Life is Full

 Tortuga Thursday

In 2012, on the plains of Northern Arizona, two families joined forces and began the trials and tribulations of building a small family farm with nothing in the bank but love.

It's been a very busy week on Tortuga Flats Farm. I was gone for part of it, and I left my camera in my mother's car which means, unfortunately, no new pictures.

Our second Farmers' Market appearance in Prescott was a great success. This was the report from Frank and Lance. (I was in California with Mom and sister) We had repeat customers. That means a great deal. Then we had a vendor from another aisle stop in and say she'd been listening to the buzz from market customers so she had to pop over and get some pickles. Nice to hear.

Frank and Lance have been working hard all week in strong, dust blowing wind. Frank got all the fruit tree wells dug out and the orchard mowed. Today he announced we have plums and apples forming. This is kind of a surprise because Lance

Christie and Sadi hanging out

gave all the trees such heavy trims we figured it would be a year before they could fruit. Maybe it helped since we had NO fruit last year.

Lance got the sweet potatoes in the ground and did more planting in the greenhouse while Frank worked on the orchard. Then they both spent a few days laying the row mulch that looks like plastic but is made from something organic. They planted potatoes, cabbage, onions and peppers.

Once I returned, I harvested dill which goes into the freezer. It will be an every other day chore from now until the end of summer. We use pounds of dill weed and seed for our pickles. At this point, only weed is harvested but we do have some seeds coming ready in a week or so. Although we freeze the weed, we'll dry the seeds. All the dill right now is in the greenhouse. The dill that was planted outside didn't take. Probably too early for our climate. We'll try it again. We use so much, we need more than the greenhouse can hold.

I'm splitting my days between helping where I can, such as harvesting dill, and writing the third book in my Love and Murder series for one publisher while writing on two other projects for another publisher. Life is full!