New Beginnings

We had some new beginnings on the farm this weekend…the ducklings are here! Is there anything cuter than baby ducks? These sweet ducklings arrived yesterday, all the way from California! We love them already! The kids are still working on names, but they have already claimed a favorite. They are determined to bond with them when they are little so they don’t waddle away from them when they are able to wander around the yard.

But Kristy, you say, don’t you have enough birds on this “hobby” farm of yours? Well truth be told, we never have enough duck eggs! People love them. Did you know some people that are sensitive to chicken eggs can tolerate duck eggs? Strange huh? There are so many great things about duck eggs; you can read more specifics in the duck egg description on the farm site if your interested. In addition to their glowing stats, we cannot keep them on our shelves! We decided it was time for some ducklings on the farm. Take a peek at the little fluffy ducklings in this short video below. As a bonus, just for fun, the end of the video includes a clip of child #4 displaying a talent we didn’t know he possessed! The quarantine brought it out of him! And if you are wondering, he gave me permission to post this. (I might have had to pay him, but he knew it’s destination!)

Another of our new beginnings, the gardens have been planted!

Our contestants this year, hopefully coming soon to a garden up the hill from the house….drumroll please…celebrity & roma tomatoes, green peppers, red beauty peppers, jalapeño peppers, anaheim peppers (can you taste the salsa yet?), summer squash, beets, lettuce, basil, cilantro, cucumbers, dill (pickles anyone?), and downhill from the house peaches and cream corn (why not?), and my fav, butternut squash! May the odds be ever in their favor. If your wondering the upper garden is about 85’x40’ and the lower garden is 65’x50’.

This is all in the ground, irrigation set up, and will need to be weeded and watered regularly – yuck! Good thing I have more than a few minions around here these days! I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – weeding is the best consequence ever. I’m attempting to make a time-lapse slideshow of the garden to show the progress. I’ll update the site if that comes to fruition. In the meantime, here’s the layout of the garden:

We have had a garden since we moved out to the “farm” in 2009. We had a rough year last year and there wasn’t much time to tend to the land and get all the things done. In February, we decided we would take a year off from the garden. After all, we reasoned, it’s good for the ground to take a year off. I announced to the kids, with a happy dance, that we would have a weeding free summer! All were pretty excited but one, he protested saying that the garden was one of the main things that defined our family. (A surprising reaction!) Then I went to the store one day in March and the shelves were cleared of produce. We quickly canceled the garden hiatus and went into full garden planning mode. It also helps that we have so much more time at home now, our landscaping has never looked better!

The last of our new beginnings is a hopeful one, a start to healthier eating. Enough of the comfort food quarantine diet! One of the kiddos had a consequence of no sugar for being less than sweet to his little sister. So naturally we had many desserts during this consequence to allow him to get the full benefit of said consequence, only fair right? Here’s my last cookie helpers in action:

His consequence ends tomorrow, so we toast tonight with camping in the yard: a campfire and smores (of course)! Tomorrow we will start our healthier eating . This will be easy because I’m in control of what comes into the house. I have to keep telling myself that I’m in control, I have self control, and we can do this!

I hope reading about some of our new beginnings brings a few smiles and maybe a few laughs to your quarantine time . If you haven’t already, poke around a bit on the site and you’ll find some craft tutorials and information about our hobby farm along with how this website got its start.