Here are some current pictures of Adrianna in the garden.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Cake and the New Pioneer
Maddie finished a gorgeous butterfly cake that I haven't mentioned yet. I think she will be in good shape for fair if she can repeat the lovely cake. Her technique has really improved over the summer.
Today I was finishing off school supply shopping and saw a magazine titled, "The New Pioneer" while at Walgreens. According to the Internet, this magazine is also available at Walmart. While I applaud the magazine's topics, I find the price of $9.99 and the stores where it is sold a bit ironic, considering the magazine is about self reliance. Hmmm.
Today I was finishing off school supply shopping and saw a magazine titled, "The New Pioneer" while at Walgreens. According to the Internet, this magazine is also available at Walmart. While I applaud the magazine's topics, I find the price of $9.99 and the stores where it is sold a bit ironic, considering the magazine is about self reliance. Hmmm.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Swimming and getting ready for fair
Maddie had a swim meet today. She did very well and came in first, second and third in various events. Her relay team was first and even beat the four boys teams. Go girls! Madison swam well considering she is in the 11/12 age bracket. Some of her competitors were almost a foot taller so she had to swim pretty hard. I was very proud.
We ate a jar of pickles. It was fantastic, salty , sour and crunchy. Jar two was way too salty. I'm not sure if we screwed up a batch or if it was jar to jar. Perhaps the salt was not totally dissolved and ended up in one jar. The green beans are wonderful I think. The girls don't care for them. They do have a distinct green bean flavor, but they are also spicy, crunchy and tart. I am eating through my second jar already. Tonight I am pairing with a nice Shiraz.
We have tons of green tomatoes, I feel like they will never ripen. Adrianna harvested some really nice baby carrots from the garden, along with cucumbers, onion and greens. Hopefully she will have some nice veggies for fair. She is working on her gardening workbook and learning lots about planning a garden and soil types.
Lame turkey is limping on the hurt leg, but is bearing some weight on it. Hopefully she will be okay by fair. We now have a little rabbit, "Tipsy", with a pronounced head tilt. This does not usually bode well for rabbits. Tipsy doesn't seem to be in any pain, so we have her on antibiotics and we will wait and see. To round out the gimp squad, one of Maddie's baby pigeons was injured, perhaps by a turkey. "Lucky", seems to be recovering well and will hopefully make it.
Five days until the first rabbit show of fair kicks off. We are in crunch mode. Record books, record books! I am trying not to be overwhelmed with the thought of two rabbit shows, a poster on butterfly gardening, a butterfly decorated cake, two batches of cookies and six record books by Monday. Whew! Well, we always seem to get through it.
I went school supply shopping today. Three stores and $120 later, I think we are nearly there. There were a lot of deals to be had. $1 crayola markers, 0.25 crayola crayons, 0.15 notebooks. I bought a little extra for Operation Christmas Child although I am not sure if we'll be able to pull out much this year for it.
The girls have backpacks ready to go. Thankfully I bought three on clearance last fall. All we need now is kleenex, paper towels and tape. Every year it seems like we need to provide more and more basic supplies for the classroom. If the major school budget propositions pass in November, I think we'll have to send kids with their own toilet paper. I also got some stuff for Conner and Viv so they wouldn't be left out.
We ate a jar of pickles. It was fantastic, salty , sour and crunchy. Jar two was way too salty. I'm not sure if we screwed up a batch or if it was jar to jar. Perhaps the salt was not totally dissolved and ended up in one jar. The green beans are wonderful I think. The girls don't care for them. They do have a distinct green bean flavor, but they are also spicy, crunchy and tart. I am eating through my second jar already. Tonight I am pairing with a nice Shiraz.
We have tons of green tomatoes, I feel like they will never ripen. Adrianna harvested some really nice baby carrots from the garden, along with cucumbers, onion and greens. Hopefully she will have some nice veggies for fair. She is working on her gardening workbook and learning lots about planning a garden and soil types.
Lame turkey is limping on the hurt leg, but is bearing some weight on it. Hopefully she will be okay by fair. We now have a little rabbit, "Tipsy", with a pronounced head tilt. This does not usually bode well for rabbits. Tipsy doesn't seem to be in any pain, so we have her on antibiotics and we will wait and see. To round out the gimp squad, one of Maddie's baby pigeons was injured, perhaps by a turkey. "Lucky", seems to be recovering well and will hopefully make it.
Five days until the first rabbit show of fair kicks off. We are in crunch mode. Record books, record books! I am trying not to be overwhelmed with the thought of two rabbit shows, a poster on butterfly gardening, a butterfly decorated cake, two batches of cookies and six record books by Monday. Whew! Well, we always seem to get through it.
I went school supply shopping today. Three stores and $120 later, I think we are nearly there. There were a lot of deals to be had. $1 crayola markers, 0.25 crayola crayons, 0.15 notebooks. I bought a little extra for Operation Christmas Child although I am not sure if we'll be able to pull out much this year for it.
The girls have backpacks ready to go. Thankfully I bought three on clearance last fall. All we need now is kleenex, paper towels and tape. Every year it seems like we need to provide more and more basic supplies for the classroom. If the major school budget propositions pass in November, I think we'll have to send kids with their own toilet paper. I also got some stuff for Conner and Viv so they wouldn't be left out.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Pickles
We had a busy weekend. The farmer's market finally had pickling cucumbers in, so we bought 1/2 a bushel. We put up 17 qts. of great- grandma Ruth's dill pickles, and tried 4 qts. of kosher pickles. We also canned 10 pts. of spicy pickled green beans.
Saturday we went up to see our friends Trudy and Bob. They currently have 6 kids at home, and we brought 4, so it was quite a full house, but a very good time. Sunday was canning most of the day. The girls made their fair practice cookies, which were good, but need a little tweaking to get the recipe just right.
One of our fair turkeys is lame, and may not recover. I am trying to get brave in case we need to butcher her. The other animals are doing well.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Hot, Hot , Hot!
It's been pretty warm the last few days. The house without air conditioning is hitting the mid 90s before bed. The kids are melting in the heat and for Maddie, cake decorating has been a bit of a challenge. She did complete her first butterfly cake and it is gorgeous. She would like to get in a few more before fair, if we can stand the heat from the oven.
We had a gorgeous rainbow a few days ago. It looked so pretty over the flower garden, I had to snap a photo.
My friend brought me some gorgeous dill, and rumor has it pickling cukes are in, so I guess it is time to get going on serious pickling. I'll try to get out to the farm stand in the next few days, so the dill stays fresh.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
July 11, 2010 Lots to do.
Today was busy. Adrianna got her pickled beets done for fair. We ended up with 12 pints canned and two quarts in the fridge for us- yum! We also layered our beets with white onions. Our first four jars we used the recipe from The Little House Cookbook, based on the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. We found the following recipe a little sweet for our tastes:
2lbs beets
1c beet water (water beets have been boiled in)
1 cup sugar
1 cup cider vinegar
1/2 tsp. salt
pinch of pepper
2 cloves per jar
We then tried my grandmother's recipe- slightly modified, and we loved it:
2c sugar
3c cider vinegar
2c beet water
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp allspice
1Tbsp cinnamon
2 cloves per pint jar
The syrup covered about 4 pint jars per batch.
We also harvested lavender flowers, and lavender stems for infused honey, teas and satchets. The honey bees were very busy on the lavender in full bloom, so we had to share the flowers. The two littles caught on quickly and were a big help but they were mindful of bees.
2lbs beets
1c beet water (water beets have been boiled in)
1 cup sugar
1 cup cider vinegar
1/2 tsp. salt
pinch of pepper
2 cloves per jar
We then tried my grandmother's recipe- slightly modified, and we loved it:
2c sugar
3c cider vinegar
2c beet water
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp allspice
1Tbsp cinnamon
2 cloves per pint jar
The syrup covered about 4 pint jars per batch.
We also harvested lavender flowers, and lavender stems for infused honey, teas and satchets. The honey bees were very busy on the lavender in full bloom, so we had to share the flowers. The two littles caught on quickly and were a big help but they were mindful of bees.
We moved bunnies around as growing babies need more room. The meat pen bunnies for fair look great. The girls are excited to show them. Vivi is trying to pick out her fair chickens. It is hard to decide.
July 10, 2010 First Harvest!
The two big girls just returned from camp in Iowa, so it was a bit of a celebration day and dinner.
Lots of firsts today. I was able to harvest the first ripe tomato of the season. We cut it up into a gorgeous fresh salad with snap peas, greens and baby carrots from the garden. We also put up 11 cups of pie cherries in the freezer. I use 2 cups cherries to 1/2 cup sugar. That works well for most recipes.
We also got our first purchase from the local farmer's stand. We were able to get 1/2 bushel of green beans into the fridge and ready for freezer or pickling. We also picked up 1/2 bushel of beets for Adrianna's pickled beets for fair. Lovely!
The raised bed gardens are doing very well. I am excited to get them going earlier next year. We have lots of green tomatoes, now we need them to ripen for salsa.
Rabbits, chickens and turkeys look great. We need to wash some after all the mud, and rabbit babies are growing fast, so they need to be moved around. Maybe we can get to it tomorrow.
Lots of firsts today. I was able to harvest the first ripe tomato of the season. We cut it up into a gorgeous fresh salad with snap peas, greens and baby carrots from the garden. We also put up 11 cups of pie cherries in the freezer. I use 2 cups cherries to 1/2 cup sugar. That works well for most recipes.
We also got our first purchase from the local farmer's stand. We were able to get 1/2 bushel of green beans into the fridge and ready for freezer or pickling. We also picked up 1/2 bushel of beets for Adrianna's pickled beets for fair. Lovely!
The raised bed gardens are doing very well. I am excited to get them going earlier next year. We have lots of green tomatoes, now we need them to ripen for salsa.
Rabbits, chickens and turkeys look great. We need to wash some after all the mud, and rabbit babies are growing fast, so they need to be moved around. Maybe we can get to it tomorrow.
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