Saint Jo, Texas

We had a blast at this years Saint Jo Chamber of Commerce banquet. It was held at Ancient Ovens just north of town. What an amazing place!! Their property was gorgeous, and the foods was wonderful. We were all pleased to know that Saint Jo was awarded a grant that only 3 rural towns in Texas receive!!! WAY TO GO Saint Jo, I love our town!! Our municipal judge, Vernie, won the person of the year award! It couldn't have gone to a more deserving person, at 82 years old, he does so much for our town!! We had a wonderful evening mingling with all the local business owners. The same weekend marked the one year anniversary of the Davis & Blevins Main Street Gallery opening!! It was awesome, and a MUST SEE for those visiting Saint Jo. Busy week for Donna Howell - Sickles, the owner and featured artist at this gallery!! Here's Donna and I at the banquet :)

gardening with pigs

I read some cool article about gardening with pigs, so I thought I would give it a try with "Miss Piggy". We fenced off a side area to the garden where we are planning on growing our pumpkin patch. It's pretty heavy with weeds and grass. Miss Piggy's new job is to root up and eat all the plants. Her rooting will till up the soil to prepare it for planting. Once she's finished off this area, we will then move her to another part of the garden. Moving a pig around keeps your pig healthy and clean, no smell to deal with since she will never get a chance to make a mess of her surroundings. Not to mention the amount of weight she will gain by eating up all that nutritious earth!! I'm guessing the pumpkin patch will be ready to plant in about 2 to 4 weeks. You can watch us moving "Miss Piggy" to her new home along with other vedios from the farm on our Youtube channel, Highheelfarmer.

rockhound

we've been quite the amateur rockhounds here at the P2 lately! Today we found the most amazing piece of flint, a large specimen with several beautiful colors. These very hills that we are located in were home to Indians, and I can see why they chose this area. Not only could they sit up on the hill and see friends and foes coming from any direction, but the large amounts of flint we find here on the property is amazing! Lots of the flint we find here has been chipped off of to make tools and weapons. And YES we do find arrowheads right here. Walking the trails after a fresh rain is most likely your best bet at finding great pieces! Other rocks we've found and identified so far include clear/ white quartz, pink quartz, mica, and petrified wood. We have a geologist that visits from time to time to help identify our unique finds. We've got some great rocks in the waiting to be examined!!!

birdwatching

I saw a roadrunner today while I was hanging the clothes on the line!! There are so many birds on the property, I'm getting good use of my bird identification field guide. During the winter there is even a bald eagle that perches from a tree and fishes in the lake right on the other side of our fence line. He's there everyday until the weather turns warm! I never dreamed I would see some of these birds in the wild!!! So cool!!

Radish Recipe

this recipe was a hit!! Can be used as a dip for chips & veggies, or a condiment for tacos and such. Yummy

radish dip

4 fresh radish
2 garlic cloves
1 pkg cream cheese

blend everything in food processor. Enjoy.

fresh seeds

after weeding the garden, I was reminded how important it is to use fresh seed for planting. Most seeds loose their germination ability after one or two years. Of course there are some varieties that can last longer, but depending on if you have room to chance that only 50% or less will actually make a plant, it can really effect your projected yield. My garden is on the larger side, so I figured I would give some older seeds a chance. My 2 year old seeds did very well, I would guess about 80% of them germinated into a plant. I also had some seeds of unknown age that were given to me by a friend. Sadly not 1 plant came up from that batch. So it's looking like our family will have no fresh broccoli this time around. Which in hindsight, I should have planted some fresher seeds along with the older ones. The freshest seeds I planted are seriously crowded, I would bet that they all came up!! So if you are really counting on your garden to feed your family, I would be sure to plant only the freshest seed, and just compost the old stuff!!

picking and planting

we have already began picking radish from the cool weather side of the garden. I'm not much of a radish eater, but I'm sure I'll find a good recipe out there somewhere... Lol but that side of the garden is really shaping up! The peas have several small pods on them, potatoes are getting viney and all the other sproutlings are doing well. Now that the sprouts are big enough to differentiate them from the weeds, I'll be working on weeding this week. Weeds really steal the nutriance the veggies need so they have to come out!! Tool of the trade... Just a regular ol hoe! And while I'm working on that I think it's time to start planting my warmer weather stuff. Hopefully the last freeze is under our belt and well have plenty of time to really get a good harvest!

what is that noise?!?

I was at trade days with my family and a few friends, when everyone started to wonder where a strange noise was coming from. The crowd was pointing, "it's over there, no over there". Nothing in site, but the sound was growing louder and louder. The crowd had ceased their Saturday afternoon browsing and was focused on what that dreadful noise was, and where in the world it was coming from. It steadily got louder and louder. Until finally my sweet husband came round the corner with a squealing piglet in his arms. Should I pretend I don't know him???? Lol... Never! What a surprise for everyone in the crowd! I guess it's all a part of the farm experience. I'm sure we weren't the first nor the last people to walk through a crowded flea market with an upset swine :) We named her Miss Piggy and she is the newest addition to our farm!!