Thursday we decided to grill up a steak for dinner. It would be delicious with some fresh-from-the-garden veggies.
So we dug up some potatoes.
We picked some Swiss chard. (We like to pick it when it is young and tender.)
And we picked green beans.
I sauteed the Swiss chard in olive oil with minced (freshly dug) garlic. I boiled the potatoes and steamed the green beans, and both were topped with garlic butter.
It was a delicious meal. Such a blessing!
Do you have a favorite fresh-from-the -garden dish?
as is the strawberry patch. There are a lot of blossoms, some beginning to turn into berries. We should have strawberries in a week or two. YUM!
The salvia is blossoming,
as is the thyme,
and the chives. Did you know chive blossoms are edible? Learn more here.
The peach trees have many small peaches. too many for this young tree to support. I read that the fruit should be thinned, leaving only one peach every 6 to 8 inches. This will be done soon.
I spent some time over the last two days pruning some of our forsythia and lilac bushes. When we planted the peach trees we put them on the berm where the lilacs and forsythia are. We wanted them on higher ground since the last few years had been extremely wet and we didn’t want them to drown.
I pruned down the lilacs and forsythia that are near the peach trees so the trees will have enough air flow and sunlight.
With hot weather in the forecast early this week we will need to get the pump in the pond so that we are ready to water to gardens if we don’t get enough rain. My husband claims it is my turn to put the pump in the pond so I’ll be sure to take some pictures so I can show you how we use pond water to irrigate our crops.
We been having some nice weather this week so I thought maybe you might join me for a walk at the farm.
One of the first things you might notice is that our neighbor to the east, who has horses, extended their corral. The fence that my husband put up last spring is their barrier to the west, so they come right up to our property line. For the first couple of weeks Ruby and ranger would go over and bark at them, probably thinking they were doing something they shouldn’t. But Ruby and Ranger have since gotten use to them being so close and while Ruby and Bernard might touch noses through the fence, she no longer has an issue with them being there.
Ruby greets Bernard and Colby Jack
My husband said that every morning when he goes to open up the chicken coop Bernard and Colby Jack greet him at the fence. He likes to have a couple of carrots or other treats for them.
Bernard
They are very friendly horses, especially when there are treats to be had.
Colby Jack
The chickens out enjoying the nice weather. The hens started laying more eggs this week. For several weeks we have only been getting between zero and two eggs a day, but in the last four days we have collected 18 eggs.
Rex, our rooster, is one of the chicks that we got last spring. Unlike roosters we have had in the past he not aggressive toward people or the dogs. It’s nice not to worry about turning my back on him.
Garlic Sprouts
They are a bit difficult to make out in the above picture, but the garlic is about 4 or 5 inches high. I spotted daffodils, lilies and irises sprouting as well.
While things have started to dry out a bit this week the pond is still running over its bank. This is the highest we have ever seen the pond this time of year.
Most of our beach is under water.
As I walked down the west property line I loved this view of the barn.
The thin layer of ice that covered much of the pond early this week has since melted since temperatures reached up into the 50’s and 60’s F on Thursday and Friday.
There is still plenty of time for winter weather to return but we will certainly appreciate these nice days while we have them.
Planting garlic this year was a smooth, uneventful task. We were keeping a close eye on the weather forecast during the first week of October, awaiting our best opportunity. The weather had turned cool and rain was in the forecast for several days last week into this week. Some days were all day rain events and others just passing showers. We saw an opening – last Wednesday and Thursday looked like they might be dry days with rain not forecast again until late in the day on Friday. When Wednesday was cool and overcast we decided to wait until Thursday. It was supposed to be a nicer day and waiting would give the ground a bit more time to dry out.
Thursday afternoon was perfect – not to hot, not to cold, mostly sunny and no mosquitoes. We were able to get our mere 320 cloves of garlic planted, mulched and fenced in about two hours time.
When we woke up to rain showers Friday morning I couldn’t have been more grateful that this job was finished.
I didn’t get many pictures of the planting process this year or go into a lot of detail in this post because most of you have been here in past years. I did however take a look back at all of my previous garlic planting posts and decided to share them here. If you/d like to learn more about the process or you’re curious about our history with garlic take a look – they go as far back as 2015, my first year of blogging.
There were so many things in August that I wanted to write about but didn’t – this is my catch-up post.
Weather
The rainy streak that we had in July continued into August as our gardens continued to flounder. We were blessed that we didn’t get any of the severe weather, tornadoes, high winds, and hail, that other parts of our state experienced. We also did not have any power outages. We didn’t have our super-hot “dog days” of summer that we normally have in August, but we are having them now. Yesterday was hot and today, September 4th, we have reached 95 degrees Fahrenheit with a “feels like” temperature of 103 Fahrenheit. This weather is supposed to stick around for another day or two but today will be the hottest. A good day to spend indoors with the air conditioning on and writing to you all.
Back to School Shopping
It’s been about a decade since I’ve done back to school shopping (my youngest daughter graduated in 2014) but when Tina mentioned that they had received school supply lists from Jackson’s and Addie’s teaches I thought maybe I could help out by buying what they needed for school.
It was like stepping back in time when I walked into the same store where I bought school supplies the last few years my girls were in school, and saw all the notebooks, folders and others school supplies steeply discounted for their big back-to-school sale. I was flooded with fond memories.
The lists for a kindergartener and a first grader varied greatly from that of the high schoolers that I last shopped for. I bought crayons instead of highlighters and red and black pens, and safety scissors and glue sticks replaced the multitude of three ring binders with dividers and spiral notebooks. Hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes, items I would think should be supplied by the school, are now a priority.
Jackson and Addie started back to school on Monday and I saw a picture of them walking into school with the new backpacks I bought attached to their backs. That made me smile.
I also made them each a new pair of pants. I had planned to make the t- shirts to match but time got away from me, and I have not got around to making the shirts.
Books
Oure local library had a used book sale in August. When we walked in they handed me a plastic grocery bag and said that it was $2.00 for whatever fit in the bag. I ended up with two bags full, about 20 books for $4.00. That should keep me in reading material through the winter. My husband found a partial set of Audubon Nature Encyclopedias. They were printed in 1964 and were a first printing. It was the first 5 books in the set (A through IN) they have some lovely photos and illustrations and will make for some interesting reading. He paid $1.00 for the set of 5. Now that’s my kind of shopping! 🙂
I wonder if I should start doing some book reviews or at least some recommended reading posts. Several of the bloggers I follow do book reviews but is that something you would be interested in hearing from me?
Like Winning the Lottery
One afternoon as I was getting up from my recliner I happened to see something sparkle on the floor in front of my husband’s recliner. I didn’t think much of it at the time other than to remind myself that I really needed to do some vacuuming. A short time later I happened to glance down and notice that the diamond was missing from my wedding ring. At first I started to panic. Then I remembered the sparkle that I had seen on the floor. How it ended up there I’ll never know but indeed it was my diamond. (Angels perhaps?)
I just can’t imagine, of all the places it could have ended up, what the odds of it ending up there and me noticing it are, but it has to be at least equal to winning a million or more in the lottery. Though the monetary value of the stone is nowhere near that of a million-dollar winning ticket, I don’t think I would have been happier if I had won the lottery.
After two weeks at the jewelers my ring is back on my finger and as good as new. 🙂
Canning
In early August I mentioned to my husband that peach season would be coming up soon and I wanted to get another half bushel to can this year. Not wanting to miss out my husband called the orchard where we got our peaches last year and found out that they had quarts and pecks but would have large amounts later that week. Early the next week I knew I would have time to can peaches so on that Tuesday my husband went to the orchard and picked up a box. As it turned out they needed a few days to ripen so I ended up waiting until Friday. I canned 21 pints of peaches and made 7 1/2 pints of peach jam. They taste like summer in a jar – oh so good!!!
In addition to the bread and butter pickles I made last month we had enough cucumbers for me to make 5 more quarts of garlic dill spears. Since I still have pickles left over from last year we will have more than enough to get us through the year.
I finished up last week canning 14 quarts of tomato sauce. I also have 5 gallons of tomatoes in the freezer waiting to be made into sauce. Since I still have some juice left over from last year we decided to share our abundance of tomatoes with our neighbor who was also doing some canning. God is good!
Garlic
The garlic that was harvested and hung in the barn in mid-July was finally ready to be cleaned.
It took me about 4 hours over the course of two days to clip and clean the approximately 330 bulbs this year.
Twist and Turns
I mentioned in my previous post that life had taken some twists and turns and I know some of you might be concerned over such an ambiguous statement. I apologize and assure you that we are well. We have, however, started exploring our options for building a house at the farm. We are mostly in the research stage – gathering the information that we need to make decisions. I do think this is going to be a long process and pray that it will be a good experience.
Don’t be surprised if someday in the future you see a house in the background of this photo.
Don't Eat It! Soap and Skin Care 