Weekend Outing

Last Sunday was Open Farm Day.  First off I must say that I was thrilled to have found out about the event before it actually occured instead of from an evening news report after the event is already over.

My only complaint was that the event was held on the weekend when I had no children with me – well, two of my sons tagged along but they’re really young adults not children.  We didn’t have much time – weekends are busy times – so we only went to one of the participating farms.

With a time limit on our excursion we needed to pick a farm that was nearby.  It was an easy decision – Perimeter Alpacas – because alpacas are basically the same as llamas and we LOVE llamas.  Granted, alpaca isn’t nearly as fun to say as llama but seriously, look at them;

SQUEEEE! I just want to hug them;

I managed to drag myself away from the alpacas long enough to see some ducks and and a peacock family too – pretty birds but not soft and fluffy like an alpaca.

There were some other displays and sales of products from the farm.  I bought a stuffie – handmade from alpaca fleece.  After I paid for it the woman asked “Do you want a bag or are you just going to cuddle it all the way home?” — silly question;

Of course I would have preferred an alpaca shaped stuffie – they had one but it was out of my price range.  Still, I do love this one too.  My cats also love it but they’d like to shred it so I have to keep it out of their reach.

I’ve brought the stuffie out for the children to see/feel.  It would be irrelevant to try to ‘teach’ them anything about alpacas without any actual experience with alpacas.  However, it has been very useful for our discussions about ‘gentle’.  With four infants/toddlers ‘gentle’ has become an important part of our curriculum.

Be gentle and take turns – difficult lessons even for me when you’ve got something so lovely that you just want to squish it and never let go.

Herbs & Veggies

Our vegetable gardening began in 2007 with one small raised bed and has expanded every year since then.  Our current garden is about 100 square feet and we have some planters around the yard too.

The types of vegetables we grow each year changes because we like to experiment with new ones.  Three years ago we began to include herbs in our garden too.  In the fall we had dug up the herbs, put them in pots and brought them in the house for the winter.  We got to enjoy them for a few more months but they didn’t survive until spring.

Since then we have discovered that some herbs are perennials – I didn’t know that when we dug them out of the garden.  Remember, I was learning about gardening too – I thought all our ‘crops’ were annuals.

So, last year when we planted our new herbs, I made a point of keeping the tags and noting which ones we should expect to return in the spring.  The oregano has returned and is doing well so far;

I’m unsure about the garden sage.  It doesn’t look great but it has some new leaves and branches.  I started trimming off the dried branches from last year but it looks like the new growth is coming from the old branches so I’m afraid to trim any more in case I kill it;

The lemon balm and the rosemary showed absolutely no signs of life.  We have since planted replacements for these two.  We also added some mint and thyme.  Every time we discuss the various scents the most common reaction is ‘Mmmm, smells minty’.  I figured maybe for comparison we needed something that actually was ‘minty’.  The thyme elicited an enthusiastic response as the four-year-old ran around the yard cheering ‘Woo hoo, we’re growing a time machine!’

We’ve got the mandatory beans and tomatoes and this year we’re going to try two types of carrots.  We’re also trying something else new.  We have a subscription to the community supported agriculture program at Wild Earth Farms.  This will give us the opportunity to try a much greater variety of produce than we could ever grow ourselves. We’re also hoping to arrange a field trip to see the farm too.

We just received our first farm share which contained fresh oregano, thyme, green onions, swiss chard, and kale.  We examined and tasted a little of everything;

The kale was a different type than the kale we grew a couple years back.  We immediately noticed that this kale had no holes in it.  Most of the kale we grew got eaten by something other than us.  This kale was beautiful and tasty;

We headed outside to compare the thyme and oregano from the farm with the ones in our garden.  The children got distracted by some critters they found in the garden and had to go make homes for them instead;

Yet another fun activity with garden ‘produce’.