Clover Country Farms News

Welcome to Clover Country Farms blog! We are a small just getting started family farm in SE Texas. We have 4 boys , 1 baby girl, and lots of critters. Have a seat, put your feet up & grab a glass of cold sweet tea & have a look around. Watch us grow and learn from our mistakes... The Good The Bad & The sometimes CRAZY goings on of a Family farm.

Sunday, January 29

Big Changes comming....

I haven't posted about it because I wanted to wait until I knew it might happen before everyone knew...
But...
After waiting for sooo long to figure out what to do bout the major house damage we suffered w/ hurricane Rita.
I am Thrilled To announce....
We Are Getting a NEW House!!!!
We are going from 1300 sq feet to 2280 sq ft!! It has a HUGE kitchen!!!
2 living areas! (One formal Living room & a HUGE Activity room)
A small family could move into the master bath. Ant to top it all off....
It comes w/ a built-in Big screen TV and surround sound! (Hubby & the boys LOVE that! lol)
We decided to go with a manufactured Modular home. I was really "iffy" about the thought of it.. But after looking at so many.. and learning about them. They are GREAT!
we are NOT talking about a trailer here.... this is a HOUSE that they basically bring in pieces and assemble them here. The another cool thing?? we'll have it done and ready to move in in about 90 days!!! building from the ground up would take about a year!!!
I'll post lots of pics soon.... I am just sooo excited!

Finally we will have a house where everyone isn't right on top of each other at all times, and a home where it will actually look clean... because there will be room for everything we have!

whoo hooooooooo!

Sunday, January 22

One Proud Mom!

Craig came to me a few weeks ago,
He asked me if he could sell some things on Ebay. I told him to wright out a well thought out listing and I'd read it and decide. He brought me the most wonderful letter to post.
This is what he wrote...

My name is Craig. I have 3 little brothers and 1 baby sister. The reason I am doing this auction is to try to do something for my mom.

My mom is a great mom. My brothers and me have been pretty bad lately.
My grades were not very good but my other brother Chris had bad grades to! Don’t worry tho we are doing much better with our grades now.
My mom got mad about the grades and we got grounded till they got better.

My mom buys us all the stuff we need. She cooks really good food.
And all my friends think she is really cool because she is really nice and fun.
But she never gets anything. She doesn’t even get anything for herself when she goes to the store unless she really REALLY needs it like sometimes shampoo and stuff.

On her birthday all of us and our dad forgot her birthday was that day. She didn’t even get mad or cry or anything. She just said it was ok and she knows we love her anyways.

At Christmas, she got all of us kids what we wanted but didn’t save any money from my dads paycheck for him to get her anything.
She said it was ok because she has more fun watching everybody else get what they want than she would getting a present for her.
So she didn’t even get anything but drawings and stuff we made at school from us kids for Christmas. She told my dad that she wanted to order a bunch of seed for her garden soon and that would be her present from him.

We live in Texas. My mom wants to make our place into a farm. When she was little that’s all she wanted when she grew up. Was a farm

Mom grows a big garden every year. With lots of tomatos ( I DO NOT LIKE THEM!) and lots of other stuff that she likes to cook and can to keep all year, she makes really good jelly and Amish peanutbutter is the best!

She has chickens and they make really good eggs for us to eat and cook stuff with.

But she really wants to get a cow. She said she really wants to play at making cheese and milk from the cow.
We have a pasture and shelter for it. We have all the food it would need. But cows cost a lot of money to buy! They are expensive! The ones that make good milk are more money than the ones you just use for steak and hamburgers. The cows she found were $1000 wow! That’s a lot! I know my stuff wont sell for that much. But it’s a way to start.

I want to do something really nice for my mom because she does a lot for me and my brothers and sister and dad

I want to sell my ...

I just sat down and cried. What a sweet boy I have!!
we decided that I would let him post it if he typed it to practice for keyboarding class.
You would not believe how many people have gone to his auction!!
its been up for a little over 2 days and we have had over 4000 hits!!
Its just crazy and seems to have taken on a life of its own!
I'll keep tabs on it here.
Its just crazy! But I am so proud of him!
he is growing into quite a fine young man!

Ain't that the way kids are?? Just when you are about to KILL them , they go and do something sweet?? lol

here is a link to Craig's auction......
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5658566556&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3AIT&rd=1

Sunday, January 15

Farm web site is Online!! whoo hoo!

haven't posted in over a week! oops!
well, I have have our farm website online!!!
www.CloverCountryFarms.com I have been working on it alot... that's kinda why the blog entries have been so pitifully few & far between.

The 13th it was 20 years since Dan died... I can't believe something that can feel like yesterday happened THAT long ago.
I still often sit and wonder what he would have thought of my life...
he would have been such a wonderful Uncle for the kids...
Oh how I wish he could have met them. And They him...

We are now in search of our first family/farm cow. Right now I'm leaning towards a Dexter..
They have great milk..
They are small..
They are good for beef...
great at calving...
sounds like a great dual-purpose breed for us! we'll see how that goes.

We have been so incredibly poor the past few weeks! I guess between Christmas... The party and several unexpected expenses.. It all caught up with us. ugh.. not fun.

I think today we will work on building the frames for my raised bed gardens,
This year I'm gonna try the lasagna bed gardening. we'll see how that goes.

Tuesday, January 3

Happy 2006!!!!!

Happy New years!!!
I can't believe its 2006 already! Boy did last year go fast or what?? We got alot accomplished last year...
Started to raise Chickens & Goats, raised and ate our first pigs!
God gave us our Wonderful Great Danes!
Had the best Garden yet :) Planted more fruit trees, got seedlings started for sale later this year. And learned sooo much!

We had a Wonderful New Years Eve Party! We had a Pig Pickin!! It was WONDERFUL!! I got our farm web site online... And there is a whole page dedicated to the pig pickin!
---> www.CloverCountryFarms.com . Everyone Loved the Brunswick stew that we served with it. (The recipe will be listed ib the Recipe Box section of the web site!)

Now... there are soo many other things that need to be done this year!

  • Expand the garden and install raised beds.
  • Raise some broiler Chickens to fill the freezer.
  • Buy a calf or two to raise for meat.
  • Can as much veggies as we can eat.
  • Enlarge the dog yard & prepare for puppies!!
  • DE-CLUTTER the house. I really need to work on this one!!
  • Learn to decipher between the "I Needs" & "I Wants" in life! And teach my children the same.
  • SAVE $$$$ I really need to get our savings built back up.
  • And.. the ever popular... LOSE WEIGHT! we'll see how that one goes.

Think thats enough?? I sure hope this year goes slower than the last.. so I can fit it all in!