Fall tomato harvest

We’re running behind, as usual, in the fall clearing out of the garden. The other day I finally set aside some time and got myself down to the garden to get some work done. The goal was the pick the rest of the tomatoes that were still good and pull the plants out. After several hours of hard work, and when I was almost done with the job, hubs showed up. (Note: He has impeccable timing like that.)  He asked how the work was going and I had to share my adventures in the garden.

Me: “Well, it was going okay until a rabid rat attacked my boot.”

Hubs: “WHAT??”

Me: “I was picking tomatoes when this fuzzy beast jumped out of the bushy tomato plants and ran over to attack my boot.”

Hubs: “you’re kidding!!?”

Me: “Okay, so it might have actually been a fuzzy, rotten tomato, that FELL out of the plants and ROLLED over to my boot…. but it totally could have happened the other way.”

Hubs: <walking away, shaking his head>

You have to admit things are much more colorful in my world. 🙂

Life on the farm

Red, the Wild Woman of Fable Farms

Ramblings from the farm:
Yesterday we were in a hurry to finish chores and run to town to do some errands. As we took the feed out to the goat pasture we noticed that Red was in season and hanging out at the buck fence. This was a little upsetting since we thought she had been bred last month. *sigh*

Okay, change of plans. Put the feed buckets down, go wrangle up Red (the Wild Woman, who hates to be caught) and put her in the feed lot. Then go grab Crackshot and bring him to the feed lot. We let them have their ‘visit’, which hopefully got the job done this time!

Crackshot wooing the girls

We put the goats back in their perspective pens and went to grab the feed buckets only to discover the dogs decided to clean them out for us. *sigh again* These things seem to happen whenever we’re in a hurry. Anyway, we refilled the buckets and got everyone fed.

You’d think the story would end there right??? Oh no…..that would be too simple. This morning we woke to some lovely ‘gifts’ from the dogs, who’s tummy’s apparently aren’t build to digest goat food. Who knew??? *triple sigh* Thankfully Hubs found most of it and cleaned it before I even knew about it. (Note: that’s true love ladies. A guy who will tackle dog crap first thing in the morning, even before their coffee is a keeper.)

Now Hubs is headed off to get a ton of hay and I need to pack up the soaps that will be shipped Monday. We had hoped that we would have the old hay barn fixed up and ready to store 5-6 tons of hay to get us through the winter but that just hasn’t happened. I’ve learned that basically farming is a lot of careful planning. You make detailed plans with a balanced consideration of your man power, money and time. Then sh*t happens and all those plans get tossed out the window and you improvise.

Fall on the Homestead

Fall is a beautiful time on the homestead. The leaves are changing colors, the air has a crisp quality that begs to be perfumed with wood smoke and hot cider. Fall is also fickled, because as beautiful as it is, there is so much to do that it’s often hard to find time to enjoy the beauty. There’s lots to do before you can put the homestead to bed for the winter. Barns need to be cleaned and prepped for the upcoming cold and wet weather, gardens need to be pulled and planted with a cover crop, animals need to get bred and of course all those half done projects need to get finished up before the weather completely turns nasty.

One of my favorite parts of fall is the bonfires. There’s something primal about them that attracts my inner caveman…or rather, cave-woman. There are few things in my book that can top working hard on the farm all day and then when you are bone weary, lounging on the back of your tailgate while having your dinner. Except maybe catching a little nap, before getting back to work.

If you aren’t familiar with bonfires there are a few things that you should know. The first is to always wear a hat. Trust me your stylist will thank you for not making her create some wild and new post-singed hairstyle. Secondly, if you happen to be a girly tom-boy and enjoy wearing make-up (like me) you should be aware that if you stand too close to the fire the heat will make your mascara melt. If you aren’t going for that ‘one giant  eyelash look’, you probably want to take a step or two backward. Lastly, and maybe most importantly, there is always going to be that one person at the fire that will be a smoke magnet. No matter where they go, despite the direction the wind is blowing, the smoke will magically follow them everywhere. Don’t be that person! Now that you know the basics, kick back, sip some cider and enjoy.

October – Ramblings from the farm

I rarely nap. I figure I have too much living to do during my short time on this hunk of dirt and I’m not spending any more than necessary with my eyes closed. Literally closed that is.  I have no problems going through life with proverbial blinders on. In fact, it can make many parts of life much more tolerable. But, I digress….

If you do happen to catch me napping you can bet on three things. The first would be that I’m sick and the second would be that I’m sacked out on the couch. I can’t abide staying in bed all day, even when I’m sick. In fact, I can recall times when I crawled from the bed to the couch just to make sure I didn’t languish in the bed all day. Yes, crawled. I dislike staying in bed that much. Granted, I had vertigo and pretty much crawled everywhere because standing was just way too difficult, but I’m pretty sure I would have crawled anyway if it was the only way to escape being stuck in the bed.

The third thing you can count on is that my dogs will be splayed out all over me. I truly think they know when their loved ones aren’t feeling well and do their best to comfort us with their presence. At least, that’s what I like to think. The alternative is that with their keen animals intuition they can sense my weakened state and trying to increase their status in the pack by taking out the alpha (me) through squashing. Hey, if you had met my dogs you would know it is a viable theory.

The good news is that I have survived all squashing attempts and am still around to tell you that we have finally finished the second annual farm calendar. It took a while to make photo selections and get our proof back but it’s FINALLY HERE!

If case you didn’t see our calendar sale last year let me tell you about it. I share tons of pictures (and stories) on our Facebook page (Find us here: Fablefarms) and we chose our favorite from the year to share in the calendar. All proceeds of the calendar sales go to helping us get this small farm up and running. If you’d like to check out our 2016 calendar click here.

Thanks to our friends on Facebook for sticking with us and also to those that help support our farm dream.