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.