Feeling at home.

The beds are all set up and picture perfect. I even put the plaque up on the wall our church honored us with this summer. I was really surprised to get it and I was truly honored and felt the love.

The Move

Hey it's been a while!!!! Lot's going on around here. We moved to a new house on our farm and the old one we plan to turn into a business. A wood shop or my farm stand. Although it is away from the road I might be able to make the store work. If I find that it doesn't, it will be my husbands workshop. It is a very nice house and it is bigger. My kids have grown to big for the other house. My daughter just turned 7 and in the old house (a small two bedroom) she was still in her crib and sleeping in my room with my husband and I. The boys all shared one room with a bunk bed. The twins sharing one bunk. My oldest Jean-Luc was on the top bunk. Now we have three bedrooms and the rooms are pretty big. My daughter has bunk beds I found second hand for a steal. My son Jean-Luc was given a bed with frame, foot board and headboard.  So things are coming along nicely.The boys will each have their own bed and no more crib for Naomi. I love my new home and I will post pics.

In our new house harvesting white beans. My new desk for home schooling that I absolutely love. Bedroom pics coming soon.

It ain't easy

Farming is a very difficult way to survive for a small time farmer. We need other ways to make money to make ends meat. I started making and selling jewelry with the help of my mom. She makes Jewelry too. I also have a business plan for a farm stand and I'm trying to raise the money to get that stand built via gofundme.com. My husband is trying to get help from vocational rehab for a wood shop. He qualifies because he is disabled and has been getting medical treatment for about 7 years now. My husband is fighting to get social security and since his back, knees and joints are giving him problems and causing him a lot of pain now he may even need knee surgery, he may finally get social security. That will help us a great deal. But my husband is not the type who likes government assistance, so he would like a wood shop to still be productive if he is able. If you would like to help this family you can buy my Jewelry at
https://www.etsy.com/shop/Gemsell?ref=hdr_shop_menu
Or donate to my farm stand building efforts at
http://www.gofundme.com/44xvis
Thank you for what ever you can give every little bit counts.
Mama farmer, Virginia Toussaint

Keep Going Forward

It's been awhile since I posted last and things can change on a farm in the blink of an eye. We have good news and bad news. I'm a tare off he bandage type of gal, so here goes, last week we had heavy rains and a huge landslide took out about 100 plantains. We were very disappointed! But we heard some of them may still grow through which is good. We are determined not to let this get us down. We planted lettuce this week and transplanted some of our other crops. We planted coffee, cucumbers and 3 kinds of cabbages. The good news is our other crop are doing well (our beans and calabasas, and our tomatoes are starting to fruit. The good news is our cow is giving us about two gallons of milk a day. We have made ricotta cheese with it, our own butter, pudding, cocoa, and milkshakes. It's been great! I still have to make yogurt with it but we need to collect more jelly jars because that is what we make it in. One of our chicken's is sitting on 11 eggs and we hope to get a nice bunch of chicks from her.We want to build a large coop. Most of the coops we built in he past were small because we only kept the chickens in then till the grew to a certain size and the free ranged the and the slept in the woods behind our home.Now we need to separate them from our crops and make them a yard and give hem feed for now till we can fence off a large area for them to graze. Here are some pictures of our milk and other things we made.

Our butter, our milk, and last our Ricotta cheese.

Beans glorious beans

Our beans are coming up and as you might have figured I love beans. We planted white beans that I love to cook with pumpkin (calabasa) which we also have coming up. Some more pics to follow.

 beans, Pumpkin, and another sour sop coming.

The future

Here are some of the pics. the first is my daughter and a fresh sour sop fruit. The next is the sour sop tree. the next two are our plantains coming up and the last is one of our Mango trees. I am trying to raise money to start a farm stand via gofundme.com so I can help support my family. Here is how you can help. Go to this link and donate as much or as little as you like. I really appreciate the help. http://www.gofundme.com/44xvis 

New Life

Hey ya'll He he, Lots happening here on the farm. Our plantains are coming up nicely. We have enjoyed Mangoes from our own trees this year for the first time. All the trees in our town gave fruit this year. It is usually too cold and wet up here in the mountains but we had been suffering from drought this year and it has been very hot. I guess that was the recipe for getting a nice harvest of Mangoes because we have had more then our share. We have also harvested from our sour sop tree and enjoyed that very much. I had never tasted it before and now I love it. The greatest news this summer was the new arrival of our calf Caramel Sunday or Domingo in Spanish. He was born on Sunday July 20th. Now we are enjoying lots of fresh milk. I can't wait to make yogurt, cheese, sour cream, butter, whipped cream, and butter milk too. The milk tastes really good and I am even more glad that I don't have to pay 6 bucks a gallon anymore. pictures to come.

Plants, plants, plants

Hey everybody! We just bought a whole bunch of seeds and saplings as well as some mature plants to put in the ground. The varieties range from, Tamarindo (Tamarind) tree, three cherry trees, Guanabana (sour sop) tree, 2 large Tahitti Lemon trees, two cocoa trees, four orange trees, from seeds we bought cilantro Ajies Dulces (sweet peppers), Calabasas (squash),  white beans, black eye peas, Parchas (passion fruit) and Guandules (pigeon peas). Now we are making some grow beds and getting some areas ready for planting. It's so exciting. Now all we need is some rain. It has been too dry here. We're trying to develope an irrigation system so we don't lose any of our crops. We need to purchase a pump to get the water where it needs to go. Everything is in the works. My jewelry business is coming along. Taking photos today to post on etsy.com. Next I need to make a blog. or a website. prepared my order forms for print this morning and will be ordering some more supplies soon. It seems like it's going to be a hot one today so down to the river we will go. :) Till next time. Bye!

This years river photos.

It's Summer!

Summer is here!!!! Yay!!!!! We have had great weather and have been enjoying the river. We had to find a new spot this year because there was little rain this year and our old spot is very shallow. We found a great place with pools to swim and dive. We even found a great spot to hang both our hammocks. I can always chase my cares away at the river. It just makes me feel so blessed. I started selling Jewelry recently with the help of my mom and etzy.com it is fun. The kids have been making their own jewelry for beach goers and little girls. They enjoy the activity. They can't wait to go to the beach and sell some. Maybe we will go soon, The 4th of July is coming. The hubby's Birthday is on the same day. So we will be making a trip to the beach within the next two weeks. The plantains are growing nicely. Now we need to plant the peppers. For the first year since we have lived on this farm our Mango trees are giving us fruit. I love them, next to watermelon it is my favorite fruit. We will plant more of those. My husband picked a ripe papaya of one of our trees today. Cool! We also planted Pigeon peas, a few rows of them. This farm is coming along great. I love it!!!!!

Farming everyday here on The Flowing River farm inc. My husband and sons have been getting up at 5 am to plant all our plantains. He is in pain by the time he is done because of his bad back but he takes his meds, gets a nice rub down and does it again the next morning. I hope we will be finished planting no later then Friday. The land was cleared last month and we purchased the seeds about a week or two later because we had a small drought and then lots of rain. So we waited so the seeds wouldn't rot. So far so good. We bought and put up surveillance cameras to further secure the farm and our equipment. We bought a farm pick up truck but it still has to be put on the road. I can't wait to go to the nurseries in it and pick out some really great things to plant. everything in it's time. We haven't been able to post a good farm video our camera is not working. But I did set up our YouTube page. It is Memorial day and the kick off for summer. I am looking forward to a great summer this year.

Farm equipment

Lots have happened since my last post. We entered a New year of farming joyful bliss. In January we signed for our farm loan and it has been so great. We bought a tractor, a post hole digger, and a cultivator. We started putting up fencing to secure our animals. We have been really busy but we couldn't be happier. My kids wanted to make a video for this post so I will be making our YouTube pg today.