Resurrection Sunday

For this reason the father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my father. John 10: 17-18

And Jesus said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that the repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. Luke 24:46-47

But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. Isaiah 53:5

Thank you Jesus!!

Newest member of the Spencer Family Farm

Here is Ramsey. He is a 15 day old St. Croix ram and he is beautiful. He will be one of the stars of our breeding program and we are so excited to get him home. We will pick him up around the middle of June. There are many reasons why we decided to go with the St. Croix breed but the main reason is their ability to thrive on forage and their resistance to parasites. Here is some other info.: St. Croix sheep

Our intention was to breed 100% registered St. Croix sheep. Well, during the planning process, we did not take into consideration that it would be very difficult to acquire a St. Croix ewe. They are rare in our area. So we are #1 on the list for one next year but this year we may have to get a Katahdin and have a St. Croix Katahdin cross. It will work out fine. Once we get our St. Croix ewes we can always sell the Katahdin if we want to.

Oh, those eyes. They are just magnificent.

This is just another step towards us growing and raising all of our own food free of chemicals, antibiotics and growth hormones.

Barn Hopping.....How does your garden grow?

I am barn hopping again today. I think I have said it before, I really like the barn hop and getting to see what other homesteaders are doing. Such fun.

Today, I want to focus on my garden..... If you have read around here very long, you know that gardening and preserving the harvest are my passions. I love the garden!! I love the squash and tomato blooms. They just make you happy.

I also love a prolific bounty.

If the Lord wills it, my garden table will look like this in July. I will have tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, etc. coming out of my ears. There will be 5 gal. buckets of fresh produce everywhere. Oh, I love it......

But for now we are still ordering seeds and planning. A good garden needs lots of planning!

(This is last year's bounty)

We already have green beans and onions growing in our raised bed garden. However, Mr. Larry, our very dependable neighbor, comes over every spring and tills my main garden with his tractor. We do not have a tractor with all of the implements and he does. He also loves to be on his tractor. So it's a win, win, situation. We use to till up the spot with a garden tiller. It would take days of back breaking work. Now, Mr. Larry comes down for about an hour a couple of times and we are ready to start planting. He has come and done the breaking up part. So in a couple of weeks he will come back to till and row it up. I can't wait!!

Until then, we will plan. Here is what my 2011 garden plan looks like:

Tomatoes (about 60 plants) I love celebrity but will throw in a few others, as well.

Cucumbers I put up 30 jars of pickles last year and that wasn't enough. I am shooting for 50.

Yellow Squash

Zuchinni

Cow Peas

Green Beans

Onions (red)

Eggplant

Okra

Peppers

Watermelon

Cantaloupe

Honey Dew Melon

Pumpkins

Gourds

Zinnias (We planted these last year and they were so amazing!!)

Marigolds (around my tomatoes)

Sunflowers

Catmint (I am planting this to ward off squash bugs. Here's a great article.)

This year I am planning to plant more heirloom varieties, as I want to save more seed this year. Here are some great companies to order seed from:

Baker's Creek Heirloom Seeds

Heirloom Seeds

Victory Seeds

Oh, and as a side note, Herrick Kimball, has a new blog Agrarian Nation. It is just as good as all of his other writings, go check it out.