Almost There!

Jordan is putting the final finishes on the cedar slabs and caps for the entryway.  I can't wait to see it all put together.

This dull piece of wood has been transformed into...

...this beautiful rich color simply by sanding and putting a clear sealant on it.

I never really appreciated cedar before, but I now see each piece as a work of art.

These are equally vibrant, but are covered with a coat of sawdust.  I know Jordan is cringing at this picture because these are his babies, but I'll make it up to him with a picture of the final reveal.  These are the caps to go on the brick pillars, handcrafted by Jordan.  He made all kinds of jigs, templates, and miter boxes to cut out all the angles and fit them together like a puzzle.

Dogs and Their Days

This is Ginger's signature look.

One ear flipped back.

Veronica Lake-esque.  See, I should have named her Veronica (Ronnie).

Sometimes, she mixes it up and flips the other side back.  Every girl wants a new style once in a while.

She's almost as tall as Harry now, but he still weighs twice as much as her.

She's learned to keep a safe distance from the food while Harry is around.  We have two feeders, but Harry doesn't want her eating out of them.  We finally decided we need to stand guard with her while she eats a couple of times a day just to make sure Harry doesn't chase her away from the food.

Waiting impatiently while Harry takes his time eating.

Voicing her displeasure, but not brave enough to approach Harry.

Loving the Entryway

The brick mason did a great job on the brick entryway columns.  He only did one side of the drive because he had another job scheduled, but he's coming back in a few weeks to get the other side done.

In the meantime, Jordan is making progress on the wood portion of the project.

 

He is milling the cedar trees.

And is in the process of building caps for the brick columns.

It's going to be beautiful.  Can't wait till it's done!

More pictures to come.

Hubba, Hubba Watermelon

I'm confused about when to pick watermelons because my one surviving vine has them growing at all stages - older ones and younger ones.  I thought I had it all figured out.  Pick them when the tendril closest to the fruit has dried.  That worked great for the first three that I picked.  They were nice and sweet and not too ripe.  But now I'm second guessing myself.  With these later ones, they just keep growing and growing and the tendril is staying green so then I wonder if maybe the season isn't right and it's too late in the summer for watermelon and maybe they aren't ripening the same way.  Then there's the dilemma about how much to water.  I read that if a watermelon in the last stages of ripening gets watered too much, it won't be sweet.  But there are younger ones on the vine that need watering.

I finally picked this one when the tendril was half dried.

It was 34.4 pounds.  Mostly sweet.  I couldn't tell if it was on the verge of overripe or on the verge of underripe in some areas.  I had to freeze part of it because it wouldn't all fit in my giant rubbermaid container.

Butternut, Butternut

It's butternut squash season, so my challenge is to come up with different and tasty recipes using butternut squash.  And, by "come up with", I mean, search the internet and find recipes that sound good; not make them up myself.  I am no good at making up recipes.

I found this Butternut Bisque recipe on Martha Stewart's website and it's pretty good.  I doubled it so I could freeze some.

Ingredients:

3 Tbs. butter

1 medium onion, coarsely chopped

2 garlic cloves, sliced

1/2 tsp. dried thyme

1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper (optional)

coarse salt

1 large butternut squash (about 4 lbs.), peeled, seeded, and cut into 1-inch cubes

15 ounces chicken broth (or one can)

1 cup half-and-half

1 Tbs. fresh lemon juice

Sour cream, for serving

Cooking with butternut squash is pretty labor intensive.  Usually, they have to be peeled, seeded and chopped.  No fun.  Especially if you have sore thumbs left over from milking season.  

So, get busy and peel, seed, and cube those butternut.  I think I used three squash for this recipe.  I weighed them out got eight pounds.

Here's my chopped onion and garlic.  I went ahead and added the thyme, cinnamon, and cayenne to this.

In a large saucepan, heat butter over medium.

  Add the onion mix.  Season with salt, and cook, stirring occasionally until onion is softened, 5-7 minutes.

Add squash, broth, half and half, and three cups of water.  Bring to a boil; reduce to a simmer, and cook until squash is tender, about 20 minutes.

Working in baqtches, puree in a blender until smooth.  Stir in lemon juice.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream if desired.

I doubled the recipe and it made about 16 cups.  I froze 12 cups for later.

It's a pretty thick soup, and even thicker after it sits in the refrigerator for a while - almost like a runny mashed potato.  When I served it a few days after making it, I added some chicken broth to it to make it more soup like.

It's very tasty and you can change up the flavor by replacing the cinnamon with chili powder or other spices that you might like.  I think this might be good with curry in it.

Unimpressive Aquaponics

I was expecting great things, but the aquaponics has been a bit disappointing.  The only veggie that survived from Tom's original planting was the cabbage.

They're growing ever so slowly.  But, I planted several cabbage seeds (in the ground) at the beginning of the season and only one survived.  It has yet to make a head.  So, I've learned by now that gardening is sort of hit or miss sometimes.

Because I read that cilantro and carrots were veggies that can be planted in July, I went ahead and tossed a few seeds in the side abandoned by the other seeds.  It's hard to see the tiny seedlings, but there are several carrots coming up and, so far, one cilantro.  I use a lot of cilantro, so I wish I could grow it continually.

I planted the same seeds in my regular garden on the same day and none of them have come up.  I guess we could call the aquaponics a success when it comes to germination.

On another note, I'm so excited about this...

We hired a brick mason to rebuild the entryway columns that Tom and Jordan tore down.

He's doing a great job.  One down, five to go.

It's 102 degrees out there today.  I don't envy the brick layer's job.

Eating My Words

Was I whining about my garden earlier in the season?  Yes, I do believe I was.  "This was dying, that was wilting, this didn't grow, that isn't producing, the critters are eating it, blah, blah, blah".  Well, I was wrong, wrong, wrong, and I take it all back.

 

This is my pumpkin patch now.  It's a solid mass of healthy vines with pumpkins hidden among them.

I started out completely demoralized which caused me to break down and use Sevin dust to control the squash bugs.  I'm ashamed that I resorted to using a chemical, but hey, I'm not overrun with squash bugs and I don't spend hours searching for and killing them like I did last year.  Next year, I hope to get some guineas to control those pesky bugs.

This eggplant was an experiment.  I had eggplant last year and saved some of the seeds.  I planted six and this was the only one that came up.  It's late, but it is producing, so I know that if I save seeds again this year, I'll be able to grow eggplant again next year.  Maybe this is something that will do well in the aquaponics system.

And, just for fun, here's a little duckling that my tomatoes produced.  

What Are Little Boys Made Of...

made of?  What are little boys made of?

Frogs and snails

...and puppy dog tails (and pure delight).

For Liam's third birthday, Paden and Lucy turned this Playskool car into the Batmobile.

Liam was the envy of the town.

They put little convex mirrors on the front for the headlights.

And personalized it with sparkly letters.

So cute.  And he was thrilled.

That's what little boys are made of, made of.

Aquaponics Update

The plants in the aquaponics garden seemed to have stalled.  A couple of weeks have passed and they are still just tiny seedlings.

Well, they have gotten just a little bigger, but not much.  According to the material Tom has read, they're supposed to grow faster than plants grown conventionally, but that's not happening.

Tom emailed the professor who wrote the book that Tom is getting his information from.  He wrote back that he thought the plants looked like they should look at this stage, but that we needed to go ahead and add our fish.

Tom looked on Craigslist and found someone who was selling out their stock of Mozambique Tilapia and they live just around the corner from us.  Convenient, huh?  So, Tom ran over and got them.

They're busily swimming around in our tank now.  We have an albino one.  

It'll be interesting to see if this will make a difference in the growth of the plants.

Uh-Oh

I broke this window today.  Either the mower or the weedeater threw something up and hit it.  I didn't know it until I came back through with the blower.

It is completely shattered from top to bottom and I'm walking around on tip-toe hoping it doesn't fall out.  It's making little popping noises continually.

Waiting for the glass men to come measure it and possibly put some duct tape on it if they think they can touch it without having it fall apart.

Double click on the picture.  It's kind of pretty.

Dog vs. 'Dillo

We had a little excitement on our back porch a couple of nights ago.  Usually, Harry and Ginger aren't allowed in the back yard, but Harry jumps the fence when he thinks the occasion calls for a little disobedience (Ginger can't jump it yet).  We heard Ginger barking out by our bathroom window on the outside of the fence, so I looked out the back and saw two armadillos digging in the yard.  Harry jumped into the yard and went after them.  I heard his teeth knock against one of the 'dillo's back, so he tried to attack it, but couldn't get ahold of it.

He chased them up onto the porch.

Unsuccessfully trying to bite one of them.

There was a standoff.

One of them scooched up under the grill.  

Harry got bored and wandered away, I shooed him out of the yard so that when the armadillos decided to come out of hiding, they wouldn't all go tearing through my flower beds.  I'd rather have a few armadillo-dug holes scattered around than having the tank that is Harry plowing through the flowers.

A New Look for Our Farm Entry

We intended to do this last fall, but decided to wait until the heat of the summer to do it so Jordan and Tom could sweat in the sun.

This is the before picture.  These old brick pillars are falling apart.  They look like they've been repaired before, rather sloppily, so they're kind of on shaky ground.  It's past time to tear them out, but I didn't think Tom would go for spending the time and money (which will be nominal since we're doing it ourselves and reusing the brick) to do a project that's pretty much just cosmetics.  But, when he ran into one with the tractor last year and kind of crunched the side in, he suggested that it's time to rebuild.

Also, over the years, the dirt has shifted and piled up, covering the lower brick retaining wall and the foundation, which we didn't even know was there until the digging commenced.

Tom got this pillar knocked down and cleared away yesterday morning.

Jordan finished up the other two working yesterday afternoon and into the evening.  There are three on each side.  Now we're embroiled in an engineering/building debate as to the best way to rebuild the design I've come up with, which involves a change in the shape of the brick pillars and big slabs of cedar wood from some trees cut down by Jordan and milled by our friend with the saw mill.

Oh, and it's about 100 degrees.  

Can we do it?!  Yes, we can!

Preserving the Bounty

Whew.  I think the worst thing about having a garden is trying to figure out what to do with all the excess.  That sounds awful.  That should be the best thing about having a garden.  And don't get me wrong, I am very grateful for all the food and all the bounty that God provides us.  I'm just weird...and maybe lazy, I guess.  I enjoy the planting of the garden and the beginnings of watching it grow.  If someone else would come do the pickin' and the preservin', I'd be a happy camp...er.

At first, I was really upset that the chickens, or various other critters, were ruining all the tomatoes.  But now, well, not so much.  Critters are getting about half of the tomato crop, even though I'm picking them before they ripen completely.  Even so, I've got more than I can keep up with.  Well, not really more than I can keep up with...more than I want to keep up with.

This is not all of them, I have a whole bunch ripening in a basket outside and many more still on the vine.

In the past two days...

I've made stewed tomatoes...

and the dehydrator has been going non-stop...

shriveling up tomatoes.  This is the easiest way to preserve them, but I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them now that they are dried.

And the cucumbers!  Ay-ay-ay

Eight pints of bread and butter pickles didn't even make a dent in the big ol' pile of cukes in the fridge.

Speaking of which, I'm going to go taste them now.  This was my first time to make these and my neighbor's grandson wants some.  I need to make sure they're edible before I hand them over.

Spaghetti Cacio e Pepe

This was our dinner last night and it looked so pretty on the plate that Tom said I should take a picture.  So I did.

Tomatoes, cucumbers, and basil from our garden.  Ranch dressing made with goat milk.  Mozzarella cheese from Costco.  Gluten free spinach spaghetti from our local health food store.

Recipe adapated from a recipe by Fabio Viviani:

One 12 oz. package Tinkyada gluten free spinach spaghetti

6 T. butter (you can probably get away with 4)

2 tsp. (or to taste) Black pepper, freshly cracked

1 cup freshly grated parmesan

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil (about a tablespoon of salt).  Add the pasta and cook to al dente.  Save some of the pasta water when you drain the spaghetti.

White the pasta cooks, melt butter in a large saute pan over medium heat.  Add the fresh cracked pepper.  When the butter begins to bubble, remove from heat.

When the pasta is ready, add the noodles and 2-3 tablespoons of the pasta water to the saute pan.  Cook over medium high heat until the liquid bubbles and thickens, tossing the pasta as needed.

Remove from the heat and add the parmesan cheese, tossing rigorously until all ingredients are incorporated into a creamy sauce.  Garnish with additional black pepper and parmesan and serve immediately.