Black Friday

I went out for Black Friday. This is never a wise choice and I am not really sure if it is always worth it but I wanted to make one quick stop. Around 10:30 I ventured to JoAnn Fabrics just to pick up some fabric in hopes that it would be on sale. To my surprise the store was packed and I mean insane. Really... JoAnn fabrics?!?!? Everytime I have visited over the past month I was thinking the store was on its way out as all I heard were crickets as I walked the ghostly aisles. I had no clue that so many people were obsessed with buying fleece. Women and men were walking around with bolts of fabric towering over their heads while attempting to dodge everyone in their way only to actually hit everyone they pass. I guess the $1.77/yd sale is what did it for them. I was a bit disappointed that the felt wool that I was wanting to buy, that is mega expensive, to make a jacket/vest thing, you will see soon, was not on sale. As I sized up the line to cut my wool I took a number and gulped as I was 15 people back. I then began to wonder around the store and thought it may be more amusing to stand around the cutting area and watch these crazy ladies manuever their bolted up carts. So to the cut area I returned and remained. I don't know if I've laughed so hard in my head in the longest time. There was one lady that just walked around and smiled and said "pillowcases" to everyone she passed as if they were asking and wondering what she wanted all that fleece for. What a joy it was!

Today,

I finished my Rosemary labels.

I started making Christmas gift labels.

Friends-giving

Brandon got a free turkey from work so we donated it to our friendsgiving that we had last night. I cooked my first ever turkey and was so surprised as to how it turned out! So good! It was packed with herbs from the garden and a mirepoix. Our new oven cooked it perfectly with a nice crispiness on the outside and tender juicyness in the center.

We decided to wear matching outfits of purple and an orange neck tie. My gray skirt I had made earlier in the day.

Soup

I've been making soup everyday for lunch. I just open of the fridge and see what is at hand and create. I love soup because it is so simple to make and packs so much flavor. Lately I try to pack as many vegetables into each soup as much as possible! I love how the veggies speak for themselves in the dish and no more than broth, salt and pepper were added than the veg.

Take a look at the other day:

1. celery
2. carrot
3. turnip (my new favorite veg in soups)
4. tomato
5. green beans
6. potato
7. onion

For added flavor I added in the garlic and parsley.  All of these ingredients made me one bowl of soup.

Beaujolais Nouveau!

Yesterday I woke up pumped and ready for the day!

Beajolais Nouveau....

To ring in the day I collected some ingrediants at hand to make a Provencial soup that I had made once before that has a lot of layered tastes. Unfortunately we did not have basil, which I was hoping to find to make a pistou with. I'm letting the soup cook low and slow all day to bring out the most flavor.

Beaujolais turned out to be a great event! We got free aprons, ties, wine and snacks. People were festive all about in their berets and the wine was flowing. At Vintage I got a flight of three and at Tria I had the most flavorful Beaujolais Blanc! Now that was a keeper and will be added to the top of the list of my favorites.

Project update

So I have already blasted a few things off my list of projects!
I've finished all the work with my vanilla extract, am about halfway done my quilt, I made my skirt with my mood fabric and have crossed off making pajama pants. I didn't find any fabric that suited my taste. I was looking for that red and black checkered flannel that I can only picture hunters wearing. I desire to get that since Brando's such an outdoorsy boy and it would suit him well.

So what is left??
1. print rosemary labels (If the printer has new ink!)
2. finish my quilt
3. tailor my clothes that have been starring at me yearning to be worn for about two months now.
4. oh yea, and my level II certification.

Time to buckle down and meet my Christmas deadline.

In my head I've added other things to the list which is deadly and not the point of the list. These are looming things that should be top priority but are the least fun things to be done!

Some swirling ideas include compiling my list of gluten free christmas treats. The recipes will have to be tested one day as well to see if they are worthy. I bought more skirt fabric for more skirts. There are many more but this is what comes to the forefront at the time.

I wish washing my car was on the list. That poor sucker only gets washed about once every three months. She has been so dependable these past almost three years. I should treat her will a little more respect!

Too much time!

I spent way too much time in the sewing room today! My body became so sedated that when I got up to leave the room I think I was in shock. When I went to run I was all out of sorts. I had been too inactive so I need to develop a new sewing planning. I will have to do it in chunks! But with all that said I made a lot of progress. I finished half of the quilt top which is now the size of a single sized bed.

It doesn't look that large in the picture but believe me, it is already massive! My plan tomorrow is to complete the rest of the triangle rows and then hopefully by the end of the week sew them together. In the mean time I need to be thinking about some French inspiratio for is Beajolais Nouveau on Thursday! If you don't know what that is, it's just the most wonderful time of the year.



Restaurant 1! This is me at the event last year. You can see behind me is a man drawing caricatures. All of the staff was dressed in their finest french apparel sports Beajolais scarfs and handing out puff pastries. This was the first  wine I tasted from the flight complemented with escargot.  Outside was an accordion band (Katie maybe your uncle was playing)!

Fabric, fabric, fabric

 I bought three new fabrics yesterday to make new skirts. The first one was such a success that I wanted to make a few more. JoAnn Fabrics was having a major sale so it was the perfect time. I bought a silk, knit and jersey. I am real excited to use work with the jersey and see how it turns out. This is the fabric Coco Chanel started out with as her clothing line boomed during the war. Jersey can look just as nice as anyother fabric but is much more comfortable! 

I made a lot of progress on the quilt!

This is a few of the rows. They are only placed next to one another and not sew yet. I put in a solide 5 hours today on it and hope that I can do the same tomorrow. As the weather is getting colder, it is much easier to stay inside! Along for entertainment was Amazing Race in the background with a bowl full of carrots drizzled in olive oil. I can put olive oil on just about anything. I just love the taste!

1000 Pyramids...

I just realized that my quilt is called "Thousand Pyramids" alluding to the fact that I have to cut out 1,000 pyramid triangles to then sew together. Was I thinking?

Actually, mine only has 651 since I'm making it for a full bed. Today I finished cutting all of the triangles and rendomly sorting them so I can quickly sew the rows together. I am not sure how quick quickly will be.

This pictures doesn't look like there are many triangles, but boy they never ended!

I also made some gluten free, egg free oatmeal raisin cookies. I died! They are the tastiest, non sugar laden gf oatmeal cookies I have had! Here is the recipe from the beloved gf goddess where  I get much insperation. I altered the first section to have less brown sugar and more honey.

On a Roll!

Well I have already completed three items on my list. I guess when I really put my mind to something I can get it done.

I finished all of my vanilla tags. I love the copper bows that I  tied the labels with! (Thank you www.stylemepretty.com for the label template!)

I also completed my skirt with the Mood Fabric. It took me less than two hours to complete and I love it! I will be purchasing more fabric shortly to make many more of these skirts! I will post pictures tomorrow of the skirt.

Projects!

SO I've been away from the blog for a while. I have also been away from the farm for a while! As my body and brain finally feels settled I have decided to set a goal of completing all my projects. I am the master at beginning projects but not finishing them. My goal is to complete all of my projects by  Christmas, so with the new year I can begin new ones.

As I clear the cobbwebs in my brain as to what is started and how much is done, I have a lot to finish!

1. Put tags on all of my homemade vanilla jars
2. Send vanilla jars to friends :)
3. Tag all of my homemade rosemary salt jars
4. Send salt jars to friends :)
5. Finish my beautiful green tree quilt, that I can't even say is 10% done, even though I've already invested hours into it.
6. Tailor all of my dresses and blazers that I can't bare to get rid of just because they aren't fitting corretly right now.
7. Use my Mood Fabric (oh yea, Project Runway) that I bought over a year ago to make a skirt, or two.
8. Make Christmas flannel pants for Brando and I.
9. Onto the boring stuff, complete the paperwork for my Level II teaching certification.

This isn't an enormous list but a lot to be completed!

I will be excited to update my progress as I get this list done!

Distribution day.

Today was distribution day at the community garden. I went over early with mom to harvest the various vegetables and herbs. The plants are very bountiful, I was surprised. Maybe I shouldn't have been since the climate is so much different here than down in Georgia. I was pulling beans by the buckets or only one bucket, but it could have been many. We weighed and washed our produce and set it out to be taken. My mom has done wonerful work over here developing relationships with the community and providing cooking classes with the priduce that is grown. I had a great time meeting the members and trying my memory on spanish, I didn't do too well with those families.
 Here is a picture of Mom and Brenda (the pastor of the church)

Back to reality...

So I'm home!! I missed so much the blue skies and the lush clouds. The vibrant green trees and crisp air. The temperature is twenty degrees cooler here. I feel like I've already hit fall weather. Mom and I spent the morning over at the community garden weeding and catching up. Great things are going on over there!

Trusty car!

After last summers road trip through New England and up to Maine and this summers many miles (pa to va to ga to va to ga to pa) my car is no longer lemon status. The trusty Volvo is getting all packed up today and we're heading home tomorrow! As a treat I got her all cleaned up. Look at those tires!! They will never be so clean and sparkly EVER again. The people must have hand scrubbed them. I can never seem to get my tires clean. I once took a toothbrush to them. I promises myself I would never do that again!

Work station

Working hard at the growing schedule.

Bad Lincoln. Bad Jackson.

So when Larry went to feed the beasts this morning Lincoln was so excited that he head-butted Larry's shoulder. If I were in there I would have been hit to the ground. Good thing I wasn't! Lincoln stands in a 3 sided wooden fence while he eats and Jackson on the outside. Jackson decided to unravel the rope on the side of lincoln's stall and wrap it around the stall while Lincoln was feeding, to trap him in. These animals have a mind of their own!
I planted a bunch of vegetables this morning in the double dig. It was good to get them in the ground. Afterwards we had to deal with the squirrel traps. Larry wanted to store them in the attic of the shed so my job was to throw them up to him. I think this was the most fun I have had on the farm this far! I think I have a replica arm of my brother Jesse while playing tennis. He doesn't care where the ball is coming from or going, he just whacks it. So I was picking up those things and just whipping them in an upward motion and they were going all over the place! Kind of felt bad for Larry trying to catch them but it was quite amusing!
We spent the rest of the afternoon clearing brush and listening to 80's.

Squirrels

How do you outsmart a squirrel? I don't really know if that is possible...

I spent my day removing aluminum squirrel traps from all the pecan trees. In these traps were only things that you see in nightmares! Seething spiders and roaches that jump! Plus I did see some blood sucking ginormous black widows. It was an easy day and I enjoyed being in the shade!

Oops

Back on the farm!
I spent a chunk of time working in the high tunnel this morning. It's even more infested so I pretty much just weeded and tended to the vegetables that have new growth.
I have never been so close to those circles bails of hay! What are they called? They are about as tall as I am but much wider. I was trying to figure out different moves I could try while jumping off the top of one but got quickly distracted from those thoughts as Larry gave me a look to get working. But seriously, I'd have a bunch of air time before my landing. So I unraveled the hay and spread it on beds the rest of the day. If I don't inhale hay for the rest of the week I would be content.
So I was told to stop seducing the donk with fig jam. Apparently it is bad for the liver. Oops. How do you untrain a donk. I'll just have to teach him new tricks!

Ahh!

No more vacation. Back to the grind!

Fish Count

So far we have not had much success in the fishing department. Evan and Colleen have been at it all day every day. We have been out on the boat and off of the dock. Last year we were plucking one after another out off of the boat in the bay. This year we have barely gotten any nibbles.

Total count:
Colleen: well she has always been the master fisher but has only reeled in a few dinky babies. We kept three spots last night for a fish dinner!
Brandon: he caught a blowfish our first day out on the boat! What a surprise. Those things have demon eyes.
Me: one good croaker
Evan: let's just say he is the head fisherman. 

Life's better by the bay!

Early tomorrow morning I'm headed off to the Eastern Shore for vacation. There will be a whole bunch of fishing, cooking and wine-o-ing to be done! I can't wait to see the fam, colleen and the boy!!
Here's a little taste of one morning last year from the dock.

Injury.

The first farm injury of the season was me! Though minor, it still hurt. We spent the morning clearing brush from the electric fence. In many places it was particularly viney. I was pulling overhead dog-hobble and with one hard yank it came down and stuck right into my leg. I looked down and saw a cine sticking out of my leg. It took a decent chunk out of my thigh. I will spare you a picture. We headed back to the house and ate olives as Cindy drowned me in peroxide. We then headed back on out. Mind you, I'm now not allowed to pull overhead vines. In the mean time, tomorrow is the last day of work before family vacation!

Mmmm bacon.

Yesterday we went to savannah river farms for a tour. They have a whole bunch of pigs, chickens, goats and cows that they free range.
They also are building their own processing center. We got to check out some of the pig they are curing. We also toured walker farms and looked at the vegetable side of things.

Hulk Hands.

Today we repaired the eletrical and barbed wire fence around the property to continue to prepare for the livestock. As we worked Larry was giving me French lessons. More like, I asked him how to say some regions in Southern France or some type of absurd food and he would say it for me. So we will have daily French conversations until I begin to pronounce some basic things correctly. As I talked everyone's ears off I noticed by the end of the day I hadn't really done any work. I pretty much talked the whole time about pate and duck confit while uttering their pronunciacions repeatedly  under my breath until I felt I mastered them.

To go with these French foods, I had just read a book called The Scavenger's Hunt to Haute Cuisine. This book was about a guy that took a year to be a hunter-gatherer and collect as many animals from Auguste Escoffier's cookbook about French haute cuisine. After this year his goal was to produce a forty course meal with his gatherings to cook for his friends. The story was about his different travels of collecting animals like snapping turtles, stingrays and the saliva from sparrow's nests. I instantly thought of Evan and figured he would take on a hunter-gatherer type challenge if he was challenged to do so. I'm not sure how successful he would be since his one use of a gun and it endiended with a bullet in his hand. By any ,I have to admit I don't really fnish books. It's a little secret that I like to keep. I easily plow through the first two thirds of a book and then have no interest in reading the rest. I never really finished the book so I don't know if his challenge was a success. I also just enjoyed reading about  Chez Panisse a restaurant owned by Alice Waters. I never got to the chapters of the current standings of it so I just know its long history. Maybe this means I have to go visit Chez.... Brandon what do you think? I trip back to California?

Back to my original comment on hulk hands. I spent a little time cutting metal today with various ancient tools. I have been doing this the past few work days and whenever I do it I feel powerful!
These aching finger joints take apart metal with one snap when I'm using these special tongs and scissors. So before I cut I always tell Larry I'm getting my hulk on. He always chuckles as he does with pretty much everything odd I do. Today these hulk hands cut tin roof and barbed wire. Bam!

Farm Update.

There's a lot to say, it has been way too long!

First and foremost, my laptop is dunzo! I went to get a diagnosis on it the other day and it now won't start. So from now on I will only be blogging once or twice a week from the local library computer. Local, meaning not that local. So continue to check back for I will continue to blog! So if you ever need to reach me send me a text and I will recieve it probably a day after you sent it and then sometime in the week drive into town and call you!

For the farm. The high tunnel is infested with white flies. I took some fish emulsion to it the other day and hopes that will help to decrease them. After some research their eggs hatch every three to four days so they just keep coming. They have overcome all of the new growth and have started to kill many of the beans plants. Ultimately, I have decided not to plant anything new in the high tunnel and am going to put in a cover crop. It will probably be beans since I have some leftover seed. In that case I won't really have to start seeding and maintaining the outside garden until the end of August. Come to think of it, that's not too far away. I tore out the six cages of tomatoes. It was a hassle to do but made many capterpillar friends in the process and only spotted one black widow. Outside we have been ontop of maintaining weed growth with the beds, but oh that nutsedge.

This past week was spent clearing trees and over hanging branches on the electric fence for the upcoming livestock. It seems to be a trend as we have been doing that a lot lately. We walked the back fields that are behind the elcetric fence where I had never been and Larry has only been several times since he has lived there. I was terrified for my life for I was sure that we would see a snake. We saw plenty of gorgeous banana spiders but no snakes. I did see my first live armadillo that everyone continues to say carries leoporsy but I'm still thinking it's a wives-tale.

Lincoln and Jackson are well but desperate for a new house. I keep mentioning that I want to build on since theirs collapsed. I am sure that we will eventually get to it. We have been discussing what it will be like when the new livestock come and what their reactions will be. It brings us many laughs thinking about them interacting with other animals. My cans of fig products I made a while back were finally opened and they were to my disatisfaction. So we thought we'd play a little game with Jackson. Dog fennel grows in abundance but the donkey and horse don't seem to like it so we poured some fig jam all over dog fennel to try to get them to eat it and it worked with the donk! We were laughing so hard. So we are going to do this daily in hopes that he starts to eat the fennel. I doubt it, he is to smart and knows we are on to something.

In all, things are well. I'm finally starting to get into the groove of things down here. Life is slow and I'm struggling to slow down, it's a process but I will get at it. All my love!

Stained hands.

Hopefully we will have the internet next week as Larry has been trying to figure out a solution to our problem. The effects of the storm or still lingering for me as I have now figured out my camera on my computer doesn't work for Skype and my three USB ports won't recognize anything plugged in. So sorry to say there will be no pictures anymore. I'm crossing my fingers that my computer can do basic functioning through my time being here. I am positive as long as I keep sweet talking it that it will work.

Today I cleaned out all of the dead matter from the high tunnel and it's looking gorgeous. I just have four cages of cherry tomatoes that Larry is having difficulty letting go that I'm itching to remove. The tomatoes are bringing a lot of unwanted pests since they haven't been well maintained and are half dead. I spent the rest of the time weeding the pomegranite bushes. Once I got back I kept trying to wash my hands and the dirt won't come off. My hands after today's work are officially stained or semi-perminately a dirt tint.

Missing you all.

Fine Wine.

I came to Savannah for the night to get away and relax from the farm. Brandon put  me up in a nice hotel and I enjoyed scouring the town. With my mind running on all things French, I found a small french cafe where I got a shrimp and prosciutto salad. It's the best meal I have had since I've been down here! I sat at the communal table in the tiny cafe and enjoyed conversation with a couple from Portland. I then wlaked myself down the street to a little Perisian store called Paris Market. Those two stops were worth the whole trip right there! I meandered aroudn town adn stumbled upon a free country concert and partook for a bit as my taste doesn't collide with this town when music is concerned.

I went out to a new restaurant called Local 11/10 for dinner. I was so excited to eat here for it reminded me of Pumpkin with a fresh season menu. I was impmressed by the wine they had to offer and jumped all over a glass of cotes du rhone. How I miss good wine! That glass of wine could have been enough for my meal but I proceeded with a charcuterie plate. What I recieved was an intersting assortment of two pates, two sausages, two green beans and two olives. To say the least I was underwhelmed with the presentation and flavor. I gave them a second chance with the cremee brulee that remained a poor idea. So in all I was overwhelmed by the wine but underwhelmed by the food.

Today I am off to explore more and will visit the Paula Deen store!

This different life.

Well the internet is out again at the house. I drove into town and am using internet at the local dq where they genreously turned off their irrodescent sign so I could plug in my computer. I fear that in all of this storming and the lightening storm the other night hot my computer. It is starting to play games with me and my keyboard doesn't correctly work anymore. The high tunnel got struck and the transformer blew up adn flew out of the high tunnel 20 feet away. We have been finding little pieces of the control box all day.

Today we finished the irrigation on the double dig. So we are all set to grow! The pumpkins have sprouted this week out there! Everything else is grow like crazy with all of this rain we have been getting every evening. I went to Jerry Larson, the organic guru from all of the pruning workshops, demonstration garden. He gave us some cuttings along with some comical inforation of how he wants to take a sling shot to chickens that have taken many figs from his garden. We picked some prescious raspberries and muscidines while we were there. These muscadines were the most beautiful I have seen yet and took many pictures but my computer isn't letting me load them.

Bare with me as I'm figuring out the internet and my computer in these next few days. I will post as much as a can!

By the way, I saw my first two wild dogs! I honked my horn at them in passing and then laughed a little too hard as they sheepishly looked at me.

outage.

A huge storm blew out the internet for the past day or so. I have felt even more disconnected from reality and I'm already pretty disconnected.

Today I have for you a book. A Homemade Life by: Molly Wizenberg the author of the blog orangette.

I give this book my highest praise. It has so many uncanny parallels to my life I often felt as if she has followed me around and scribed my life. She has an obsession with good food, as does her family, she loves to sit and read cookbooks on end, her boyfriend’s name is Brandon, she has this urge to always travel to France, she isn’t a veg but rarely eats meat, she cherishes the conversations that come with food, sounds like me and there’s many more! Sounds just like me doesn't it.

Today I put irrigation in at the double dig. It will be set on a timer so I will not have to be going out there and watering it. There's not much to report just that's it's been a scorcher everyday and has stormed every afternoon.

Missing everyone!

Hodge-podge.

Today's really just a few short things thrown together.

Larry had to run in to town to fix the chainsaw so we could work on the cattle pasture. While he was gone I picked the elderberries. They are the most beautiful drapping berries I have ever seen. They really captivated my attention for a long time.

 I then had to fertilize about 50 pomegranite bushes with kelp spread. Goodness I felt like I was walking in the ocean. This stuff had such a pungent smell. I then went over to the orchard to proceed to weed around the 50 or so pom bushes we have over there. I had forgotten about the deathly sting of a fire ant and they took it to me a few times as I was weeding. By that time Larry had gotten back I was done and he had the fixed chainsaw plus two new ones! I knew that the boys were going to have a hayday now.

So this is typically how things go when we work. The boys like to ride the ATV's, drive the trucks and tractors and use all of the gas powered tools that are around. I am the one that always prefers to avoid power tools. Today when we went to work I used tree clippers and walked to our location. I guess it is the city girl stuck in me wanting to walk the 500 meters to the pasture instead of driving. Larry was in heaven with this new saw and just chopped or I guess sawed everything in sight... tall grass, baby trees, dead branches etc. and my job was to clear  everything he sawed.

While we were working Lincoln and Jackson were so curious as to what we were doing. When I took a break to get some water I creeped up on Lincoln and watched as he used his teeth to release the chain from the cattle confinement and go in to try to get to where we were working. He opened the cattle door all the way to let Jackson in to join. By then I was yelling at the both of them as they were going for the next gate to open where they would then be out of their fencing. They just looked at me and then kept walking for the gate. They are a piece of work sometimes.

I made my orange loaf and it's cooling right now!

Like a Boss.

When it's raining Basil outside, what are you ever supposed to do?
That's easy-- make pesto.
I made pesto like a boss today and I could never smell that licorice scent again and I'd be content. Our variety is very hardy so it's filling with a little scoop. I admit I could just eat pesto straight from the jar and be extremely content. A lot of people around here don't know what pesto is and what to do with it. I thought that pesto was part of common language, conversation and the ways of life. These people don't know what they're missing. I could walk around to the neighbors with a jar and some carrots and cukes to give them a try. With all their talk of shooting every animal that moves I think that I may get shot as well. So it would be safe to say I'll keep the pesto distribution to market only.

 I used our farm's pesto recipe, which has a completely different taste than how I like to make it. I like to make my pesto with cilantro instead of basil adding lemon, garlic, salt, and olive oil. Give me cilantro any day, I die!! This is just the beginning I fear. I will be making pesto all week.

Contents: Our basil, our pecans, garlic, parmesan, olive oil, salt

Since my day was consumed with angry bugs flying up my nose during the picking and the peeling of garlic I will reward myself with a Brando milkshake. If none of you have had the pleasure of Brandon making you a milkshake than it is your time to bribe and beg him for one. He may then teach you the ways as well or you could spy on him as he makes it. They are the best liquid sin I have ever had! So my feet are going up and I am going to watch Jackson and Lincoln play around. 

Orange Loaf Cake!

Saturdays are wonderful for many reasons: half of a workday, market day, payday, relaxation day.

Pickings: purple potatoes, red potatoes, cucumbers, a carrot and a beet. There's not much left that I will eat in the high tunnel, just a few beets, basil and tomatoes. So I'm thinking my food budget will increase due to not being provided food from the farm.
This morning I harvested the rest of the potatoes from the high tunnel and cleaned out a squash trellace. I replaced it with some yard long beans. Besides what the guineas got to yesterday I have a full row sprouted of bush beans! Speaking of the guineas they will now stay confined for the next 6 weeks since we put some babies in the hen house and went them to acclimate before they are released. One poor guinea has a broken leg that I noticed today. I'm not sure what we are going to do about that... maybe she'll be dinner...

I went over to market and got a bunch of onions and carrotts at the Walker farmstall and had a conversation about bananagrams, which I hadn't expected. I then headed over to Amelia's stall at Wee Farms. I set up a time with her to visit her farm next week and work for her. I'm excited to see what she has. It is a 6.5 acre farm that she rents. All she had left to sell were quinces and flowers so I didn't come away with much from market. I'm going to try to get there much earlier next week before everything is gone.

I headed over to Mellow Mushroom and treated myself to gf pizza and relaxed as I read my book. I think I laughed a bit too loud a few times. Good thing there was no one in the restaurant, a common thing in this area. But I'm saying, this book is hilarious. I can't wait to tell you all about it when I'm finished. As I was reading I couldn't get this orange pound cake I had experimented with a couple months back out of my head. I had a bunch of oranges and a bunch of gf flours that were about to go rancid so I had to do something. I thought and searched high and low on the internet  and then went back to the basics, cookbooks. Ina Garten, if you don't already know, is one of my favorite cooks. I love how she prefeces every cookbook with a long story of her love of food, entertaiment and her husband. It gets me in the mood to read her work. I found an orange loaf cake in her cookbook that I thought I'd try. I had to experiemnt to make the cake gluten free since the flour equivilancy doesn't match up and I always substitute at least half the sugar for an alternative such as honey, agave, applesauce etc. On the first try it became irresistable and I finished a whole cake quicker than I'd like to admit. I put a glaze on half of it but decided it wasn't necessary for it was too much orange and far too sweet. So, what did I do after lunch? Ran to the grocery store and got gf flours and oranges!!

New Growth.... Nevermind

First thing that I did this morning was to run into the high tunnel. I was convinced that some of my seeds have to of sprouted by now! Much to my pleasure, they all had except the butternut. There were three rows of little buds popping out of the soil! I could not have started today off any better. After we had got back from the back pasture doing some measuring I saw some Guineas in the high tunnel poking around the soil. I ran in to shoo them away and much to my dismay they had plucked about about 1/4 of the plants. Those guineas broke my heart today.

We are 95% done the cattle confinement. Today was my last day working on it and it has turned out extremely... confining... well, secure for any of those pregnant cows from going bizerk trying to get out.

Last but not least... for lunch I made an omlette.
Contents: eggs, tomato, basil (all from the farm), garlic and parmesan.
It was, as Brandon and I like to say about ok food, sufficient.

How I miss thee!

Can I count the ways I miss Philly?

Some of the top reasons...
1. Being able to walk everywhere
2. The calm in the morning before the day's daily buzz
3. French wine at Tria
4. French food at Parc
5. The ability to get a good juicy burger
6. Freedom church!!
7. Brando
8. Being a blink away from the bro
9. The restaurant scene
10. Being close to the parentals for a vacation from the city
11. and of course, 7hundo

Books a Mill

This morning we worked on the cattle confinement and are almost done! It looks great and I hope we paint it red. I was going to go out this afternoon and take pictures but it started to monsoon. I headed into town to go join the library. Truth be told I am a member of 4 county library systems. Yes, I work the system but when I was at home and wanted a book really bad I would just go to a different system if they had it available. Now having this card makes it 5! I have to say I'm impressed at the library for its wealth of books and programs for a small town.

Lunch was a delightful hodgepodge. I didn't have much in the pantry or fridge and I've eaten almost everything left in the high tunnel. There's an ample amount of eggs, but that's all I seem to eat. I made a quinoa and cucmber salad with chickpeas and garlic. I enjoyed it and will definately make it again.

Sorry for the short post. It was a lazy day and now I'm going to curl up and read my book about the local food movement. I wasn't branded locali 4.0 for nothing!

Bon Voyage!! to mom-- she left for Honduras this morning.

Working on that PHD yo

I put in a picture of Jackson becuase he's a piece of work!! So if I hadn't mentioned, a mule with turn around and have it's butt face you if it is dissinterested in you being around or if it's bored with you. So this morning after I gave him his sweet feed I was talking to him. Halfway through his meal he looked up at me and turned around and had his butt face me. I took the hint and stopped telling him stories and left. I can't wait to do the same thing to him and see how he reacts!

Unfortunately we didn't skim the weeds of the first three double dug beds prior to digging  so they are already overcome!! So I spent a good hour pulling nutsedge. If you don't know nutsedge let me explain. It looks kind of like grass but you stick a couple fingers three inches down and find a nut connected to its root simliar looking to a kidney bean. Beware, there is another. Another four inches down you will find another nut. If you don't get both, they'll keep growing. So nutsedge takes time and patience. But, I do enjoy pulling nutsedge since I get to feel the cool dirt between my fingers on these hot days. Plus investigating the seeds has been fascinating.

I then headed back to the cattle pen that we are restructuring. We had to replace about 9 support poles that are 6x6. I got the wonderful task of digging the 2 1/2 feet holes to put them in. You read that right. I dug all the holes and the boys just stuck the wood in the holes and covered it with cement. Who's the beast of a worker now? I'm thinking that after this venture I may have to join a strongest woman in the world competition. I will be jacked by seasons end. So the tool that I used was called a phd which I found hilarious because the farmers joke that they have three or so phd's. I will take a picture of the confinement soon. We ran out of cement so today will be my first double day and I'm excited to see if these buff arms can handle that!

For lunch I made a corn and black bean salad. I'm still working on the corn. I haven't even made a dent. Contents of the deliscious salad: black beans, corn, cumin, lime cilantro, garlic, salt, pepper.

What you lookin at?

Aw Shucks!

We headed over to the Clark's farm last night and I did not know what a ride I was in for! Clark and Sons is a large scale organic farm, which is unusual down here. He gave us a grand tour of the place including his dog collection. When people don't want dogs they send them over to his place to live. I had never seen a dog take an ear of corn out of a husk and sit and enjoy eating the whole thing. Well that's just the best way to get rid of spoiled corn I guess. We headed over to the corn field and he taught us how to pick corn and how to know how it's ripe before even pulling it off the stalk. We ended up filling our whole trunk with corn. Bad idea in hindsite. He was telling me how to make corn whisky but said it wasn't possible in Philly because Philly people need harder stuff. He cracked me up. The only person with a hilarious sarcastic personality so far that gets my personality.

On the drive home we had another conversation about wild dogs. I am glad Brandon prepped me on the fact that there is such thing as an outdoor dog. This is a dog that never, ever goes inside, not even in the winter! I didn' tknow it was possible.  Someone else out there had to been clueless to this too! I have not witnessed this until being down here. Cindy was telling me stories about how hunting dogs sometimes go astray and join packs of coyotes and become more visicous than the coyotes since they aren't afraid of humans and other animals since they have been domesticated. Oh geez, guess that's another thing I have to look out for while being down here.

When we got back around 8:30 pm we had to shuck all the corn so we could vac it to keep it fresh. So we sat on the back porch, drank some woodchuck and shucked away. Now it was a daunting task, but not as daughnting as I thought it would. For before we left, Al taught us how to shuck corn and for 25 year I have shucked it improperly and all that tie I could have done it in a flash! I will give a personal FREE tutoial to those of you that need this help!! Lincoln and Jackson sure enjoyed the remains!

Seeds!

The seeds have arrived. It was a nice relaxing afternoon as I weeded the high tunnel. To my surprise the seeds arrived today! I limed the beds to reduce the ph levels and I was on my way. Today I planted the squash, zucchini, pole beans and bush beans. Tonight when it cools I will plant the pumpkins. All of these seeds are overdue for planting since our shipment was late, so hopefully if the weather cooperates, they will harvest! The pumpkins will definately be post halloween so we will miss out on that sell at market.

I finished canning the figs! I hope I never talk about figs again while I am here. The fig chutney did not turn out to my liking. For some reason the vinegar taste did not boil off or mix in and I feel that taste overpowers the rest. The fig preserves on the other hand are superb. I'm not really sure that I cooked them right. I don't think I got the jelling point correct. So I will have to reference mom on that one since she is the jelly expert. Picture is cannning mid-process. It is 98 outside and 93 in my apt with the A/C and two fans on. Ahhh!

I picked a humungo, if that is a word, cucumber today and filled it with a recipe from Mollie Katzen. Contents: feta, garlic, parsley, walnuts, milk
We are headed over to the Walker farm today to pick corn!!!

Can you do the can can?

Canning supplies... Check
Victim.... figs

Gosh, I have spent the past hour looking for the perfect fig chutney recipe to make with these figs and have heeded advice for mom and can't seem to find one to use. So, I think I am goin gto do two batches. Though this is more tedious and time consuming, I have nothing but time here and two different flavors for two different occasions. I borrow all of Cindy's canning supplies and know that I will heat myself out of this little house I am in, but it is worth it for the fig! Hopefully this will only beginning of my canning and I hope to go mad with it while I am here to preserve as much unused food as possible. Then I will be able to share all of the goods with all of you!

Cindy also asked me today to develop some recipes and ideas for the fall market as to what we can make and sell with our growth. We are meeting on Monday to share plans. I am excited to get my hands dirty and start cooking!

I just made a gluten free pizza crust and am relaxing for a bit while the dough rises. I'm going to uses some of last season's canned pesto from our basil and pecans as the base of the pizza and then veg from our local farms. Can't wait!

Love to you all!

A hard days work.

Today we finished our double dig. 16 trenches later, we are all exhausted and ready to never dig for the rest of the season, or at least the rest of the day!

After we were done I slept the rest of the afternoon, my limbs had gone to jello and my brain to mush. I don't think it could have been accomplished if Brandon's muscle wasn't here.

My seeds were supposed to arrive today, but I will still have to anxiously await for they haven't come yet. I expect to go to a neighbors organic farm tomorrow and pick some corn. How nice to would be to have to fresh corn for some new dishes.
I've been sticking to eat what is available here and am starting to get bored of the same varieties of food. My $20 budget went over my first week by only $2, I have Woodchuck to thank for that, and went over by $10 this week with Brandon here. I'm still going to try to stick to it!

Fresh Figs!

It has already been so encouraging having Brandon here! He is good motivation to keep me plugging away at the double digging. We finished about 2/3 of the plot today and hopefully finish it up tomorrow. We were extremely exahusted on this 95 degree day after we were done and have settled in the A/C for a bit.
We all headed over to a neighbors house and demolished some fig picking. I'm not sure if one fig was left after our five person pick. They are so ripe they fall right off the tree. With one bite you taste the sweetest of liquid run through your mouth. We collected about five bags and I hope to make some fig chutney to eat for breakfast. Food doesn't get much better than this!
A little treat. Cindy will finish bottlingn up her Muscadine (grapes) wine tonight and I hope to have some for dinner, as they have invited us over. It will be no French wine but I'm sure to enjoy the local flavor.

Brandon's Here!

The boy is here! I picked him up from Augusta airport and now we are on our way. Here's a picture of his first pick, some cucumbers that we ate for din. We're planning on some fireworks and listening to some vinyls on the back porch. Happy Fourth!

Hello Kev!

All dug up!

Today was extremely busy in and out of the field! This morning we aimed to get as much hard labor done before the heat! Humidity brings bugs here and boy were there gnats. After coming inside I could still hear the ringing in my ears from the constant 5 hour hum of them they so nicely gave me this morning. Tyler and I built trenches this morning. We are starting to prepare the plot for my outside vegetables by a method called double digging, not to be confused with double dipping. So this method seems quite simple but unfortunately the ground is rock solid that it takes much longer and we are doing everything by man power and no machines. More man power = bigger muscles, beware! First thing we did was lay out our plot which is 70 x 9. A decent size, actually a bit larger than I was originally hoping. I am still a bit overwhelmed by this plot and the hightunnel. Fortunately, the growing season of what will be planted on each piece of land is differing so my focus can really remain on one at a time besides typical maintenance. So the method of double digging is to dig one foot deep and 23 inches wide and put that topsoil (actually sand) to the side since it shouldn't be mixed with the lower dirt (actually sand/clay). Then with the lower dirt we use a specific type of fork to loosen the next foot of sand/clay that we have. After it is loose we put a four inch layer of mulch and then put the topsoil back on. Then repeat for what seemed the rest of my life! We only completed three since the process took so long! The purpose of this was to add rich nutrients back to the soil. Now since you are so bored from the double dig a picture may suffice.

After the my siesta I went into the heat to use the measuring wheel to measure the existing veg in the hightunnel. I had to map out where to plant the new seed for the hightunnel and outside plot, which I should call the orchard plot. I also had to write out a growing chart and schedule as to when each veg is grown and how long it takes to mature to keep on top of it! Here are my schedules, hard to see but definately my lifelines! The top is a map of the hightunnel and the highlighted portion is existing veg. The middle is the orchard plot mapped out and the bottom is my veg with their varieties, growing dates, etc.

I was a bit distracted during my work as Lincoln was starring at me through the window. I went out to give him a treat and he disregarded after one bite and just sneezed on me. That stink! So I gave the treats to Jackson instead and now Lincoln is mad at me.





Gettin' Fresh

Tonight we had a potluck! Once a month all of the coastal organic farmers in the area come together and have a pot luck full of luscious food harvested from their own fields. Fresh food tastes better! My tastes buds were dancing tonight as they were tickled with the likes of figs, cucumbers, rabbit, beef, eggs, leeks and watermelon. Every dish was even better than the previous and I just fancied this function for the fact that all of the dishes were extremely creative and inventive. Having people share a passion for good food with real ingredients, as I do, was breath taking. I was really able to network with many farmers here and have set dates to visit all of the farms to experience what it is like to work and be there. To my surprise there was a small handful of people my age there since the average age of the farmers were all in the sixties. I really enjoyed showing and touring our farm and letting people see the hard work that I have put in. I was able to meet with the owner of walker farm where I heeded much advice as how to turn my sand ground into something productive for my vegetables. An update on my hightunnel growing, I have picked out all of my varieties of veg and am ordering tomorrow! Jerry came back and taught another mini course on pruning, which took place during a lightening storm. I seemed to be the only person to be nervous about getting struck since we were standing with iron poles and metal beams. I quickly wimped out and sought shelter in the main house. Here’s Jerry, in his element,  pruning a peach tree and a blackberry bush.

In all, this was a wonderful event that fed me a bunch of energy for this upcoming week! Here’s a picture of Larry and Cindy the farmers at my farm and Tyler and I, the apprentices.

LumberJill

Today I fixed all of the drip irrigation in the high tunnel. I planned out what I want to grow and also have a plot out in the fruit orchard that I want to grow on. I’ll be growing 19 different veg including pumpkins! I’ll be excited to try my hind in a gluten free pumpkin pie in the fall! After irrigating I went to the south pasture and helped trim the fallen trees around the electric fencing. Tyler said I looked like a lumberjack hacking away at dead trees and what-not. So just call me LumberJill minus the muscles. I was so happy to not have run into an rattlesnakes. They better hope to not cross me while I’m here or they will be sorry they ever saw my face!

On Wednesday I went to a pruning class and learned how to prune citrus trees and fruit bushes. It was taught by the organic guru of Georgia who has been at it for 16 years. That proves how young and slow moving the organic movement is down here. So if anyone needs me to trim and space some bushes and trees, I’m your gal.

Sorry to not write much but I’m exhausted from the heat!

Philly dogs or Southern dogs

I have been given free reign of the high tunnel and a plot in the fruit orchard. So I spent all day cleaning out the tunnel. I had some wonderful findings while cleaning: two massive cucumbers, potatoes, beets and a carrot. Some of the beets were chewed through so Jackson and Lincoln enjoyed that treat! The tunnel provides a lot of shade and has a little breeze so it was nice to be out of the direct 93 degree weather.

Already existing  in the tunnel that I decided to keep was loads of basil, tomatoes, squash, potatoes, lemon grass, okra and fennel. I have so much space to utilize and want to plan accordingly. I am excited to have a meeting with the farmer at Walker organics about this project I am taking on. Hopefully in the end I will provide the farm with luscious fall and winter vegetables!

Tonight’s dinner was comprised of the pickings from the high tunnel. I made a potato and beet salad as well as a cucumber salad !

We are watching a friend’s dog and I was a bit skiddish around him for the first few days since he resembles a pit-bull and the first thing I thought of was a dirty philly dog. But, tonight I didn’t let him sense my fear. I took him for a nice long walk to the south meadow and Jackson followed along his pasture as we walked. I thought a 7pm walk would have cooled a bit but it’s still a blazing out. At the pruning workshop I attended the other day a girl gave me a ten minute speech on the difference between the three types of dogs they have here since they will have random packs of dogs run onto property and she wanted me to be able to identify them if they came near me.

Katie, I found a metal chicken! Proof will come in the future, I didn’t have my camera!

Give me the fresh stuff!

My goal is to eat solely from the farm and Saturday market purchases. I will also allow myself $20 for other food purchases. Down here, I think this is feasible and hope that I am able to accomplish it. So far this week I have only spent ten dollars on food and will spend the other ten probably at Saturday market.

Yesterday we went to a nearby farm and picked three gallons of blueberries. I don’t like the likes of them but did enjoy the huge bucket of tomatoes I took. I made a tomato basil soup, in memory of Jen when I had visited Boston a few summers ago. The tomato and basil were from the garden. This soup is quite easy to make only including: tomato, basil, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper. I have to admit, on a hot day, hot soup was not really a wise choice but I am sure to enjoy the leftovers as a cold soup or salsa with the tostatos Cindy gave me. Tonight I made myself a quiche with mostly everything from the farm. The contents were guinea and chicken eggs, asparagus, matts wild cherry tomatoes, milk and a homemade pesto. I am going to give the milk from market a go at it and see how I like it.

I am missing you all dearly and wishing that you could come experience this with me! Best wishes and love, you are all in my thoughts constantly!

Arrival!

The farm is a 120 acres of nuts, fruit and meadows. They are currently producing for self sustainability but hope to provide livestock for the future. There is definately plently of pasture to accomplish this goal!

This is me sitting on my back porch talking to Jackson (Donkey) and Lincoln (Horse). The two of them are the best of friends and love chasing eachother, playing tug of war and kicking eachother. I'm still a bit nervous around them and went in the pen twice so far to pet and talk to them. Jackson truely reminds me of the personality of the donkey on Shrek. Jackson is quite a bully though and at every opportuntiy will steal affection and food from Lincoln.

Behind the horses to the left is where most of the pecan and pomegranite  trees reside. Some of the trees date back to over 150 years old. to the right of the horse is all pasture we are working on developing for sheep grazing. To the back of each is the south meadow that we are currently working on reparing to get ready for cow to graze in.

Onward.

Before leaving I was able to enjoy a few simple pleasures at home with the family. Mom and I enjoyed watching the chickens one night as the grazed over the grass and ran between the bushes. A few of them ate berries and had died their lips to make it look like they got in a fight with some lipstick.

We went over to Ploughshares to do a light harvest. Mom commented that we had better work on our harvesting skills for we were not encouraging regroup as we choppily hacked at the spinach. Evan let me fix up his bike to take on the trip. I felt like I was re-living childhood memories. If you don’t have a bike, I highly recommend getting one. It’s liberating!

 Stop one was visiting Grandpop and then early the next morning my long trek down.

Keep checking daily for new posts!