We have lived on our farm for almost 2 years now and we are starting to learn the groove of the seasons. We now know that late summer/early fall is our BUSIEST time of year. Mostly because of the garden and the orchard as the animals turn is in the spring. Our apples are getting ready to "literally" fall off the trees -
This means that we'll be pressing apples and making applesauce and apple pie filling soon. And since we have two varieties of apples - one early and one late - this means that we'll be doing all of that twice. Everything that we can is coming into season - peaches, pears, tomatoes. The blackberries (which there seem to be more of this year) will be ripe within the next couple of weeks - a task that I'm not really looking forward to as we picked blackberries everyday for a month last year, even when the temps were in the 90's! But I'm willing to sacrifice a few beads of sweat to gather a few pounds of those delicious little berries! Those berries eventually become blackberry jelly, blackberry syrup, and blackberry wine - all made by my husband. YUM!
This was all made by one 25 pound box of tomatoes... that I bought from the local farmer's market. I think I'll be in trouble once our tomatoes start ripening but I just couldn't help myself. I plan on making lots of salsa - we found out that Tyler loves salsa. He normally hates tomatoes but if he'll eat them in salsa, who am I to say no?
Here are the last of our red potatoes. We pulled them all up a few days ago and were surprised at how many there were, especially since we've been pulling them up early and eating "new" potatoes. Our guess, there's probably 50-75 pounds of potatoes there. Not bad for a $5-10 investment in seed potatoes. The "russet" variety should be ready to pull up in a couple of weeks.
I'm sure that all of this doesn't sound like very much, but it is time consuming. Canning is an all day process that precludes me from doing the rest of my housework - laundry, cleaning, meals. Normally, I would love an opportunity to avoid those chores but it all just seems to pile up around me.
Our field was cut, raked, and baled last week. I just love the look of our pasture during this phase. Something so peaceful about it. But that also meant hauling bales of hay from the field into the barn. This is when we learned that we are not as youthful as we were last year. This time last year, we just tossed the bales from the back of the truck up into the loft. Steve threw them up to me and I picked them up and put them into an organized stack. There are not light - each bale is about 60 pounds which you pick up by squeezing the baling twine together to make a handle of sorts. Quite the workout! However this year, we have a different truck that is a little lower to the ground making the distance that he has to throw them up to the loft a little greater. We resorted to just stacking them in the lower level of the barn until we get our hands on a bale elevator.
I just wanted to include this picture of some late season strawberries that I picked. It always amazes me how we all love strawberries yet when there is a bowl just sitting on the counter full of them - they all end up in the compost pile. These late season ones don't last long at all, one night in the refrigerator and the mold had already set in. Dang! Didn't even have a chance to give them to the chickens....
Back to the topic...
In saying this, I'm trying to justify our decision to stop homeschooling, at least justify it to myself. While ahead of other kids their age in some areas, such as biology, they are probably behind in other areas. However, I am not enrolling them in the local elementary school - over my dead body! I am fortunate enough to have a distance learning teacher that lives a few houses down. And the boys LOVE going to their farm. And they'll be able to interact with other kids ... hopefully their age. And it will be small group interactions. It's a lot like homeschool, as the bulk of their work will be done at home. But the curriculum is set by the school district and guided by a teacher - a "certificated" teacher. And, she has a LOT of experience working with special needs children. I truly am - dare I say the word - blessed.
