It is quite the learning experience to grow something new. Especially when the “readiness” is hard to judge. All of the things I read tell you to harvest winter squash before the first frost. They also tell you to wait for the vines to die back plus a couple of weeks for “curing” (the skin […]
New Culinary Successes
This summer has brought a few new tricks to my culinary tool belt. I thought I would share them with you in case you might benefit from them. The first time I met my neighbor Jen she was cutting up watermelon. I was so intrigued by the technique that I immediately started doing it. She […]
Animals, Shop, Garden and a Little Fun
I thought you might enjoy some pictures of the animals. The chicks sure have grown a lot. The Barred Rock chickens are very sociable. Our chicken coop has a door that leads out to an enclosed pen. I think that the Ameraucana chicken’s head looks like […]
It’s Apple Harvest Time
Woohoo? When you have sixteen apple trees you really do question whether it is a good thing. The first thing I did was take one of each type of apple that we have and cut it up to sample. We don’t know the name for each type of apple. I know that we have Granny […]
Various Things
Well it is Friday and time to focus on chores. Over the past ten days or so I have snapped a few pictures of some things that have interested me. Here they are… One day I went outside and happened to look down at our door mat that is just before you step up to […]
Roasting Tomatoes
Life is busy. Harvest. School. Chores. Appointments. Do you remember this picture? Well those ended up being two loads in the food dehydrator. I tried slicing them on the thick side by hand. Missed using my mandolin which makes things go lighting fast but we like the texture of the thicker slices. In the midst […]
Canning Tomatoes
I’ve been waiting for what seems like an eternity for the tomatoes to ripen. My hope is always to get most of the canning done before the new school year begins. Tomatoes in Oregon are notorious for taking their own sweet time. Well finally, it was time to pick tomatoes. In my first haul of […]
What Boys Do
God has graciously provided a very productive garden for us this year. The winter squash are so productive that they hide other vegetables. Namely cucumbers. Yesterday I went in search of cucumbers after avoiding the garden for a few days. Although I do try to get out to the garden daily and search for produce […]
How Does Our Garden Grow– Update
I worked in the garden today for about seven hours and I thought you might like to see how it is coming along. Here is one of the pictures from July. Here is a similar shot from today. Here were our tomatillos in July. Here they are today. I have a ton of winter squash […]
Fruit Leather
Well, I guess it is harvest time. In the past two weeks I have stored up a few loads of dried apples, a couple ice cube trays of basil, keep adding pickling cucumbers to my refrigerator dill pickles, made a couple of apples pies, canned nine pints of sweet lime pickle chips and did a […]
The Good the Bad and the Downright Frigh...
There is a dark side to living in the country. No, it isn’t people turning old toilets into planters. It isn’t even the library that is smaller than my laundry room. It is the critters that live side by side with you and you don’t even know they are there until you run smack into […]
Cucumbers a Plenty
My cucumbers are growing splendidly. Not the pickling kind of course. The regular eating kind are going gang busters. I decided to try a refrigerator bread and butter pickle. I wasn’t sure that regular cucumbers would be good as pickles. Not wanting to waste time canning something that wouldn’t turn out I went with the […]