Well things are moving along slowly but surely:
1) We planted two 8 foot apple trees and will be getting six more within a few weeks. They are mostly for our own use, but if we come to that point, they can be sold or used to barter.
2) The last two weekends have been spent putting together a pen for chickens inside our small out building. We've framed out walls and windows, and chicken wired the walls out. All of this done with zero carpentry or construction skills. Just some swearing and yelling, but nothing too major! :-)
3) Calls will be made soon to continue our journey to put up a new outbuilding. The process takes me WAY out of my comfort zone, but yet, will be good for me as I need to be more comfortable taking charge of things like this. We'll be putting up a 24 x 48 building in which half will be for a garage, the other half for animals (possibly goats or sheep).
4) I've called to get part of our garden tilled up, and will be calling to see if we can get the other half tilled up as well. Again, this gardening thing takes me way out of my comfort zone as we are working ourselves to the point where we may sell some of our produce. That leads to the next one.
5) I've ordered two pounds of red wiggler worms for vericomposting both at home and at school. I'll have one bin at school and one bin at home, with hopes of having enough worms by the end of the summer to possibly get another bin started here at school. This whole worm thing is very interesting, especially the fact that we can take much of our garden waste, and use it to make great fertilizer for the garden.
6) Finally, we've got all sorts of sprouts going in the house right now (tomatoes, peppers, egg plants, etc) with hopes that they'll actually live this year! :-) I've never been successful at getting my plants to go from seed to harvest, so I've tried a few new things, and am considered a small greenhouse of some sort.
Whew, that's a pretty good summary of what our lives have been like lately. While the work is hard, it will only make us better off down the road, when we'll truly need that knowledge that we are gaining right now! :-)
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Post #1
Here we are, the J's in Iowa, and this is the first of many posts about our little piece of heaven.
A little background:
Me (Darin): Husband, father, son, brother, teacher, coach, and intensive farmer wanna-be
Her (Melissa): Wife, daughter, sister, teacher, coach, and driven crazy by above mentioned "Me".
Smaller Her (Gabrielle): Oldest daughter, basketball player, book junkie, smart and quiet, but never one to let her opinion go unheard.
Smallest Her (Faith): Youngest daughter, hip on computer stuff, wants an iPod, cell phone, and laptop....you get the idea.
Melissa and I lived in a small town in rural Iowa for 8 years, and always talked about the "what if" of owning an acreage. We'd been looking for a while, but everything, EVERYTHING was either junk that needed to be burnt down and started over with, or it was way over priced.
Just as it seemed hope was lost, we stumbled over a flyer for a land auction with the acreage to be sold seperate. Much to our surprise, it was a place we'd looked many many times as being the "ideal" place: outside of town, just off the blacktop, close to a couple of neighbors. Anyway, saw the flyer on a Saturday, and that following Saturday was the auction, so we set up a time to get into the house and poke around a little bit. What we saw made us think, sure, why not?? So we quick penciled out some numbers, and went to the auction the following day. You can probably guess what happened....we walked out of that auction the proud owners of a new 2.75 acre property!
Thankfully, we were able to sell our house in town right before the housing bubble popped, and moved into our place in June of 2007. Before we moved in, we had the kitchen gutted and redone from the studs out, which made a fairly unusable room into the center piece of the house. Last year, we took care of a leaky roof (excellen work and at a fair price), and this summer, we are putting up a garage/animal area with the idea that we'll eventally get into some kind of animals at our place.
The plan for right now is to expand out are gardening area, but do it in a smart way, being more intensive with the food we grow. Extras of everything will be put through our local organic food group, with hope of possibly making our little piece of land work for us in a way that is both acceptable in the monetary sence (a little extra cash isn't a bad thing) but also in an environmental way as well. Today in fact, my oldest daughter and I planted tomatoes, eggplants, and pumpkins, with others to be planted soon.
My plan for this blog, to simply update what our life is like working, raising kids, and trying to create some profit out of the land we've purchased. If we can make only one of those work, we'll be doing great, but I believe if I can keep myself honest here, it will only keep my own motivation level up as it gets hot our, plants die, or I just don't feel like doing anything. Who knows!?!? :-)
That's it for right now, and pictures will be posted soon.
If you've gotten this far, give yourself a gold start
A little background:
Me (Darin): Husband, father, son, brother, teacher, coach, and intensive farmer wanna-be
Her (Melissa): Wife, daughter, sister, teacher, coach, and driven crazy by above mentioned "Me".
Smaller Her (Gabrielle): Oldest daughter, basketball player, book junkie, smart and quiet, but never one to let her opinion go unheard.
Smallest Her (Faith): Youngest daughter, hip on computer stuff, wants an iPod, cell phone, and laptop....you get the idea.
Melissa and I lived in a small town in rural Iowa for 8 years, and always talked about the "what if" of owning an acreage. We'd been looking for a while, but everything, EVERYTHING was either junk that needed to be burnt down and started over with, or it was way over priced.
Just as it seemed hope was lost, we stumbled over a flyer for a land auction with the acreage to be sold seperate. Much to our surprise, it was a place we'd looked many many times as being the "ideal" place: outside of town, just off the blacktop, close to a couple of neighbors. Anyway, saw the flyer on a Saturday, and that following Saturday was the auction, so we set up a time to get into the house and poke around a little bit. What we saw made us think, sure, why not?? So we quick penciled out some numbers, and went to the auction the following day. You can probably guess what happened....we walked out of that auction the proud owners of a new 2.75 acre property!
Thankfully, we were able to sell our house in town right before the housing bubble popped, and moved into our place in June of 2007. Before we moved in, we had the kitchen gutted and redone from the studs out, which made a fairly unusable room into the center piece of the house. Last year, we took care of a leaky roof (excellen work and at a fair price), and this summer, we are putting up a garage/animal area with the idea that we'll eventally get into some kind of animals at our place.
The plan for right now is to expand out are gardening area, but do it in a smart way, being more intensive with the food we grow. Extras of everything will be put through our local organic food group, with hope of possibly making our little piece of land work for us in a way that is both acceptable in the monetary sence (a little extra cash isn't a bad thing) but also in an environmental way as well. Today in fact, my oldest daughter and I planted tomatoes, eggplants, and pumpkins, with others to be planted soon.
My plan for this blog, to simply update what our life is like working, raising kids, and trying to create some profit out of the land we've purchased. If we can make only one of those work, we'll be doing great, but I believe if I can keep myself honest here, it will only keep my own motivation level up as it gets hot our, plants die, or I just don't feel like doing anything. Who knows!?!? :-)
That's it for right now, and pictures will be posted soon.
If you've gotten this far, give yourself a gold start
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