Harvesting!

Oh my, I absolutely LOVE this time of year.  The WARMTH has not only appreared (as well as some of the rain DISappearing), but along with all of that rain and now sunshine, we are seeing things spring up like CRAZY in the garden! 

I will share pics soon, I am actually working (volunteering on our church office while many people from our church get to go to Israel!).  So I will add pics when I have time in the next day or 2.  But we are REALLY enjoying the harvest of STRAWBERRIES that we have been getting DAILY!  The last 2 mornings, I have enjoyed a fresh ORGANIC strawberry and raw milk smoothie for breakfast!  Doesn't get any better than that! (Well, maybe with some homegrown raw honey!)

Lettuce is also coming on!  I CANNOT WAIT for that!

Many othering things are Springing up!  Pics coming VERY soon!

What are you enjoying from your garden/farm???

Gardening on Our Farm

Just planted garden

 It's been a while since I have updated much going on here on the farm.  So today  I am going to update you on our garden!

Austin planting potatoes

In Indiana, it has been raining SO much that my garden was just too wet to even till!  My hubby finally got it tilled about 2 1/2 weeks ago (if I can remember right).  And the next day I was planting my potatoes!  I got red and Kennebec potatoes.  About 15 lbs in all...  It cost me less than $2 and will bring us well over 100-150 lbs of potatoes.

Potatoes and strawberries

About 1 1/2 weeks ago, I got a bit more planted.  I got 2 types of lettuce.  I actually planted MORE than I know we will eat, BUT I am hoping to be able to sell some of it.  Hopefully that will go well...  I am going to be planting some Kale also soon (if it stops raining again).  I also planted 2 rows of carrots, two different types.  I had 4 yellow pepper plants, but one died of undetermined causes... Maybe underfoot of a wayward duck...  :(

Lincoln Peas

We also have 2 rows of peas.  3 different types of organic tomato plants, and 4 Roma plants.  I am hoping my tomatoes are better this year.  Last year, my plants weren't very productive and those that WERE, were rotten BEFORE they started to turn red.

I have one cucumber plant.

I thought I had planted my green beans, but looking back through my things I guess I haven't planted them yet.  I will get to those as soon as the rain stops and things dry out a bit.

Large Strawberry blooms

My strawberry plants that I planted last year are doing SO well!!!  The flowers are HUGE!  I can't wait to start getting strawberries.  We JUST ran out of our frozen strawberries, and I am super bummed about it!  We still have lots of jelly left though.

Strawberries with rainy sky background

2 of my blueberry bushes made it through the Winter.  They won't probably produce much for a few years.  I would like to get several more, because blueberries actually absorb pesticides like a sponge and most places feel the need to spray for bugs!  I want to get away from that!

I just got some rhubarb plants from a friend.  So hopefully next year I can get some rhubarb for some nice pies and desserts!  :)  YUM!

I also got some red raspberry plants from her also....  Oh the possibilities!

My apples trees are blossoming right now also.  I have the two older ones and the two newer ones (planted last year), which are looking great and will probably produce fruit!  Not sure how to keep the bugs off this year though.... Last year I lost all of my apples to the bugs.  :(

My good lookin' boys in front of our apple trees

I am also hoping to utilize my herb garden this year.  Last year I let it get too grown and flowered out without a chance to learn how to use them much...  I enjoyed the FEW times I did get to use them, but this year that is more of a priority!  Anyone have some ideas you want to share???  :)

So, how are YOUR garden's coming???  I would love to visit your blogs and see!  Post a link in the comments if you have a post about it!  Thanks and can't wait to see them!!!!!

Chickens, Bees, Gardens and Spring

Deklyn and his baby girl Leia

 
Oh!  I can't even believe it has been almost 2 weeks since I posted last....  I usually enjoy more time in front of the computer (down time!).  But my computer needs worked on in a BAD way.... it needs a total cleaning.  Like everything needs to be wiped off of the hard drive then things need to be reinstalled....  When I type, it's extremely difficult because it won't move for several seconds and then everything you typed will just appear on the screen....  So there are so many mistakes and to go back and correct them takes forever too...  But enough of my crazy computer, just a note though....  I will HOPEFULLY have a friend work on that his week...  But that means I will be without a computer for a day or two...

We got rid of a few chickens last week.  I put an ad on Craig's List and we sold some of our Rhode Island Reds and some of the Golden Comets that we bought last year.  We kept about 10 RIR and got rid of all of our Golden Comets.  We also have some of our 2-3 year old Buff's and Americaunas.  We also have a few mutt chickens that we hatched last year, plus our banty chickens.  So, we are down to about 30 or less chickens.  Corn prices have just been getting so high, we can't do as many chickens!  We were getting about 20 eggs a day with the 80+ chickens, and now we got rid of all of the chickens BUT our NEW layers started laying this week too and we are still getting about the same amount with 30!  Good news!  :)

We also got our new bees yesterday!  Last years bees, we had got 2 hives.  One hive swarmed (up and left us!) and the other seemed a little weak.  So we left them with all of their honey.  And we didn't expect them to make it through the winter.  But to our surprise, we found them alive and thriving a few weeks ago!  We had already ordered 2 new batches of bees, so we actually had to buy a new set of brooders and other things.  But hopefully, we will have the one hive making honey like crazy since they are seasoned veterans and then we will have another 2 hives with a little less...  I am hoping to have some honey this year then!  Maybe enough to last me all year long.  I would probably use about 8+ gallons of honey a year, maybe more if I had it around instead of sugar!  I am excited to have those going.

It has literally been raining like CRAZY here.  Our pond is flooded and everything is SO muddy.  We finally have our tiller up and running, and it is SO wet, that hubby couldn't even get the garden all tilled.  So for me to plant anything is not possible!  I have seed potatoes (red and Kennebec) ready to go into the ground any day.  I also have all of the cold weather things to go into the ground yet too...  I HAVE to get this stuff in the ground soon, grocery prices are already going NUTS and I have to be able to feed 4 boys with crazy appetites! 

All of the other animals are doing good.  Baby goats and sheep are getting bigger and enjoying being outside.  I love watching them frolic and play in the pasture.  It's so funny!  :)  But we are finally done with baby season.  Our last Jacob sheep had a baby last week and we weren't around all day... It ended up dying.  He was just so big, my hubby thinks she probably had some difficulty...  I gues life on the farm brings those sad things sometimes though. 

So much going on right now!  How about you?  I need to get around and visit some of your blogs also!  I miss spending my down time on the computer and getting some reading in! 

Some Motivation for You to Grow Your Own Food

This is the time of year when many of us are thinking about or (for those warmer climates!) actively working on our gardens.

I personally also love being able to raise our own eggs and meat.  I want to know how my animals (meat) are being treated.  I want to know what is going into my food.  And more.  Especially when it comes to feeding my boys. 

I found this article via Dr. Mercola. You MAY want to click on it, and maybe even do a bit of research on your own... 

The article is 16 Foods with Scary Surprises.  It gives 16 foods that we commonly buy from major companies, and the FDA requirements as far as ACCEPTABLE levels of rodent hairs, mammal excrement, larvae, fly eggs and more....  Yes, you heard it right, there are ACCEPTABLE levels....

I don't know about you, but this article motivates me even more to grow/ raise my own food!  What about you?  Check out the article, then come back and let me know what you think!

Homemade Thanksgiving

Alright, Thanksgiving is in just a few days, and I want to hear what you all are making!  Preferably, I want to know what YOU have raised on your plot of dirt, and are serving on your dinner table (or A dinner table)!  Or items that you made completely from scratch!

Yesterday, I had a get together with MY family and the plan WAS to have our turkey that we have raised, but hubby's overtime and other activities, we ran out of time...  So had to go with a store bought turkey... (Thanks Jennie-O!)  But, we DID have our potatoes (mashed potatoes) and corn.  I also made bread from scratch and had some of our homemade strawberry jelly with it...  Next year, hopefully I will have more time and be able to MAKE my own stuffing.  There is an elderly lady from church that makes WONDERFUL stuffing and I hope to be able to learn from her!  My family also brought some yummy goodies also, which made for a delicious meal!

So now, how about you?  Since we won't be able to (or have time to link up on Thursday for "From Scratch...", let's see what all you will be doing now!  If you don't have a link, leave a comment in the comments area.  I would LOVE to hear what you all are making!!!

Our Broiler Babies- Update

If you remember about 2 weeks ago, we got 26 broiler chicks.  Going from layer chickens to BROILER chickens is a whole new ballgame.  They eat a TON more ( I might mean this literally), they smell worse, and they are growing SO rapidly that if they don't get the correct nutrients that they need, they will die.

Unfortunately, that is what happened to a few of mine.  I was hoping to make a mix for them, but when I went to the local mill, they notified me that one of the important ingredients (bone meal OR fish meal) was illegal for them to sell.  They can sell products with it IN it, but not as a whole ingredient.  Not sure if this is only an Indiana thing....?  But after my trip to the mill, I came home and gave the chicks the parts that I had.  Which in addition to COLD, killed off 7 of my broilers...  :(  Many of them lost the use of their legs. 

I got them actual BROILER starter feed then, and started giving that to them and praying.  Sorry at the loss of life to those poor chicks.  I HATE that part of farming. 

I also brought the chicks BACK into my basement, where they smell it up, BUT are alive.  There was one chick, I thought was not going ot make it.  It had NO use of it's legs.  It couldn't get to the food or water.  SO a few times a day, I was going down and helping it get drinks by dunking it's beak in the water.  It knew what to do from there.  Then when I put it down, I left it by the food.  I did this for about 5 or 6 days.  Each day there seemed to be some improvement in the chicks condition.

Today, I literally cannot tell which chick he is, he is now healthy and running around with the others. 

Lesson learned.  It is impossible to make the broiler chick feed with what I have available to me where I live, so I will feed them the chick starter and add the more nutritious stuff, like I did before. 

 

So I have 19 chicks that in about 5 weeks from now will be ready for butcher.  It truly is amazing.  And something to be thankful for.  We won't be raising any more until the weather gets nicer, maybe April or May???  I will never raise any more broilers that I have to keep inside all of the time.  Raising them in the pasture is CLEANER and a whole lot tastier!


How about you?  Have you raised broilers before?  Have you thought about it? 

New Farm Additions Coming Tomorrow!

Pictures from our broilers from this summer.

 Tomorrow we have some new additions joining us on the farm.  Well, for a short time anyways. 

We are going to be getting some more meat chickens!  Our meat chickens this summer were such a success, we can't WAIT to have more.

These little guys stayed inside only about a week or 2, then we put them outside in the summer warmth.  Daily, we moved their brooder to new grass.  I also supplemented their "broiler feed" with cracked corn and sunflower seeds.  They LOVED the sunflower seeds!!! 

We also raised them about 2- 2 1/2 weeks BEYOND their expected butcher date.  If you read anything about broiler chickens, you see that right around the time when they need to be butchered, the chickens start getting to heavy for their frame, then they just lay and eat because their legs can't withstand the weight of their bodies.  Ours, being 2 to 2 1/2 weeks OVER that butcher date, were still RUNNING around in the pasture!  I couldn't believe it!  Each day that went by that we couldn't spend the time to butcher, I expected there to be a dead chicken , but they were VERY healthy!

As for the meat, there was so much meat on one of those chickens that if fed my family of 6, TWICE!  We could have a crock pot chicken one day and the next have chicken sandwiches, chicken noodle soup, or what ever.  I gave one to my sister, and she said she had never had such a big chicken!  And the taste, YUM!  It really can't be beat!

So, our little guys will be coming tomorrow.  We wanted to try to get some more chickens in before the weather got cold because we would like to keep them on pasture!  I also have a new feed mixture I would like to try on them this time, something more natural.

Oh, and we aren't finished!  We still have MORE new additions coming in about 2 weeks! 

Have any of you raised broiler chickens?  How did you raise them, on pasture, in an enclosed yard?  How did you like the meat? 

Our broilers from this summer.

Be Smart, Not Scared!

It's so easy when you start watching documentaries on how your "food" is made, and processed to just throw your hands up and say, "well, I'm gonna die some day anyways...". Or in seeing the way that commercially produced meat is raised and treated, it's easy to become a vegetarian!

And when you hear about how they have now come up with a genetically raised salmon, that is close to being approved for the masses..... Why, it just makes me mad!

So, what can we do? Our food is killing us!

There are LOTS of things you can do, whether you live on 20 acres or zero... You just have to be smart, not scared!

• If you don't have land, raise what you can, WHERE you can! Be it on a balcony, in a window or rooftop, plant some herbs and veggies in planters!
• If you DO have land, grow what you can. Start out with some, and as you find that you enjoy it or have more time, plant more! Don't let your flower gardens be big and beautiful, but you don't have time for veggies! It's all in priorities!
  

• Make sure you look at the "Dirty Dozen" and the "Clean 15" to make sure you are able to put your money into food that NEEDS to be organic. Some foods just aren't as effected by pesticides, like bananas because of their removable thick, skin. Make sure you buy those potatoes organic!
• You don't NEED to become Vegetarian! Shop at meat markets that DON'T ship their meat from a far... I was once in a chain grocery store and looked at the hamburger which had a sticker on it telling that it was a product of Mexico, Canada & the US! That seems SO wrong!
• If you have land, make the investment of animals! PRODUCING ONES! Chickens, goats, sheep, cows, etc... We started out getting some for ourselves, but now are going to grow, because we have had people who want to buy from us! In doing this, PART of your investment can come back to you. Animals are SO enjoyable! You don't realize it until you have them. Don't believe me? Go visit a friend's farm, and ask them to take you along as they do their "chores". Then watch those happy animals! I wouldn't give this up!
  
• Shop from the FARMER! This is the best bet yet for those without land or time to raise animals. If you can actually GO to the farm, even better. Make sure those cattle are pasture raised, make sure those chickens are free-ranged... Make sure you don't see round-up dead grass around their "natural/ organic" garden... You may not be able to grow much, but it doesn't mean you have run out of choices!
• Cook and Bake! Don't be afraid! Something is better than nothing. Find a homemade bread or dish that you like to make... Ask a friend to show you EXACTLY how she makes those healthy casseroles! Find a few things that YOU CAN DO and DO IT! Why??? Well, you know EXACTLY what is in them... Better than store bought!

I'm sure there are MANY more great ideas I didn't mention, but the point is wherever you are, whatever your situation in life, knowing what is in beef and chicken for the super market doesn't mean you have to be scared. You DO still have choices!

Inspired...

This Wednesday night, my hubby and I traveled an hour away from our home to see speaker and farmer, Joel Salatin.

If you are like us, and have some land, own animals and want to do better, want to be more natural, more organic... Joel Salatin is your go to guy.

In the speaking engagement Wednesday night at Albion College in Michigan, Joel showed pictures of his homestead and explained how not only most farms in the U.S. are not only smelly and many times breeding grounds for disease, but how these animals aren't being allowed to do things to their full potential, or being able to express their "animal-ness", as Mr. Salatin says.



For example, instead of having a farm where you raise cows for beef and then having to scoop poop and feed them grain everyday, and on top of that having the distinctive SMELL of a cow farm... you could allow cows to do what cows LIKE to do... They could be put on a pasture, able to forage for their own food, then each day move the cows to a new grazing area (via SIMPLE electric line). THEN, allow something like meat chickens, layer chickens or turkeys to come behind the cows , dig around in the soil, spreading around manure, and making MORE manure. After a day moving them also, following the cows... Then in a few weeks time, you won't only NOT be able to tell the animals were there, you will have more beautiful and lush grasses then you had before! Even better, unless you are sittin' with your nose over a fresh pile of poo, you won't even be able to SMELL the couple hundred animals that are on your farm!

And, oh! This CAN get better!

No disease!
HEALTHIER MEAT, EGGS, and DAIRY!
LESS WORK!!!



So, our trip was great. I am HOPING to someday go visit Mr. Salatin's Polyface Farms. I am looking forward to reading more books by him in the future, like my next one coming from Amazon.com (free with all of the Swagbucks I've earned!), Pastured Poultry Profits!



I'm a farm geek...

I ain't ashamed.

Clinging to the Past

Sometimes clinging to the past isn't always a bad thing.

Sometimes all of this awesome technology can get to be too much, and get to change things that SHOULDN'T be changed. Including seeds. When you engineer a seed, when you take this-n-that, and you throw out this other thing... it may LOOK like an ear of corn, but now it's inner genetics are unrecognizable as being such. (More good info HERE).

Man of us are drawing to a close our summer growing season, and look forward to what we are going to do next year. Many of you are also considering a garden for the first time next year! Whatever we are looking forward to, it is always a good thing to make sure we keep it SIMPLE.

Heirloom seeds. They are the good stuff! They are what has been around for a long time. The weak ones die off, the strong and healthy ones survive, and continue to grow. I had some pie pumpkins that I bought at a local farm. I kept the seeds last year, and planted them this year. These were obviously a GMO seed, because I got a mutant gourd out of the bunch of pumpkins. I DIDN'T PLANT GOURDS! It is on the SAME plant as the pumpkins! Genetically modified plants can mutate a do different things from year to year. SO if you want to save seeds from year to year, it is a good idea to get a trustworthy seed to start with, such as heirloom!

Inexpensive equipment. The most expensive peice of equipment I own is a rototiller. This tiller can break sod, which has been a HUGE blessing this year. We got some quotes on people coming out and tractor tilling our garden and sod for us, and it would have cost us a couple hundred dollars! The rest of our equipment is all hand tools! Spade, rake, hoe, shovel... Garden hose, cheap sprinkler. We bought an expensive one a few years back and it lasted about a year and a half with our hard water, so now we bye cheap, and it lasts the same amount of time, if not longer!

Prep your ground NOW. If you are planning on breaking new ground next Spring for a garden, start NOW! Hubby and I will be breaking new garden ground in the next few weeeks, and I am going to dump manure all over it! It is natural. It is a great way to naturally give what your soil needs. It also encourages eart worms and other beneficial insects. You can till it in now, or wait until Spring. Either way, it's good stuff! If you don't have manure on your property, check with neighbors who have animals. If they have animals, they most likely have manure that they would LOVE to get rid of!

Start looking at seeds companies, and getting their catalogs. This is probably the most fun! Get a variety of companies. Check out the prices and quantities. Make the right decision for you. Be ready and make your seed orders this Winter! I made mine in January, and I had no problems getting the seeds that I wanted AND I had the seeds in plenty of time!

Growing is IMPORTANT! Whatever you do, growing SOMEthing is IMPORTANT! If you just grow a tomato plant in your apartment window, or a few plants on a patio, THAT is something! Whatever amount is WORKABLE for you, is good. Don't try to push yourself because someone else has more of a garden. It's not a show.

Whatever you do, again, keep it SIMPLE. Gardening can be a JOY, but it can also be a burden.

I like to think back to what MY grandmother would have done on her farm as a child... She grew up during the Depression, and I always like to try to think about what they did. They didn't have big expensive equipment, they didn't have mutating plants. I also don't want you to think we have to again, seem "poor". BUT, simple can be a good thing. Getting to many things going can be pouring money into too many different things, things that don't necessarily need to BE!

Most of all, HAVE FUN! Gardening is FUN! Pulling those sun-ripened tomatoes out and serving them, still warmed by the sun, on your table is a blessing.

It may seem a ways off, but start planning now! You will be glad you did!

Chaos and Reward

Oh! How much chaos there is during harvest season! But in the chaos of reaping the harvest and KEEPING the harvest, comes great rewards! FIGURATIVELY AND LITERALLY!

Messy Kitchen/ AKA Canning Time!

This last weekend, we (yes! Hubby is a HUGE help!) put up 5 pints of tomatoes sauce (so far) and 33 pints of grape jelly. We need more jelly.... Who am I kidding. I think we now have enough jelly to feed a medium sized army... And we will PROBABLY put up MORE jelly. WHY? Well, our grapes have seeds... bummer. I MAY try to make straight up grape JUICE, but I need to get a strainer first. The grapes DO smell lovely as they are cooking on the stove...

This guy was bored with all of the canning going on...

Here is our little grape sneak!

Speaking of lovely smells, I also enjoy the smell of tomato sauce cooking! We didn't get much put up this weekend, BUT there is more to come! More tomatoes on the vine, just waitin'... It rained Saturday, so we will have more poppin' out.

There is such a rewarding feeling that goes along with all of the mess in my kitchen and the jars, upon jars of various fruits and veggies... And even a rewarding feeling trying to figure out WHERE I will be putting all of those jars... WHAT A PROBLEM!

Speaking of problems... I have NEARLY run OUT of jars! I am TOTALLY out of the pint jars, and ALMOST out of the quart ones. I have more tomatoes to put up, more grapes (in one form or another), that MAY be all for the jars though.

We harvested a BUNCH of potatoes this weekend also. Those are going in the basement, to keep cool for the Winter. We also are ABOUT ready to harvest our Winter Squash, and Spaghetti Squash. More to keep for the Winter!

These are red and yellow potatoes. We harvested about 125-150 lbs! What a blessing!


Check out these HUGE red potatoes!



I also harvested, believe it or not, for the first time, seeds from my lettuce! I let my first row of lettuce go to seed, and now I have twice the seeds than I bought this Spring. With MANY more to come! I can't wait to try to plant these in the Winter. I bought a rectangle shaped pot to stick in my South facing window, to see if I can plant some lettuce in the Winter!

Also my Sunflowers came out finally! They are ABSOLUTELY HUGE. Here is a pic of them, to the left of them is corn that is about 6 foot tall:


We also have small pumpkins that are also ALMOST ready to rock-n-roll... :)



Our apples aren't perfect, but they ARE organic! Looking forward to some apple sauce and maybe some apple butter...


That was OUR busy harvest weekend SO FAR! We praise God for the blessings that we have harvested so far, and are so happy to be able to save money in the future on groceries for our growing family.

What are YOU harvesting right now?

Keeping the Harvest

There's nothing like the feeling you get when you open a cupboard full of your hard work/ harvested fruits and veggies, or when you grab something out of the freezer, and there is all of the wonderfully healthy harvest that you worked so hard to put in there for your family.

I have canned and frozen things in the past, but this is the first year I have worked THIS HARD at it.

This summer, as the produce is rolling in, we have been able to enjoy much of it, therefore saving our family money on our grocery bill! (But this is a topic for another day!) It's so awesome to need something to eat for supper, and to be able to go out to the garden, pick it, then cook it up (or eat it raw!) and serve it to your family. I really am SO thankful that I am healthy enough to be able to do these things. I am thankful that even those things that DON'T turn out like I expected (corn!), that I am still able to learn from it. I am PRAISING God for these things!

About a week ago, we (hubby) butchered 10 chickens. I was one bag short of being able to throw all of them into the freezer, so I threw that one in the pot instead. It was AWESOME. I threw in some carrots and potatoes, and we had a TRULY home cooked meal. And NEVER did you eat anything so delicious!

I have been trying to keep track of everything we pull from the garden (which with 5 other sets of hands around here, I can't always keep track!). And everything that we harvest from our farm. I have been keeping track of these things in my notebook. (Check that out HERE.) Not just because I am bored and have nothing better to do with my time, but so I can see from year to year what we did, and to challenge myself to improve!

I am keeping track also on this blog! If you would like to see what we are doing here, I am an open book! Look to the left of the screen.

I have one that is for food harvested from the garden, and one for canning and freezing. You can see how we are doing to date this year.

Like I have said before, I NEED a bigger garden, but I hope (know!) this will help! I am proud of any amount that we are able to produce as a family. I am proud to be a part of the health and learning of my boys!

How has your harvesting/ keeping been coming along? What have you been canning/ freezing? If you have blogged about it, leave a link in the comments! I would LOVE to hear about it!

Keeping Track of All Things FARM...

I told you last week about how I have started this year to keep track of our produce from the garden. I also started at the beginning of this year to keep track of everything going on here on our little farm.

It may seem a little silly to some, and some of you just may not care to even do such a thing. But I have found it VERY helpful so far, and I have a feeling I will be glad in the years to come, that I was keeping track of everything- from food we are feeding each animal to what they have produced (eggs, milk, etc), and how much. I keep track of everything in my Farm Notebook.

Here is a 10 minute video walking you through my Farm Notebook:







I have so far been able to look back at when we got our bees, when we got our 2 female goats, the actual production of eggs, and much more. I have used this for a reference quite often. And I am sure I will be glad to have it for years to come.

One thing I have added since I made this video last week, is a Canning Page under Gardening. I picked some strawberries from a U-Pick Farm, and I canned some Strawberry Jam, and now I can add how much I picked, how much it cost me, and how much I was able to can from that.

I am not a hyper-organized person, but I could see the need for this in the future. If you see the need, start with a simple 1 subject notebook. That's how I started. Then as I got too many pages I expanded.

If any of you have questions, feel free to ask in the comments. Do any of you do something like this? How has it worked for you? DO you think you would LIKE to try something like this?

Keeping Track of Your Food Production

To be completely honest, I had never thought about keeping track of the food production on our homestead. If if I HAD thought about it, I'm not sure I would have thought it was a good idea. But the more I read about it, and the more I want to save money and feed my family healthy, the more I thought it might be a good thing!

At the beginning of this year, I started to keep track of our egg production. It actually has been interesting to see the weather effect production; cold, snow, rain... And I'm sure it will be even more helpful in predicting what our production will be next year.

So, I thought, it might also actually be good to weigh produce from the garden. I have seen the Dervaes Family keep track of all their produce. I think it is awesome that they have produced over 6000 lbs of food in a year. I want to know how much I produce this year, THEN see if I can "up it" next year! I know, I like to do silly thing like that! I like to challenge myself and it really is fun for me!

Then I was talking to a friend, Andrew Odom, and he is getting a scale too. I thought, maybe I wasn't the only one wanting to do something like this, this year. So, that is why I thought I might bring it up today~

I actually had a postal scale. It measures pounds to a little over 10 lbs. And it shows ounces up to 0.00, which will give me a pretty precise reading. I had pulled that out, and have been measuring the amount of lettuce that we have got out of the garden so far. So far, that is our only product out of the garden... And boy! Is it producing! It's awesome! I have also been weighing our milk produced from our new goat! Looking at milk in a jar is different then actually SEEING the amount on a scale!

Another cool thing, is I can weight my lettuce, then figure how much I have just saved by spending $1 on seeds and how much at organic prices I would have to pay for what I have just produced! AMAZING! So far on JUST lettuce, I have saved over $12. And there is MORE in my garden to cut!!! And we are FAR from the lettuce being done!

I have been keeping track of all of this info in a notebook. You could also keep track on your computer.

I keep track of other info in my notebook too. Like what I am feed the animals, any crazy dips in temperature, extra "treats" that they get, etc. Tomorrow, I will show you my farm notebook!

A great way to get yourself a scale, if you don't already have one is Amazon.com. If you do your searches with Swagbucks, it could be free! Also you could enter the giveaway here for $50 towards anything on CSN.com. And you could get you a very nice scale!

How many of you have a scale? DO you keep track of what is produced on your farm/ homestead? Would you like to start?