Photo tour of the farm

  Most of these photos are old photos already on our blog, but they're all here together for a broader look at our farm.

Corn made into hominy, ground, pressed, and cooked on the griddle into tortillas.

Cracking black walnuts

Our favorite summer pea variety.  Our original seed source was Eric's great uncle in Harnett County.

A sampling of different summer pea varieties we grow.

In the background are our first attempt at storing hay in old-fashioned haystacks and our little corn crib.

Moveable shade for the goats made out of bamboo.

 

 

One of our (Nora's) first aged goats milk cheeses.  We were very happy with it.

Leaf mold to be used for potting mix once finished

One of our farm visitors helping us hang up onions to dry.

Our now 16 and 18 year olds milking the cow.

One of our farm visitors milking the cow.

Skimming milk to make butter.

Butter

Cheese press

A quick hive inspection on a warm winter day.

Making candles with our beeswax.

Pawpaws

Hardy kiwis (smaller, smooth skinned/not fuzzy, delicious)

Kaki X American persimmon tree

Kaki persimmon

Threshing black beans

Winnowing black beans

A photo from soon after we planted our first apple trees, well over 10 years ago.

Jersey steaks

Making hardwood charcoal in our outdoor water stove

Just some of the seeds we saved one year.

Onion seed

Onion seed after threshing

Nursery bed prepared for planting onion seed in the late fall.  We set onion plants out in the garden the following spring.

Mama hen

The first litter of piglets born on our farm

A neighbor friend helping us scald and butcher a hog

Cold frame

Young goat roasted with spring onions, butter and garlic, asparagus, fried grit cakes and lettuce salad.

 

The seed cleaner we use mostly for cleaning (sifting, scalping, and winnowing the remaining chaff and weed seeds out of) our wheat.

Our favorite salad - dried figs, goat cheese,  and lightly toasted pecans.

Fresh wild-harvested winter oyster mushrooms

A weekly CSA share

Cultivated shitake mushrooms

Frying sweet potato chips

Persimmons from a wild tree on our farm

Persimmon pulp

Canned and dried food

Digging a trench to lay a drain tile through the middle of the garden beside our house.

Saving seeds from the tomato variety we grow more of than any other, an extra meaty variety.

Tortillas with a mix of different varieties of dried peas (similar to black-eyed peas), with canned pork, goat cheese, with fresh cilantro and onions, roasted red peppers from the freezer, fresh Swiss chard on the side, cow's milk to drink...

 

Bamboo shoots

Getting ready to install the water stove and making an extra large split bamboo basket for storing acorns.

Bedding the different varieties of sweet potatoes we grow

Harvesting potatoes

Sampling sweet potatoes.  Sweet potatoes are one of our favorite crops to grow and to eat.

With some protection on the coldest winter nights we're able to grow outstanding quality citrus with hardly any other trouble.

The inside of our pea sheller, which we use for dry peas and beans

Fermenting peppers for hot sauce

Reunion with former WWOOF farm stay visitors

Harvesting peanuts

Splitting basket splints from white oak

Harvesting tulip-poplar bark for siding

Fruit

Lots of different fruits all ripening at the same time now. Roughly in clockwise order starting in the top left: Asian pears, apples, pawpaws, European pears, kaki and hybrid persimmons, jujubes, hardy kiwis, che fruit, muscadine grapes, figs, blueberries, American persimmons.

 

Statesville Saturday morning farmers market

 From roughly early May to late October, we're typically at the Statesville Saturday morning farmers market from roughly 8:30 through 10:30 a.m.  The market is at the corner of Front and Meeting Street in downtown Statesville.  For details, call us or get on our e-mail newsletter list.

Jute

 

Malabar spinach

 

Photos of the week

Beautiful weather, beautiful skies.

Moved the pigs to a fallow garden rotation.  They are enjoying it and we're happy to have them fertilizing the garden.

The late planting of green beans is looking better than our fall beans have looked in years.

Another photo of the green beans.

Monday morning we asked ourselves what projects were on the agenda for this week.  By Monday afternoon we realized replacing the well pump was going to be the major project.  Thankfully the pump was giving out gradually so we still had minimal water to use until we were able to tackle the project on Wednesday and we've had enough rain lately the garden didn't need to be irrigated.  With some help from friends and beautiful weather, we got the pump replaced and everything seems to be working well.  How nice to have things break just half way on a Monday instead of all the way on a Friday!