I finally feel like I can make our amazing announcement!!  We have moved!  We really loved our little “about” an acre plot, but we were pushing the limits of what could be done in that much space.  We were able to raise a lot of our own food, but we are really interested in raising all of our food, and raising food for other families as well.  So finally with a lot of God’s Grace and a lot of hard work we now own 5 acres.   We are very blessed in that we did not have to move far, we are still close enough to Baltimore that I can go to the Orioles games whenever I want.  The benefit is that we now have enough land to pretty much do whatever we want… the pig is already on order!

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Moving a homestead, even a small one like ours, is not easy.  We have amazing friends that have helped us and are continuing to help us, because we are far from done.  So far we have moved most of the contents of our house, the ducks and the chickens.  In preparation for the move I planted my garden in pots.  So we have moved 760 veggie plants, 12 blueberry bushes and 6 raspberry plants.  The aquaponics system still has to be moved, as well as the rabbits.

Over all I think that the move is going very well.  We are all very tired and our days are very long.  The kids no longer ask to stay up late, they beg to go to bed early.  The animals seem to be adjusting well to their new environment and are being patient with us while we get the perfect pens built.  Right now our main focus is just trying to get everything here, once we do that, we will focus more on stacking firewood and building bigger chicken yards.

The garden is going in slowly but it is going in. A friend came over with a tractor and tilled a 100 x 75 foot garden.  By the deer fence should be up and all the plants should be planted.   I have never planted in the ground before, I know crazy, but I have only ever gardened in raised beds.  My raised beds were full of black gold, very little rocks and tons of worms.  The dirt here looks a lot like the dirt on a baseball field and we will have enough rocks to lay down some paths. Most people when they move they focus on the furniture, well we march the to beat of a different drum and we are moving all that garden soil.  We are digging out all my raised beds and dumping the soil in the new garden.  I am also moving my compost pile.  Good soil makes all the difference in the world and we worked really hard to create the soil, so we are taking it with us, it has more value to us than a flat screen T.V.    Also in moving the 760 pots, I found out that I did not label the plants very well.  I planted beefsteak, san marsanos, and cherry tomatoes… however in the end I think I will just end up with tomatoes.  I have no idea which ones are which.  I am hoping that I am a good enough gardener to be able to tell the watermelon from the cucumbers but even that might get interesting.  This year is just a test year, I would rather grow cucumelons than grow nothings at all.

The whole thing will be a work in progress.  We have many plans for the future and step by step and shovel by shovel we will get there.  My secret goal is to be selling CSA subscriptions in two years, we will see if it happens.  In the mean time, we will continue with the truck trips back and forth and the evenings in the garden.