A Dangerous Garden

I was looking out my window this morning down at the front lawn. What? Lawn? Did I say lawn? Right! No lawn out there because you can't eat lawn.
About two years ago when I was looking down at the front of our house I saw empty brown dirt with lots of sunlight. I thought about our family's plan for putting in a nice lawn and landscaping it and the amount of raking and mowing it was going to take to keep it up. That's when I realized that our original place we were planning a vegetable garden just wasn't as practical as it would be to put it right there in front. Right out the door from the kitchen, in plain sight for us all to observe and enjoy (and defend from garden eaters). So we started moving our alpaca manure, wheel barrow by wheel barrow, over to the area. Husband put in the irrigation and tilled it all in. We made our furrows, brought our seedlings over from the greenhouse and the front yard garden began.

Last year was successful other than getting a late start and needing to bring the tomatoes in before the frost. We loved looking out the front windows and seeing our empty furrows turn into a jungle of squash, cucumbers and tomatoes. So this year we did it again. Husband tilled, I made our rows, Dad got our seedlings in. And then there were the volunteers. All the produce that didn't get picked and got buried under snow got tilled in and before we even had our green house seedlings in they sprouted and we had more than 30 tomato plants and a field of ground cherries. I transplanted the tomatoes into our rows but the ground cherries are just out of control. We're not complaining. If they ripen before it snows we will be in ground cherry heaven!

A garden is a dangerous thing. If you turn your back on it for even a day the squash will grow to the size of your arm and start making plans to take over the world. It is now the season where it is unwise to leave your car unlocked or your neighbor (that would be me) will fill your back seat with zucchini and crook neck.

Ours is a victory garden. Not something I ever thought about much but as there is more and more information coming at me where government (and my tax money) is working very hard at limiting what people can grow and sell I am looking at my garden with new eyes. The incident in Oak Park made a lot of people stand up and pay attention. The fact that the presidents wife did not stand up and pay attention also sent a message. Loud and clear folks, we are not supposed to be self sustaining. Not a conspiracy theory, a fact. If you are not at least partially dependent on some program They run They will hunt you down and find you criminal. It's a good thing it's not practical to milk alpacas. . . . .

I'm not a big fan of squash of any kind but it's not bad either. It tastes especially good when you grow it yourself. When you put food on the table that is either all or mostly from your own garden it's downright delicious. I don't care if that chicken is a little tough, I grew that chicken, I know that chicken, and I brought it in to be dinner. It is good chicken. No one will argue that farm fresh eggs taste better.

It should be noted that without the alpacas this garden would not be possible. This blog is about the alpacas right? Alpacas have three stomachs and eat almost nothing but orchard grass. When all that is processed and released it makes for a wonderful manure. Our dirt here is highly acidic, tends to be hard and clumpy and when you fluff in the manure magic happens. Really. Magic. The chickens came about because of the alpacas too. Bug control. Don't believe those cartons that tout "vegan chickens." Chickens are not vegans.

To the point? Am I worried that one day someone in a dark suit is going to come out and destroy my garden and my chickens "for the health and safety of the people?" You bet I am. That garden is grown in dirt which is clearly not hygienic and those eggs are not pasteurized or laid in nice sanitary cages. Clearly they are a threat to the people. I'm here to tell you that I would not be here today had it not been for my ancestors eating from a garden and getting their eggs from a farm because they would have starved to death.

The Time Has Come

For Cabbages and Kings. And it's time to start blogging about all the little things that happen here at Haven Ridge.

It's the end of summer and it still feels like we are just beginning. With the late winter weather occurring in June we are just starting to see our tomato's ripen, and our squash come in. As we follow the on going domestic terror of the FDA and the USDA raiding small farms I grow prouder and more clingy to our own front yard veggies and I'm starting to look around to see what else we are capable, both physically and finacially, of doing to secure our food source. It's an on going internal and external conversation I have with myself and those around me. Some of my surrounding loved ones are wondering if I will ever change the subject but it's not likely. It's a wonder that while our founding fathers were doing things like securing our freedoms of religion that they didn't see food as something to protect as well. But then, they didn't have Monsanto.

Today, Labor day, I did my favorite kind of labor--I knit. I pulled out a chair with the alpacas and giggled when they came up to sniff my shawl in progress. I could just see them wondering to themselves, "do I know this fiber?" Well, yes, they do. The black part at least. This yarn was some that I created with Reignee's fluff and plied with a multi jewel tone silk. Pretty to look at. I finished the shawl today but I'm not sure it will be the favorite thing I planned for it. I spun the black loosely and the silk is a thin strand wanting the effect of the black being soft and dominant but the silk to peak out in bits of color. The problem with this is that it means the black is shedding. Not spun tight enough to hold it all together. I also wish I had used larger needles. It's still pretty. Just not what I saw in my head. It's o.k. Relatively speaking I'm still very new to this business and I do see every attempt not a failure but the time where I learn to do it better next time.

Elsewhere on the ranch my DH and Fabulous Father (hence forth FF) were making great preparations for pouring the foundation of what will be our new and improved, bear proof, chicken and duck house. this will be our first attempt at a straw bale building. Still a stick frame but insulated with straw bale. This will be interesting eh? Well, we cannot afford the time or materials it takes every time a passing bear decides it's chicken for dinner. Or duck as the case may be.

So this is the beginnings of my new blog and the end of this post. For my next trick I will try to make a more explanatory front page of what and who we are. More importantly who the alpacas are and how they run my life.