My husband made a comment the other day that, “we must have the cleanest kitchen in the county.” I don’t think this comment was because our kitchen looks that clean, but probably because he has seen me cleaning it so much. The reason I have been cleaning it so much is because I have been using it so much. In just one day last week I put a roast with veggies in the crock pot, then I started a pot of soup that would be for the following days dinner. I then made a batch of soap (pumpkin spice), cleaned some beeswax, then made some pumpkin bread. In between each task I was washing, drying and putting away dishes and wiping down counters. After all was said and done I cleaned the floor and of course took out the trash. There have been several days this week that my kitchen has been busy like this, cleaning beeswax, making face, hand and body balms or lip balms, cooking squash or pumpkins for eating, freezing, making pies, bread, and most recently pumpkin fruit leather in the food dehydrator, as well as cooking three meals a day and canning the left over vegetable soup. The clean-ups continue between each task, but no, I don’t believe I have the cleanest kitchen in the county, and I don’t believe I would want to. If I were to see a perfectly clean kitchen I would think that it is simply a show case, and not used for so many practical purposes as mine.

The other thing I have been experimenting with is candle making. I plan on posting about this soon.

While I’ve been busy with all of my kitchen projects, my husband has been tending to the farm. He finished the harvesting of the pumpkins and squash, the peppers, eggplant, cabbage, carrots and swiss chard. He brought in several truck loads of horse manure to be spread in the gardens before he puts in the winter cover crop. He also checked all of the bee hives. We lost one. We are not certain why, but the hive was completely empty when he checked it. He took one full box of honey from one hive, and since it does not have frames we will harvest (package) this as honey in the comb. He decided to leave each hive with an addition box full of honey for the winter. In the spring, when the bees begin making food again, if there is honey leftover we will harvest it then.

Until next time 🙂

I’ll be adding another post soon, but today I plan on being on the tractor mowing the field. It’s time to cut it now that the frost has killed off the wild flowers, so the bees are not in there foraging. I haven’t had much time on the tractor this year and I miss it. So I am looking forward to today. 🙂

The sun was shining, the wind was blowing, the ground was dry, our minds were set on getting the rest of the garlic planted, and thank God our bodies did not object. Monday morning turned out to be the perfect time to get the rest of the garlic in the ground. Oh how happy we are to have this done, and how thankful we are that the weather has been so perfect for this task. Last year we learned how difficult this job can be when the ground has excessive amounts of moisture (can you say mud), and in past years we have learned how physically challenging it can be to our bodies (both now in their 6th decade) when we were working under the gun (marathon planting) because my of husbands limited time at home. So, with 5000+ cloves in the ground, I say WOO HOO! and Thank God! the garlic is in, and now we can move on to other tasks.

Since it rained on Friday, the only work we did on garlic was separating the bulbs of S&H Silver into individual cloves. This is the variety that we will plant the most of, so there were about 16 lbs. of these to take apart. Again, a lot of work. Saturday was a beautiful fall day, we started planting in the late morning and planted about a row and a half, first a few hundred Spanish Roja then S&H Silver, before we decided to break for lunch. With the added moisture in the soil from Friday’s rain, the planting seemed easier.

We decided to take advantage of this glorious weather and work some more after lunch. So taking frequent breaks for stretching, to prevent our muscles from stiffening up on us, we planted the rest of the S& H Silver and worked until near dark. At the end of the night we had approximately 3600 garlic cloves planted and mulched, and we could still move. We thanked God for the great weather and how well the planting was going, and we asked His blessings on our efforts.

I thought we might take a break from planting today, but being another beautiful day and since our bodies were not in too much pain, we decided to get started on planting the Chesnok  Red. Again we took frequent breaks from the planting (on our hands and knees) to get up and walk around and stretch. That is one of the advantages of working for yourself. We planted somewhere in the area of 1200 Chesnok Red and called it a night with only a couple hundred left to plant.

Several times during this process my husband has reiterated, “this is a lot of work” and “nobody in their right mind would be a garlic farmer,” so be warned, if you ever meet a garlic farmer, (I guess this includes me) they might be a little crazy. These statements also made me realize that I have three things going for me. First of all, my husband loves me very much and therefore is willing to participate in my crazy (garlic farming) idea, secondly, my husband is not afraid of hard work, and lastly my husband was born with garlic in his veins.

Craft Sale

WHEN: October 24th
(Sat) 2015, 9:00 – 4:00
WHERE: American Legion Merrick-Potter Post 566
34330 Bordman Rd., Memphis
ADMISSION: Donation of $1.00 each person over the age of 12

I will be selling Don’t Eat It Soap and Skin Care Products at this craft sale. It is a fund raiser for the American Legion. My sister Kathy will also be there with many of her handcrafted items. I not sure what all she will have, but she usually has baby blankets, must have camo baby bibs (this is what all the cool kids are wearing), pillow cases, and doll clothes that will fit American Girl Dolls. She also makes the lip balm holders that we sell. Hopefully she will comment below and tell us what she will have. There will be other crafters there, and what I really like about this sale is that it is all handcrafted items. It’s not to soon to start your holiday shopping, and buying locally hand crafted items is a great way to get wonderful gifts while supporting your local economy. We hope to see you there.