Autumn at Make-It-Do Farm

You thought you could escape without hearing me blather on about autumn, didn’t you? Ha! 

Our place beginning to be covered in leaves.

We hosted our first annual Fall Festival. I suspect this will replace the former annual Box Turtle Race I used to host in the spring. It was always difficult to pull off a big gathering when there was so much garden work to be done, but it was worth it. Now, however, we just don’t have as many other children in our lives to make such a shindig worthwhile. And we’re totally into the autumn scene, with the cool weather, campfires, cozy sweaters, hot drinks, steaming bowls of chili and plates piled high with carbs…   Anyway, we kicked it off this year and I think we’re off to a good start.

Justin helping BeBop check out the fireplace.

We bought a couple cord of decent firewood and had it stacked right quick with everyone pitching in. Our friend Russ was good enough to stop by and sweep our chimney, and my dad came over to help us refigure our stove, which we had piped out through the old fireplace. 

Dad cut out the old damper, we cleaned the heck out of everything (at least 30 lbs. of creosote and ash) with Dad's shop vac, thanked the Flying Spaghetti Monster that we’d never had a chimney fire, and Dad worked some magic on the opening, covering it with cement board and rigging up some new stovepipe. The draw on that baby is remarkably improved. I tell you what, if there’s a zombie apocalypse, I want my dad by my side. The man has more practical knowledge and skill in his little pinky than I’ll ever have (though I like to think it rubbed off on me just a wee bit), more than anyone I know. (My brother is a close second.) He usually has the right tool for the job and nearly every other time we work together I’m introduced to a tool I didn’t know existed. Anyway, he’s our go-to guy, and we definitely needed help with this project.

Kids enjoying the fire on the first frosty morning.

Den and I bought new replacement parts as necessary for the stove. I sanded it, washed it, and gave it a new coat of paint (high heat Rustoleum, from the automotive dept—worked great). We enjoyed our first fire a few nights ago. The new catalytic combustor allowed for a clean burn. I couldn’t even see a wisp of smoke coming out of the chimney once it activated and it kept all the heat in the house where it belongs. Most excellent. I’m so tickled Denny is willing to do what it takes to do things the right way. 

Blue & Justin scouting fish

We rearranged our 55 gal fish tank (in above photo) and some of the kids volunteered to spend a couple sunny afternoons wading in the creek, catching some more fish to populate it. 

 Several red bellied daces, spotted topminnows, stone rollers, orange throat darters, a tiny long-ear sunfish, and one banded sculpin. We looked them all up in the Missouri fish book and called it school.

I also did this:

It’s my first rock balancing, but I plan to make it a habit. Our friend Russ turned us on to it. Surprisingly enjoyable, especially while at the creek.

Loving some rainy fall days...

…and bright sunny fall days. 

The above was taken during one of my and Denny’s daily, 2-mile walks. Well, almost daily. Pretty, eh? We pretty much live in paradise. To the right is another photo from the same walk. Denny is rockin' his solar-viewing glasses, checking out the huge spot on the sun. I had mine on for a bit, too. Wonder what drivers-by thought when they saw us in our geeky glasses, walking and staring at the sun? Hehe.

We celebrated our second-ever Halloween by donning costumes and attending our small town’s gathering Halloween shindig. Local business owners and other groups line the courthouse square and hand out candy. Farra dressed everyone (except me & Den. We went naked).

Blue & Little raking leaves

Yesterday the weather warmed a bit, up in the mid 60’s. The sun was shining and the yard was covered in crispy leaves, mostly oak. After errands in the morning and a lunch of popcorn, Den, myself, and some of the kids headed out to do yard work. We raked, mowed, and mulched some new garden beds. We buried the less hardy herbs under mountains of mulched leaves, raked pine needles up around the acid-loving blueberry bushes, planted a couple rows of garlic with a hearty helping of composted goat manure, herded the chickens and ducks out of the garden and shut the gates—sorry guys, garden party is over. Can’t have them scratching up the garlic.

Denny headed to the barn to put the gas can away. Mower battery went dead, so we will have to finish on the next nice day. But it’s sure lookin’ pretty out there.

The afternoon passed so sweetly, if a bit dustily. Working the land with your loved ones in the warm sunshine… is there anything so soul-nourishing? Maybe preparing dinner. Peeling and cutting potatoes and leeks in the kitchen with your family, dancing to Santana’s Oye Como Va, making a delicious soup while the sky darkens outside the windows.

I could fill pages with descriptions of our days. The joys, the challenges, the sweet moments, the laughter. Life is good.

Potatoes!

I’m quite far behind on this blog, but no matter; I shall dive right in anyway and get caught up as I’m able.

We maybe should have dug up our potatoes a couple weeks ago, maybe even a month ago.  (Am I running behind on everything?)  Well, after an incredibly mild summer, which was more like a New England summer than a Missouri summer, we hit a patch of oppressive heat and humidity that drove us indoors for a couple weeks.  Denny and I only got out when we needed to and tried to keep that to morning hours.  The younger kids played in the hose most afternoons.  The creek had nearly dried up.

Now we’re back to something more reasonable.  The sun was shining this morning, the katydids were carrying on like nobody’s business, the bees were busy about the last of summer’s flowers.  Time to head to the garden.

Only the three youngest grew potatoes this year.  Just a small patch each in their small garden plots.  Seth and Blue helped them harvest.  We’d planted what was left of the seed in a bigger patch by our tomatoes.  Royal and Little stayed out to help harvest those while the others went off to play.

Rewarded with cold cups of apple cider for their efforts.
(Toasting friends Sponge & Noggin, who, the kids suspect,
would love to have joined us today.)

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to scrub some of these and toss them in the slow cooker with the beef roast, carrots and onions. Ta ta for now!

Nine Peas in a Pod - 2013 Family Video

So, for the past few years I've put together a compilation of some of our family's photos and videos from the previous year, with a happy, eclectic selection of tunes. We were a little rushed and a lot late this year, but, better late than never, Denny and I managed to throw together an hour long video for your viewing pleasure. Some of you have received DVD copies of this, but for those who didn't and have some time on your hands, Denny has made a digital copy available.    

Nine Peas in a Pod - 2013 Williams Henke Family Video

Spring on the Homestead

Spring, as they say, is pretty much awesome.
       Wait, is that what they say?  Oh, no.  Um, yeah… spring is springing.  See spring spring.  Go spring go.

It has taken hours upon hours to clean up the mess left by one of our previous occupants.  No more scrap metal, no more soda pop bottles, no more tools rusting in the rain, no broken down cars or old trailers, and two less ugly, rickety sheds.  In place of these things there are flower beds with native flowers transplanted from Denny’s place, an herb spiral, blueberry bushes, arbors built from cedar branches, a duck pond, low rock walls and borders, safe, debris-free areas for the children to play… and more beautiful things and projects all the time.

Here are some snippets from around Make-It-Do Farm...

Daisy had triplets this year, the two bucks pictured with her and the doe in Blue’s arms in the next.  We’ve been bottle-feeding the doe to make sure she gets what she needs without competing with her brothers.  We’ll sell her in a couple weeks when she is weaned, as we really have no room on the farm for a goat who thinks it’s a human.  =)


One of Rochel’s two bucklings.  Little named this one Sniffy and the other Finder.

Yours truly opening my first shipment of paperback copies of my book.

A Denny and a Little gardening on a warm day...

Farra is often doing make-up and costumes just for fun.  I think she and Seth are supposed to be some kind of savages...
 
Filling the duck pond...

Building the arbor for the raspberries.  Note the duck pond in the background, surrounded by rock.  Denny has been hard at work!

And as always, we have been hard at work making and selling soap.  Be sure to check out daisyblend.com for prices and varieties!

We Survived Winter!

The daffy-down-dillies are pushing through the mud.  Late, but most welcome.  There's a patch of them a couple miles down the road that are always up a couple of weeks before ours.  The children noticed them the other day, open and yellow and basking in the sunshine.  The sky opened up and dumped a "wintery mix" on them today.  That's just how it is.  The 24 years I've lived in Missouri I can't remember a year it didn't snow on the daffodils at least once.  To all the people who got ridiculously optimistic about those first sunny warm days in March I coined the adage, "Winter's not over until it snows on the daffodils."   Snow on the daffodils does not mean and end of winter, however, just that spring doesn't usually arrive until sometime after that.

It's been a cold winter.  A long winter.  A great winter.  We celebrated the first snow (which was awesome! 10" in mid December!) with our traditional snow party; sledding and fun in the snow followed by cutting out paper snowflakes to tape to the windows while listening to winter tunes and drinking hot chocolate.  We visited with family and friends, we did a lot of school work and found a joyful rhythm with Denny in our lives.  The house is filled with ample conversation and laughter now, as Denny adds his own humor and musings to our mix.

With Denny's encouragement, advice, and the children's patience, and everyone's help around the house, I was able to finish writing and editing my first book and we published it last week.  Wow!  What a lot of work!  What a humbling experience, putting my life out there for others to purchase and take part in.  (You can check the book out by following the link on the sidebar.)  Very satisfying and draining.  Now, I have to get to work writing the second book while marketing the first one... and doing all those things I usually do.

Daisy

Two of our three goats will be having babies within the next couple of weeks.  That's probably the highlight of the farming year.  Bouncy kids and fresh milk; delightful!  The hens are laying plentifully again and we are finding ourselves working more eggs into our diet.  In the garden, the apple trees have been pruned (another year or two and they will begin producing fruit.  I can't wait!), the garlic we planted in the fall is poking through its winter blanket of mulch.  The wormwood, mugwort and tansy are putting out shoots.  The rest of the garden is dormant.  It's difficult to imagine what a wild green monster it will be in a few months.  We are planning on building some hugelkultur beds with old wood dragged in from the forest, as well as some trellises for tomatoes and beans out of cedar from last summer's observatory-area clearing.  Definitely looking forward to the first big garden with Denny!   The downside is that we both have bad backs.  The upside is that planning is what we do best.  We are going to plan for a garden that we can maintain with the least amount of stress on our backs, the work toward that goal very carefully.  With lots of help from the children.

Planning and dreaming with Denny is one of my life's greatest joys now.  We are always on the same line of the same page, exciting and inspiring one another.  We walk around our house and property hand in hand, discussing landscaping at length.  The kids pick up on our enthusiasm.  The other day, while the sun was shining and promising spring, Atira, Little and Blue formed a garden bed around an old stump.  Little told me, "I want to make a forest garden."  Only she still doesn't pronounce her R's so it came out, "Fowest gowden."  So cute!  Not just any garden, but a forest garden.  She has been perusing Denny's permaculture books.

With some normality to our life, and a wonderful partnership at the family helm, important things are getting taken care of.  The children are getting to the dentist and doctor for check-ups, Farra has gotten much-needed braces.  Even yours truly will be visiting the dentist for the first time since she was a kid. (I'm just as terrified now as I was then.  I just know they are going to frown at me.  I wish I could go to the children's dentist; they are SO nice!).  The vehicles are being maintained, the house is being maintained and improved (just finished putting a roof on the deck--no more tarps!), the children have a more rigorous school schedule (though still very relaxed) and with two critically-thinking teacher-parents they can't turn around without bumping into education.  Ha.

I've added Denny as a contributor to this blog.  I hope that between the two of us we can find a way to keep you a little more up to date!  But you know how spring and summer are...  so much to write about, so little time!

Farm Update

Been awhile since I've shared one of these, eh? I blame Facebook. Or credit Facebook. Or something. I usually share photos on our business Facebook page, Daisyblend Organic Creations. Lately I share the little newsy things there and save the lengthy, in-depth things for here. You can find me on Facebook by clicking on the badge on the sidebar. Be sure to visit and "like" the Daisyblend page, too.

Usually I have a lovely garden update for you this time of year. Well, let me tell you the garden is looking so very lush and green with all the rain we've had this summer...

Of course, most of that is weeds.

In February I started tomatoes, peppers and some flowers and herbs in the greenhouse. We had a long, cool spring so I paid dearly for those plants, running a heater to keep them warm. The tomatoes did okay, the peppers died and we have a few flowers to transplant. By April I knew this was not going to be a year I could focus on gardening, so I decided to just put in a few things and not worry about the rest. Before Denny even moved in he was over here helping us prepare garden beds, putting in the tomatoes and some peppers I bought from a friend. We also managed to slip in some Chinese Red Noodle beans, which are blooming so prettily right now...

Almost ready to pick...

The kids and I grew these last year and love them. Next year we will grow tons, skipping the green beans altogether. I slipped down to the garden this morning to nab these photos. I have one calendula plant blooming...

The peppers are doing well, and the wildly growing tomato plants are beginning to produce. I harvested the garlic we planted in the fall; another one of those crops I enjoy and hope to grow much of next year. The rest of the garden, well... Yeah. The perennial herb beds are overgrown and need attention and the rest... Eh, the ducks and the goose are enjoying it. It feels so strange to not have a big garden this year, but it was a good call. Denny enjoys gardening and this fall we will cover the entire fenced-in veggie garden with compost and mulch, nice and thick. Then we will start planning for spring. Our homeschool group received another large donation of seeds from Baker Creek, so we are up to our ears in choices.

Denny has written at his blog about bringing permaculture to Make-It-Do Farm. As he says there, I am not new to the idea of permaculture and have been implementing some of it through the years. During the winter, when I discovered that he was into permaculture and writing articles about it for a local newspaper I considered having him come over and brainstorm with me regarding my farm. One of my favorite things! (So, he came over and decided to stay, what can I say?) The problem here has been two-fold: 1) not enough time and money to install proper goat fencing, limiting all my gardening to a 50'x60' fenced area I knew I could keep the goats out of and 2) not having enough time and energy to do much more than I was already doing. There was always something around here... between raising children, chasing goats, housecleaning, cooking, routine maintenance on the house and property... Well, I needn't tell you all the things that eat up a mother's time, but I should stress that I was juggling everything myself, almost functioning as a single mother. Stress, yes, good choice of words. On top of having to manage all the typical responsibilities that a husband and wife generally share, I found myself often burdened with having to help my husband find work and to find ways to make ends meet when he wasn't working.

It's beyond awesome having Denny here, forming a partnership in all areas, having his opinions and expertise. One of the first things he got excited about regarding the farm was beautifying our dooryard. As he shared his vision with me I couldn't help but tear up just a wee bit. I had wanted so desperately to clean our place up and make it inviting and pretty with stones and pretty flowerbeds. I had been rather in despair regarding our property, actually. I was embarrassed to have people over, the property was such a dump. I would gather the kids and we would try to clean it up periodically, but it seemed an effort in futility. There would be piles of scrap metal and soda bottles and tools littering the place again within a couple weeks. I was the only one who cared, the only one putting forth any effort. I daren't try to clean it up AND make it pretty and inviting. What would be the point? Sigh. Anyway, it's nice to have a partner who cares now. And who is willing to help clean up the junk AND help beautify it AND help maintain it all.

Now I wish I had some "before" pictures, but, of course, as embarrassed as I was by it all I refused to allow it to be photographed! But here are some of the things Denny has worked out...

Building a bed with the stones that were migrating from alongside the driveway and taking over the dooryard, piling the beds high with old logs, leaves and straw, compost and soil, planting some perennials that he dug up from his place on the lake. I can't look at this without being overwhelmed... It means so much to me. The picture doesn't do it justice. So sweet and charming.

From the other side... an herb spiral with lavender, skullcap, garlic chives and oregano. For now. More to come.

Hostas, ferns and wild ginger gainst the front of the house...  (Sorry!  Bad pic. Rainy morning, low light.)

Denny with Little, Atira and Blue, setting stones and concrete pavers around the front stoop.

Sigh. I love it.

It's weird, though, reading about it all on his blog. I find myself with mixed feelings. I am so in love with him and all he is doing and I feel very much a part of it, not at all like he is taking over, nothing like that. I love the fact that because he is joining me in taking care of all the must-do's around the place we are both freed up to work on some fun and beautiful projects together. I love that we share a vision. We both love to dream this stuff up, we share an asthetic sense as well as sense of economy (making projects beautiful, natural and inexpensive), we both enjoy getting our hands dirty and involving the children. But there's something that bugged me after reading his post and it took me awhile to put my finger on it. And, well, I guess I am a little bitter about my past. These are things I would have liked to do all along... making my house and property pretty as well as functional. How I wish I'd been able to plant flowers everywhere and to lay stones out front! I feel like I was rarely able to make "beautiful" happen. I was swamped and alone, barely able to get the necessary stuff done. I had time to focus on doing one thing well and that was raising the children, which I think I have done fairly well so far, if I do say so myself. But it seemed like the place was falling down around my ears. I had to take a walk around this morning and remember everything I have accomplished over the almost seven years I've been here, what this place was like when we first moved here. If it weren't for me there wouldn't be a beautiful (lush, green, weedy) garden and yard, fruit trees, fencing, chicken coop, goat barn, chickens, goats, cats, or seven fantabulous, beaming children. There have been some improvements to the home because of my initiative; a better deck with a roof, decent siding, better windows and doors, etc. And my home is comfortable, if rather, uh... lived in, and everyone who walks through the door finds ample hospitality.

I get too easily focused on the things I haven't done or couldn't do, in every area of my life.


I am so grateful that Denny was willing to throw his lot in with us. There was so much to be done here. He saw our beautiful property and saw the potential, yes, but he was willing to help get the place up to par before jumping into the purely fun projects. We had plumbing issues; a bucket under the kitchen sink because it wouldn't drain, a toilet that wouldn't flush, a clogged bathroom sink. We had goat issues; the area Bobby and I had tried to fence was not holding them. We had money issues and heart issues, too. When I think of what the man has taken on... I can't help but believe him when he tells me that he loves me and the children and thinks we are the most amazing people he has ever met. What else could possibly possess him to burden himself with all of this? He will give a slightly exasperated sigh reading this. "You are not a burden," he will say for the 28th and a half time. And I understand. What we have, it is no burden. He is not some hero, swooping in to rescue us... he is another human who has his own needs and desires and we are joining forces. He benefits from the life and vitality here, the love and friendship. The partnership. The family. There is much joy and peace and satisfaction as we merge lives. I look forward to what every day brings.