How much is enough?

I read today about a young person seeking a small piece of cheap land to build a "farm" on - a 26 year old and they were asking others what the best way to go about this was.  One reply was "How small do you want to talk about?  I have 1/2 acre in a subdivision - a miraculous event for me - it will never be a full fledged farm but it is a foothold where I can make real changes in how I impact the world"!

I love that line - "A foothold where I can make real changes in how I impact the world!"  If each and every one of us looked for that "foothold where we can make real changes" and developed it in the DIY style that all Farmers/Alaskans/Permies are known for, the world would certainly be a different place.

It got me thinking - as a lot of things do now days - how much is enough?

In terms of farming and gardening I think - to each his own - it depends on what you are growing.  Peonies take a little more space than lettuce, and apples a little more than peonies.  If you are growing in vertical spaces, and mostly veg (not fruit trees) 1/2 acre might be enough to grow "enough" in.  It also depends on the size of your family and how much growing they have to do still.  I think my son is still has some growing to do even at his size!  If I could grow peanuts here Id be in great shape - but again - could I grow "enough"?

This is the "orchard" area for lack of a better description - fruit trees, raised garden beds, berries and a few flowers thrown in for good measure!  Remember last year when we were a "one apple farm"?  Well this year we should be at least a "two apple farm"!  

Above is the "Williams Pride" apple tree covered in blooms!  Ill have to cull some of them off if they all pollinate.  I also have a "Duchess" apple that has three or four blooms on it.  The "Westland" which is the one that produced the apple last year did not bloom this year but is still alive and looks good!  Even the one that Brix the dog ate looks good! And my Cheery Cherries have bloomed as well - more about that later!

Wicked Raven Farm is 4.5 acres, but some of that is lawn (put here before we came) and some is what we have left go to "meadow" so that the moose and other animals might stay in that area - at least until I have a better fencing option.

Here is the "meadow" area - it ends up being about an acre.  

This side towards the lake is mostly lawn with some herb bed and fruit trees in it.  This side does well for growing things but we dont have a way to fence off the lake to keep the moose out and still be able to use it effectively - so we grow most of our stuff in the upper yard!

These two show the lawn and how patchy it is away from the lakeside.  We have tried to amend the soil, used char, and now we are leaving the grass clippings from other parts of the yard on the bare patches hoping that it will fill in.  We are using only organic practices because we live on the lake and anything we put on the yard will end up in the lake.

As I have said before, our soil is mostly clay with sand in it so we have to compost or bring in most of the soil and either dig out or seriously amend the soil here.  It doesn't really even lend itself to lawn growth right now on the side away from the lake.

We have carrots, radishes, kale, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and peas in the raised beds with some horseradish thrown in for good measure.  I had old lettuce seed and none of it came up - it may have been just still too cold a spring even in the raised beds, when I planted it. 

So, is this "enough"?  Probably not with the way this spring has been so cold and rainy.  I also have not seen nearly "enough" bees this year!  I have done pollinating of the apples with a paintbrush to make sure that I get at least a few. 

I have herbs in containers all around the house, greenhouse and anywhere a container needs to go!  Also on the wall of the little brown shed, in little terra cotta pots that I can bring in each fall so we have herbs all winter!  Its a great way to add some freshness to your cooking even in the winter and doesnt take up a lot of space.  It can be "enough"!

You may recognize this photo from an earlier blog - an upcycle one telling how I made those pot holders!  (See that here)


The greenhouse has been doing wonderfully though!  We will have lots of tomatoes (thanks to my Auntie - more on her later) and a few cukes.  But as far as Im concerned there are never "enough" tomatoes!

What would define "enough" for you.  How much space will that take?  Can you do with what you have?  Where can you put a container even to gain your "foothold where you can make real changes that impact the world"?  Even if your start is slow and your world seems small, impact on your world makes impact on the bigger world like water rings in the lake when a small pebble is thrown in - those impact the other side of the lake.  It can be enough.  I wish you all enough.

We cut the Banana!

Well - I have made a few references and a post about the Banana tree (see that here).  Once a banana produces fruit the tree dies and must be cut.  Before it produces fruit, it grows a baby banana next to it!  Its a great circle of life and a beautiful houseplant, but I HATE the cutting of the tree - even though it is dying - it just seems wrong somehow!

Here are the little bananas on the top of the tree - there are about 8 of them on there.  Turns out we seem to have a Musa Basjoo Banana - which is really a decorative banana or a fiber banana - not an edible banana!  Dammit!

This is what they looked like at first - then they turned black all over and fell off the tree - that was a few weeks ago.

Here are both the old tree and the new "baby" tree - not such a baby anymore!  The only way to tell the two apart is the old tree (left) has a very brown trunk and the new tree trunk (right) is very green!

Here is a closer photo and you can see the color differences more easily!  This photo also shows that lemon tree behind the banana tree and it currently has a lemon on it!  We will be a One Lemon Farm thisyear but that is better than none!

We cut it off - it was very easy - used a hacksaw with a fine tooth blade.  The trunk cut through almost like cutting a banana - really soft and moist.

The old banana tree on the porch ready to go to the compost pile - it looks very small in this photo - but it didn't seem like it before we cut it.  It will make a good addition to the compost I think - add that fiber into the garden!

Here is the new banana tree in a new (bigger) pot and it has shot up to the ceiling!  If you look at the top leaf of the photo, you can see that I had to roll up a piece of paper and put it into the new leaf that was trying to push through the ceiling!  The idea is that when the leaf unfurls the paper will just drop out harmlessly and keep the plant and the ceiling safe!  We were worried that this would happen if we repotted it but the old soil was done for and we had to change it out.

 I hope that you have room for a banana tree and can get one for your own!  This one came from Farmers Seed catalog about 6 years ago.  Maybe see if you can get one that actually produces edible bananas, but it sure is a fun plant and a great learning experience for all of us!

The People Quilt goes to the Gun Show!

Only in America can a High School and the local Lions Club host a fundraiser Gun Show and have it be the best thing ever!  Actually all of the local high schools host gun shows here in the Matanuska Susitna Valley.  It is a great way to involve the community and our schools in a safe way and raise a gob of money for the activities at the schools.  Our gun show is co-hosted by Baseball and Hockey, but almost all of the schools activity groups participate in some way to raise funds for their groups.  We have shooting classes, gun safety classes, and we even have a group whose sole purpose is to keep traditions alive from Pioneer days - muskets, black powder, axe throwing and the whole nine yards.  They have gatherings every year called "Rendezvous" and they practice and teach the young 'uns the ways of old.  They even dress in the style of the period! They have a booth at our show every year and they are such a fun group - always a big crowd at their spot.  You can check out the McKinley Mountain Men Here!!  Its really fun to see and it is fun for the community to see our kids doing things for the good of the whole not just for their one sport or team!

Above is me (on the left) and Carrie Smoldon with the quilt.

So... you ask... how does this involve the People Quilt and why would the people quilt go to the Gun Show?  Well I'll tell you... security!  Yes Security!!!  The people quilt is my own personal security blanket of course, but that is not why it goes to the show.  We provide overnight staffing for the gun show each night that there is gun show materials staying in the building.  It is a voluntary venture as our National Guard folks who always bring super cool stuff to the gun show - Giant Hummers last year and super awesome big guns this year, for folks to check out - they have to stay with their equipment so they stay the night most of the time, but we also provide personnel just in case.  We know the building a little better than they do and we dont have to get up at the bum crack of dawn and take a run!  We usually dont even get up and do the morning yoga - Gun Show is exhausting people!

Freedom isn't free and if you haven't thanked a Service member please do so - especially this Memorial Day Weekend - but really every day of the week we should be thanking them for their sacrifice and their service.  

Above is Carrie Smoldon and Michael Ann Carhart holding the people quilt in front of the archery target.  

To make a short story long I guess, we sleep overnight at the Big Lake Lions Club Rec Center during the gun show!  No way can I sleep without the People Quilt especially if I'm not sleeping at home.  Hockey takes one night and Baseball takes the next night and the overlapping coaches go to the Baseball night - they have a game night that night and it's all guys.  So I guess really we have a girls night and a guys night at gun show - but we are usually so tired that night from set up that we dont even make it through one whole "chick flick" before the People Quilt lulls me to sleep.

The People Quilt has been busy this year and this was actually the second Gun Show for the People Quilt - it went last year too but I forgot to take pictures that turned out worth viewing last year so it had to wait for this year's adventure at Gun Show.

I don't know how many more gun shows it will get to however, because Carrie and I both lay on the floor of the Rec Center on our sleep mats and comment on how we are too old for this &%$@!  But every year we make some more memories at gun show, and we try to solve the world's problems in the middle of the night, beneath the twinkle lights that we cant figure out how to turn off and the People Quilt!

Thank you to all of our military and police service members for all that you do for our freedom and our safety, and so that we CAN have our gun show!  May you be blessed.

Gramma gets a Gift!

Well - I know I promised some gardening and yard blog posts but.... still freezing at night and I think if I uncover very many things I won't have very many things live through!  We had snow and hail just a few days ago, and today is more wind and rain.  Just too cold to work outside for very long at all!  

So I am forced to quilt and write!  Not such a bad way to spend a day!

Gramma Gittlein is not actually related to us.  She is a neighbor up the hill, and she is a great neighbor.  She treats us just like we are her kids or grandkids and she loves Reed and his friends.  It is mutual.  She has seen a ton of quilts go out the door from my workshop, and she will often give an opinion on how well she likes this one or that one or sometimes what she doesnt like too.

That is Gramma Gittlein on the right above.

I finally got a chance to make her one for this last Christmas.  I had got the fabric at the massive quilters estate sale that we went to last year (you can read about it here)

Im not sure why but the colors just reminded me of her and it was a bit of a challenge as the pattern was written for a three fabric collection and this pack had about 10 different fabrics.  I made it at two different family quilt retreats that I went to - Gramma comes to the quilting room to check out what Im doing every so often and this quilt had to be put together by laying it out properly before you could sew the whole thing together.  She would have seen it if I had tried to build it here at the house.

A bit of the quilting detail.

I didnt quilt it - it was quilted bu Jean Greco at Briar Rose Quilting.  She does such a fantastic job.

It is now a competition for Gramma as to how her quilt is better than any that we are looking at.  "I like mine better because _____ "  she will say.  Every time.  It is the greatest gift a quilter can get, when someone loves their gift so much that there will never be a better one made by anyone in their eyes.  That is the best I can do.  The best any quilter can do.  It is a way to pass ono the love to others and have it last long past when the gift was given.

Stay tuned - the kids are graduating - including Reed and I have some gradation quilts that you will ge to see soon!  Maybe some other quilts too if it doesnt warm up!  Blessed be!