The second summer at Cedar Hills

As mentioned before, Marco and I held high expectations for our second summer at the farm. We broke more ground next to our large garden for the pumpkins and zucchini. We also had a smaller garden started up near our barn. The small garden had tomatoes, beans, bell peppers, jalapenos and tomatillos. Tomatillos look like green tomatoes, they are sour if eaten fresh. They are usually roasted and used in hot sauces and salsas. That garden did great throughout the summer. Our large garden, however, suffered a worse fate.

There are two ways to start a garden.

1. Start seeds inside around March or April. This is time and energy intensive. It takes a lot of time to water and maintain the seedlings as they begin growing inside. It also requires you have enough room to hold up to 50 cups of sprouting seeds and ensuring they have adequate light to make them grow strong and tall. It's also important to have a sources of air blowing on them (this will make them stronger and prepare them for life out of doors.)

2. Plant the seeds directly into the garden after the frost has let up. This is giving the seeds to the elements of the weather, wildlife and soil type.

Marco and I decided to plant the seeds directly into the garden. Why no? It seemed to easiest...plus we hadn't planned ahead of time to actually set up and start the seedlings in March. Well, to our chagrin the plan failed. Right after we planted the seeds, we received three days of saturating rain. Usually that is desirable for seeds newly planted. However, our garden is located in a low, valley area of the farm and that is the first place to flood and/or leave standing water....which is exactly what happened! The seeds we planted either washed away or rotted due to water saturation. The only successful produce from the downstairs garden was ONE cucumber and 12 very small pumpkins (of which we were quite thankful for - and of which we made some lovely pumpkin puree.)

The animals were thriving on the farm. The goats were ever growing and we loved the time spent getting to know them and their personalities. Claribel, our female, is a free spirit. No matter what kind of fence we put up, she would squeeze, break or jump through. We often found her gorging on lilac leaves, tomatoes plants or rose bushes (which didn't make my mum too happy!) Each day Marco and I learned more and more about our animals and the care they needed. We would put the goats out of leashes to graze areas around the house overgrown with weeds and vines. The goats are amazing browsers, who clear brush and weeds in a hours. Claribel and Tyrone hung out together (which we hoped for, being that we wanted them to make babies.) Brunch was more on a loner. He would be in the same area as the other two, but kept to himself. I always felt bad he didn't have a grazing partner. The times Brunch seemed most content and peaceful was around Marco and myself. We figured he thought of us as his true companions...Tyone and Claribel he simply had to put up with. Brunch is the most easygoing and would make the best pet...if ever a goat could be a housepet. He's sweet, quiet and content to follow you around. Tyone is the king of the goat kingdom! He became good at headbutting anyone (including Marco and myself from time to time!)

During the summer we accumulated five more chickens from a friend. A neighbor also cut, dried and bales the grass from our valley. He was able to cut twice over the summer; Marco and I were able to stack and store the bales for the upcoming winter. We also spent our summer gathering firewood for winter. We figured, if there's a free way to heat the house - sign us up!
We gathered an enormous pile of wood and spent three days in August splitting and stacking all of it.

This is a small example of what we collected.

As autumn approached Marco and I harvested our pumpkins, making pumpkin puree and baked pumpkin seeds. We also froze the green beans in baggies, with the help of mum! Mum even strained wild grapes and made wild grape juice concentrate AND amazing salsa from the garden produce. She's amazing!

The second winter at Cedar Hills proved a cold one. The chickens fared the worst. We had several pass away due to the bitter cold. One chicken got frostbite on her foot and by spring she lost the foot entirely. The amazing thing is she's doing fine. I named her Uni-leg and love seeing her hopping here and there. She's a resilient chicken and I respect her for that.

It was during the cold spring that Marco and I made our next investment - two donkeys! We got an amazing price for the pair of them: a girl (Claudette) and a boy (George). They've spent the past spring and summer with us and we've enjoyed their company. Donkeys are skittish and cautious animals. It took quite some time for them to become comfortable with Marco and me. It didn't help that we periodically jumped on their backs and ride them around the corral.

Claudette is Brown.

George is Grey.

This ended the second year and began the third at Cedar Hills Farm.

To be continued......