This rich soil has been waiting to be turned over in the garden beds and the children absolutely loved shoveling and mixing and raking it into place.

Our fine little gardeners!

This was Chapel’s first year to really get in on the garden scene and she had a grand time!

post by Sunshine, pictures by Peter & Sunshine

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Right now we are only picking about 4 spears each day.  So they wait in a glass of water in the fridge until we have enough to cook for the family.

Once you’ve planted and waited for your asparagus bed to mature for harvesting, what is so fun about this vegetable is that it will produce shoots daily.  I’ve heard that during the peak of summer it’s possible to need to cut shoots twice a day just to keep up with the growth!

Sometimes we roast our asparagus in the oven, but when it’s fresh from the garden, all I want to do is enhance it’s naturally bright taste by just barely steaming it.  Amazing, and delicious.

Fresh Asparagus
asparagus stalks with woody stalks trimmed off
olive oil spray
kosher salt
What to do: Place washed and trimmed stalks in a pan and spray lightly with olive oil. Lightly sprinkle salt over stalks and then add about 1/2 inch of water to the pan. Bring water to a boil and then reduce heat to medium and allow asparagus to simmer about 5 minutes until bright green and easily pierced with a fork. The trick is to cook it until the stalks are tender, but still firm and to stay far away from overcooking or letting the stalks become “bendy” or “mushy.”

Would you believe me if I told you that this little lady cleared the plate by herself!?
  

post and pictures by Sunshine

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Are you gardening this year?

post and pictures by Sunshine

The post Ready to Garden appeared first on Our Southern Roots.

We took a trip to the local TSC and let the kids pick out three chicks each.  The chicks spent their first few weeks in the garage in a stock tank under a heat lamp… and the kids enjoyed feeding, holding and checking on them regularly.  The chicks are about 8 weeks old now and doing very well.  We ended up with three Barred Rocks, three Rhode Island Reds, two Buff Orpingtons and one mystery chick that was supposed to be a Buff.  We’ll have to figure out what she is one of these days!

The chicks are now fully feathered and have been moved to the chicken coop.  In anticipation for eggs to start coming, we built a hen-house and attached it to the back of our chicken coop.  We made the nesting boxes easily accessible so the kids can collect eggs from outside the chicken coop.  Now we are all set and waiting for eggs!

Picture of the framed hen-house – note the nesting boxes to the left.

Another picture with the siding added.

A picture inside the hen-house – complete with roost and nesting boxes.

A picture from inside the coop looking at the doorway to the new hen-house.  Look forward to seeing which hen ends up “ruling the roost!”

post and pictures by Peter

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The kids have enjoyed watching the day old chicks grow into young hens.  We start them under a heat lamp in a livestock tank for the first few weeks.  When the hens become fully feathered they will be ready to go to the chicken coop.  This little batch of hens will be docile and friendly – they have been handled by the kids daily.

You have to keep a close eye on the chicks!

Or they may end up on your head!

post by Peter, pictures by Sunshine

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So how do you improve your land for rabbit hunting?  Add food plots?  Build brush piles?  The answer is fairly simply – do nothing.  Just let fields go and allow the native plants, briars, grasses, shrubs and trees grow.  This will provide all the cover and food sources needed to increase your rabbit population.  Many think that building brush piles throughout your property will provide the necessary cover to increase the rabbit population.  Others suggest this does very little and there is no substitute for natural native cover.  Food plots are great for deer, but providing food in the open makes rabbits an easy target for predators.

Many folks would consider the land pictured here too rough, but it is a beautiful sight to the rabbit hunter!  We have a number of fields we have “let go.”  Meaning they were either clear cuts or hay fields and we have allowed the native grasses, shrubs, trees, and briars to grow.  And we have seen the rabbit numbers increase significantly!

This land was clear-cut a number of years ago and has become an ideal rabbit habitat.  However, this land is basically unhuntable without shooting lanes.

All that is needed is a little bush hog work to clear the shooting lanes!

We widened the existing logging roads and cut several new shooting lanes.  With a 6′ bush hog, two passes at 12′ makes an adequate shooting lane, but 18′ is better – especially for young hunters and trying to get some hunting footage.

Two pass shooting lane through a wall of briars and saplings (before and after).

Three pass shooting lane on a logging road (before and after).

One of the new shooting lanes (before and after).

We look forward to hunting this land and expect to have some action pack hunts!  The combination of native growth and a little bush hogging makes this property an ideal place to hunt rabbits!

post and pictures by Peter 

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This is a post our daughter wrote about spending time with this little calf.  You can read her first post here.

Our Little Calf  By Bright, age 7

This week, we had two special calves born in our field.  One was red and white and it was a girl.  It had curly white hairs on its head.  It had a pretty red neck.  It had a cute little tail.  I decided to name it Bright after Almonzo Wilder’s (from Little House and the Prairie) red and white calf and after myself.  I love that series.   The mother rejected her calf.  It was very weak, all it did was sleep.   The other calf was alive and healthy.

She let us touch her and let Daddy carry her. Some calves will run away.  This calf loved us and stayed close and never ran away. We bonded.  After a few days the mother still had not gone close.  So Daddy went to the store and bought milk and a large calf bottle.  We bottle fed it.  At first it didn’t want the milk.  But I talked to it and petted it and said it had to drink the milk.  That worked for a while but it took too long for two bottles a day.  Then it was getting colder and it was going to rain and it couldn’t stay in the pasture.  We moved it to a small pen on the side of our barn.  We put in straw for bedding and propped up the bottle so it could eat by itself.  Then we put in some water for it to drink.  It loved its new pen.

It was fun being its mother, it was so fun.  It’s not so often that you have a calf that won’t run away and that you bond.  And it’s not so often that the mother let’s you get so close .  I’ll always remember this calf and the memories of its calf-hood.

intro and pictures by Sunshine, post by Bright

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There are new calves in our field and more on the way.  Amazing how strong and stable a calf is even when brand new.  Calving season adds to the excitement and enjoyment of fall-time around here.  Each day the kids race to check on the calves and to see if any new ones have been born.

We had an awfully hot, dry summer and grass is already in short supply.  It’s just October and we are having to supplement with hay - not good.  It will take quite a few hay bales to make it through the upcoming winter.

post and pictures by Sunshine

The post Farm Fresh appeared first on Our Southern Roots.

When our babies were little I would stir the cooked squash into their applesauce.  Now this veggie it finds it’s way into spaghetti sauce and even unsuspecting muffins and pies.

What is your favorite way to eat this squash, savory or sweet?

post and pictures by Sunshine

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