Kids, Lakes, Loons and Pines

Garden Notes 7/27 - a photographic garden journal

 

Today I pulled what was left of our garden and spent the day drying and canning.  I pulled carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, pumpkins, gourds, chives, oregano, lemon balm, lavender, rosemary, sage, basil, and peppers.

It was a full day of harvest and preserving.  I made one more batch of salsa and a large batch (12 half pint jars) of cucumber relish.  I am also drying herbs to use for cooking and to use in soap and other experiments (some tea and herbal tinctures).

It was a busy and productive day.  I am grateful of our bountiful garden this year and proud that my pantry shelves are full with wholesome goodness to be enjoyed over the winter.

 

Meet Gretta Skye

Introducing the newest addition to the homestead:  Miss Gretta Skye

We adopted her  into our family on a whim last week and now she is a part of our family.

It is nice to have another female in the house,

- and also fun to finally use this girl name which we never got to use.

This week we said goodbye to our current layers,  

we passed them on to some other folks in town as we are getting ready to move our new batch of layers into the coop.  We will be buying eggs for a couple of months until our new batch starts to lay, but we are saving a little bit of work in terms of chores.  Currently our chicks (now pullets) are sharing space with our meet birds  which are growing at a rapid pace and are set to be 'turned into meat' the last week of October.  Moving the new chicks to our chicken coop that has connection to electricity, will help tremendously when freezing temperatures arrive because we have a heated water warmer.

Other animal news - Checker our fiber bunny has moved into my kindergarten classroom.  He is now a kinder-bunny for the winter and is well loved - and entertained each day by the kiddos I share my days with.

 

 

September - How to help with a new baby

The September issue of Minnesota Parent is on stands and available now.  I have been a bit delayed sharing this information here on my blog.  Life is busy, but good.

For this issue I wrote some tips on helping friends when a new baby arrives.

You can find the article through THIS LINK.

Be sure to check out the full issue for all of the other great content as well.

I am happy to share that my friends who I referenced in the article welcomed their new son Charlie into their home this week.  I am excited to meet him and to spread a little love their way as well.

 

6!

Happy Birthday to our freckle face strawberry who turned 6 today!

We have had much excitement in the last 24 hours - a birthday and we also brought a kitten and 25 more chickens to our homestead.....more pictures soon!

garden Notes 9/13 - tomatoes!

I had a nice Friday evening date with several windowsills full of ripe tomatoes, boiling water and jars.

We have had a bountiful tomato harvest this year and the fall frost is holding off so there is likely more to come.   I have had some critters who enjoy taking bites out of our ripe tomatoes in my garden so my strategy has been to pick the tomatoes when they show signs of turning from green to red, then letting them ripen on our window sills.  

We have been eating BLT's, tacos, and tomato salads, but I needed to spend some time preserving a large batch of tomatoes, because they were starting to overrun the kitchen and dining room.....I should have taken a picture of our kitchen window that had tomatoes stacked three and four rows high!

The good news is that this task is complete (for now) and our pantry shelves are almost full.  We currently have 23 pints of homemade salsa and 10 pints of canned tomatoes.  Every year it seems to get a little easier that the kids are all becoming more independent, but at the same time everyone is eating a lot more!  But it feels good to have some homegrown produce to enjoy over our long Minnesota winter.