Rounding out...

p.s.  This post is old, from Fall of 2012.  Updates to follow...

... the Family!

We have a lot of wonderful things growing here at the Farm, but the best by far is our seven month old son, Tarn Joseph!  Our future farmer is crawling, smiling lots, saying "mamamam" and eating fruit and vegetables with his four pearly white teeth!  He's getting two more and even clapping his hands now and standing with support.  Every day he warms our hearts with his smiles.  In a separate post, I may recount an abbreviated birth story for those who are interested, as it truly was a mysterious and ecstatic experience for all involved. All I will say here, is that I am now a huge advocate and believer in the homebirth midwifery model of care.  For those who have generally healthy pregnancies, the outcomes are better than hospital birth... plus the experience of having friends and family directly involved and being in the comfort of your own home makes the whole experience fairly stress free.  We were very fortunate to have a house in Missoula, Montana, where we worked with a wonderful midwife named Sandhano Danison.  Sandhano has attended close to 800 births and has been a midwife since the early 1980's.  My mother, father and two brothers were at the house, along with my doula and friend Amanda Parker, her husband and eight month old daughter and my dear friend Jocelyn and her 3.5 year old daughter with George and I.  Having a group of my favorite people around made the experience feel all the more like a celebration, with each of them playing an important role in the process.  One thing about the birthing experience that I can report is that it makes you a lot less intimidated by the challenges in daily life.  (And I will forever remember the smell of Mom's freshly baked chocolate chip cookies as the labor got intense (didn't enjoy them until later...) and Dad pouring me that small glass of Posh Chocolate Porter from the Kettlehouse and spoon-feeding me coconut lime soup after baby was resting comfortably on the boob at two in the morning...)

Parenting, as I'm sure many of you know, is a daily challenge with daily rewards.  We are having the time of our lives and are ever striving to do better at loving each other and our sweet little one.  Our hearts grow larger every day.

...the Farm!

Our head farmer, George, is also a stay at home Dad these days so he is very busy to say the least.  We had the help of a couple of  WWOOF interns (check out the organization's website at www.wwoof.org) for some of the summer season, which helped keep the weeds in check and the garlic watered.  We also managed to install a 30x92 foot greenhouse with the help of many friends in the Challis-community and beyond.  This one is anchored deeply into our desert mountain dirt and shouldn't be going anywhere in the windy way!  We recieved a cost share grant from the NRCS for purchase of the structure, so we splurged on a complete factory kit from Polytex.  Having scraped together used parts and so forth for the previous effort, we enjoyed following instructions and making fewer trips to the hardware store than last time around.  We also have the peace of mind that the structure has been tested for wind and snow loads and should withstand what the Round Valley can hurl at her.  We are working on building soil in the greenhouse right now, and some greens are planted (spinach almost ready to eat!) as well as some rare varieties of strawberry that we'd like to get ready for next season.

Earlier this fall, our first livestock joined us at Round Valley Farm:  poultry.  We are starting small, with 5-- 4 hens and a rooster (actually started with 6 hens, but had two fatalities... probably our old white mutt couldn't help himself about dark one day when we were having dinner with the neighbors... we have since worked to shore up the coop to exclude the impulsive mutts in the area; then a Cornish who dropped dead for no apparent reason).  We purchased two month old heritage chickens from an acquaintance up the Pahsimeroi:  two Black Australorp hens, two Delawares and a Golden-laced Wyandotte rooster.  They are curious creatures and fun to watch.  They love our sunflower seeds and corn on the cob and seem to relish fresh alfalfa and pumpkin rinds.  Spent grain from the homebrewing process probably gives 'em a little kick, too.  For now, they are enclosed near the garden, but we will free range them soon when we are sure the chickens know where they live and the dogs know better then to mess with them.  They should begin laying in another month or so, as they are year-round layers.  We will probably try to grow the flock in coming seasons, but for now we are content to start small.

The garlic did well again this year and we are selling out rather quickly, as we're keeping the majority of our harvest for seed to plant.  We sold a heap of garlic to a grocery store in Ketchum in August for a great price and our gourmet garlic continues to grow in popularity with the locals at the Farmer's Market and beyond.  George also branched out and made some value-added products in a local commercial kitchen to sell at the busiest market of the year:  Pesto D'Angelo is his signature product made with organic olive oil, local basil and our garlic, along with the popular Cannellini Bean Dip and Garbanzo Bean Dip using garlic and scapes from our farm and whatever other local products are available.  We had lots of special orders for garlic braids and by now, most of the harvest is processed and we are building the next round of beds in our garlic crop rotation for the 2012-2013 season and still planting!  We grew over 40 varieties last year, but we will slowly narrow it down to our favorites.

Another great thing to note about the growing season of 2012 was that, despite the thick smoke, lack of precipitation,  and frosts on June 27th and August 24th we managed to harvest a wheelbarrow full of medium and large watermelons that were super sweet and juicy!  We sold a few at market, and the last one is now waiting for the perfect time to be enjoyed with friends, probably tomorrow.  Some cantaloupes and another variety of warty, yellow heirloom musk melon (sounds like halloween food, but tastes like creamy cantaloupe) were stunningly sweet and quite a few pumpkins and winter squash are slowly being cooked and stored as they ripen in the greenhouse.  They have a little protection from these early fall frosts, and the sunny days are still allowing them to put on some color.

The root crops are all harvested for the year.  We figure we pulled in about 200 pounds of potatoes to eat, about 50 pounds of onions, and lots of beets, carrots and volunteer sunchokes!  The next big project for 2013:  root cellar!!

..the Homestead

Stairs and solar hot water coming in November!!  We'll keep you posted...  stop by and see for yourself!

...the Blog...

Photos from our year to follow!