It's all about the Snacks

Ok, so I've been doing this "auto-immune paleo diet" thing for almost 2 months now.  How's it going?  I really am not sure.  There is this huge list of foods to avoid, and frankly, I'm really bad at it.  For the first month, I totally ditched dairy, grains of any kind, nuts, "most" legumes, eggs, "most" high-glycemic fruits, all alcohol... and a few others.  Exactly 1 month after I started was my birthday, and I'll be damned if I'm not going to have something special on my birthday!  The cupcakes I made had only a handful of ingredients: eggs (like, 10 of them), chocolate, cocoa powder, and honey... And they were CRAZY good.  So eggs have been back "in" since then.  But I didn't notice a difference with or without them.  I am, however, mostly using duck eggs, as they are structurally different than chicken eggs... but that's a different post.  And I came to realize I was "cheating" without realizing it.  I honestly missed my lattes.  I did switch to chai lattes instead of coffee, but I was ordering them with soy milk instead of milk-milk.  DUH.  Soy = soy beans = legume.  Silly me.  But then, thankfully, I rediscovered a local roastery that has Almond milk Chai Lattes.  Saved!  And thank goodness for my bank account, they're not open on weekends.

I'll tell you, for the first while, all I could think about was what I couldn't have.  It gets you down, let me tell you.  My hubby is a fantastic cook and baker -- makes this amazing bread with fermented grains and yumminess.  I couldn't touch it.  Breakfast for the first month was a nightmare -- no eggs!  No toast or cereal or oatmeal or yoghurt or granola!  Geez! So I bought coconut yoghurt (not cheap stuff, lemme tell you!), which has added sugar... not so good on a "clean" diet.  I tried making it myself and failed miserably.  I ate a lot of applesauce that first month.  And I was ALWAYS hungry.  I even woke up in the middle of the night once and had. to. eat. meat.  I raided the fridge in the middle of the night.  I NEVER do that!  I've only got a handle on the frequency of eating recently.  I eat basically all the time.  I always have snacks going.  The best one?  Coconut chips by Blue Monkey.  Cheap and they satisfy the sweet/salty/crunchie cravings.  I love 'em.

Along with the eggs, I've tried a bit of dairy, but my shoulders seem to bother me afterwards.  So I've cut out the dairy (again).  I'm trying nuts this week.  I figured, might as well, as I'm drinking those delightful almond chai lattes a couple times a week.  Still staying away from all the grains though.  Which has me experimenting.  A recent issue of Taproot Magazine had a recipe for gluten-free sourdough starter.  I am trying it using coconut flour.  It actually seems to be working!  It smells yeasty now, and I've been working on it for about 10 days.  Which is longer than the recipe says, but I expected that with the coconut flour.  What spurred me on was my friend discovered this amazing coconut bread "Cocolithic" made with just Organic coconut flour, whole coconut, sea salt, and water.  No grains, yeast, oils or sugar.  I can't wait to try a bread with my starter!  Mainly because I can only get this bread in our town once/week and only if I line up at 9AM.  Crazy. And it's like $8 for what seems like 1/2 a regular loaf of bread.  But it's SO good!

My ankles are still a major issue, but I seem to be more focussed, not so foggy now.  I think.  I will continue on the AIP diet for now.  I've read that the longer a person's been dealing with an issue, the longer it takes to go away.  I can remember my feet bothering me for YEARS.  Not all the time like now, but definitely for about the past 5 years or so.  That's not going to go away overnight.  So I'll keep at it and will post my frustrations and successes as I go.

The Long and the Short of It

Hmm.  It's been so long, I hardly know where to start.  My year last year was a bit of a doozy, health-wise.  The short story is that all my weird pains were finally diagnosed as Rheumatoid Arthritis and the specialist of course wanted to put me on all kinds of major drugs right off the bat.  I have resisted that, going solely with diet changes.  I've slowly been eliminating different foods and lately stumbled on the book "Why Isn't My Brain Working" which basically says that most afflictions have to do with an unhealthy brain and here's what do to about it.

So my year last year was about good days and bad days (probably an even number of both), and working our family business and trying my damndest to keep up with our garden and the animals.  Let's say the animals are well, we added about 9 more laying hens, and I grew great pumpkins, which I'm still enjoying from the freezer.

2 weeks ago, I started on the path of the "Auto-Immune Paleo Diet" (insert groan here), and here I am, still figuring it all out.  Basically, I've totally cut out all grains, dairy, eggs, and all nuts/legumes, extremely limited sugar & coffee, and nightshade veggies.  It's quite the thing.  I'm hungry ALL the time, and I'm obsessed with my next meal or snack.  After 2 weeks, I'm kind of getting the hang of it, but if I'm not always eating, I'm hungry.  When I was first diagnosed last year, I started limiting a lot of bread-y things, and the weight just fell off.  Not that I was big before.  I'm 5'7", and have weighed 134 lbs for most of my adult life (with the exception of pregnancies).  I'm now 20 lbs lighter.  So I can't really afford to lose any more weight.  It's very weird, and I don't feel strong, which bugs me, being the independent kind of person that I am.

Am I feeling better?  I think so.  2 weeks is a little early to tell, but I feel like I need to document this somehow, to see any results.  I'm still really stiff in my ankles, which means I limp pretty much all the time, but it seems to be lessening.  What I am noticing is that I experience less ups and downs throughout the day... like a fog has lifted.  And I'm sleeping through the night.

That's about all I can say for now.  I'm taking it day by day.  Thanks for listening.

Sonkers!

I've made this a few times now, using what ever berries/fruit I happen to have on hand at the time.  It's kinda like a pie turned inside-out.  I am not skilled in the pastry department, so I avoid pies if I can... But this, thanks to an article by Ashley English that appears in her book, "A Year of Pies" and I believe in Taproot Magazine too.  (Adapted recipe after the photos)

This one was raspberries:

And dolloped (is that even a word?) with spelt dumplings...

... and served with ice cream!  Voila:

Recipe:

Filling:

• 4 1/2 half-pints raspberries

• 1/2 cup honey/agave/maple syrup

• 1/4 cup arrowroot powder or cornstarch

• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• Topping:
• 1 cup all-purpose flour (or spelt or combo)

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed

• 3/4 cup buttermilk (or yoghurt)

• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 425°F. Butter a 10-inch skillet or a 9-inch pie pan and set aside.

Prepare the filling:

Combine all the ingredients for the filling in a medium-size bowl. Stir until the dry ingredients are thoroughly mixed and the berries are well-coated. Cover bowl with a kitchen cloth and set aside for 15 minutes.

Prepare the biscuit topping:

Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium-sized bowl.

Using a pastry blender or fork, cut in the butter cubes until the mixture is crumbly and the size of peas or smaller.

Create a well in the center of the mixture. Pour in the buttermilk, and using a large spoon, gently incorporate just until all of the dry ingredients are moistened. The mixture will look quite wet at this point, but that’s fine.

Assemble the sonker:

Place the blackberry mixture in the prepared skillet.

Using a large spoon,dollop the surface of the raspberries with the biscuit topping, aiming for mounds of about 3 tablespoons of batter. You needn’t be terribly specific on the biscuit amounts; as long as the surface is dotted with reasonably similar biscuit mounds, you’re fine.

Pour the melted butter over the biscuit topping and bake for 15 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 350°F and continue baking an additional 30 minutes.

Cool at least 30 minutes.

Enjoy!  And, if you have leftovers, you can have it again for breakfast, with yoghurt on the side instead of the icecream.  

How Does Your Garden Grow?

My garden? This year?  Not very well, I'm afraid.  I got a really late start for a couple of reasons... one was that our garden gate is one that has very large gaps in it.  Not large enough for sheep to bust through, but plenty big enough for the ducks and chickens.  So after waiting and waiting for said gate to be replaced, I got impatient and tacked a bunch of netting over the gaps.  A little unsightly, but effective.  

So my lettuces didn't get planted... or rather, they did, but the ducks ate it before I had the netting up and I didn't bother to replant.

Thank goodness for garlic that was in last fall:

and New Zealand spinach (not really a spinach) that reseeds itself:
(notice the peas in the background -- that was all the kids' doing, not mine)

So this year, I think I've resigned myself to things that don't need a lot of work, like pumpkins of various types and sizes...

... and raspberries & blackberries that are threatening to overtake a very large part of both the garden and the chicken yard...

Low maintenance, people, that's what I'm going for this year.  I don't have time for succession planting or lettuces that are going to bolt at the first hint of heat.  It's going to be a hot one, so definitely don't need THAT.  I'll concentrate on garlic, pumpkins, and berries me thinks.  Lots of jam and pumpkins to get us through the winter.  Sounds good to me!

Harvesting, Defined

To Harvest (v): To glean or collect or gather, usually pertaining to fruits, vegetables, grains.

We were told late last year of an abandoned apple orchard in our neighborhood, so this year we decided to harvest some apples for ourselves.  The children thoroughly enjoyed running in the overgrown space, admiring the trees with shoots sticking out every-which-way, with kid-sized apples at their height.

And they happen to be MacIntoshes, my personal favourite.

We gathered a full bag or 2, some to eat, some to process into applesauce, and some to give to some very generous friends ...

Hmmm.  Process.  Applesauce.  Two words that bring me to the second part of this post.

Applesauce goes very well with pork.  If you remember, we raised two pigs this summer.  (I certainly will not forget anytime soon, if EVER.).  The friends who recieved our gift of apples gave us a generous gift as well -- their time and knowledge and skills -- to process our pigs.

It strikes me the various words we use to describe this: Harvest. Process.  Dispatch. Slaughter. Kill.

Really.  It's murder.  There was nothing wrong with the pigs -- they were perfectly healthy -- perfectly happy.  And we ended their lives so we could eat healthy meat.  Although this is why we raised them, and we fed them as well as we were set up to do, kept them healthy, comfortable -- it still does not make me rest easy that we ultimately murdered these animals.  Granted, they are by far  my least favourite critter I have EVER raised, I still do not take their death lightly.  It was over so quickly, so cleanly, so humanely, however, I'm not sure we will ever do this again. I was witness to the entire process.  I felt that I owed them that much. They deserved respect, in life and in death, whether I enjoyed their piggishness or not.

Thank you to our friends.  And Thanks to the pigs.

And that was Summer

Really.  September already.  I feel like this, the Summer of 2013, has gone by in a blur.   Gorgeous weather for sure, and lots to do... So Much to Do.  Too Much.

My poor garden is so overgrown and crazy-wild, I'm slightly embarrassed by it.  I've totally neglected it for most -- if not all -- summer.  Other than watering it on occassion.  If it weren't for all the volunteer plants this year, I'm not sure I'd have much in there to speak of.  Half the potato plants and ALL the tomatoes grew all by themselves, with no help from me.  The chard and New Zealand spinach are out of control.  My lettuces are bolting all over the place.  Thankfully, some things like the carrots and beets don't really care if I pay any attention to them.  They are almost happier if I don't.  I did manage to harvest the garlic at the end of July, but it's still sitting, drying, with old dirt caking the huge bulbs waiting for a good scrubbing and to be put in the basement.

Thankfully the fruit trees don't need much attention.

Really, the only saving grace of it all is that nothing is really going to go to waste.  Sure, I'm not going to be harvesting or preserving as much for us as I would like, but the pigs and chickens will get several good feasts from everything I pull out of there.

So why did everything get so crazy??  I have 2 answers for that: pigs and unexpected chickens.  The pigs we have managed to feed almost for free if you don't count the time and money spent on gas gathering everything for them: greens and other produce from a local grocery store (a lot of it organic), expired bread and milk from a bakery and another grocery store.  Then we cook almost all their food, other than soft fruits and melon-y things.  Three HUGE meals a day.   They are getting big, but not fat, so I think it's a good thing.  The proof, I guess, will be in the... um... "pudding" ... so to speak.

And the chickens?  Yikes.  I was so proud of myself, having planned the 2 hatches of buff orpingtons, marans, and ameraucanas so precisely so as to have the hens laying by September at the latest.  And then came the gift of Salmon Faverolles and Mille Fleur D'uccles.  Two breeds I personally DID NOT plan on having this year -- or any time in the near future for that matter.  But, they were a gift for my bird-loving daughter from a very generous lady.  They hatched in mid-July and won't lay anything till at least January.  I did sell a couple Mille Fleurs and 6 Faverolles, but still.  I'm STILL raising chicks.  And one of the little "millies" has a severe cross-beak, so requires extra attention.  I can pass a lot of that extra care on to the Daughter, since they were given to her.  And the Fav's -- we ended up with 3 pullets and 1cockerel so that's nice, if we choose to breed them.  At this point, I would just like to concentrate on the marans and ameraucanas.  

Sigh.  Lots to do still.

I'm taking notes already for next year, mostly of what NOT to do.  Like no hatching birds after May, for starters.

My New Favorite Thing

Wanna get totally blissed out for a couple of minutes in the middle of a crazy day??  
I have 1 word for you: Affogato.  It is, quite literally, a scoop of vanilla gelato drowning in a shot of espresso. 

We slide out to our favourite Italian deli a couple of times a week and have one of these little numbers.  And seriously, I can tune out just about anything when I'm sipping one of these babies.  You get this with wine, you say?  Well.  I self-diagnosed gout about a year ago so have barely touched a lick of alcohol since. No wine for me.  Especially no beer.  Thank the powers that be I can still drink coffee!!!  And it's not just about the drinking of it, either.  I can and do (often) go to the deli and order one, but I can just as easily make one at home.

Measuring the coffee into the stove-top espresso maker.  Scooping the still-hard gelato (too soft and it is just in a puddle in your cup).  Pouring -- slowly -- the steaming hot espresso over the gelato and watching the merger.  Taking that first sip.  

Ahhhhh.

And Then.  

A sigh of pure relaxed joy, knowing ... 

I can have two.

Oink.

I truly don't know what I've gotten myself into this time.

We've talked about expanding in this way before, but then, it just kinda happened.

Pigs.

The extent of my knowledge on pigs comes from Wilbur in Charlotte's Web and Babe in the movie of the same name.  The pigs (there are 2!) are about the same size as Babe looks in the movie, and they are only 9 weeks old.  Apparently, they are a Berkshire cross, but they are pink, not black as one might expect a Berkshire to be.  They are about 50 lbs now, but will get bigger.  Much. Bigger.

So, what is a person to do?  Well, first off, we all agreed that if we were getting these animals, it was to be a family project, not just a mama project, no thank you.  I've enough to do with the lambs, ducklings, geese, turkeys with babies, and chickens around here already.  We are raising them for meat, as my family really seems to enjoy eating pork and the way that commercially-raised pigs are kept is beyond horrific.  For these sensitive, intelligent animals to be kept in filth and fed garbage (literally), is inexcusable.  When really, honestly, their taste buds seem very discernible.  Believe it or not.

Then, I consulted my "bible" or my first go-to book when any farm-type question is raised.  Then, I go to our library site and reserve, "Storey's Guide to Raising Pigs" as I find the Storey's guides the most informative and comprehensive farm-animal handbooks around.  Then, we just observe.  Watch what they eat, when they like to eat and how much (a lot!),  the noises they make when they're happy, and when they're not.  Wow.  What a learning curve this one is; bigger than most I think.  Relative to the critter in question I suppose.

We've learned a couple of things already: They like their backs scratched.  It only took 1 night to train them to go to bed in their "house".  (The coyotes that were howling right outside their pen the night before might have helped to convince them it was a good idea.) They would rather not eat anything rotten, thank you.  They LOVE grass.  They do not defecate or urinate near where they eat or sleep, if they can help it.  They are AMAZING rototillers!

They are in a pen at the far back of the property, in our old dog run which we had reinforced with cement when the dogs were younger as they were diggers and escape artists.   So far, it's working for the pigs.  We are feeding them as organically as possible, gathering gleaning from local (small) grocery stores mostly, plus some "pig pellets" which is really just insurance that they are getting all they need. (Incidentally, it seems near impossible to find organic pig food, so if anyone has a lead on some, I"d love to hear it.  Who knows what goes into these manufacturer pellets that pigs are expected to eat every day of their lives.  Gross.)  Ideally, we would be raising them on pasture, and might still do, but we've been warned about pigs and how they can eat chickens that get in their way, and that they bite, and they escape from anything.  You know.  The kind of horror stories new pig farmers want to hear.  Not.  So we'll see how we go once we've gotten used to them, and them to us.

There will be more on this later.

Oh ya.  Bet on it.

Chicken Garden 2013

The one and only, "Beep"

Lettuce in the chicken garden

Mixed spicy Asian greens in the Chicken Garden

New black silkies!

I like to spoil my chickens.  They deserve it.  They give us a bounty of beautiful, healthful eggs almost all year-round, they clean up the insects and kitchen scraps, add nitrogen to the compost pile and are a joy to watch.  And so, Chicken Garden 2013 begins.  I've netted the same area that I used for the chicken garden last year.  This year, I'm taking more precautions as I actually want to grow some stuff in there for the people too, like corn and pumpkins (lots of pumpkins!) and different squashes.  The chickens can have a variety of different lettuces, peas, beans and sunflowers.  Plus the millet and oats that we planted in there last year has re-seeded itself so there's that too.  I've roped off part of their main pen as well and planted more corn, millet, oats and sunflowers in there.  Hopefully I can keep the sneaky devils out of there until it comes up enough that they won't devastate it in a matter of minutes.

There's quite a few of our feathered friends down there now -- the main flock of 13 (including Bowie the Rooster and our one last "Old Lady" Sex-sal-Link hen who hasn't laid in YEARS)-- Daughter's 5 Buff Orphingtons, the 9 mixed Orphingtons, and the new trio of black silkies.  Of these, we'll be keeping almost all the hens, and Daughter can choose one Buff Rooster to be her breeder-man for next spring.  Of my Birthday Presents of marans and wheaton ameraucanas, we'll keep one blue marans rooster ("Elvis") and the wheaton ameraucana roo ("Sting").  Of the rest of the boys, I may try to sell a couple, as marans are not always easy to come by, or, failing that, apparently they dress out nicely for the table as well.  It looks like, of the 6 ameraucana eggs I purchased, only 2 hatched, but I may have gotten my ultimate wish -- 1 hen and 1 rooster.  I've learned my lesson about counting my hens before they lay, so  the one I believe to be an ameraucana hen we've dubbed "Happy" -- because that's what I'll be if it does turn out to be a hen :)

Happy and Sting

:: In Progress ::

Well.  My dance card has been FULL lately, let me tell you!

So, in short, here's what's in progress around here ...

:: First batch of Buff Orphingtons are now old enough (and Big Enough!) to be in with the main flock
:: Second round of orphingtons - 3 buffs and 6 isobels - are in the transition yard beside the main flock
:: My birthday presents, the marans and wheaton ameraucanas, are now by themselves in the chick yard, covered by netting to protect them from winged predators
:: First hatch of turkeys happened Today!  Mama Violet hatched 10/10 eggs and is now in the Turkey Nursery yard, which is also covered with netting for the same reason as above
:: Tasha the Turkey hen is sitting on a clutch of eggs, due sometime next week
:: The garlic is going Mental
:: I have volunteer potatoes and New Zealand spinach in the garden - boy is it nice when plants come up all by themselves!
:: It's looking like a good crop of strawberries and raspberries this year!
:: We gave away 1 drake (kept 1), and are hatching ducklings in the incubator next week
:: The lambs are now 10 weeks old, and the boys have all been castrated (!)
:: My "shalom" sweater is near completion!

We've plateau'ed for a bit now -- garden is mostly planted, the lambs don't need to be doted upon, the chicks are all outside and doing well, the turkey mamas and babes have protection.  It's all just basic management at this point.  The ducklings will stir things up a bit next week and will require a little extra attention, and I have turkey eggs in the incubator too and my fingers are crossed that all goes well there.  I've only ever had mama-hatched poults before and they do SO well with mama.  Why the incubator then?  I had turkeys laying eggs all over and no one sitting on them, and really, at $15 per poult, it's a bit of gold when they hatch.  All the money we get from selling baby turkeys goes to feeding the rest of the birds, and it would be so nice not to dip into our personal savings to feed everyone this winter.

Next update: ducklings!

See you soon....

Hello March!

Well... Can I say it?  Spring has Sprung!

And with it, my dear sweet ewe's ever-widening bellies!

It's only the very beginning of March, but it truly felt like the end of April today.  We were outside all afternoon, digging in the garden, frolicking with chickens, and checking out the state of the very pregnant sheep.

Here's Sunny, who's not as far along as Dulcie...

And for those who haven't seen a pregnant sheep close up, and for my own records as I am totally new to this realm of sheep-keeping, here is Dulcie:

Dulcie from the front...

... and from the back.

 I am hoping that this time next year, I can look back on theses photos, and go, 'Oh, right, so they have x more days/weeks to go when they look like this."  Dulcie's and Moo's (they are sisters) udders are getting quite full and they have a waddle happening as they stroll across the yard.  They are moving none too fast these days.  We're all having a guess as who's carrying what.

For the record, we think that Dulcie and Moo, both quite wide, will birth first and have twins.  They themselves are from triplets.  Sunny and Stella will be a little later, a couple of weeks maybe, and birth singles.  This is what we're thinking anyway.

A Buff Update:
It was SO warm out today, 13C this afternoon, and plenty warmer in the (new!) greenhouse where these little ones were having a party!

Oh, the things to discover when you're new to the world outside!

And, in the garden, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that I hadn't killed the rhubarb, and it's coming up!

And the garlic too!! Wow, must be spring!

The Golden Nectar

Have you ever done a taste test with Honey??  Some of you might think, "What for? Honey is honey." So not true!  Honey is available in so many different "flavors" and from so many different climates, it can be mind-boggling.  I decided to try a taste test with a few different varieties for part of a 4H Cloverbuds meeting on honeybees.  I collected a couple of samples, some from local sources and a generic Costco brand.

We tried a fireweed honey and a lavender honey from Planet Bee, a basil honey from Bees Inc., a plain honey from Arlo's Honey Farm, and the generic Bee Maid from Costco.  Well.  The kids loved the lavender honey.  It was infused, in that the lavender flavor was added afterward.  I thought it tasted like bathwater.  Maybe if the flavor had come naturally from the bees collecting the pollen from lavender flowers, it would have been subtler, and I would have enjoyed it more.  To each his own.  The Fireweed honey was an all-around favourite.  The flavor was delicate and delightful.  Oh, but then the basil honey was amazing.  So clean-tasting.  Not like the costco honey at all.  The generic, factory-made honey tasted like goop compared to the small-batch, locally made honeys.  Fine for baking, but when you're actually going to taste the honey, like on toast or in tea, I'm voting for the local guy.

What is your favourite honey?

Tomato Cages are Stupid

Seriously Stupid.  Tomato Cages are.  And the result of such stupidness is such an embarrassment I am not even going to post a photo.    Really now. These heritage variety tomatoes we planted this year were So Huge, the shear weight and size of them toppled the "cages" over weeks ago.  And here I am, attempting to harvest the last of summer goodness, by untangling the web of tomato vines from each other, sadly observing the sorry sight of the mound of forgotten tomatoes, lost and rotting, on the ground beneath said cages.

So, next year, I'm doing THIS.  Seriously, Sophia at the www.joyoffarming.blogspot.ca has it Going On.

Enough of the other nonsense.  Tomato Cages.  I fart in your general direction.

Oh, and by the way?  My List?  Not bad.  Passports applications are complete, awaiting pick up of photos. Garlic was totally planted, then we decided to pick up some Yugoslavian bulbs today to add to the German and Russian already in the ground.  The plum tree has been thoroughly raided and plums are frozen and/or dried.  "Beep" is being transitioned; in that she is starting to spend her nights in a slightly cooler room of the house, but is not yet outside.  Elderberry Syrup?  Check.  Roosters?  We are currently finishing them on organic boiled potatoes (I dunno, I read that somewhere), garden gleanings and black sunflower seeds (recommended by a friend).

Tomatoes?  Well... See Above.

The List

As I watch the summer fade and realize we are now firmly entrenched in fall, I feel compelled to make a list of things I need to get done.  And sooner rather than later.

I've read somewhere that if you tell someone your plan, there's a much better chance that you will accomplish what you set out to do, because you are now accountable. 

So, This Week's Plan is:
- get a ram for my ewes
-  tag all turkeys that will be used for breeding
- harvest the rest of the tomatoes
- process the ripe tomatoes
- pick the rest of the plum tree and process those
- introduce "Beep" to the great outdoors - permanently!
- plant garlic
- either build a chicken tractor or devise a way to keep chickens in the garden without the "tractor", like with netting
- complete passport renewals
- make another batch of elderberry syrup
- set a date for round 1 of rooster processing

The first 2 things I did this weekend, so I say they count.  Plus, it feels good to cross stuff off a list, yes?

Hmmm.  I think I need to stay home this week.  Seems I have a lot to do...

Weekend Reading

This week: Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener's Handbook.  I borrowed it from our library, but am thinking to purchase one for my own self, as I have to restrain myself from writing little notes all over it.  Because it goes by weeks, specifically, "x amount of weeks since the last frost", you need to do a little bit of figuring and pay attention to when that actually was.  So this book will work in all different zones, though those places with shorter growing seasons would have to condense the recommendations, and those with longer seasons could be a little more lax.  Me thinks that the first year of keeping this type of gardening journal will require the most work, in regards to recording when the last frost was and going from there.  Of course, every year, the date of the last frost will differ, but it "should" be within a couple of weeks.  My only beef about this book is that it should have a few extra pages for notes at the end of each section. It does have 1 page for notes per chapter, but a rambler like me would like a few more.  Insert smiley face here.

Happy Fall gardening, folks!

Adventuring

We "took the day off" and went adventuring today.  We left home around 7:30 AM with all our layers of clothing (damn it's cold the the early morn!) and headed southward.  First stop was to say hello to some friends who were camped river-side at this cool little place we promised ourselves we'd visit again:

 They had all kinds of critters; even some we don't have :

Someone said she could have stayed all day:

Endless discussion ensued about the breeds of chickens this farm had, though I'm sure most of them, although very pretty and productive, were mixed breeds.  Our next stop was the Rock Creek Fall Fair!  We'd been meaning to visit this fair in the past, but just never got around to it.  It was very quaint, and very "down home".  Not as many livestock on display as we are used to at the IPE, but some different kind of fun:

"Cow Chip Bingo"

A view of the grounds, and the bandstand

Some of the food vendors get a really cool "store" front

There was the tantalizing smell of grease in the air that makes one just want to mow down on some fries, any fries!  We resisted though, and instead found this little gem:

A portable Wood-Fire Pizza oven!  Awesome.  We totally indulged, and for $15 it was totally worth it:

Almost all the ingredients were locally sourced, and it showed in the mouthwatering taste of it all.  It disappeared FAST.

On our way home, we stopped in at the brand-new ice cream shop in Beaverdell, Marley's, right off the highway.

 We ordered 3 chocolate/vanilla combo cones and enjoyed every last drop while we chatted with the owner, Mark, who used to build wood fire ovens, remarkably like the one on our deck at home.... Hmmm.  Coincidence?  Nah.  We love supporting people who are living their dream instead of working for "the man."
If you're in the area, stop in and say hey to Mark:

His next thing is to build a pizza place adjacent to the ice cream shop.  I'm sure we haven't seen the last of "Marley's"!

How was YOUR weekend?