First Snow

Our first snow arrived 2 days ago. Lasted a day, then rained like crazy and it's all melted already. Typical of the island! Plus, it's the kind of snow I like- doesn't last long! I am hoping like mad that we don't get a repeat of last year where we had 3 feet of snow on the ground for over a month. People back east may think that's wimpy, but I live on the island because of it's typical mild winters... although, we haven't had a true mild winter in quite some time now. I think we are due!! Oh, and we are also due an early spring- last spring bit the big one!

It hasn't stopped raining since the snow the other night- it is torrential again. I am already cabin-feverish. I am just dying to get out into the garden. I am trying to do some indoor projects- Christmas baking, making soup stock from the chickens, and I tried my hand at making my own salsa with the remainder of my Roma tomatoes. The salsa turned out ok- I just made up the recipe- I made 21 jars, and then put them in the freezer. Some will go into my Christmas baskets that I'm making for my family, the rest will feed me for a while. The only thing really missing from the recipe was the fact that I couldn't seem to find any hot peppers... salsa really needs some spice to it!

Kybosh exiting the agility tunnel in the snow. Snow is Fun!!

I have also been going over my seed catalouges making up my orders for the spring. I am ordering WAY too much, but my enthusiasm this time of year is hard to control- I have no outlet for it! I am getting some things in that I have never grown before, so I can hopefully have some surprises for the CSA members in the summer.

Oh! Good news! I applied for my farm to be Certified Naturally Grown, and recieved confirmation last week that I succeeded! The only thing that remains to be done is sometime in the spring/summer, there will be another local farmer coming to check my farm out and do some soil testing, etc. That should be interesting, and hopefully I am doing everything correctly! I decided to go the CNG route instead of the Organic route, as it is WAY more cost efficient (by donation) and WAY less paperwork. With C Organic, you have to document every seed and every crop you grow, which is too much for a small farmer growing multiple crops- it is more for a larger farmer growing one or two crops. Plus, I have to admit, I don't really like anything government regulated- I think it's too much red tape for something that should be relatively simple.