Welcome

Howdy all! I was sitting at work today thinking about all the fun stuff we do (seems fun to me anyways) and I thought maybe others would be interested in hearing about our suburban homesteading pursuits. If nothing else this will be a good way for friends and family to keep up with the goings on here at Sourwood Farm.

In future posts I hope to cover some of the things we've got going here like the veggie garden, the asparagus patch, composting, rainwater collecting and irrigating, heating with wood, growing hops, homebrewing, canning, blueberries, and of course our newest venture - chickens. We don't claim to be experts in any of this stuff - but we're having a lot of fun with it and enjoying the fruits and veggies of our labor.

Here are some shots from around the place to give you a feel for it:

Mr. O. examining a volunteer cantaloupe from the summer of 2007 while resting by the asparagus patch.

Yard long beans - these things went nuts last year and were quite tasty - not sure they were truly yard long, but definitely darn long.

Winnie and Coco - our newest additions to the farm. Winnie is a Barred Rock and Coco is a Rhode Island Red. Winnie is indeed a winsome lass, but quite shy. Coco is a "statuesque" lady who I hope will be providing many eggs. We also have three Silver Phoenix pullets in the same coop who are growing really fast.

I think that'll do it for our first post - not trying to tell the whole story here, just trying to get things started. Oh by the way - no eggs yet. We got the adult hens last Sunday 2/24/2008 so five days and so far no eggs. I'm not trying to put any pressure on the gals, I just think it'll be interesting to see how long it takes before we get our first egg. Before Easter would be very cool.