I thought I might share our end of the year letter sent out with our Christmas cards this year.
What will you and I give for Christmas
this year? Let us in our lives give to our Lord and Savior the gift of
gratitude by living His teachings and following in His footsteps.
-Thomas S. Monson
Christmas greetings to you and
yours.
I hope the season
brings merriment and bright days to you this holiday season. As I sit listening
to Christmas carols, I am blessed to look back on the year. While not much
changed in 2015, there are still good things to share with you. I even tried to
keep this to half a page, both sides, but there was more than I anticipated to
share.
In January I
attended the Nevada Small Farms Conference in hopes to gain some inspiration.
And inspiration I did find. I was fortunate enough to hear from a group of
urban farmers serving the Reno area. I learned that as a 25 year old female
farmer, I would be entering into one of the most in demand areas of
agriculture. I am now pursuing the path of urban farming. I am taking on the
task of breathing new life into the Flying VS Farm. While I know it will not happen overnight,
‘tis a process I will gladly take on. The spring of 2016 will begin a new
chapter. I have decided not only to pursue the urban farming, but have chosen
to include homesteading. It is the art of learning old fashioned skills. I have
a desire to do it all in a way that promotes living history and preservation of
the past. Much of this inspired by my mother, who included us in reenacting as
kids. (Thanks Mom!)
With that, here is
an update on how the farm is doing. The
tenants of the coop continue to be a source of entertainment for us all. Earlier
in the summer, we lost a handful of our girls to a coyote. I purchased chicks
in July, to replace the ones we lost and they are growing daily. This year, I
wanted to experiment with a new breed. Phoenix, Cricket and Hawk are my three
beautiful Ameraucanas. While the older girls have finished their molt and are
beginning to lay again, we watch with anticipation to see what color eggs our 3
easter eggers will lay. In other coop news, we were given 4 fryer chicks at the
same time I purchased the layers. We butchered the fryers late in the fall. I
send out hugs and a great thank you to Betty Bianchi who willingly stepped in
to help this budding farmer butcher her first chickens… It was a day full of
laughter and reminiscing. In the future, we plan to purchase fryers
intentionally.
On to the canine
variety. Linus is as sassy as ever, He is absolutely loving the snow we have
had. While I have had some characters in the past, I have never had a dog which
will actually talk back. (And occasionally he sasses his mother a bit too
much…) He is so keen on everything going
on that if you even utter the word “girls” in an audible voice, his ears perk
up and he is ready to go. (He helps put the chickens to bed at night and they
are his girls.) Woody is
Woody. He has such a bright personality. (He was the guard dog today in the
barn, freaking out over a feed bag the wind had picked up.) I cannot imagine what my life would be without
them.
I have been taking
classes at WNC. At this point I am not
seeking any particular degree. I am also looking into applying for and
completing the master gardener program through the Cooperative Extension
service here in Carson. I have also been working with Intervarsity (an
inter-denominational campus ministry) at UNR
to start a bible study on the campus. It has been a wonderful
experience.
I have also been
working on bettering my blog and YouTube channel, Life on the Flying VS Farm.
My desire is for it to be an outlet to be creative as well as sharing my
journey with family and friends alike. It has been gaining followers who also want
to share in the journey. I have begun working on launching a children’s channel
to go along with it. Kids play an important role in preserving history and
understanding what has happened in the past in order to preserve our future. It
will be interesting to see where it goes with the new direction for the farm
and my life in general.
Love Always,
Miss B and the crew at the Flying VS Farm.
