11 Acre Wood Blog

Various notes from the Sanders family

Pass Thru Visits

8:31 am on Friday, May 29, 2009

The Roberts came through Monday evening and stayed the night with us on their way to a conference. It was an extremely short visit, but we are looking forward to visiting more this weekend when they come back through to pick up Pepper (their dog, who they left with us for the week). 

And if you’re wondering how we slept 13 more people in our barn, I’ll tell you that really it wasn’t bad! Quite adventurous… J All eight girls piled in the Girl’s tent, Mr. Fritz and Mrs. Conley with the baby slept in the Boy’s tent with Edgar and Willie, and then  Noah and Ethan slept on the futon with little boys piled all around on the floor. Jolly times! 

Here are some pictures of the various going on’s that night. 

Kitchen cleanup adventures. 

Ice anyone?

Don’t mess with the dish washers.

Little boy energy.

Garbage offerings.

A little uneven dual.

Very posed picture here for those concerned for Daisy. J 

“Momma, Momma…you pulled my hair too tight!!”

Martha Ann zonked out in the tent amidst the commotion (she’s totally an 11th born).

“What’s goin’ on over here?”


Oh, just salting Pepper.

What?

Water anyone?

All sound effects…..

Over in this corner is a little dancing.

Ethan.

The Fathers and their laptops.

Chattin’ on the bed.

Since we only have one “everything room”, each corner had a different activity going on. J 

Pepper Pl@ce M@rket

7:24 am on Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Since we officially started our farm in March most of our produce and eggs have been sold wholesale through restaurants and organic stores. A couple of weeks ago, however, we began selling at the Pepper Pl@ce M@rket in downtown Birmingham. The market is open from 7am to 12 noon and we have to be set up by 6:30. That means we have to get up at 3am in order to get there in time. 

The Pepper Pl@ce is a great market. On average several thousand people come through each Saturday to buy. The atmosphere is more like that of an event than a market. There are live musicians playing on several stages, many people with their dogs, and families strolling between rows of festively decorated farm and craft stands. Everyone in our family worked hard to make our stand as attractive as possible. We had many people comment on its appearance and one gentleman even put a picture of it on his website.

We feel blessed to be able to sell at such a busy market and are encouraged with the success of our first two weeks, even though it poured rain the first day. Our neighboring vendors are very kind and friendly and we look forward to getting to know more of them. Here is a link to our farm site. It is not finished yet, but at least has a home page.

We would love to hear any suggestions any of you might have on how we could make our farm stand more attractive and inviting. Many of ya’ll have much more experience selling at markets than we do.

-Noah, Farm Manager

Grace has gone around and picked wildflowers from around our farm and arranged them into stunning little bouquets! They are a very attractive addition to our table, plus last week we sold all of them. 

Moving Saga

5:43 am on Wednesday, May 27, 2009


Just in case you missed it and wanted to go back and read the story of our recent move, here are the links to the parts for easy reading:

Fun in the Mud

6:00 am on Monday, May 25, 2009

Hello All!  Grace here. Thought I would share a few pictures with you all, of one afternoon, some dirt. some rain, and us!Wednesdays is our normal day to pick for our farm customers. The other week there was supposed to be a big storm so all us kids rushed ( ok well maybe we didn’t run , but we weren’t like trying to take our time or anything ) down to the garden to try to pick lettuce before it rained. so Noah could get the deliveries made the next day. Of course it started raining on and off while we were picking, so by the time we were done some people were already muddy. Since Noah didn’t quite want  people running all over his garden beds, he found a nice big mud puddle just right for getting very, very, and did I mention? Very dirty.   So sorry for all that boring writing, here are the pictures:

“Mud Land” with “Mud Creatures” in it! LOL!

He looks like some soldier crawling through mud.

Here I am putting mud on Ethan’s head… I’m such a sweet sister…….. J  

A float.

“Hi, I’m a frog!”

He really enjoyed this……. J 

Before Abbi came down with the camera he had put his head under the mud so that his entire body was covered. He looked like a bronze statue walking around!!!  

Splash!!!….. or maybe more like a flop….J 

Another “flop!” LOL!

Trying to get all the mud out of his hair.

“ooh!!  My shirt got dirty!

Swimming in the rain.

Noah watching…

Rain!!!!!!

Rain, wind, trees,……stunning….  ok I’m done now.

Y’all have a good week!!!!!!

Berry Fun!

1:57 am on Saturday, May 23, 2009

We went to a nearby farm that grows natural strawberries. Here we are picking in the cool of the morning.

A twin!

Taste testing.

Our ten gallons.

Gabriel and his basket. J 

The afternoon was spent makin’ strawberry jam. Some of them we cut up and froze for smoothies or waffle toppings. We also dehydrated some.

First we washed and them ‘decapitated’ the berries.

Then we blended the berries that we were going to put up. 

Cooking it down.

Very bright and fresh!

Shortcake lady.

Fillin’ the jars.

Mmmm…sugar and strawberries!

We about made ourselves sick that afternoon consuming so many berries. LOL!

The ‘decapitating’ crew.

Stained hands were the fashion for the day.

We’ve gone back to pick twice and have put up 48 pints of jam (which isn’t quite a years supply for our family).

Afghan Hats

10:35 am on Monday, May 18, 2009

Thanks to a dear friend serving over in Afghanistan who sent these to the boys.

Getting Into a Routine

4:48 am on Friday, May 15, 2009

As we’ve been settling in, life’s been busy and we’ve kept putting certain things off until life returned to “normal” (whatever that is). You see, then we realized, this IS normal for us. With the season of life we’re in right now, starting up a family farm, building a house, living in a barn, etc….there is always going to be something to do. So, instead of putting things off, we’re just enjoying the process as we build memories together as a family. Hop along for the ride, if you wish……

Here is one of our three egg refrigerators. We are now washing and sorting 20 dozen eggs a day around here.

Delivery day for local restaurants and organic groceries are now made on Wednesdays. So we wash and pick produce on Tuesday afternoons.

Welcome to the kids quarters. This is our hallway looking from the laundry room/kitchen. To the left is the boy’s tent and the girls is down at the end.

A peek in the girl’s tent. We love it in there (except when black widows come in to visit) . You can stand up in it and we have plenty of room (cause there’s just three of us, not so much for the boys though.)

Little boys are plunging forward and learning many new things everyday. Our motto for them is, “If you don’t work, you don’t eat”. Pictured above is the bird feeder Gabriel built himself for Grace. Typically though, you normally find the boys working out in the garden pulling weeds for Noah or collecting eggs. They’re good little workers.

Here’s our dining area complete with Japanese lanterns.

Resurrection Sunday

9:45 am on Thursday, May 14, 2009

Here is a recap of our Resurrection Sunday at Grandmother’s house. We had a yummy spread of food for lunch and enjoyed the day with family.

Uncle Eman reads to Ellen after she had a little crash on the concrete. 

Cousins.

Fellowship.

Daddy.

A quick fix with MeMe.

PaPa.

Cutest little Willa. (Lora Lynn had her in the sweetest outfit that day!)

Games in the yard.

The man for the job.

I did many photo shoots that afternoon since people were all dressed up:
Gabriel

The Fanning Family

John’s Spur of the moment Senior Shoot.

And of course, us…..

My cousin Anna and me

Dan.

I’ll leave you with a picture of “Cowboy Luke” (plus a little photoshop fix up). 

A Dining Experience

1:23 pm on Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Since I’m so behind on blogging, I thought I might as well start from the beginning. Well, on Momma’s birthday (April 18th), she wanted to go eat with her whole family. So Daddy took us all out to lunch at the restaurant where Noah supplies eggs and produce. We all walked in (with quite the stares from the other couples eating there) and were seated in white chairs. The first thing our sweet waitress said to us was “I’ve heard so much about your family! It’s so nice to finally get to meet you. So how’s living in a barn?” Yes, we’re even the talk in upscale restaurants. J 

It was a lovely experience. I don’t think our whole family had ever dined at such a fine restaurant. Our food was prepared by chefs who worked in an open kitchen across a bar where we could watch. 

The lady of the hour.

All the rocks were local stone.

Fancy menus. Pretty neat to see our farm name on it. “Ror@ V@lley F@rms Arugula Salad” or something like that.

In awe.

They carefully removed the wine glasses when we were seated and replaced them with appropriate water glasses. Good choice. J 

We pretty much ordered a variety of selections to share around and try. 

“I think I’ll take the hickory roasted quail.”

Bekah and I split a hamburger and a chicken dish. 

Our seasoning selection (sea salt, pepper and herb salt). Everything was so tasty no salt or pepper was even needed.

Food preparations underway.

Homemade bread.

Waiting…

Artwork.

The food is served…..What gorgeous presentation on their custom made plates.

Mmmm….the boys loved their quail.

The best hamburger we’d ever eaten!

Hmmm….not quite sure about the egg part. Nehemiah wasn’t quite sure about his duck flatbread. It had goat cheese that was a little stronger than he was use to. So he ate Gabriel’s egg and others enjoyed his duck. No leftovers were to be seen…..

Homemade fried apple pies and buttermilk ice cream.

We girls admired the bathroom sink. LOL!

We went up on their deck to look out over to the lake.

Walking over to the grocery where our…..

eggs and…..

lettuce are sold.

Just Us

5:32 am on Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Barn living’s been going well. It seems the busier you are the more you have to blog about and the less time you have to actually post something. The Farmer’s Market we plan to sell eggs and produce at is starting up this Saturday, so we’ve been busy getting ready for that. Printing up business cards, getting signs, shirts, etc.. with our farm name on them. Noah and I have been designing our website for the farm, so my time’s been spent on that rather than blogging. 

So, I just picked some random pictures to share with y’all until I can get some more posts together. 

Rejoice! For the Lord is good…

The result of water fights out on the lake.

Crawfish adventures.

Anyone need rain? We’ll be glad to sent it your way! We’ve just about had our fill over here. J

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