http://www.dropstonefarms.com A tiny farm on Bainbridge Island. Wed, 03 Dec 2008 00:45:43 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en 1 (one) Combination brush hook/zombie pacification device 3 (three) six foot lengths of rebar 5 (five) seed starting trays 1 (one) tow rope 3 (three) 25 kg bags of organic layer mash 1 (one) 50# bag of diatomaceous earth It seems like an interesting life, doesn't it? It's dark now (at four-freakin'-thirty) but I'll post a ... http://www.dropstonefarms.com/2008/12/the-contents-of-my-pickup-bed/ We hosted Thanksgiving on Thursday for my mom and her husband and two friends of ours from Seattle and Port Hadlock. We had: Turkey from Olympic Pastured Poultry SMASHYpotato (Lauren's name) Buttermilk biscuits with homemade buttermilk Glazed carrots Green salad with pomegranate dressing from Butler Greens Stuffing from our friend Skip. Some sort of cucumber/dill salad from ... http://www.dropstonefarms.com/2008/11/boy-its-a-good-thing-we-dont-have-any-farm-work-to-do-thats-why-this-is-thanksgiving/ Except, you know, I don't think it was actually a killing frost. I love the pacific northwest. There is also this potential guide to our being less utterly flawed. I've been wrong before, of course. We also had our first frost of the year. The ducks ended up on the porch of ... http://www.dropstonefarms.com/2008/11/hard-time-killing-frost-blues/ This is a big bag of onions, sitting in a chair. (Day 22), originally uploaded by laurenipsum. Today we went to get our turkey at the Port Townsend Farmers' market, which was AWESOME. Someone there had this enormous bag of storage onions; we have been unable to get good storage onions ... http://www.dropstonefarms.com/2008/11/this-is-a-big-bag-of-onions-sitting-in-a-chair/ I just installed a bunch of new things for the blog. You can now subscribe to get email updates whenever we post. If you comment you can also subscribe to get emailed whenever there are subsequent comments to that post -- there's a checkbox under the comment form. I wanted ... http://www.dropstonefarms.com/2008/11/shiny-new-internet-things/ My camera is obviously not intended as a video camera, so the video quality is not great -- at times the chickens appear to be made of lasers, zooming around very quickly -- but the sound is pretty much exactly what we live with, all the time. (For treats they ... http://www.dropstonefarms.com/2008/11/the-soundtrack-of-our-lives/ Don't ever let anyone tell you* that it's too hard to eat local and organic in the winter! Look at this variety! Each of these photos is of a different vendor (except the turnips and the squash immediately following; those are from the same one). I didn't take a picture ... http://www.dropstonefarms.com/2008/11/i-spent-the-day-at-the-ballard-farmers-market/ So, I keep trying to post, honest, but the thing is that Trent won so hard in the comments on Garth's last post that both he and I have been sort of incapacitated since then. So I am promoting his song out of the comments, and hopefully breaking the spell. ... http://www.dropstonefarms.com/2008/11/hard-act-to-follow/ We pasture our chickens with a combination of a chicken tractor and electric mesh fencing. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get a good charge on the fence and, in combination with the dogs being friendly with the chickens and keeping predators down, we don't turn the electric fence on. ... http://www.dropstonefarms.com/2008/10/rubys-life-is-hard-or-maybe-i-should-turn-on-the-electric-fence/ The other day we were looking through my "chickens" tag on Flickr, reminiscing about how cute they were when they were tiny. I realized I haven't taken any pictures of the chickens in a good long while, even though I (we?) spend a lot of time thinking about them and ... http://www.dropstonefarms.com/2008/10/chickens-update/ So the other day the girls laid only a single egg. It was bizarre. Then, the day after, we got five eggs. We normally get between three and six eggs per day, so having an egg-free day out of the blue was kind of bizarre. Everything seems to be back ... http://www.dropstonefarms.com/2008/10/the-chickens-took-the-day-off-and-i-built-a-new-anvil-stand/ We made a lot of progress on the expanded chicken coop this weekend! Its name is now Chicken Bunker, on account of how cozy and built-into-the-hill it is. All that's left to do is get the roof on and wire up the sides, which is only a few more hours ... http://www.dropstonefarms.com/2008/10/nose-tomato-models-my-new-glasses/ So it turns out that I deeply, deeply love preparing seedbeds. I love double-digging and broadforking and cultivating soil. An I love creating a nice, smooth, enriched bed to plant starts in. It's as satisfying to me as sweeping a concrete floor. And I love sweeping concrete floors. Here's most of ... http://www.dropstonefarms.com/2008/10/how-lucky-is-that/ Lately we have been making a lot of dishes that will last a long time, because we have also been canning, and the prospect of cooking anew each evening is too daunting. So it's been soups that last for days, for convenience's sake. Recent eatin': Eggs! omg eggs. Frittata with green and ... http://www.dropstonefarms.com/2008/10/foods-upcoming-and-recent-other-lists/ Inspired by Throwback at Trapper Creek's straw bale root cellar, we're going to take a crack at building our own to store potatoes and all the apples that blew down in last night's windstorm. We went to the feed store and picked up "as many straw bales as will fit in ... http://www.dropstonefarms.com/2008/10/hay-hook-and-straw-bale-root-cellar/ I have taken eggs to coworkers a few times already, and I will again, but today we got our first non-acquaintance/friend/coworker customer. A friend of our neighbor, or maybe a friend of a friend of our neighbor, she has food sensitivities that don't allow her to eat chicken eggs. She ... http://www.dropstonefarms.com/2008/10/our-first-regular-customer/ It's been a while since I've updated y'all on account of my professional life has been more interesting than I'd like lately and, well, it's September, there's vegetables everywhere. So some updates: I found some neat little things to hold down floating row cover. They come in packages of six for ... http://www.dropstonefarms.com/2008/09/in-which-i-remember-my-phone-has-a-camera/ We've been processing tomatoes, originally uploaded by laurenipsum. ... a little at a time. We don't have a pot that holds more than four quart-jars anyway so it works out. We have also slow-roasted and frozen a couple of pounds, and have dried some too. Pictured: Green Zebra; Ananas Noire; Black Prince; Brandywine; ... http://www.dropstonefarms.com/2008/09/weve-been-processing-tomatoes/ Harvest moon dinner, originally uploaded by laurenipsum. Corn: garden. Artichokes: garden. Cabbage for coleslaw: garden. Bread: homemade. Burger: from our cow. Ripe Green Zebra tomato on the burger: garden. The Harvest Moon is full tonight. http://www.dropstonefarms.com/2008/09/harvest-moon-dinner/ Sad news today about lemon prices, which have doubled or more. It's sad because there really is no substitute for lemon in most recipes. Occasionally a light-flavored vinegar will suit, if acidity and brightness are all that's needed from the lemon, and sometimes you can use another citrus, but ... http://www.dropstonefarms.com/2008/09/on-lemons-meyer-and-gloating/