farm life – The Smith Farmhouse

Summertime Blues and Greens

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Well, hello again. I know, I know, it has been awhile. I have repeatedly reminded myself that I am supposed to be writing on a regular basis and staying on top of this blogging thing. The problem is this: I have a farm and it gets a little crazy around here. At present there are 35 ducks, 33 chickens, 12 goats, 3 geese, 3 rabbits, 2 cats and 1 dog who reside on our farm with us. These characters require a great deal of our time and attention. It’s a full time job year round, however summer is downright exhausting.

In the Pacific Northwest we have to make up for the short hours of daylight through the winter. We look forward to summer when the days are drier and the sunlight lasts much longer to get a large portion of farm work done. At the season’s peak the sun doesn’t set until almost 10pm and we make the most of our time planting, building, repairing and protecting it all from bugs, predators and the sometimes bi-polar weather conditions.

This year July was drizzly and cool with the occasional day or two of blaring heat scattered here and there. This inconsistency made gardening a little challenging to say the least. Each summer day offered a new opportunity of problems to solve, we were constantly battling slugs, aphids and birds to protect our herbs and veggies. While the pumpkin patch was hit hard and the cauliflower was a complete loss we still managed to end up with a thriving garden.

There was a point in the middle of this hectic season that I found myself getting discouraged and a little bummed out. The summertime blues as you will. The drizzly and cool days spoiled more than a few plans and put a damper on my mood. Then one day I pulled into our driveway after a trip to town and discovered a peacock in my front yard and my outlook began to change. This ostentatious bird was strutting around as if he owned the place. He spent a couple months flirting with the goats and chickens while displaying his glorious tail feathers as if he was doing us all a great favor. He honked and made loud, distressing calls that drove Farmdog crazy. I am also pretty sure he snipped off most of my sunflower shoots and bean sprouts but despite it all, I liked having him around. He seemed to be a living piece of art and we enjoyed his presence on our farm.

I don’t know where the peacock came from, it was a mystery we never solved. He graced our summer with his beauty and gave us a bouquet of his tail feathers to keep. He left just as abruptly as he arrived. It would be easy for me to be downhearted about his departure, the same way it was almost impossible to fight the discouragement from the lack of sunny days, my garden disappointments and the exhausting work load. “Almost impossible” and yet somewhere in the middle of it all I made a decision to fully embrace and enjoy each day for what it was. I challenged myself to notice and be grateful for all the good things around me.

It isn’t a simple feat to look past bug infested Brussels Sprouts to appreciate the thriving cucumbers and the abundant flower garden or embrace a difficult lesson from a hard loss as a valuable gift but it is a worthy endeavor. Applying a sunny outlook to the blueish hues of disappointment enables the ability to see the green of new life and growth happening within and all around us. This summer hasn’t been what I expected it to be, but I’m glad. I have gained so much more by choosing to see the difficulties and problems as an opportunity to grow stronger, deeper and more grateful each day.

The adventure isn’t reaching the end destination but in the journey to get there.

Project Runway

The Smith Farmhouse Projects

There has been a lot happening on the farm the last couple of months even though I was remiss to share the progress we have been making on this blog. I apologize for seemingly falling off the planet, but I assure you all is well and thriving here at the busy Smith Farmhouse.

It was sometime in March that we attended a one day extension course from WSU on growing your small hobby farm to a small business. There were great ideas presented on using the resources on your land, including making maple syrup from our broadleaf Maple trees that we have growing here in the PNW. We were actually successful at our first attempt at making syrup but I will have to share that story with you in a later post. The most important point I took home that day was the location of our well head in relation to our animal pens.

100 feet is the distance that your livestock should be kept from your well, mine were well, much closer. Can I just be honest and say that they were pretty much on top of it? We actually built our initial pens connected to our well house. This is what happens when you get keys to your new house the same weekend you get a small herd of goats and convenience completely clouds out your common sense. Sitting there in a small classroom setting all I could think of was how we were going to get everyone moved as quickly as possible. This was an especially difficult task with baby animals being born, hatched and brought home at a rate even I was getting overwhelmed by.

We hatched a plan, which I have dubbed “Project Runway“. We may not have used scissors and thread but there was an abundance of material needed to “Make it Work“. We gathered all of our pallets, not the color palettes mind you but wood pallets that every good farmyard has hidden somewhere and started constructing ducks houses and chicken coops. DSCN2455

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We decided to build at the base of the hill next to our goat pasture so we could create a “runway” strip of free range pasture for our flocks, hence the title of our project. Along with the whole actual farming thing you have to manage the social media aspect and find creative ways to attract attention, so there it is…. my attempt at it anyways. So, we decided on erecting three 12′ x 36′ pens with an access gate between the 2nd and 3rd pen. In each pen we included a 6′ x 3′ house and an an additional 3’x 4′ house in the middle pen.

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For fencing, the decision was made to use 2″ x 4″ welded wire instead of poultry wire. The cost was almost the same and it gives us more flexibility to use the pens for other livestock in the future and a greater strength for protection. It was not an easy task to roll out wire on a slope, thats all I am going to say about that because there were enough words shared during the process. We did our best to keep the lines straight and level but all in all it has character, that is the nicest way I can say we did our best and we are happy with the outcome. I would apologize to all the perfectionists and professionals but hey, they don’t have to live in it so I won’t. I am more than happy with how it turned out and it gets the job done so if you are one of those who get a little dizzy with lines that aren’t level just squint or look away and you will be just fine.The project was a success because we stayed in budget and nobody got hurt, and most importantly the ducks and the chickens seem to really enjoy their new enclosures. They now have trees and bushes to hide under for protection from predatory birds and relief from the summer heat. One of the bonuses of the completion of this project is that Farmdog now has access all the way to the goat barn and can enlarge his area of patrol. He especially enjoys chasing away the birds who try to steal feed and the occasional egg laying on the ground.

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We may have intended to attempt this project at a later date but I am glad we were forced to do it this spring. It is going to make such a huge difference to our farm and help move us closer to becoming the self-sufficient farm business we want to be. This will mean many more projects ahead, maybe not quite as big as this one but who knows… they might even be bigger! We may face difficulties from the mistakes we make along the way, but if we learn from them and move forward, we are stronger and wiser for the experience. So, don’t be afraid to make mistakes, because not even trying is the biggest failure of all.

(At some later point I will write about another big project we completed… Chicken Tractors! You can get a little glimpse of them behind our very happy ducks enjoying their new home.)

Balancing Act

Katz N Smith

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I’ve always tried to do my very best at what I set out to do, the problem is, I often struggle finding the correct balance. My tendency is to go a 100 mph, deplete myself and then come to a complete screeching halt. I am able to get quite a bit done in a short period of time but then lose momentum trying to recover from exhaustion. It’s all about balance, I need to live with a 100% all in attitude without trying to give everything and everyone 100% of me a 100% of the time. Learning to choose who and what to invest our time and effort in is an important part of life. It all comes down to balancing priorities if I truly want to be at my best, doing my best work and living a joyful and fruitful life.

This past summer I worked really hard to complete my first children’s book, my last post We Wrote a Book has more about that. While completing the book, there were still farm chores to do: feeding, cleaning, birthing, milking, etc. I also spent quite a bit of energy finding new ways to develop our farm and trying to discover how to be self -sufficient in the future: farm to table dinners, growing a pumpkin patch, and creating new products to sell. In addition to these responsibilities, I have a part-time graphic design job and a multitude of family and friend relationships to care for as well. It is physically and mentally exhausting, honestly there are times I am completely overwhelmed. Sometimes, I feel like one of those circus performers who spins plates on sticks with a tremendous pressure to keep them all from crashing to the floor.

Staying focused is especially challenging when I allow myself to compare my life, priorities or achievements with someone else’s. Social media can inspire but it can also derail us by offering an edited snippet of another’s life or accomplishment. We don’t see the whole picture, all the hard work, struggles, frustrations or loss behind a pretty photo or a well-worded comment, just say’n. I know that I am not alone in this struggle, I hear and see so many others burdened by an abundance of “things to do”. Constant busyness seems to be a rampant social disease that is robbing so many from living a fulfilling life.

For me, farm life helps to bring my important priorities back into focus. It requires me to slow down and be more thoughtful, which allows me time to appreciate what is truly important. Knowing what is of real value and eliminating the extraneous labor that sneaks into my daily life is the key. I do realize that as I continue to seek the right working balance I will be cleaning up some broken plates that fall to the ground. Going forward I think I am ok with that. Who knows, I might even piece together the broken shards to create a mosaic of sorts.