Greetings farm followers! As winter slowly fades here in the Upstate of SC the signs of Spring and renewal are evident everywhere. As we continue to look forward to new endeavors for 2022 we forget not the hardship we all endured these last two years. God is good all the time and He continues to teach and guide us even in the most trying of times.
As I reflect back on all of my blogs posts since I began this website my most popular blog post ever was my small tribute to Carla Bartolucci. I wrote a short tribute post after her sudden passing just about 10 months ago. I wrote that post out of deep admiration for Carla’s skill as a baker, her genuine love for teaching others and her vibrant dreams for the future. Einkorn is a gift truly and Carla and her team taught me so very much how to use this wonderful unchanged wheat to enrich the lives of so many others. Her daughter Guilia is doing a wonderful job. I am sure she is a tremendous blessing to her father, sister and her Uncle Mike Carla’s brother. I look forward to the future of this company and buying einkorn flour from them for years to come as God allows.
We have many things on our to do list for this year. We are raising New Zealand rabbits for meat. We are also busy raising our Pembroke Corgi puppies. It is a joint endeavor my daughter Ashley and I have undertaken. We have promised our breeder to raise these dogs the best way we can and so far we have done well. Both Ember and Ariston are growing like weeds and looking like fine dogs. We hope to start our breeding program when the pups hit their second birthday. Ariston is 30 weeks old and Ember just 2 weeks younger. So we do have a good space of time to let them grow. They were given great training by their breeder using the Puppy Culture program and let me tell you it shows. Also since their DNA testing for the major Corgi genetic disorders were clear we are confident that the Lord will allow us to breed healthy, solid dogs.
Our chickens and ducks are laying beautiful eggs once again praise God! We are now actually getting 8-10 eggs daily. We feed an organic soy free, corn free ration to all our birds and everyone free ranges daily. We are raising a few rare breeds that hopefully we will be able to sell some hatching eggs or baby chicks later in the year. We have several Cream Legbars, Lavender Wyandottes and a larger breed called Bielfelders. Though these breeds take a good amount of time to mature we hope they will prove to be worth the investment in preserving rare breeds and supplying lots of diversity to our back yard flocks. We just purchased a brand new incubator from Premier1, it is called a Borotto. They are made in Italy. Hopefully this month I will attempt my first hatch. Saving up some eggs to give this incubator a trial run. Our turkeys have not started laying as of yet but hopefully our Beltsville’s and Narragansett’s will start soon.
My tomato, eggplant and hopefully my pepper seedlings will be ready for the Spring planting. I am busily nurturing them in my makeshift basement greenhouse area. Definitely will be adding at least two or three more garden boxes this year. Food prices continue to rise and it just spurs us on to become more and more self sustainable. God gives wisdom and we are very thankful. We have 25 Cornish cross females coming on April 12th and we will once again raise these for our family’s poultry meat supply. Many folks would rather we raise a “heritage breed” but we have come to the place that the Cornish cross raised slower and just a bit longer do extremely well organically. We raised the females last year and they were much better than the males. Once we put them out on grass we will start another 25. Lord willing God will bless our hands and all will make it to the freezer. I am very thankful for my husband’s willingness to take on these projects as he works very diligently sometimes six days a week off the farm. He has a somewhat demanding job but he does so enjoy his work. So I once again give thanks to God for all of His wonderful kindnesses to us and trust we will progress as He sees fit.
My little Bakeshop has been quiet these last few months. As I continue to work on strengthening my body from my brush with Covid in November. I am so very grateful for so much progress that has been achieved. I have much to be thankful for, God watched over and cared for me in my most critical times and the hands and feet of so many people ministered His love to me. Baking is a passion for me and I enjoy creating wonderfully healthy food. So I am not done yet and I believe the best is yet to come.
Thank you all so much for reading. I trust you too are filled with the joy of knowing that God is still in charge and we can hope for good things as He sovereignly works out our providence’s!
