The Big Gig

The Rock Star life has been brought down some and I am back into farm mode.
Indiana and her Rock Skool group landed a gig at the Chattanooga River Bend Festival. It is a BIG deal!
Every year Chattanooga blocks off the streets along the river front and tons of people flock to the festival to listen to music and to eat food.  This year's lineup included Boston, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Gary Allen, and Widespread Panic. Of course there was also Rock Skool.

The past weeks have been filled with rehearsals, lessons and all of the prep that goes into a big show. Indiana likes to dress as punk rock as possible so she insisted on red hair. Last performance she had blue hair...this time it is red.

Aside from the incredible heat  and humidity we experienced Saturday, the performance was fantastic! I think the guy who booked them for the show was a little nervous but he was very happy once the showed started. These are kids from ages 7-17 and they are fantastic.

So, now that the concert, the BIG gig, is over we can go back to a  more normal summer schedule.

My tomato plants are getting huge and I have not staked them yet. I think it rained every single day last week, which causes my cow lot to be mucky but it also makes everything green and greener here.

We also have a new bunny.

A good friend found this bunny hopping in the neighborhood street. She asked the neighbors and everyone denied being the owner, so she brought the little fuzz ball here. The bunny has a name : Dewey Thumper Clover. Many children wanted to name the bunny, so she has a long name. She is very sweet and is living a life outside in a drop pen on grass. She's moved everyday and spends a fair amount of time in the house, playing and being held.

Finally, I discovered a new tree in the yard (along the wood line) that I had not noticed before.

This is a mulberry tree. The berries turn a deep purple, will stain your clothes, and makes a fabulous jam or cobbler. I was quite excited to discover it, however I might need to climb the tree for most of the berries. I will also have to try and keep the birds away from the sweet fruits, but I am happy nonetheless.

This week I will be inspecting bee hives, crafting cheeses, moving calves to a new paddock, and planning for Willow's birthday this weekend. I suppose staking tomato plants should be on this list too. The next batch of chicken is about ready for processing, I have two new beehives to pick up in Knoxville, and the pigs are about ready for processing too.  Family outdoor movie nights begin this weekend ,and I really think we will spend a couple of days relaxing by the pool. What's summer without a few lazy days?

Happy Monday Ya'll!

Ready, Set, GO!

Fall has arrived!...at least until it gets super hot again for a spell. This week, though, has been very nice with low humidity and lower temps. Today it will hover around 80 with a low in the 50's.

It's time to get fall chores done. This means the bees need a grease patty and the pool deck needs to be cleaned up. Shrubs need to be trimmed and the front porch needs to be swept. The sand box in the back yard is begging for fresh sand so we will also need to clean it up a bit and load some fresh sand up to its brim. Fall weather is the best for sand playing!

Most importantly, however, are the two movie nights coming up! This weekend we are showing an outdoor movie for fun but the NEXT weekend is when we will host the community screening of American Meat.

The next two weeks I will be posting some facts from the documentary on Facebook.... facts such as each year the average American eats 48 pounds of pork, 60 pounds of beef, and 82 pounds of chicken. This is over 59 billion pounds of meat total in America!

While we prepare for what we anticipate to be a nice and large turnout, I wanted to share some pictures of a few happenings here.

My hens are now spending all of their time on the front pasture thanks to electric poultry fencing. An occasional bird escapes, but they stay close. I keep the roosters out of the fence so that they can focus on finding their own food (eating bugs and foraging) and leaving the laying ration for the hens.
We still have not built an egg mobile, but we plan to work on one in October when Devin gets a stretch off from work.
In the meantime, they are using my pasture chicken tractors. I move them every 2 days and they are happier than I have ever seen them. This field is full of grasshoppers!
The plan is to start moving salad bar cattle this spring and having the hens follow. As you can see, we are blessed with many acres and lots of grass!

Lucy is dried up! Okay, she is full of milk but we are not milking her. She is due to calve in early December. I always give her a longer than 2 month break from milking because she is an old mama cow. We also love having some free mornings without milking chores!

Baby Ivy is getting big and sassy! She is being haltered trained by Indiana and that is going very well. She is a sweet cow and will someday be a super milking cow. My plans are to keep her as my next milking cow, after Lucy retires.

Ivy has a favorite scratching spot under her neck. She loves to be scratched there. Look at that beautiful face!!! (She even drools when she gets scratched!)

The lambs have been separated from their ewes so that the ewes and my ram can breed. The babies sure miss the other sheep and Tiger Creek here follows me around every where! He looks good with his haircut! All the sheep were sheared two weeks ago and I think they appreciated the trim! I went ahead and sheared off their dreadlocks in front because they were so mucky and tangled. They should grow back quickly.

Now I want to talk about my ducks. I love my ducks! The kids love the ducks! We have mallard, khacki campbells , and runner ducks.
Now, most folks despise ducks because they poop. A. Lot.  That's all you hear from many is how they just eat and make messes.
Well, my ducks happen to be fantastic egg layers! We get large white eggs every day which are fabulous for baking.

They are also great at tearing up cow patties, as you can tell by this picture! I know this is kind of gross but cow patties are part of having cows and ducks (and chickens) are the master of spreading out those patties!

Old MacDonald had it figured correctly when he kept a diverse grouping of animals on his farm.

Hope you have a great week! If you are in the area, consider joining us for the American Meat film! It's all about sustainable farming and that's a good thing! Email me if you need more info!
mybarefootfarm@catt.com

Here's the Latest...

1. Summer will officially kick-off tonight with our first Outdoor Movie Night of the year. We are showing The Hobbit and expect quite a few friends to attend. If you are local, come on out! Movie starts at dusk.

2.  A cousin of mine taught me how to make clay beads for bracelets. I admit that they are super cool and will be gifts this year. I might just post a tutorial this fall as well, so all of you can make some. In fact, Rose and Zeb made some a couple of days ago! I needed another hobby, right?

3. My hens have suddenly decided to stop laying. Is it the heat? Lack of food? I have no idea. This happens occasionally, and I will go through my list of possible causes and try to remedy the issue. Sometimes farming can be a pain in the bootie.

4. In another week I plan to get my heifer calf, Stella, haltered and brought to the paddock near Lucy and Belle. We need to start getting her haltered trained and all that fun stuff while she is still small:-)
She will not be bred until she is 2 years old, but it's wise to get her used to us now as a baby.
I bet it will be little bit like a rodeo at first.

5. My pasture chickens are not growing very well on the certified organic food I bought for them. In fact, the food is a huge disappointment to me. There are yellow peas in it that they will not even touch. What a waste of money!
Yesterday we had to separate the small birds (very small) from the larger birds and put them in a tractor pen together. I will feed them extra food and clabbered milk to get them growing properly.

 The kids obligingly crawled into the pens to catch the smallest chickens for me.

I guess I can't blame it all on the food. Some of the birds ARE growing but I do not think they are growing as well as last year. The bigger kids helped catch the birds and guess who helped fill feeders?

                                Yep, even a 2 year old can help with farm chores!

We are expecting a little rain on Sunday here! That is great news for the garden! Until then we will be outside soaking up the sun and fun.

What are your plans this weekend?

Mega Family Memorial Day

Well, we pulled it off!
Several months of planning, and my sister and I managed to execute a surprise birthday party for our mother on Monday.
She was surprised!

                                *Fletcher didn't like everyone singing "Happy Birthday!"

The last several weeks I have been painfully busy trying to not only get regular farm chores and garden chores done...but also cleaning up the yard and house for guests.
I admit that the combination of 7 kids and many, many farm critters can lead to a less than beautiful home and yard. It looked like the Clampits had moved in, judging by some certain nooks and crannies.

Mom had family in from as far away as Canada for the celebration!



My kids had a blast with cousins here and we even found time to chill on Sunday with a cookout and some swimming.

           * The boys were more than needing baths by the end of the day*

Journee took the younger kids on horse rides. Athena has been lavished on immensely these last several days with a thorough grooming and open turn out. She enjoys the grazing very much.

               * Rose got to go a little faster on the horse and loved it!*

Zeb was entertaining by showing off his bantam rooster baby named "Teeny-Tiny."

                                                         * Zeb and Teeny-Tiny*

Now, we are planning the movie night kick off this Friday. We have the outdoor movie screen up and are planning to open with The Hobbit. We look forward to summer movie nights so much.

Who said large families and farmers can't have a blast in the summer? We might not be headed to the beaches of Florida, but we are enjoying all that summer has to offer. We are enjoying the land and the awesome warm nights.

We sometimes even get to go out and visit one of the most beautiful cities around.

* The Walnut Street Bridge. The large boat in the background is The Delta Queen*

Chattanooga is just down the road and we like to eat out and walk the bridge across he Tennessee River.
Rumor has it that Willow wants to visit the Tennessee Aquarium for her birthday in June and that a family pass is being purchased. I bet we have a great family day next month in Chattanooga!

Now that summer is here, what plans do you have for family fun?

Outdoor Movie Nights

Let's talk teens! Let's talk about fun stuff to do and a great reason to host those fun activities!

As some of you may know, when summer starts we put up our outdoor movie screen and start hosting movie nights all the way through October.

This has become a much loved activity and we really enjoy hosting the events. Some nights we have family movies, some nights are for teens and adults, and a couple of times we have shown scary movies.

Here's is what we have built, in case any of you are considering building an outdoor theater too.

 The movie screen is a 10 foot x 20 foot tarp that we purchased from Creative Shelters. It's sturdy and works very well. We have it mounted to our back deck, although you could build a frame or even find blow up screens online.

Here's a close up of the metal poles(frame) and such that Devin uses to mount and hang the tarp.

 This is our projector that we bought from Best Buy. I have seen them at Costco too. This one is a mid range as far as price goes. The bulbs or lamps are expensive when they burn out and need replacing. For all you men out there, my husband actually has one wall in the basement dedicated to using this projector . He plays Halo and watches his movies on the huge wall. It's a man's (and teenager's) dream.

 My husband uses this cart to keep the projector on and he sits next to it during the movie.

These speakers are new to us this year. We had smaller speakers last year, but these are nicer and if you watch a movie like Jurassic Park....well, you need some loud sound! :-)

 I always mix up lemonade and put it in the large, orange cooler. In the blue cooler I have ice water. I know that the lemonade mix has some sugar in it, but it's much less than soda plus it's a nice treat for the kids.

 I buy my popcorn supplies at Sam's Club. These paper bags are not expensive and they are a perfect size. Popcorn kernels can also be bought in 50 pound bags there. If you are a large family it's a great deal for a loved snack. In addition, you can grind them up in your wheat grinder to make corn meal.

 This is my popper that my sister bought as a family gift for us one Christmas. It really was a fantastic gift and we have used this popper a ton!  I have seen them online for a reasonable price.

 I always bath my youngest kids and get them in pajamas before guests arrive. They usually go to bed just about the time the movie starts or shortly after.

Guests bring chairs and blankets, and I always pull out my quilts and make pallets on the grass for the kids.

Another new item this year is the giant jenga game my husband built. We call it Danger Jenga.

It's not a game for the little ones, but the teens and the adults love it!

We start a movie just at dusk for the little kids, and it's usually an episode of Scooby-Doo.

Friends always arrive with snacks to share and extra blankets, and we always have a great time! The teens always have a great time too.
As a parent, I want my kids to enjoy themselves and socialize with their friends but I also want it to be in a safe and family friendly environment. I always told myself that when we had teens we would be the house where they could hang out with friends and that is what we accomplish with movie nights.
In fact it has turned into a  fun night for the entire family and our friends. It's also more relaxing than going to a regular theater because the little kids can run around and catch lightening bugs, which happens to me Zeb's favorite activity!

This past Friday we let a friend (a teen) pick out the movie and so we watched "Batman Begins." It was fantastic! On the list of other movies to watch this summer are the rest of the Bourne Trilogy movies, The Princess Bride, the Three Stooges,  and perhaps Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

So far the summer has been fabulous and the movies nights with friends and family have been outstanding!
What activities does your family like to enjoy together?

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Only a couple more days left to vote! Circle of Moms Top 25 Mom of Teens has been a contest I have been honored to participate. Please hop over and give me a vote!

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I have to share a recipe real quickly that I made tonight. It uses up some of that zucchini that is growing by the pounds this time of year!

These are Zucchini Tots. I found it on Pinterest and just decided to give them a try. They were really easy and delicious. Here is the recipe.


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Finally, I had a reader email me a link to his latest article which is about attachment parenting. He included a link to my last blog post in the sidebar. Check it out! I am actually in an article which includes the beautiful Angelina Jolie! How cool is that:-)

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Wednesday we talk about a four letter word! See you then!