How the land goes...

Well, we are progressing in the formation of our 'farm', prepping the soil, building fences, digging wells for irrigatioin...it is a never-ending process! A gift from our friend (who owns a local nursery and the tractor we've been using) were 2 grape plants, which we decided should be the first things we planted on our land. The Bible verse shaping our vision for this project is in Deuteronomy: "When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not pick it over again; that shall go to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow." We felt it appropriate and symbolic that our first plant in the ground would be a grape plant. With this said, we have decided to take this project onto a new level, forming ourselves as a CSA (community-supported-agriculture) farm. Check out more about this here: http://www.localharvest.org/the-dodd-ranch-M39476

Here is our white grape plant...see the tiny cluster of fruit at the bottom?

Taxi enjoying a swim
We had a semi full of organic mushroom compost delivered - 50 cubic yards!!!
Jonathan on our friend's tractor spreading out the compost over our planting areas

When we first got the compost, the pile was taller than the stable!

Look who likes climbing around :)

The amazing humongous bell pepper from one of our potted plants!

Charlotte got to pick it

Here it is!

The first two peppers we got from our pots. Delicious!

A Purple Russian tomato...finally starting to ripen

Here are my seedling flats of various tomatoes, eggplants and tomatillos

So cute!

Planting area #4, the longest skinniest plot we have prepared

Areas #1, #2, #3...all rectangular plots that we'll use for alternating seasons. In total we have around 1/4 acre of prepped land. If it goes well, we'll add more!

We were also given 2 native Florida cherry tomato plants, so those were planted to test out the soil and area...turns out they are in an area that gets severly water-logged when it rains, so they might not last very long!

The bonfire pit we've built with rocks and broken slabs. This was taken the day after our last monthly bonfire.

Guess what we found around 10 feet from the pond? Turtle eggs!

A hawk got one of our chicks on Saturday from the grassy area behind Jonathan :( So Sunday afternoon we promptly built this scarehawk (as we are fondly calling it). Yes, we know it looks like a double amputee, but hopefully it'll do the job and save the lives of our remaining 29 chickens.