridge.  So, you are driving on this paved road and then there is a road block on the right and a small gravel road to the left with a sign that says "No Outlet".

Drive way entrance to property at edge of town.
You can see the University of Idaho dairy farm straight ahead in this photo.

This is the driveway to the property.  Once you come over to the other side of that ridge, it is just the 2 houses surrounded by beautiful Palouse farmland for miles.  The road literally just dead ends at these 2 houses right outside of town.  The owner is coming in from Montana and will be in the area (if the weather holds out).  It is supposed to snow/rain today (Sunday) and then get bitterly cold this week with lows in the teens.  In fact, I think it is supposed to be 16 degrees on the morning when we meet.  

House for sale behind town

Here is a google map image of the property.  I believe the house I have circled here is the one that is for sale.  There is another house you can see in the lower left part of this picture and several outbuildings.  I do not know where the property boundaries are drawn but hope to find this out on Thursday.  There are LOTS of apple trees on the property but that is about all I know at this time.

Here is the house circled and showing the dairy farm to the east and town to the south of property.

Here is a google map image of the property.  I believe the house I have circled here is the one that is for sale.  There is another house you can see in the lower left part of this picture and several outbuildings.  I do not know where the property boundaries are drawn but hope to find this out on Thursday.  There are LOTS of apple trees on the property but that is about all I know at this time.  Let's just say that this house definitely fits of criteria of being within 5 miles of town.

I was reading the newspaper and happened to glance at the Real Estate section and saw another possibility.  This house is outside of town and I have to make sure it is still within the Moscow School District.  1061 Howell Road Troy ID Views out every window of this 3 bedroom 2 bath home situated on 8.22 Acre between Moscow & Troy. Inside amenities include large living room, dining with gas stove, & coutry kitchen. House features vaulted ceilings, tiled floor entry, & expansive southern deck. Outside is the new garage (26'X24'), old garage (16'X21'), goat pen (21'X8'), green house (8'X16'), chicken house (8'X8') and barn. Property is located at Howell which was a rail road stop. Since the railroad tracks are gone,enjoy the Latah Trail.  In the newspaper, the address was listed as Moscow, but I have a feeling it is a Troy address and this would mean that the boys would have to switch schools.  I am not really excited about that idea but I know that there would be more land at this house.  I am going to go and see it this week too.

Business Plan

I set a goal of having Mark's business plan for the egg business completed before he turns 16.  Well, he turns 16 on January 11 which is just about a month from now.  I have been working on the business plan a lot lately.  I pretty much have the written part completed and now I am adding the financial details.  I am confident that I will be ready to share it soon and would appreciate input at that time.

In the Kitchen

I have been making several homemade gifts for Christmas and I will share all that after the holidays (don't want to give away the gift surprises).  Other than that, things have slowed down here on the farm side of things.  The sunflowers rows are sleeping and the bee activity is minimal as they are hunkered down with their honey for the winter...