Farm Animals … Farm Girl #2 was enjoying a visit with our pigmy goat, Rosco, through our newly fenced pasture. Nothing brings us more joy than to see our children running around in their rain boots enjoying God's green earth and the creatures that He created.   The children were not the only one enjoying the newly fenced pasture. Our two pigmy goats and our chickens are rather fond of their free ranging time.  Some chicken thinks she is going to get into the greenhouse and enjoy some treats. I think not! Foodstuffs & Farm Kitchen … I'm not sure about you all but I always enjoy seeing people's kitchens and how they are organized especially if they do a lot of cooking/baking and preserving! Here is a little peek at our farm kitchen where we bake our wild yeasted sourdough bread, brew our kombucha, preserve our garden produce and make our herbal teas and salves.  Speaking of kombucha here is a weeks worth of brew. Our flavor experiments this round include Apple Pie, Lemongrass Hibiscus, Cayenne Ginger and Elderberry Lavender. I think the Elderberry won this round. But the Cayenne Ginger came in handy when we caught head colds! Worked great :)  This is NOT a ferment… or at least it was not intended to be. We started placing all of our orange peels in vinegar to use as a homemade cleaner. It seems to be forming a scoby on top though so who knows. Time to strain and use!  Our many warm weather days this month had us out in the green house more than inside the farm house. This is what happened the day I decided to plant starts and forgot about my bread. It was more than ready to go in the oven!  Spring is here down on the farm and we have plenty of greens for our nightly salad! Chickory, beet leaves, spinach and kale, oh my! Nothing "beets" home grown greens! Except for maybe some free range pastured chicken eggs and daily baked sour dough bread. God has sent abundant gifts and we are thankful!  What's the difference in free range pastured eggs… checkout the color in this weeks quiche! This is dairy free so all the color is from those bright yellow pastured yokes! Thanks Henny Penny, Boss, Thinner the Red, Thinner the Black and the rest of our egg laying crew! In the Greenhouse … We planted snap peas the start of February and here they come up already just the first week into the month! Lov'n that sunshine!  And another week later…. they are growing like 'weeds'…  The Greenhouse the beginning of February from the front end… our first set of peas as pictured above are in the farm back middle row, the others are a week later or so. Plenty of beets, chicory, spinach, lettuce, and rutabagas in the back.  Grow peas grow! They seem as anxious for spring as the rest of us!  Time to put some string up for those peas to start climbing! Praying we have a great harvest with plenty to put up in the freezer.  Oh sunshine how we love you!  Our first cutting of greens for our nightly salad. The most tender kale we have had with some huge spinach leaves!  Nothing more pretty than full garden boxes in the greenhouse!  One of my favorite places to be, working in God's soil with His plants out in the sunshine!  Starting our summer plants to go in the outdoor garden. Zucchini, asparagus, buttercup squash, spaghetti squash, tomatoes, purple and green tomatillos with more seeds on the way.  In the Farm Store … We are happy to announce that all of our handcrafted herbal products are now available in our very own herbal farm store! Click this picture to visit or the link at the top of the page.  A fresh batch of Orange Jasmine Green Tea is in our shop. This robust tea has a light fruity twist with goji berries that are sure to pack a great nutrient punch!  We made up a large batch of our super useful Baby Bum and Body Balm. This is the all natural and organic diaper rash cream to have! Also great to use on cradle cap or dry skin batches on your baby or any other loved one. Click photo to read more. From our family and farm to yours...May your family enjoy all the blessings God sends and hopefully He has sent some sunshine your way today. Thanks for visiting our little family farm! 
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In the Hoop House … The hoop house at the beginning of January. A few things survived the winter but were not in the ground soon enough to give us much more than a snippet here and there. Just a little note, there are links contained in this blog post that help to finance our little farm if purchases are made through those links. Thank you for helping us out #downonthefarm !   Our "come back kale" some warmer weather seemed to bring it back to life. Not yet enough for a salad though!  Mid January we planted our first round of peas in the hoop house.   Some beet leaves and spinach for a true, in season, winter salad.  Planting the rest of our peas! Hoping there are enough to put up in the freezer this year!  Farm Girl the 2nd out watering the new plants.  The hoop house the end of January after we planted the snap peas down the middle row. We also planted some carrots, onions, more kale and spinach, and plenty of radishes and lettuce. Around the Pasture … Chicken Chas'n  After a couple of months of having to buy store bought eggs our chickens are back at it! Thanks to some extra lighting, heat and making sure barn chores got done. We got this HUGE egg one day… we were sure it was a double yoker!  No double yoke here, just a BIG OLE SINGLE yoke! Love that bright orange color!  Finishing up our stock fence around our small pasture.  Getting closer to done . . .  That's more like it! Our two pigmy goats could not be happier though it was hard for them to believe that they weren't tied to rope any more. Also the future home, we think, of a beef cow. Next on the farm list...  Animals loving their new free ranging life style and Farm Girl the Second enjoying the animals!  In the Farm Kitchen …
Our daily sourdough bread, still rising strong and happy thanks to Saint Anthony (patron of bread makers) and our Good Cook Stoneware pans are still holding up after 3 years of daily use.  Whole Wheat Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls… a favorite Sunday breakfast down on the farm. And served in another Cook Cook Stoneware piece, their pie plate. Lov'n how these hold up and how affordable they are! Stoneware cooks up so beautifully!  My Farmer bought me this lovely Lodge Cast Iron Dutch Oven for Christmas (see a theme here… stoneware, cast iron etc. Post coming soon) and we have been giving it a try. It cooks up a whole chicken very nicely!  We are still fermenting away, or as the Farmer calls it, science experiments. He has told me I need a lab just for them. Pictured above some strawberry flavored kombucha and some kefir in the process of straining.  It's been a busy month in the kitchen I guess but with the cold and wet weather I guess one is inside more! These are some lovely whole wheat blueberry sourdough muffins we had one Sunday.  Lov'n that cast iron! Pictured above Skillet Dairy Free Green Bean Casserole.    Some of this month's kitchen inspiration comes from this lovely spice set that was a Christmas gift. We have been traveling the world in our kitchen in the middle of January. Taking these spices and turning them into seasonal down on the farm food. Its been quite a fun adventure! So far we have been to Morocco, India, Mexico, Kansas City, Lebanon and Greece.  One of our world traveling meals, I think this was the Mexican Quinoa with the Adobo seasoning.  Apple Pie with whole wheat crust… some of it seems to be missing.. hmmm  A day in the life of our farm stove. It gets a work out that is for sure! This Christmas/birthday was the season for kitchen giving and I'm rather enjoying the new tea kettle. Our last one was five years old or more and it would always drip hot water when it was poured insuring a good burn. As you can imagine, blending our own teas on the farm, this tea kettle was used all the time. And then we were blessed with this Sori Yanagi Stainless Steel Kettle. Its shorter and built really well and heats up fast! There are some beans in the pressure cooker, our daily sourdough bread and some onion/apple mix in the cast iron skillet for our Morrocon dish we had that night. What's New in the Farm Store… We were blessed with some wonderfully warm sunny days down on the farm this month and this tea is perfect for those days. A bold green tea with a hint of citrus and the ever nutritious goji berries. Check out our Organic Orange Jasmine Loose Leaf tea blend here in our Etsy shop or right here in our online store.  We busy updating our photos in our Etsy shop as well as adding our products right here to our own online shop. Granny's Everything Salve is just great to have around for every occasion be it a cut, burn, bruise or bump…. or perhaps when you lost your work gloves and ended up with a blister after trying to dig out tree stumps… what ever it may be! ;) Check it out here in our shop and on Etsy.
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Living Healthy with Tea
Welcome to our Family Tea Farm!Howdy from our farm to your home! It is said that the, "farm is the nursery of the family," and that "the family is the nursery of the nation." We hope you enjoy your visit to our blog as we share with you the happenings on our little "nursery". Thank you for following us on our journey and watching us GROW! Read more about our farm HERE. 
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