by admin | Jan 17, 2014 | Acorn Lane Farm, Matt Gardiner, Uncategorized
Today is one of those days in the landscaping business that is always so difficult to decide whether to work or not. We have been working all winter long and will continue to, but I felt bad today to have the guys drive all the way into work today only to send them back home. It didn’t start snowing today until about 6:40 and once it did, it kept on coming down to the tune of 2-3″ in Crestwood. Like anyone who works outside, the weather is so important to us and trying to predict or make decisions based on it is always tricky. We have more technology than ever at our fingertips, with weather apps on our phone and the weather people on tv, but no one ever gets it right. The only real way to get it right is to go outside and see what is going on for yourself.
While feeding the animals on the farm on days like this takes longer, it can also be rewarding. I was able to take my time feeding and making the farm rounds while not rushing through the task. On a normal work morning, when I am busy trying to get Boone Gardiner work done, I speed through the farm chores, completing them in about a half an hour. Enjoying the quite solitude that only a fresh snow can provide and not having any employees nor jobs to worry about for the day, allowed me a peaceful start and time to reflect.
Which brings me to the reason for this post. I have said for years that I need to blog more. Which I have done intermittently at best for Boone Gardiner and lately about Acorn Lane Farm. Now I want to take it a step further and actually start blogging on a regular basis, from a more personal point of view of what our crazy but very fulfilling life is like here at Acorn Lane Farm at Boone Gardiner. I have been actually been working on a book that I started last year about just this topic, while also writing other ideas, short stories and poems. Now it is time to get serious and start sharing (at least a little). Hopefully you will find my ramblings to be entertaining, informative and inspiring. I will continue to post about landscaping, gardening, plants, sustainability while adding farming, homesteading, personal stories, reflections and more.
Finding time. Today is the day that I find the time, the time to do what I want to do, Write. Which is what this whole great experiment that Hope and I have created is all about. Finding the time to live life fully, richly in the moment, authentically.
by admin | Jun 6, 2013 | Acorn Lane Farm, Garden Center, General Info, Green Team, Intensive Gardening, Matt Gardiner, Sustain, sustainability, Uncategorized, Vegetable Gardening
Stop by today and pick up some fresh veggies grown on site by Boone Gardiner. We have a nice selection of veggies, harvested when you want them. Just come out and if you see something you like, we cut and harvest it right there for you. Right now we have Kale, Mustard Greens, Leaf Lettuce, Radishes, Cauliflower available for dinner tonight. Don’t forget our farm fresh eggs from our happy hens and our local honey.
Cabbage and Kale
Leaf Lettuce
Mustard Greens
Cauliflower
by admin | Jun 5, 2013 | Acorn Lane Farm, Matt Gardiner, Uncategorized
So once again our friend Karl Klein (son of Theodore Klein of Yew Dell) came by with a little surprise for us the other day last week, 5 Wild Turkey Chicks! Karl was out mowing on his farm and flushed a Wild Turkey Hen off of her nest. He didn’t hurt her, but she ran off and from his experience once a hen leaves her nest like that she won’t come back to her eggs. So he collected the eggs and took them inside to his incubator and hatched the chicks (actually Poults). He brought us 5 of these little guys at 2 days old and they have been living in our house (in a box !!) It’s funny, I thought we finally had the animals, other than the dog and the kids, out of the house and here we go again. We got Captain Black Boots, the baby Lamb that Karl brought us and Hope bottled fed and the 9 rabbits we rescued from animal control out and now I have Turkeys!! For more info on Wild Turkeys check out the link below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Turkey
by admin | May 23, 2013 | Acorn Lane Farm, Design Team, Garden Center, General Info, Green Team, Landscaping, Matt Gardiner, Uncategorized
We should have posted this last week, but we have been a little busy around here at Boone Gardiner, with Pigs, Parties, Plants and more!!! Last Tuesday the garden center reopened (from by appointment hours) to normal retail hours of Tuesday thru Saturday 10:00 am-6:00 pm. We are excited to be officially reopen after 2 years of By-Appointment only hours. Our awesome Herbaceous High Priestess Shelley Palmer is back at Boone Gardiner, many of you will remember Shelley from our days at the old location in Eastwood. We have lots of beautiful plants to check out including our own grown in house selection of perennials. Acorn Lane Farm and Petting Zoo is officially opened for daily visits, parties, tours, etc. We have Alpacas, Chickens, Goats, Guineas, Bee Hives, Peacock, Pigs, Horse, Donkeys, Vietnamese Potbelly Pigs, Rabbits, Sheep and more! We have two baby goats and Gracie our potbelly Pig just gave birth to 4 adorable baby piglets the other day. You will want to come out soon and see these little guys. As always our landscape division is staying extremely busy design and installing beautiful projects all over town. We are here to help you with any of your landscaping needs. We hosted an Oldham County Chamber of Commerce After Hours Event here last week and had a children’s Pre-K Graduation party at Acorn Lane Farm. Dates for parties and school groups for this summer are filling up fast, call now if you are interested. Stay tuned because we will be having (maybe bringing back a few old favorites) fun events, launching a new website shortly and more. Stay tuned!
by admin | Mar 22, 2013 | Acorn Lane Farm, Boone's Blog Contributors, General Info, Green Team, Matt Gardiner, sustainability, Uncategorized
OK…this is getting a little ridiculous! How many have you heard, “Hey Honey, the pet(s) need food” one time or another? In our house that is getting to be quite a common (and frequent) thing to hear now that Acorn Lane Farm Petting Zoo, which is our backyard, has grown more than we realized. It’s funny how things slip up on you and then it takes one moment of looking at things differently to realize how big something has gotten. I had just one of those moments tonight when I went out to feed our animals. We usually run out of food for the animals at different times, therefore it tempers for us how much food we really go thru at a time with this new petting zoo venture of ours. However today almost every species of animal (almost all) on our little micro farm needed food. Hope went to our local feed store in Crestwood, Crestwood Feed and Seed, and picked everything up. I had a late meeting tonight but I texted Hope and told her that I would feed when I got home, since she had the kids. She told me that the food was in the back of her Explorer. After unloading, and carrying 7 bags of feed ( 350 pounds) back to our storage area I looked at it all and said to myself, “OK this is getting ridiculous and a little out of control!” I guess that is what we get for having Chickens, Goats, Alpacas, Guineas, Ducks, Geese, Pigs, Horse and miniature Donkeys. And that’s not counting the Dog, Bees, Cats, Rabbits (currently 9 are in cages in our house, more about that at a later date) and Fish on the property! But you know what, I wouldn’t trade it for all the world. We are having so much fun and cannot wait for all of our friends to come out this spring and see all of the madness we have been up to!!
Here is all of the food that was in the back of the Explorer.
by admin | Mar 19, 2013 | Acorn Lane Farm, Garden Center, Green Team, Matt Gardiner, sustainability, Uncategorized
We got in some new baby chicks in at Acorn Lane Farm this week. Our friend Ellen in Versailles wanted to get some more chickens for her property so we split a shipment of chicks with her, well we got 18, and she got 10. If you have never experienced how they ship chicks, it is quite an amazing thing. They ship day old chicks from the hatchery via US mail in a small box, as in 12” x14” and 28 baby chicks fit in there comfortably! Ellen was getting them up to size and had a great setup in her house. She took a guest bathroom and put the baby chicks in a walk-in glass shower, with the heat lamps and everything. They have grown quickly and Ellen was ready to get them out of the house, because as Hope and I can tell you, they create quite a mess. With our current resident 24 hens and 2 roosters, we raised them in a homemade brooder box in our basement of our old house. The funny thing was our old house was in a subdivision and if the Homeowners Association knew about the chickens, I am sure that they would have freaked out!
So Ellen called us and brought our new little guys down the same day. We have a new area for them to roam in but it is a little cold right now for these girls and guys to be out and about. So we have an adorable little wood coop that we set up a heat lamp in and they are staying nice and warm.
Baby chicks checkign out their new home
Recent Comments