Verde Farm Happenings

Hi farm friends,

I know all of you are getting ready for the holidays. It’s such a wonderful time and a busy time as well. We are in the middle of so many changes here at Verde Farm. We are preparing to sell our beloved home and small acreage to move to a farm out in the country.

We are only moving about twenty minutes away but the change is going to be a big one for us. We’ve been blessed to find a pristine, emerald two hundred acre haven. A charming 1872 farm house sits on the property and we are in the process of painting and freshening it up a bit. The pasture, grass and fresh water brook running through it will be the new home to all our Verde Farm critters.

We are thinking we will be “Verde Farm at the Old Pinkerman Place.” The Pinkerman’s were one-time owners of the farm and part of its history. Have you ever moved a farm and if so, did you keep the name or create a new name?

A “verde” watering hole at the Pinkerman Place

Nature’s Water Slide 

In addition to all this, we have added two new piggies to our kunekune herd. Oliver and Oleander came to live with us about a week ago. We are really pleased with these two. Oliver is cream and Oley (short for Oleander) is ginger and black. Both are double wattled and will be part of our breeding program in the future.

Oleander and Oliver

Farmer, Me, Oliver and Oleander

Pansy and Porter are doing great and we are expecting a new litter later this month. If you are interested in adding one of these precious pigs to your farm or home, please contact us about making a deposit to hold your pig.

On another note, so many of you reach out to us about booking the farm for events and weddings and we are so grateful for your interest. Due to the move, we are not booking any further events at the current farm. We are still contemplating hosting weddings at the Old Pinkerman Place but that has not been decided just yet.

We wish you all a wonderful holiday season and will keep you posted on future farm happenings as we welcome our new piglets and make our official move.


Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays,

Baughman-Walters Wedding

Hi farm friends, we are happy to share some beautiful photos from a recent wedding at Verde Farm. Kyle and Emily are the beautifully, unique couple and their ceremony was perfect in every way.

Their colors were white, beige and wonderful touches of red.

A bride and groom enjoying their big day, laughing and singing along the way.

The gardens were all decked out and wedding day ready.

Zephyr, our peacock was all decked out...

This bunch played in the mud and mommy wouldn’t let them attend...

Congratulation to Kyle and Emily Baughman. Thank you for letting Verde Farm be a special part of your big day.

Late Summer Dreams

Hello farm friends, hope your late summer dreams are coming true. I know ours sure are here on the farm. It’s strange how sometimes you just don’t see what is right in front of you. You see, I’m the kinda girl that is always looking for something new--a new project, a new chicken, a new place to travel and even a new place to live. Yep, this past few months I’ve been determined that we needed to find a bigger farm with more land and room for horses and goaties and whatever else my mind could think of.

I have to tell you, I even got a little obsessed with Meadowbrook Farm blog. I mean, who wouldn’t right? It is my heaven on earth. My entire family knows about this dreamy place in Montana and that includes all three of my nephews under the age of 11. I will pull up Country Living Magazines first award winning gardening blog and show them the beautiful pictures Teresa has taken of this magical place and just drool and dream...I want that garden, I want that greenhouse, the zinnias, canoe, and good heavens that zip line.

Then it hit me...I am blessed beyond measure and our little farm in West Virginia is a dream,one I never thought I’d have. We had our very first wedding here in the last month, our very first piggy litter and our cottage is being booked for rental. All real blessings, which were just a thought not many months ago. The man upstairs has spread magic dust on this wonderful, old property and it fills my heart. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve made Teresa promise she will call me first thing should they ever sell the beloved Meadowbrook Farm and I will be tempted, very tempted. As for now, our dreams are coming true on our 12 wild and wonderful- West Virginia acres.

So, a little farmy update...

Our six little piggies are doing great! Mama is feeding them very well as they get a bit bigger each day. One of my favorite bloggy buddies, Bev, at Bee Haven Acres, has reserved two of our cutest little girls and they are going to live on her wonderful farm, late October. We are so happy to have them going to such a fantastic haven with lots of love. Thank you, Bev and Hubbs!

Bev’s new babies

The late summer flowers are truly putting on a show. I started fertilizing a lot in August as we neared the wedding and boy has it paid off. My gerber daisies are fantastic! I’ve never seen them so plentiful. The zinnias are still blooming, and although they are a bit spotty on the leaves, their blooms are vivid. The roses, sedum and black eyed susan’s are gorgeous just as the dog wood leaves start to turn a shade of red.

Yes, our dreams are coming true at Verde Farm, it’s just recognizing what those dreams are and being so thankful that makes all the difference.

Hugs to you farm friends,

Finally...We Have Piggies!

Hello farm friends, remember these two? Well, I can’t believe this day has finally come. The day I get to announce the birth of our very first litter of kunekune piglets. We’ve been hoping and praying but still we’ve not been100 percent sure for many weeks. The vet came about a month ago and gave the green light. He informed us he was 90 percent sure Pansy was pregnant. Ninety percent is very strong but that 10 percent kept nagging at me. I was the doubter, farmer was certain, unquestioning and steadfast: "She’s pregnant,” he said.

The last three days I knew farmer was right. We googled articles, pictures and videos and all the signs were there. We prepared the delivery area and a separate area for the piglets to lay under a heated lamp just like the articles said. We placed fresh straw in the stall, put our heat lamps in place and began our waiting game. Thanks to our barn video camera we were able to monitor our baby Pansy, at any time.

According to the articles and videos we knew to be on the lookout for milk from her teats, which is supposed to appear within 24 hours prior to the birth, yet we saw no milk. This told me we had more time, farmer said no, it’s gonna happen anytime now.

Yesterday morning he went to check on Pansy. As he neared the barn door he heard a squeal and the second he opened the door he saw a new little piglet in the straw. It had begun, the first piglet had arrived. He ran back to the house and quickly roused myself and farmer’s daughter. We were out the door in lightning speed with still cameras, video cameras, scissors, towels and paper towels--we were ready. We arrived just in time for piggy number two and didn’t leave her side until all six were born and feeding calmly next to her. All in all it took her about one-and-one-half hours to give birth to her babies.

She had six gilts and two boars, all double wattled and great conformation. We will be posting pictures soon of each piglet with more detail. They will spend the next six weeks with mama and then they will be ready to go to their forever homes. If you are interested, let us know by e-mailing: verdefarms@gmail.com or calling my line at 304-634-6435.

It was an amazing experience and we were all overwhelmed with excitement, joy and most of all love. A barn full of love. Love in those new little hearts beating, love in Pansy’s eyes as she looked at her new babies, and love between all of us for being a part of it.

 Happy September!

Blogging Mojo

  

Hello farm friends, I bet youare thinking I fell off the face of the earth, right? Well, that’s not entirely true, however, my blogging mojo did. It didn’t happen overnight, rather a slow gradual block that came on like a bad virus. I’ve been thinking about my blogging journey and trying to figure out what happened along the way and I’m putting my thoughts down to share with others, hoping it may help some who have experienced the same types of issues.

I started blogging in August, 2010. I loved it overnight. The first comment I received from someone I didn’t know at all made my day. I’m a social being and love to connect with people, so finding all these wonderful folks that shared similar interests to me and wanted to read about my farm and life, wow, what a wonderful thing.

I met some of the most amazing people and connected immediately with some I felt I had known my entire life. The supportive network of blog friends was something that uplifted me and made me feel special. I was genuinely happy to have this new world in my life.

Sharing my farm and animals with others was also invigorating. I loved taking photos and telling y’all about my crazy critters and our ups and downs. My great readers were genuinely interested in our brood, asking about Pansy, Porter, the donkeys and farm council. Our chickens got involved with the blog and started sharing “Verde Farm Chicken Picks,” their favorite posts highlighted in their very own postings.

Farm Friend Friday came next and it was amazing, the number of folks that joined up weekly blew my expectations out of the water. Again, we met more folks and were sharing wonderful stories for all the farm lovers out there. But, that’s when things started getting harder for me.

My work ratcheted up and I was finding less and less time to blog, read and share. It seemed like Thursday evenings were coming so quickly and it was time for another FFF post, but I was out of town and not prepared. I joined with a great blogger, Deb at the Dandelion House, to host our Friday parties together and that helped, but I kept struggling to keep my stories coming every Thursday.

The meme is what did me in. I wanted to host FFF and loved doing it but it required me to post on a certain day and time so others could join up. It became a “job” for me and one I didn’t have time for. I started dreading Thursday’s knowing I wouldn’t have a story ready to go and before you know it, I just became overwhelmed and frozen.

At that point, I stopped all together and to my surprise, so many of you reached out to me, checking on us, asking about their favorite farm critters. It warmed my heart and I felt so badly for letting you down.

I’ve had some time to take a deep breath and decided to reach out to you and share my thoughts. I am going to continue my blog as I love it so much and I love yours, too. I am going to read as much as I can, when I can, but I’m going to do so with a slower pace and no recurring memes for now. I would even love to turn over Farm Friend Friday and the buttons to one of you consistent bloggers out there. If you are interested, e-mail me. You do have to have a linky account of some kind to make it work. I would be thrilled to have it carried on and would join when I could.

I hope you will all forgive my absence and understand my mistakes of jumping in so fully and then being overwhelmed and just frozen. I appreciate all of you who e-mailed letting me know you missed us. I hope you will continue to follow and read Verde Farm blog whenever you get the chance. I look forward to posting again and sharing stories around the farm.

My biggest hugs and thanks to all of you,

Amy at Verde Farm (and Richie too)

Farm Friend and Farmgirl Friday #8

Hello farm friends, I sure hope you are having a great May. We’ve been so busy and I haven’t been a good blog buddy over the last few months. Last Friday Blogger was down in the morning so I wasn’t able to post Farm Friend Friday. I do apologize for the inconvenience for all of you who wanted to join up. Things are going fine here at Verde Farm but what a difficult spring this has been.

It has been raining for at least 140 days, or so it seems. I’ve considered building the ark and I know we have a good start on the animals we would need to take with us. We started our vegetable garden in April but have yet to fully finish it due to the ongoing weather trials. 3 of our 100 year old trees fell during high wind storms and having those cleared out left a big mess. I will not complain too much though, as those south of here are in a crisis of horrific proportions.

I feel so terrible for the farm communities that are going to be flooded to help the greater good. There is just no good answer to these situations and I can’t imagine what they are facing and hope it isn’t as bad as it could be.

On a positive note, we believe Pansy is pregnant although not 100% sure. She is certainly getting bigger and all signs point in the right direction. We just had 20 baby ducklings this week and they are absolutely precious. If any of you are interested in muscovies, we will be selling these. Some are solid yellow, our first solids, which will turn white as they grow. Their momma has already had them in the pond.

So, I hope all is well in your world and look forward to reading up on you over the next few days...

All you farm loving bloggers can join us here on Friday’s to share posts about your farm: house, cooking, crafting, animals, gardening, photography and more. It will be a great way to meet new farm friends and see lots of different views and perspectives on farm life. We can’t wait to see all the posts shared, so here are the directions:

Let the farm friendzy begin...

Hosted by:

Verde Farm

Dandelion House

• Click on the “click here to enter” below
• Follow the steps to link your post and picture
• Link back here with a shared link or use our button or the Farmgirl Friday button 
• Visit your neighbors by hopping around to all the posts shared
• Say hello, so they know you came to visit 
• Become a follower if you like
• We will leave it up all weekend to give everyone plenty of time to enjoy the party

What Are Your Signs Of Spring?

Hi farm friends, hope you had a wonderful weekend with beautiful weather and a great view of the super moon. Many blog friends were able to capture it in picture form and it was fantastic. We don’t have window coverings in our bedroom yet (almost four years after buying the house) and it was like sleeping with the light on last night. We didn’t mind, the view was nice and we knew spring was coming today!

Spring “officially” began at 7:21 p.m. EDT on March 20, 2011. “The vernal equinox, day and night are each approximately twelve hours long (with actual time of equal day and night, in the Northern Hemisphere, occurring a few days before the vernal equinox). The sun crosses the celestial equator going northward; it rises exactly due east and sets exactly due west,” according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac.

Don’t you just love the signs that guided farmers of the past to till, plant, pick and so much more? Many still use these signs today with great success. So, what are “signs” of spring that you always pay attention to? Signs that tell you spring is here or it’s time to till your land or plant your first crop?

Here at Verde Farm, forsythia is the first true sign of spring. They start to bloom, bursting in bright yellow buds, prior to any other blooms only surpassed by early blooming daffodil varieties. The bright yellow is the perfect color to start spring for us as it is such a happy, bright long lost friend.

Another sign of spring is the hatching of chicks. We don’t have any just yet, but we do have Smoke, one of our Silkie hens sitting on a nice clutch. She looks a little worse for wear minus her head feathers but they will be back soon. We are excited to get our first Silkie chicks, so stay tuned.

Won’t you share your signs of spring with us?

Have a great week,

A Sad Day at Verde

Ok farm friends, all you real farmers, please forgive my weak constitution with this post. As you know if you have been following our blog for a bit, we have many different animals here at Verde. We love them all and name them and know them by name. We have many chickens and over the last three years, the chicken population has grown more than we intended. Thus the reason for a sad day at Verde.

We bought two roosters as our very first animals, Mack and Bucky. We also bought three muscovies that day too. That was the beginning, five birds and we were tickled pink. We felt sorry for Mack and Bucky as they needed a girlfriend so it didn’t take long for us to buy a beautiful hen we named Pearl for her Pearl coloring. Life was good. We had roosters crowing in the mornings and loved to see them running around the farm.

Flash forward three years and a few more chicken purchases and multiple hatches we had around 70 chickens late last summer and fall. Winter cost us a few due to the extreme cold temperatures and we had lost a few to predators, as best we could tell. My dear farmer and I knew we had to reduce the flock size before spring.

We posted some ads on Facebook and of course we have this blog/website with chickens for sale. No interest until yesterday. I was thinking about Craig’s List for a while but had never tried it. I got on the site to look and under agriculture they had several farm animals listed in my area. I thought, why not? I put an add up for 25 chickens and within six hours I had eight e-mails.

Tonight, the lucky man that I called came to get his chickens. I didn’t expect it to be so traumatic but they knew something was wrong and fear was in the air. Farmer and I were sort of paralyzed as the man and his sons started gathering them up from the barn roosts. We kept all our original chickens and made sure none of them went into the cage. They were screaming and scared and all I could think of was “I want this over with.”

It took about an hour to gather up 25 and he paid me and off they went. I couldn’t help but cry and still have tears in my eyes as I type this. We raised those chickens and they had a certain way of life here and they liked it. Out of the blue, they are now piled in a cage and headed off to another place to live and I really don’t know what’s ahead for them. He said he was going to let them free range and he loved banty hens to hatch eggs and raise chicks. Well, based on our 70 chickens, you know they are very good at that.

We always planned on raising chickens and selling them but this was the first time it actually happened. I know this sounds crazy to some but we loved them and our hearts are gonna ache for a while, especially tomorrow morning when we wake up and the farm is much quieter.

Farm Friend Friday #5-A Beginner's Mind

Hi farm friends, I am writing this week from the great city of Baltimore, MD. I came up Tuesday and will be here until Friday night for my day job. Sometimes life is surprising in that it is always teaching us lessons. I had an Aha moment this week, and wanted to share it with you for Farm Friend Friday.

We were talking about Shoshin, a Buddhist concept meaning a "beginner's mind." We are dealing with a lot of change in my work world right now and the challenge is to view things with a Shoshin perspective--a clean slate, a kindergartner's eye. I was thinking on this concept and trying to wrap my head around it when the light bulb went off, "you and farmer have entered the world of farming with Shoshin." It is so true, when we decided we were going to start a small farm we had no earthly idea what to do or how to do it, we just started, we just "did."

Our first farm critters

We started with chickens and ducks and things went pretty well, so we moved onto livestock with donkeys. Each time we added an animal, we were clueless. Yet we've learned so much and continue to learn everyday. We moved to pigs, peacocks, sheep and  all are living, and thriving and healthy. If we had considered, for one second, anything but Shoshin, we would never have bought the first chicken.

We also knew we wanted to plant a garden. We've been around vegetable gardens before, but never actually thought we could raise our own. Again, the beginner's mind took hold and we went out, bought seeds or starter plants, tilled dirt, laid out rows and just "did." What do you know, we saw little sprouts. Before too long, we saw little tomatoes, peppers and pumpkins. Shoshin worked again.

Our first duck ,Jenny

So, how many of you have just jumped into something you knew nothing about and thought "we can do it" or "we will figure it out?" If you have, you used Shoshin.

Now, on the reverse side, how many times have you let your lack of knowledge or pre-conceptions stand in your way? My Aha moment was actually realizing how many times we didn't take the leap. How many times we didn't buy the first chicken, so to speak. Spinning wool, making soap, raising bees, running a marathon even, have you let your thoughts get in the way of doing what's possible?




Our first donkey, baby Otis

Well, I now have a list of things I need to view from a Shoshin perspective. I can't tackle them all today, but in time I will. I just have to "do." Tell me something you have successfully done with a beginner's mind? Have you missed out on something because you weren't willing to view it through a child's eyes? We'd love to know, farm friends.

I hope you enjoyed my philosophical post today for Farm Friend Friday #5. It is hoped we can get to 75 party goers this week.We had 67 last week and it was a great group. Spread the word to your farm life blogging buddies. Again, you don't have to live on a farm or ranch to join, but only have to share a post that relates to farm life in some way. Us farm folk are a welcoming bunch.

So all you have to do is:

•  Click below and follow the directions
• Make sure you link back to our page for Farm Friend Friday with our button or a link in your post, this helps others to find the party and join in
• Visit the other posts and comment to let them know you stopped by
• We will leave it up through Sunday to give you plenty of time to link up and visit as many as you like

 Let the farm fun begin,

Amy and Richie

Love, Love, Hooray For Love

Happy Valentine’s Day farm friends. This is the day couples celebrate their love and romance with cards, candies, gifts and flowers. "One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome,” aaccording to History.com. "When Emperor Claudius II decided single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men — his crop of potential soldiers. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death."

Many legends and stories have sprung from this special day, but one thing common to all is a romantic Saint named Valentine who was willing to put himself at risk for love. I don’t know about you, but I’m certainly glad he did. Valentine’s Day and romance are not only for humans, in fact we have many romances here at Verde Farm each day. So, in honor of love and romance everywhere, I give you the affairs of the heart at Verde Farm...

“For it was not in my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.”

-Judy Garland

“It takes a minute to have a crush on someone, an hour to like someone and a day to love someone-but it takes a lifetime to forget someone.” -Unknown

“Laugh as much as you breathe and love as long as you live.” -Unknown

“Love is not blind; it simply enables one to see things others fail to see.”-Unknown

“I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you.”
 -Roy Croft

Today we are linking with Mary at Little Red House. Check-out all the beautiful mosaics there, you won’t be disappointed. 

Thank you, St. Valentine.