Howdy-Do

The fair is next week, but I thought I'd pop in with a quick "No I'm not dead" hello.

Hello. 

And:

It feels like fall, my garden has pretty much gone to ruin (stupid weather. And weeds), I'm sewing like crazy (fair stuffs), school will be starting in a few weeks, canning/freezing is omni-present, we butchered the roosters last night, we got 2 Delaware and 2 Silver-laced Wyandot hens (did I tell you that?), and then the Buckeye hen we had, the dishwasher just beeped, Sprouts asleep, the kitchen's a wreck and I must go.

Later Gators.

Gathered Up

Kind liking all the posts I've been seeing where all the pictures come first and all the chatting comes next.

I can hardly believe July is nearly over, that the fair is next month, that we'll be starting back up with school next month and that my BABY will be ONE next month. This year has flown.

This summer is flying and I can't think of a gol-durn exciting thing to write about. We've just been living.

The weather has been all over the place: cool. beastly hot and rainy. (B. sent us all down the basement the evening we got the flooding you saw in the garden pictures. Not real fun to hear on the news: "Don't look for the rotation before seeking shelter. The clouds will not allow it and any tornados will simply appear...") cool and rainy. beastly hot. no rhyme or reason and the bugs are so bad, not real conducive to playing outside. 

I'll be picking my first batch of beans tomorrow, and probably basil. Other than a little yellow from all of the wet, the garden seems to be doing good. It's grown even more since those pictures were taken.

And I get all crazy after a day of weeding, tilling and mulching and start taking pictures of my sunburnt  dust covered self.

I've got lots of canning to do, homeschool assessments to do, last years books to put away, this years to get out, fair projects to work on (and to decide what to do) and and and...

Tonight we're going to go get a few more hens. The 6 that we got a few months ago? FIVE roosters and ONE hen. Really. I think we go took.

Or someone knew what they were doing and picked out most of the hens, because really, even though they were straight run, to get only 1 hen? Something ain't adding up.

A snippet of home and farm.

Trying to slow down and savor.

Hay~

             B. cut about 1/3 of the hill yesterday before he had to quit or run out of diesel.

I'm guesstimating that it's about a 25x90 foot field. 

But math and I aren't real close friends, so I could be WAY off.

I picked a good hot morning (79 degrees by 9:30 with 82% humidity!) and raked it into rows.

Biscuit helped.

Pretty darn proud

hay (noun): grass grown and dried for fodder. (Or in this case to mulch our fodder, the garden. Close enough.)

The tomatoes are mulched and rain came an hour later.

Guess B. won't be cutting the rest this evening, which is kinda good because I'm pooped.

One thing about backyard farming: being too small for actual equipment, it's all man (uh woman and boy) powered.

July in August

Despite almost no rain this summer, it has been a fantastic year for the blackberries. I picked 3 quarts, and that was what I could easily get to, there were lots just out of reach. Being ginormously pregnant does not lend itself well to blackberry picking, and because I hate being pricked, my crazy get up included: jeans that had to be hiked back up every 2 steps, B.'s old unlined Carhart, and gloves. All to keep thorn stabbing down to a minimum. Kinda helped. We have lots of old canes, and they are savage when it comes to picking. But 3 quarts picked and frozen? I am thrilled, that's the most I've picked ever!

 You need to do this for BLTs or what my Omama called Cheese Dreams. Slice your tomatoes, drizzle lightly with olive oil, a whisper of fresh ground sea salt, and a few sprigs of fresh thyme if you have it. Bake at about 250-300 for a few hours, until somewhat shriveled. For Cheese Dreams, toast a slice of bread, spread with mayo, add tomatoes, bacon strips and either Muenster of M. Jack cheese. Broil until cheese melts.

 You'd look like that too if you had just finished chocolate cake for breakfast

We did VBS at my in-laws church, this year they "visited" Daniel in Babylon. The Kidlets loved it as usual.

This has by far and away been our best garden. Except for these peas. Pretty blooms, tasted terrible. It may have been the heat, though that's never really affected peas for me before. I'm going to pull them out, have B. till up their spot, and replant with a different type for a fall crop. I hope so anyway.

 These pictures are from about 2 weeks ago, right after B. tilled.

 Pumpkins on the far right, one of them seems to have died. They are those gorgeous blue-green kind that I forget what the are called. They had some heirloom pumpkins at the grocery store last fall, and when they were reduced to a dollar apiece ( I almost spent the $8, just because I wanted it so much. Glad I waited!), I bought 2, just to save the seeds. Hard to see, but there are sad little zinnias (that seems to be the only thing that's flopped this year), peppers, peas. tomatoes and basil which have nearly tripled in size since I took this picture.

I have to look up the kind, but these bush beans are amazing. Nearly 2 foot tall plants, and I should have supported them somehow because they are falling over with beans. Less what we've eaten, I've frozen 18 quarts out of 2 pickings, and need to go back out to pick more today.

Zucchini, more peppers, yellow squash, cukes, watermelon, cantaloupe, and cosmos.

I haven't gotten a whole lot of zucchini, squash or cucumbers, which is fine because we are able to eat it without wasting. I have to fight Honey and Biscuit for sauteed zucchini.

First of the harvest

Chef Salad on a hot day

I took the first big haul of beans out to snap on the back steps while watching the kidlets play, but who wants to play while Mom is snapping beans? Not they!

"Look, I have a mustache"

Muffin cuteness

Beans was hilarious. He would grab a bean, and with elbows out try his darnedest to rip it apart, his whole little chunky self shaking in effort. Then he'd give up and try another. 

It occurred to me as I was sitting and snapping (right before the work crew came to help), that I am living out exactly what I've always wanted to do. With decidedly less land and no livestock, but still, a-right-down-to-sitting-and-watching-my-children-play-while-I-snapped-beans-dream-come-true.

It's been so dry, that there are actually black-burned patches in the yard.

We went for a Sunday drive a week ago, and stopped to look at some chicken coops, which brings me that much closer to the live stock part : ) Though they probably won't happen until spring.

 Can't quite get used to Honey reading to the littles. When? How?

 ...Clean clothes on the line...

 Tomatoes growing out of my compost bin. Honey found a rat in there yesterday. Woo-Hoo.

Jewels recipe for fresh tomato sauce, with my homemade sausage. Divine.

I've done almost NO canning, and that's making me kind of crazy. Maybe I'll hit up the flea-market Monday. Anyone wanna come along?

 I'm still trying to figure out where the heck July went. Didn't we just celebrate the 4th, and now all of the sudden, it's August. I'm due in 2 weeks. Say what? Yeah, 2 weeks, though I go in for a U/S tomorrow, where I'm pretty sure they will say "Nope, the little monkey is NOT head down, we're going to turn and induce next week." Which is fine. I'm used to it, and actually, it's kinda nice knowing "I will have baby on such and such a day." because I can get all the last minute stuff done. Unlike the last 3 though, I have had a LOT of contractions. Hopefully that will mean things move along a little faster.
Well, a certain oldest son is awake and has set up a game of memory for he and I to play, so I must go.

Hopefully tomorrow will bring some sort of baby news!