NowHere Farms

Facebook.  It's a love-hate relationship isn't it?  It's helpful and can promote a business online but, well, Facebook. Yet because we anticipate at least some of our sales to be online and even by way of Facebook Marketplace, well, Facebook. One of the challenges of Facebook for a small business is the need for followers and people to like your page.  I'm sure you have seen the requests, "Please like and follow us and tell your friends about us!".   We are no different.  Except. Twenty years ago a lady taught me to make bookmarks out of waxed linen cord, charms, and beads.  I like them.  I like that they work as a bookmark.  I enjoy making them.  I really enjoy the treasure hunt of looking for jewelry at estate sales and yard sales and thrift stores I can take apart and turn into a bookmark.  In a pinch I'll go to Hobby Lobby but the treasure hunt is fun for me. I made these for a while and even sold quite a few of them at a Libra...

When we first began raising quail down here at Nowhere, we housed them in little contraptions called tractors.  These are lighter-weight cages on wheels.  We move them around, the quail eat the grass and weeds, and contribute fertilizer.  In theory it is a very efficient practice, keeping weeds at a minimum and helping the desired plants grow. At first it worked fairly well.  We got busy in incubating and hatching and caring for quail and all was well.  For a little while. Then we started losing quail.  One here, one there; we would wake up in the morning, go check on them, and discover a dead quail in the tractor.  We finally realized something was tunneling under the tractor, coming up in the pen, and feasting on the quail.   We decided they needed better protection.  Some friends gave us some scrap metal, Cletus had a bit of lumber left over from some projects, and he built an aviary.  It was nice being able to go into their encl...

 Yesterday when I posted the link on Facebook about my first egg from the teen-agers , I said I was hearing Aretha Franklin singing, "At Last" in my head.  I was hearing Aretha even more loudly when I got home from erranding yesterday evening! We are officially an official business.   The lawyer has sent us the certificate that we are an LLC. The probate office and I had a discussion about what we are doing and we now have a business license for our county.  This license allows us to sell craft goods: knit baby blankets, hand-woven wraps, and other miscellany.  We plan to add a license from the city in the near future to allow us to sell at the big Farmer's Market in our area. We have a Grower's Permit, allowing us to sell eggs from our quail, and anything we grow ourselves in our garden. We have a Game Bird Breeder's permit from the state allowing us to sell live or processed birds. We continue to participate in the NPIP program, which certifies our birds...

Guess what happened last night?!   Yup!  The lazy teen-agers FINALLY came through. Great rejoicing over this one little quail egg. Enjoy your Tuesday!

It was a productive weekend at Nowhere. The Master Gardeners in our area had a plant sale.  We went through online and scoped out what they were going to have, looked at the garden budget for the month, looked at each other, and realized we were going.  Our purchases included: 1.  Blue Java or Ice Cream Banana Plant 2.  Rum Cherry tree 3.  Another Brown Turkey Fig tree 4.  Oak leaf hydrangea 5. Passion fruit vine 6 & 7.  Texas Star hibiscus, one red and one white 8.  Beach Spider Lily Sadly they were out of the Moro Blood Oranges by the time we got there (and we were pretty early on the first day). Cletus thought we would bring them home, put them in the greenhouse, and get them planted sometime this week.  Instead we brought them home, had lunch, and put them in the ground that day. Digging the holes was fun when we got to the fig tree.  It's always entertaining to push in the post hole diggers and find a semi sink hole! Other than ...

Comfort Food.  Just those two words bring up so many different images don't they?  Perhaps yours is mac & cheese.  Your mother's peanut butter cookies.  Coke and saltine crackers.  Grilled cheese and tomato soup.  And those are just the southern states.  Every region, every ethnicity, every person has their own version of comfort food.  Most of us have several (Haagen-Daas, anyone?).  It's what we crave when we are sick, or sad, or lonely, or frustrated.  It's what we take to a friend in need.  I was asked to share some comfort food recipes so I thought I would take a day or two each month to add something here.   It is important to note that there is as much comfort in the making of the food as there is in the sharing and the eating of the food.  And food that is prepared intentionally with love and concern for someone somehow seems to taste better, doesn't it? This recipe is known as Nana's English Muffins....

 Around Nowhere we use lots of garlic.  It's one of our favorite herbs, spices, root vegetables and the one we use most.  A few years ago and I mentioned that garlic is one of the things we use a LOT of and could we maybe grow some?  Silly question! We did not do as well with it when we lived in North Central Alabama, partly because I could not get my act together and get it harvested and preserved. Since we have moved to Growing Zone 9a, we have gotten a lot more intentional about it.  Last year we ordered 1 pound of large and 1 pound of jumbo from Keene Organics.   We transitioned to using landscaping fabric for garlic, onions, and carrots and it helped.  We had a very good harvest early this year and I put most of it through the dehydrator.  I have found that after dehydrating things it is best to keep them in the freezer.  I also found after I was done with it I should have put them through the spice grinder and turn them into powder....

Does life ever get…lifey…for you?   (It’s a new word.   I made it up myself) (Thanks; I like it too!). Life has been a bit lifey for us lately; some business stuff we’ve been wading through, some personal stuff I won’t bore you with.   Mostly just stuff. Some of our neighbor’s dogs came for a visit in the wee hours one morning.   Two of our layers/breeders   died and the rest quit laying.   It’s been two weeks and we are just now back to getting a whole 4 eggs per day, down from the 10 eggs per day we were getting.   Hopefully I will have enough eggs for our regular  customer this week. We had an NPIP inspection.   Shout out to our WONDERFUL inspector for the state; she is a treasure! We moved some quail around. The grown-ups, also known as the breeder set, got moved back into cages in the quail shed.   It’s just easier to catch them for testing and then pop them into the lower cage so we don’t test someone twice or miss testin...