Lorrie Schoettler

I'm a micro-farmer and homesteader. Looking for a place to think and learn...

[lorrieschoettler]

4-Season Garden Task List for the First Week in March, Zone 6

4-Season Garden Task List for the First Week in March, Zone 6

Each week we post a task list for gardeners in the Mid-Atlantic Region of the United States, with a focus on Zone 6 (If you don’t know your agricultural zone, click here). Our practices will be highlighted if they specifically require 4-Season growing techniques and technologies, otherwise and backyard gardener can follow along.

We’ve had a warm winter in Harper’s Ferry and much of the…

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[lorrieschoettler]

Discipline

Planning, organizing and daily discipline.

This year I’ve been working with a calendaring program called the Living Well Planner (not an affiliate link). I am a fairly disciplined person, and my days and weeks do have a rhythm of their own. Each December I evaluate the closing year and begin to tweak the business plan for the year ahead. While researching calendar options I came across the website Living Well Spending Less. The site…

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[lorrieschoettler]

Seasonal Eating: February

Seasonal Eating in February, easy enough with a little extra effort!

Seasonal eating in February is a challenge.

For many of us who focus on creating a home cuisine based on local and seasonal foods, the cupboard is getting pretty thin come Valentine’s Day. If you are new to thinking about creating a seasonal palette, February will be best used to plan the year ahead. With this in mind, here are some recommendations for eating local and seasonal food in February…

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[lorrieschoettler]

How to Cook Perfect Eggs

How to Cook Perfect Farm Fresh Eggs - hard boiled and fried

After a long and painful molt, our chickens are laying again! I thought I’d celebrate with a revision of an old blog on how to best enjoy the fruits of their labor.

My mother was not the greatest of cooks. Sorry, Mom…and so I always thought that a hardboiled egg had these gray chalky centers only worth feeding to the dog or throwing in the compost bin. Now that I raise my own chickens I know…

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[lorrieschoettler]

What is a CSA and Why Should I Look Into Them?

What is a CSA and Why Should I Look Into Them?

CSA is an acronym that stands for Community Supported Agriculture. In general, a CSA is a collective of households who buy into the harvest of a farm for a specified period of time. Usually, share members pay in advance for their share and this helps the farmer manage expenses and cash flow. Often, members are asked to assume some of the risks of the season. There are no guarantees with most…

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[lorrieschoettler]

Bob

This handsome guy is my husband and partner in farming, Bob Shelley. Yes, he’s a nice as he looks…sweetest man you’ll ever meet. Bob brings that cute smile and a strong back to the market garden. He’s joined here by Cagney, the Tennessee Fainting Goat, and about a dozen red sexlink hens.

Bob’s real gig is graphic design and branding.Some say he’s one of the best around. It’s hard to know about…

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[lorrieschoettler]

Bob

This handsome guy is my husband and partner in farming, Bob Shelley. Yes, he’s a nice as he looks…sweetest man you’ll ever meet. Bob brings that cute smile and a strong back to the market garden. He’s joined here by Cagney, the Tennessee Fainting Goat, and about a dozen red sexlink hens.

Bob’s real gig is graphic design and branding.Some say he’s one of the best around. It’s hard to know about…

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[lorrieschoettler]

Planting Broccoli on Groundhogs Day

Planting Broccoli on Groundhogs Day

That’s my flat of broccoli starts up there! They are sitting in my high tunnel, next to some collards. Kale and more collards are under the fabric to the left. I started the broccoli seeds on the Winter Solstice hoping I might plant them today, Groundhogs Day. And I did!

The soil temperature in the tunnel is 58 degrees and the irrigation system has been working just fine. It’s been windy today…

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[lorrieschoettler]

Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day and the movement of the seasons on a four-season farm.

In the astronomical calendar, the one ruled by the movement of the earth on its tilted axis around the sun, there are eight days that mark the seasons. You are most likely familiar with 4 of them:

Spring Equinox – the first day of spring, this yes it is March 20th at 6:28am in the northern hemisphere.

Summer Solstice – the first day of summer, June 21st, 12:24am

Autumnal Equinox – September 22nd,…

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[lorrieschoettler]

Microgreens

It's pretty easy being green...winter microgreens on the four season farm.

I’ve come to see microgreens as a miracle. It’s January, so all of our growing is under some sort of cover. The landscape is barren. However, our microgreens are in the basement grow area, on lighted shelving. Every morning when I turn those lights on the micro-forest of food hits my eyes like summer sunshine! I am totally overwhelmed with the magic of seed.

What are microgreens, exactly? Well,…

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[lorrieschoettler]

Winter on a Homestead – A Survival Guide

Winter on a Homestead – A Survival Guide

So, it’s mid-January of the new year and I’m sitting here looking at a long involved ‘To Do’ list. It details all the steps required to build the farm-based business for the year ahead while also putting the passing year to bed. You know, things like taxes and budgets, rebuilding the crop rotation plan, microgreen maintenance, and managing the winter farm shares.

The hardest part is the…

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[lorrieschoettler]

Cookbooks for Farm Share Cooking

Cookbooks for Farm Share Cooking

This blog post got revised and publish and you can check it out here!

As the year progresses, each of our share items will have its own blog post, and we will have guest blogs from our more foodie share members with thoughts and tips on how to get the most out of your share.

These are the books you may want to invest in to complement the blog:

Chez Panisse Vegetables, Alice Waters

Cooking as art,…

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[lorrieschoettler]

Farm Fresh Veggie Patties

Farm Fresh Veggie Patties

For years we’ve been building our cold winter storage skills. Over time we have moved from cultivating a good bit of mold and insects to actually preserving food well through the winter months. One of our success stories this year is our sweet potato store. We placed our surplus sweet potatoes in 5-gallon plastic buckets with ventilation drilled all around. We kept a small fan running on them in…

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[thesearepeopleyouknow]

[lorrieschoettler]

• You can always tell when someone is being authentic and when they’re insincere.• Sometimes you are totally unaware of your surroundings; your outer world can be in complete chaos, but you don’t...

[matauryn]

"The alchemists, who in their own way knew more about the nature of the individuation process than we moderns do, expressed this paradox through the symbol of the Ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail. The Ouroboros has been said to have a meaning of infinity or wholeness. In the age-old image of the Ouroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the more astute alchemists that the prima materia of the art was man himself. The Ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow. This ‘feed-back’ process is at the same time a symbol of immortality, since it is said of the Ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself. He symbolizes the One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he therefore constitutes the secret of the prima materia which […] unquestionably stems from man’s unconscious." - Carl Jung Mysterium Coniunctionis http://amzn.to/1IxXyWV Image Credit: Unknown

[thehumbledtherapist]

In fact, I’ll let you in on a little secret, one I wish I knew years ago: at some point in our lives, to one degree or another, we’re all crazy.

Rob Dobrenski (via thehumbledtherapist)

[onlinecounsellingcollege]

The way to develop self confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you.

Unknown (via onlinecounsellingcollege)