Starting the Season

Posted on January 24, 2019February 18, 2019 by Lisa Mobius

Hello to 2019! Welcome back to our blog and new website. We have reformatted to include pages of recipes, information about us, our farm and our horses. This is a journey with much laughter and tears as we work towards our goals of self-sustainability, healthy lifestyles, some fitness ideas, and much, much more. Enjoy!

It is January and the beginning of the new season. I consider the Vegetable and Produce conference the season start because this is where we all come to discuss the past year’s growing season, the good and the bad, and what worked and what did not work. It is also a large networking system where we meet other growers, farmers, experts, and educators. January is when the seed catalogs start pouring into our mailboxes and we decide which new seed we will try this year. I love this time of year. It is exciting!

John and I are discussing how we will make changes to our fields. Learning from the last couple years, our irrigation system must be changed this year. We came across a couple ideas from our distributor and other growers that will most definitely improve our watering system. We are also contemplating changing our row distance. In the past we have allowed a large area between them to allow our equipment and horses in. We have cultivated between them in the past, but last year we decided to let the weeks grow and mow it down each week. Unfortunately, the rain prohibited us from entering the fields much of the year so this method was not the most effective. I also heard of another way to deter deer from our fields and we will try that also.

Getting Ready for Spring

Posted on March 3, 2018January 24, 2019 by Lisa Mobius

03MAR2018

What a month this has been. Spring is coming quickly. The photo is of a recent ice storm we had that froze everything, including our water pipes in the kitchen and bathroom. Thing here on Crooked Beak has been getting busy as we ramp up for this growing season. We have added new equipment to our produce production with our purchase of a walk-in cooler. I found it at an auction recently, had a company tear it down for me while John was out of town and bring it out to the farm. The plan…yes plan… is to have it up and running by early May. Go ahead and laugh with me as we all know how plans go.

If I did not mention it before, we have found a new distributor for our produce and he is asking for much more than we grew last year. We will be putting in 2 acres of green peppers and poblano peppers in addition to our own supplies. We are also looking at adding an early crop such as beets or bok choy or something of the sort that will be completed by the time the peppers are ready. Hopefully this will relieve some of the pressure from us this way and increase our yields. We dropped off the seeds to the grower yesterday and received quite a few suggestions that will help us out this year. Much appreciated to him.

Our horses are doing wonderful despite all the rain we have received. Our barn, which stands on top of the hill, has conveniently flooded, leaving us no option but to leave the barn standing with muck in it. The priority this summer, other than the produce, is to build a dry lot for them. Not only will this help the flooding, it will help with the horrible cankers Mike and Mark get. Hopefully when I get back home the weather will cooperate a little better and we can get out there in the fields with the horses. We are so excited to get going this hear as things look a bit brighter than last year.

The New Year

Posted on February 4, 2018January 24, 2019 by Lisa Mobius

04FEB2018

Well, this is a new year and a new…hmmm …I’ll say everything. Last years experience with the horses and garden was pretty much a wash. We learned a lot, lost a lot, laughed a lot, and pretty much worked ourselves into serious overdrive. Yes, we are both laughing in a sense. Honestly, I wouldn’t have passed up the opportunity nor would I change much about it. Could things have gone more smoothly, of course they could have, but then we would not have learned as much. Life’s lessons are tough and we only learn through them. Pick yourselves back up and keep going! So here we are well into 2018 and starting over with the produce.

I am not picking out the garden seeds. We have a new distributer this year so we are scaling down but up at the same time. We are growing green peppers, poblano’s, and possibly serrano’s. Well, at least for the moment. LOL…. Our requirement jumped this year but at least two of these items are larger products, which will help the picking process.

Last year, we had some problems with the horses. Both Mike and Mark came down with cankers on their back feet towards the end of summer. I will post some pictures later of them. It pretty much stopped our work with them for the remainder of the year. They are fine now and we are looking forward to the weather breaking to allow us to get them back at work. Rusty and Duke are doing well also. We will start putting both of them to work with Mike and Mark, creating two new teams, I am hoping. The plan this year is to get some alfalfa and orchard grass planted in the new fields to help reduce the hay cost. We now have lights in the barn. Love solar power. Thank you Goal Zero. It is not enough, but we found a way to connect others to the system so that is coming soon. We also have added a walk-in cooler to our produce business this year and we are quite excited about that.

The fitness journey is on the back burner for the moment. Hope to get back at it soon. Last year I twisted my ankle and found out about a month ago that I tore two of the ligaments in my ankle so I am going through some therapy at the moment. Fun, Fun! However, I can still eat healthy so here is a new recipe I came across… thanks to a co-worker. I have fallen in love with this one so enjoy. I have found several variations online so feel free to change it up a bit. More to come later.

Beef and Cabbage Skillet

1 pound ground beef (grass fed if possible)

½ head chopped cabbage

½ diced onion

2 cups sliced mushrooms

1 cup organic salsa

salt and pepper to taste

butter as needed

Place a couple tablespoons of butter in a skillet; add onion and cook till translucent; add ground beef and brown well; then add mushrooms and cook till soft; (add more butter if necessary) add cabbage and cook until soft again; add salsa, mix well and serve.

Yes, it’s that simple. Next time I will add some peppers, maybe even some hot peppers, and more salsa. Hope you like it too.

Closing the First Stage

Posted on June 14, 2017January 24, 2019 by Lisa Mobius

14JUN2017

We have spent nearly the past three weeks doing nothing but planting either seeds or vegetable plants. This journey is totally amazing and I cannot say how excited we are to see the progress we have made. As this stage ends we will be starting the next two phases simultaneously. Maintaining the garden and building the packing-house and walk-in cooler. Fortunately enough, we just visited a dear cousin of mine who gave us an outstanding idea. To some, this might be more than one stage but for us we need to do this together for the sake of time. Honestly, the packing-house should have been already done but we have not been able to find the time. The above photo is a shot of our fields. The larger one has all of the peppers in them (mixed in with a few other items) and the smaller one and a few rows of the large one has the flower seeds in them. Together they will contain nearly 30,000 plants/seeds.

This past weekend we attended a wedding of a family member, which gave us the opportunity to see some long lost family members and play catch up. MY cousin was actually who gave us the idea of building our own walk-in cooler just as they did themselves. It was fun and enjoyable, but it was extremely long due to the distance we had to drive in two days.

The horses have been doing wonderful. Mike and Mark are getting new shoes again this Friday. I think it took about three weeks and both of them threw one of their shoes off. I am beginning to think these two might be a little hard on shoes and their feet. Let’s hope I am wrong. We will start cultivating our fields this weekend. I am anxious about it. Nervous and a little concerned that I will not be able to keep them between the tight rows. My plan is to use John or my neighbor to walk at the head just to give them a little help… or shall I say give me a little help in keeping them straight. They will probably be fine and I am just worrying too much but I do know how crooked my plowing was so this leads me to think the cultivating will be the same. Sometimes I think about using the horses for our farming and remember when I was a teenager dreaming about this. It might have taken half my life to get this far, but I am (and I shall say ‘we’) doing it. It might not be a perfect effort and I might have crooked rows, missed spots in the plowing and cultivating but at least we are working towards a more sustainable farm. Dreams do come true sometimes and I have to keep reminding myself to stay positive and faithful. Things always have a way of working themselves out. Toodles till next time. Now if only my fitness will work it’s way thinner too. LOL!

Garden time

Posted on May 18, 2017January 24, 2019 by Lisa Mobius

18MAY2017

What a hectic couple weeks. With the rain that we have had the dry spell has finally come and so many here in Kentucky, are mowing and baling hay, plowing fields for crops, or putting in gardens. We have been getting our fields ready here at Crooked Beak Acres for our produce season. Starting off a couple months back plowing with our horses to now laying the plasticulture for our beds. Yesterday nearly broke us as we put in all of our plastic for the main field. It took longer than I had expected, nearly all day and our machine broke on the last two rows. Actually it would have been our last as it was the end of our supplies so we have to find somewhere local to purchase more plastic and drip tape. Go figure. I think we initially figured exactly how many rows we would need according to how many plants we were planting but didn’t figure in all of the extra items we have added since. LOL… Basically the last two weeks have been nothing but getting the garden ready.

We finally got our shoeing stocks up. Whoo-hoo. The farrier was happy for them. They need a bit of adjustment, but for the most part, we are all extremely happy with them. Mike and Mark were great with them last Friday, but Duke on the other hand…to say the least planted his feet and refused to move. Even with the tranquilizer. Maybe next time he will be better. Tonight we will be putting our first plants in the ground. I’m pretty excited about it and am quite happy about moving on to the next phase of this entire process. Yep…you guessed it. Now we have to maintain it; meaning keeping the weeds out and putting up the packinghouse. For us, this consists of a commercial greenhouse that we picked up this past winter. We will use it for packing the vegetables this summer and for hay storage for the horses. We also have to build some type of “cold room” where we can store picked peppers and the cut flowers. What a chore this project has been. HaHa. John’s not laughing but that’s all I can do to keep my sanity. As for fitness, you ask. Who has time at the moment? On the back burner again! Here are some photos for your laughter. Oh, love the one of our makeshift row-marker.

Recipe Time…

Posted on May 4, 2017January 24, 2019 by Lisa Mobius

04MAY2017

I think it’s about time I start sharing some healthier recipes. After all, this blog covers my fitness journey along with our farming venture. Yeah, it’s a crazy match but then so is my life. Anyways, here is one recipe that I have shared many times over. It is really a classic broth based beef stew that I found making in my crock-pot works well for my extremely busy life. I remember mom making this since I was a child and then in the restaurants that we both worked in. While she used the oven… like I said the crock-pot works wonders.

Challenging Spring

Posted on May 4, 2017January 24, 2019 by Lisa Mobius

01MAY2017

Goodness me again! I am going to really try to get this posted at least once a week. As you can see I have failed so far and for that you have my apologies. It has been a challenging couple of weeks, with work, the produce garden, the horses, and trying to stick to some type of eating plan. I had to break down and order new military uniforms for the Derby. I was afraid of that and I am quite frustrated with myself; but I see no ability for a stringent workout plan with all that is going on. I really don’t know where to take this. Now for the produce patch… It is all tilled. I had to break down, put the horses aside, and use the tractor. No, definitely not giving up on the horses. We are crunched for time and need to get this moving forward and ready for the plants and flowers. Our distributor was here over the weekend and was actually quite impressed at our progress and said we were right on track. Well, guess our frustration was all for nothing. LOL...

The horses have been doing great and I’m excited to start using them more and more. We plowed about one-third of our garden and we will continue to use them for the other fields as we more towards them. These past couple weeks we had two tractors and two trucks break down.

We managed to get our main garden tractor going enough to finish tilling, but it still needs some work. There is something wrong with the steering and it’s making this horrid “clunking” noise. John’s afraid it’s the transmission or something similar. I have no clue!

We still have one truck down, but at least two of the four are back up for now. Rain has pretty much put a damper on most of our outside activities for the moment. We are just waiting for things to dry up and warm up so we can get this produce in. My distributor said the other day that the first year is always the most challenging. I will agree! I’m adding some photos of our progress and your enjoyment.

Spring Plowing is Here

Posted on April 11, 2017January 24, 2019 by Lisa Mobius

April 10, 2017

It’s been nearly a couple weeks since my last post but to me it seems like it was yesterday. We have been crazy busy with work and the farm that I’m not sure how we are going to get everything done before summer gets here. Not to mention the new project that just came about. More about that later! This past weekend was physical fitness day for the Navy. Our bi-annual PT test, for those who don’t know. A couple years ago I went over my weight for the weigh in but was still able to be “taped” within regulations and was my sole purpose for the Beachbody workout programs. I will say THEY WORK! However, you have to keep going and the past couple months have been so hectic I’ve let go and back to square one. Grrrrr….. I cannot stress how upsetting this is to me. I look horrible, feel horrible, and I’m just plain old upset about it. But…it is what it is and I just have to keep pushing forward. Something tells me I’ll loose weight again as I continue to work my horses. HaHa!

As for the farm, I’ve been working the boys lately and starting to plow. As we learn together there are some glitches. I continue to chuckle here because I know these boys are so patient with me and really better than I could ever know. We have some zigzag plow lines but at least there is something there and I’m giving this horse-drawn farming my best effort. I know it will get easier. Last night I hitched up Duke, my full Percheron and ground drove him some while John tried to find a hook for the new walking plow we just picked up. Needless to say, Duke and I walked quite a bit and called it a day. John could not find anything that would work so we called it good and went back to the barn. He was good. Better than I had expected. My only problem at the moment is my nervousness and the horse’s tendency to take off to the left. I know it has to be in my hands, not theirs. Looks like I might be calling on someone to give me a hand here shortly. Afterwards, John and I worked on his IH1066 tractor and pulled off the… uhmmmm…uhhhh…I think they are called boom lift cylinders. Anyways, we took them off so he can tear them apart and rebuild them so they stop leaking hydraulic fluid all over the place. I suggested he replace the front hoses too as they are dry rotted, but I’m thinking he wants to wait until they break. Typical Seabee! If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. LOL… Anyways, that’s what we have been doing the past coupe weeks. It’s raining today so we are most likely working inside tonight and getting our uniforms ready for the Derby. Stay tuned for the new project.

Sausage Time

Posted on March 29, 2017January 24, 2019 by Lisa Mobius

March 29, 2017

Last week we were able to pick up our pork from the butcher. We had them grind the pork but leave it in bulk so we could make some sausages ourselves. I’ll add some photos. I have to say they turned out marvelous! I’m happy with all of the recipes except for the first batch of bratwurst. I made Italian, Sicilian, Kielbasa, Country, Breakfast, and more. Plain amazing.

This past weekend we attended an auction and picked up a couple more chicken runs. This will help with our abundance of birds that I keep bringing home. The latest was a few more turkeys and two geese. I’ve never had geese… let’s see how this one goes. LOL… We ran into some friends too who asked if we were plowing yet. I said no but had planned on playing with the boys when I got home. His answer was “It’s spring time. There’s no time to play anymore, you need to get busy”. So we hooked up the plow to the homesteader that evening. While the boys were wonderful again my plow, however, had other ideas. As it skimmed on top of the ground I realized it wasn’t going to work and I needed some more instruction on it. Searching the internet we found several videos of people using the homesteader, but nothing about how to really use it or adjust it when problems arise.

I ended up calling Pioneer this week and they gave me some pointers and a contact of someone who actually teaches this sort of farming. Ahhh, yes! Finally, I found someone. Problem is he’s in Ohio which means traveling for either myself or him. Guess I’ll be making a trip north! In the mean-time I’ll try the tips Pioneer gave me and update you all next week.

Off to the Butcher

Posted on March 21, 2017January 24, 2019 by Lisa Mobius

March 21, 2017

Goodness me how time flies. I must apologize for leaving the blog for so long. Life in general, the farm, school, work, and the Navy has taken a toll on me this past year. So for now, I have decided not to take any classes the rest of the spring session and for the entire summer to allow John and I to work on our new venture. Well, actually more like continue down the path towards our self-sustainable measures through working the farm with our horses and getting back to nature. So allow me to fill you in…

Yes, I am still working on my Beachbody programs. However, they have taken a back burner and my fitness…. Well, it has too and I hate to say it is back to where I started. So… it’s a work in progress. HaHaHa. I’m more than half-way done with school. I have 4 classes left and my capstone/thesis project to complete. My plan forward here is to start back in the fall, take all 4 classes and then take the summer off again and finish in the fall with the capstone.

What’s happening on the farm is tremendous. After our barn fire in 2015, we spent the entire last year re-building our equipment back up and getting the horses ready. We tend to take classes at the local extension office to learn more about farming, etc. and ran across a presentation last fall called Food Route. This company was looking for produce growers to provide them with produce of all sorts for them to sell throughout our local area. We signed up. So this year, instead of cattle or pigs, we are growing specialty hot and sweet peppers, eggplant, and assorted cut flowers. We have most of the horse equipment that will be needed and even added 2 more horses to our stock. This will give us the ability to change them out as needed and to have extra available when the unfortunate injury happens. Currently, our veggies are sitting in a greenhouse waiting to be planted. We are pretty excited about it. Even more so that we are going to do this with my horses is just a dream come true.

Mike and Mark

Last year we also picked up 2 pigs to raise. The week before last we were finally able to get them to the processor. We are still making sausages… LOL… it’s what happens when your piggies weigh in at 441 and 445 pounds. Gee, what porkers they were.