for a little over four years, luke & i have been dreaming of owning our own farm. a place to grow our own food, to raise a handful of animals, to spread out, truly invest in the community around us & cultivate deep roots. beneath those hopes & dreams of one day owning our own space was the fear of settling down at such a young age. there is always that twinge of doubt when making a huge leap of faith that perhaps this isn’t right, maybe we shouldn’t farm, or there might be other bigger & better things just around the corner. so, we moved several times, established gardens, grew our own food in pots & created little mini farms on postage stamp size yards that weren’t our own. we embraced our lifestyle, growing & learning along the way & believing we would farm one day. 

it’s a beautiful piece of land that instantly felt like home when we first arrived. our house is just over 1300 square feet with a wood burning stove & plenty of room to grow. the homestead sits on a little over 3 acres of pasture and hills with a large organic garden & a beautiful pond. there is a wood shop & an established barn for animals. 

we negotiated with the sellers to give us five of their goats, too! thankfully, the sellers are also our dear friends & will be sharing their goat knowledge with us as we transition to goat mama & papa. we are smitten!

it just all feels so right. we have fallen in love with this town. we would love to grow food for our family & friends here. we dream of having children who will live just down the road from their grandparents. this space is right outside of the city & allows us to enjoy that quiet we crave while also having the opportunity to easily run into town.

oh, it has been far too long since i was last here. where did the week go? our lives are changing in unexpected (& very exciting!) ways (that i will hopefully share soon!) & those many ways have left us tucked in bed a little earlier than usual from sheer exhaustion with a book in hand. sometimes we have to just rest!

our garden has been doing everything but resting. the many rain showers have left our yard bright green, lush, & full of life. the planter in the top photo was given to me by my papa before he passed away. this year, i am planting my favorite flowers & plants in remembrance of him. i miss him so much, but these little bits of his past life that he now shares with me are so comforting. 

i have also noticed how much i now rely on my iphone for daily photos. i hope to change that this summer by using my dslr more frequently. i really do love sharing my photos of our garden & chickens with you, but most of all, i love the visual journal i am able to keep throughout the years. our many gardens in all shapes & forms, the first ripe strawberry, where we planted our kale in such & such year, the swiss chard bounty, our battle with bermuda grass, the many pests that enjoy our garden just as much as we do… all of those visual snapshots help us to improve for the next year & remind us of the goodness of this season.

i would love to know – how do you keep a “journal” of your gardening happenings? 

love,

natalie

please do your research to correctly identify comfrey. it has large leaves & looks like the photo above. we have three plants of comfrey in our medicinal herb bed that are in their peak for harvesting. we harvested a basket of comfrey leaves the night before making the salve.

 we chopped up the comfrey leaves and placed them in the dehydrator. above is what the comfrey should look like when it is completely dry. our comfrey took about 12 hours to completely dry.

using our fingers, we crushed the comfrey leaves into tiny pieces. we also used comfrey root, which we purchased from the health food store. you will need a total of 1 oz. of dried comfrey leaves/root to make your salve. 

 after measuring the exact amount of dried herbs, we added the herbs to 1 cup of olive oil in a pot. we placed the lid on, turned the stove on low heat and allowed the olive oil to warm up slightly. once the olive oil was warm, we removed the lid and turned the temperature all the way down to the lowest setting. the temperature should be between 100 and 140 degrees F for 3 to 5 hours.

once you have allowed your salve to heat for 3 to 5 hours, place a coffee filter in a mesh strainer atop a cup. allow the mixture to strain until all of the liquid is separated from the dried bits of herbs. set aside the liquid.

store your comfrey salve in your apothecary cabinet for future uses! enjoy!

before i turn 25 on 4/11/2014, i plan to complete 25 projects.

 follow along here or on pinterest!