Here’s the harvest for today so far…not very impressive, you say. Well, to be fair it also included a large bunch of parsley that went to the very appreciative bunnies, and to the mama goats, who will eat anything.   Parsley is actually a natural dewormer for the goats, so it’s good that they scoff it down.

As for the rest of today’s harvest, we will collect several more eggs this afternoon, some of which will be added to the pig food for tomorrow’s afternoon snack. And maybe the rest will be lunch for the humans.   And, we also got nearly a quart of goat’s milk from the “mamas”, Baby, Emma, and Cow.

So what’s with the very tiny potatoes and the meager strawberry harvest, you ask?   Well here’s how it’s going on the “Bent-Pine-Farm-Headed-for-Self-Sufficiency-Homestead” this year.

Eggs – We started out in 2014 with 12 Red Star (hybrid) hens and then hatched another dozen Orpingtons. We were getting a couple of dozen eggs a day. Anyone who has egg layers will tell you that getting 2 dz eggs a day means that you have to sell them or very shortly drown in eggs!

So, we sold them in the local farmers market. At the end of two years we figured out that, between buying organic chicken feed and driving here and driving there,  we had lost money on our eggs sales. We downsized our flock and stopped the egg sales.   Now we get 6 or 7 eggs a day, all of which we eat or feed to our hogs, mixed with rice and potatoes (for the hogs mostly, not for us)!   Our hogs eat very little grain, so cost us about $1 a week.

Strawberries – If you’ve been following our “Strawberry Saga“, you’ll understand when I say that our strawberries have cost us about $1 a berry this year! First we fought with the root stock that wouldn’t grow…twice. Then we got the plants to grow and lost very nearly the entire crop to Grommet the Monster Bunny, whom we caught on the trail cam.   Grommet steadfastly refuses to have anything to do with the “Hav-A-Hart” trap…smarter than your average bunny!  Another variety of strawberry that we planted in the West Veggie Garden sits and stares up at us, refusing to flower or vine…like it knows something that we don’t (obviously it does)!

Potatoes – And then there are the potatoes…beautiful potato plants, red and white, started out great gangbusters. Very soon they were taken out by the red ants who are just lovin’ the horrendous drought we’ve been in for many months.   So, we have begun harvesting the spuds from beneath the dead and withered plants.   Thus, the very tiny potatoes in our basket this morning.    It’s us, armed with Spinosad and a hand sprayer, against them…the ants…2 against 4 million!

So that’s the snapshot for Bent-Pine-Farm-Headed-for-Self-Sufficiency-Homestead” for this sunny Thursday morning.  What’s your story?

Happy Homesteading,

T.