Patience Pays Off

Since my friend Ginny was generous enough to plant all my seeds, I found myself with"itchy" planting fingers in February. I needed to get my hands in some dirt.  

I could have just swept my kitchen floor.  

Wrong kind of dirt!!

Instead, I bought Smart Pots from my favorite online gardening magazine and planted potatoes right in my dining room.    Those potatoes I'd saved from the previous summer were not going to make it to my April planting in the garden.  They were sprouting these 12-inch sprouts all over my storage room.

My kids thought I was CRAZY... 

--"Mom.....seriously.....you need to get help."

--"Nobody we know does stuff like this!!"

--"Why can't you just buy potatoes at the store like everybody else?"

--"You're wasting your time."

Luckily, I don't care what they think or say.  I continued to water and add dirt as needed.  I did quite the happy dance when plants sprouted up.  

As soon as weather allowed, I moved these babies outside and hoped for the best.  

They made it through a few late frosts as they continued to shoot toward the sky.

Fast forward to this week.....

Well, heckler kids, this is what I have to say to you....

---"Ha! Never doubt the master!!"

---"Does anyone you know get to eat these beauties in JUNE?"

---"Put that in your pipe and smoke it!!"

---"Oh yeah...make your own dang dinner. These are for my supporters...Dad & Cece."

--"Go buy your own at the store like EVERYBODY ELSE!!"

If you are a basket customer, these will be coming soon to a basket near you:):) For now, ask my kids where to buy them...they should know.  

Revenge...worth waiting for.

Here Kitty, Kitty....

Dear God, 

Can you please send us more kittens?  Oh yeah, it would be great if they were gray in color because I just don't think we have enough of that kind.

Tiger is the best momma cat.  She nurses all the kittens on the farm.....even if they aren't hers.  Weird and sweet at the same time.

Our first set of 6 farm cats came from Logan, Iowa and included an awesome gold tomcat we promptly named Butter.  He produced an offspring that looked just like him...Butter Junior was Cece's pick for a name.  Below you see Butter Junior's  offspring.  Cece's pick for a name?......Butter Butter Junior of course!!

These little fur balls are inhibiting work being done.  "Can't mow...don't want to disturb the kitties".

We are planning to spay all of the females we keep with the exception of Tiger.  She's such a good mama and it's so much fun for CeCe to have new kittens to torture in the spring:) 

If you know of a good home for some cute, friendly kittens or grown cats, let me know. Free to a good home. 

Amen

Got What I Asked For

I have learned from my kids that the ticket to getting what you want is to never give up whining & complaining about it.  I followed suit with my garden.

A few weeks ago I whined and complained about only having GREEN items growing in my garden.  I washed for COLOR...ANY COLOR!!!

Well, Mother Nature is shining on me:

Purple Cauliflower-same nutritional value as her white brother, with a boost of nutrients to stabilize blood sugar and a few extra cancer-fighting elements.

Sun gold tomatoes--just beautiful!!

Blueberry tomatoes-I planted these little guys last year but they got lost in the flood.  The purple color supposedly turns red upon ripening....darn!!  

Today's harvest was mostly green, but enough color to make me smile.

Don't get too excited for those tomatoes yet.  There are only a handful so far and those are for the King:

He neither whines nor complains, but he gives me what I want when I use those tactics.  For that he always gets the first pickings:) 

All is well when I get what I ask for!!

Princess and the Peas

CeCe is the perfect little farm girl because she's not freaked out by being dirty.  In fact, she prefers it.

She tried to "be" Levi by wearing his shorts and covering herself almost entirely in mud.  From the waist down she really pulled it off. 

She normally can be found within five feet of me.  Her mantra...

"Where 'ya goin, Mama?....I'll come too!!"

Because of that, I never have to wonder where she is.  She's right behind me.  One day I couldn't find her.  I called her name and she didn't answer.  I put down my garden tools & started to leave the garden to begin my search.  

I found her only 50 ft away hiding in the peas with her hands and mouth full!!

When I scolded her for not answering my call she exclaimed, "I was waiting until I was done eating peas.  These are SO yummy!!"

When the peas were just coming in, I only let her eat 5 each day so I had some left to harvest for customers. Guess she found her own way of getting as much as she wanted.

No problem anymore.  Now they are abundant...eat away CeCe!!

My Favorite Use of Arugula

Just a quick post on ARUGULA--the best green in the world:):)

This is what I think about when I'm planting the arugula seeds:

I don't have a recipe as much as just a description. Sorry, that's how I cook.

Use whatever bread you love.  In my house it's more like whatever bread you can find.  Spread pizza or pasta sauce on one slice.  Layer your favorite cheese (parm/feta/Moz), thinly sliced tomatoes & arugula.  If you have basil, pile that on top.  If you don't, spread pesto on the other slice of bread. Do whatever method you use to make it toasty & hot...griddle or panini.

If you like a little spice, sprinkle on a little of our secret ingredient....

I used to buy this at HyVee but there was a time when I couldn't find it there..or anywhere.

PANIC!!!!

I now order this online by the case.  We use it on EVERYTHING!!

Basket Number Two

Basket week number two has officially been closed!!  The last one walked out the door last night. Hope you are enjoying all the green.

Some of the items will remain constant through the season...like kale.  Others will be in there once or maybe twice...purple bok choy, peas.

Two things I intended to do at the beginning of this season were to have a vegetable identification section and a recipe section on the blog.  I am trying to hold myself to that, but the weeding & planting are really eating into my time.  

I am not good at many things, but multi-tasking is something I have mastered, by necessity.  It's amazing what "tasks" can be done while I'm weeding.  It's not unusual for me to practice violin with the kids while weeding.  Piano is a little more difficult, but violins are totally portable.  Pretty funny to watch the animals stand still and listen to a poorly played Mozart piece:):). Maya is getting quite good at her skip counting because we spend hours in the garden together singing the little math songs.  We haven't put pencil to paper yet this summer, but learning is taking place:):)

On the down side....blogging takes "butt in seat" time for me.  That's rare.  I do some while sitting at piano/violin lessons, but uninterrupted time is best.  That's very rare.

I know I'll get it done because I wake up thinking about it and go to sleep thinking about it.  I hate having "to do" things nag me.  Guess that's why I get so much done.  So far, though, I've never outrun that ever-changing "to do" list.  You know what that means...

Gotta run faster!!!!

Reality Check

I don't like to call myself a pessimist, but others do.  I like to think of myself as a realist.  

---When someone lends me a book I tell them, "You'll most likely never get this back."  

--If there's an argument going on in a neighborhood playgroup I always say, "My kid probably started it".

When I buy shoes for CeCe, I buy several pair.  Her record of owning & losing a pair is 30 minutes. We have stIll NEVER found those little shoes!!!  

I apologize to the people sitting both in front and behind our family in church.  I tell them, "Consider yourself warned.  This won't go well.  I'd get out while you still can.....God will understand"

When I buy furniture I tell the salesperson to pretend he's selling furniture to the gorilla complex in the zoo.  If it won't hold up in there, it won't hold up in my house.

You see, it's just reality.  I just expect it, apologize for it before it happens and enjoy the moment.  All signs of a realist.

Good news...our life on the farm is no different....

We planted alfalfa and brome grass last spring and got one harvest out of it before fall.  However, we hired our farm neighbor to do the baling because we owned no equipment.  Well...we had scissors and twine.  Over the cold winter months, my husband perused Craigslist and purchased all the equipment needed to bale our own hay.  One step closer to being self-sustaining:)

Here's how we ASSUMED it would go:

The process of baling hay starts with four to five days of predicted dry weather.  Cutting it is very much like mowing, just with a very large mower and a tractor.  Yeah...every boy's dream!!

Once cut, it rests in those beautiful long rows to dry out in the wind & sun.  If needed, it can be flipped with another cool tractor-pulled" "boy toy" called a rake.  Once it is completely dry, the tractor is hooked to the baler.  Yep, coolest toy yet.  It picks up the dried stuff, stacks it in those rectangular bales, ties it with twine and spits it out to the ground where we have many unpaid workers throw it onto the hay wagon pulled by another cool tractor!!!!  

In a matter of hours, hundreds of small square bales of hay will be stacked and ready for winter feed for horses and cattle.  The small bales are easier to store and light enough that one big boy or two little boys can do the feeding chores.  This is cutting number one of four for the season.  I suspect the excitement and energy going into the inagural cutting will decrease with each cutting until we are begging....or maybe even paying....for laborers:)

Here's how it REALLY went:

We looked ahead at the weather and it looked like we would have three dry days.  Hooray!!  We went to church Saturday night so cutting could start early Sunday.

The guys pulled out the tractor and the new (to us) cutter....which apparently didn't fit on the tractor's hitch. Trip number ONE to the farm store.

After a few hours, the cutting began!  It worked like a charm--other than one section of the cutter that had a broken part.  Imagine giving a buzz cut to your boy but leaving one tiny strip of hair on every swipe.  Not acceptable in a boy's haircut...not worth the worry in alfalfa cutting.  

Once the hay had been cut, there was nothing to do but wait for it to dry. 

In a storybook, the sun would stay high 

in the sky and bake the cuttings into perfection.  In our world, an unexpected rainstorm popped up and rained on the newly cut stuff.  UGH!!

After two days of dry hot weather, they guys hooked up the rake and flipped the hay to bake the other side.  Not even ONE trip to the farm store....but there was a 30 minute rainstorm as soon as they unhooked the rake from the tractor.  No kidding!!

The next week brought rain/sun/rain/sun, blah, blah, blah.  They decided to bale the small grass field anyway to get to "know" the new (to us) baler.  Because of the less than ideal weather, we knew there was a chance it would be a little wet.  Our theme of this year..."Oh Well"!!  

It appeared to work like a charm as 50 beautiful bales shot out the back and were lifted onto the new (to us) hay wagon.  

The inevitable bad news didn't take long to show up.  Three days later the bales were molding!  "Oh Well".  I found a use for them...that's yet another post.

Finally there was a window of three dry hot days followed by my husband's day off of his real job:):). We had ourselves a PLAN!!!  We called in the big boys, I baked a few cakes & planned a big "working men's" lunch for the inagural hay balling day.

I won't take you through the whole day, but there were several trips to the farm store for broken equipment, bales coming out of the baler at 10 pounds rather than 100 pounds, some naughty words coming from the driver of the tractor...all before lunch.  It was a quiet lunch with crabby men while they waited for Simon to return from yet another trip to the farm store. NOBODY EVEN WANTED CAKE!!!  

They loaded up to try it one more time after lunch but no better outcome.  My husband had to do what I call "The Walk of Shame" and call the neighbor man to come bale the hay.  Great guy.  Great equipment.  

Everyone went home except my husband who waited for the neighbor.  Joel rode with him in that giant John Deer baler....almost the same as baling your own.  Almost.

Oh yeah, it rained on them while they were baling.  Seriously.

Great lesson for my kids.  I told them real men like Joel swallow their pride, step over their disappointment and do what it takes to get the job done.  I instructed my girls to FIND one of those men and demanded my boys to BE one of those men.

All said and done, the giant round bales will be moved by equipment rather than by hands, but animals will be fed using our own feed that hasn't been sprayed or modified in any way.  BOOM!!

In my "realist" way, I smiled at Joel, kissed his cheek and said, "Don't quit your day job."

Kale Salad Recipe

I made this salad for a gathering about a month ago.  It was really good and I have made it several times since.  As you might guess by your basket contents, kale is a staple in my fridge right now:):) I have almost every salad ingredient planted in my garden...just not ripe & ready.  Had to buy stuff...UGH!!!

The salad part is a "throw together" but the dressing is more exact.  Sorry...I'm one of those cooks.  I'll give you normal size batch instructions.  I make 5 times this much and we eat it for a few days. It keeps well.

Start with one bunch of kale.  I can tell you that the "ruffled" leafy kind works best in this salad, but go with what you have.  Tear the leaves off the stem into bite sized pieces, sprinkle with a little sea salt and "massage" the kale by squeezing a handful at a time until it breaks down, turns a darker green and is much more tender than when you started.  The ruffled kale gets to that stage much faster than any other kind.  

Once the kale is happy, add in whatever vegetables you love.  

I add the following:

-1 cup edamame

-1 lg. shredded (or chopped) carrot

-1 lg. shallot (chopped)

-1 small red pepper (chopped)

-a handful of chopped cilantro

-a handful of chopped basil

Wisk together following dressing:

1/4 C. olive oil

2 T rice vinegar

1 T ginger (finely chopped)

1 T soy sauce 

2 tsp. lime juice

3 garlic cloves (minced)

Toss it all together, top it with avacado and chopped almonds, or something crunchy & salty.  Enjoy.

Besides being easy, I like this recipe because the salad keeps in the fridge for several days, and the dressing keeps for a few weeks.  I usually have Mary Kate make me a really big batch of the dressing to keep in the fridge.  It makes it really easy for the kids to make their own salad.

Baskets are Launched

It was a last minute decision to start baskets today, but I'm glad I did.  I was nervous that I wouldn't have enough produce.  All the plants look so small and the weeds look so big!

It was needless worry.  I picked & washed & picked & washed for hours and did indeed produce a tremendous amount of green.

Eli was my photographer...and he's 7...so I don't have many pictures for this post.  I can tell you it was quite a production to get the produce home, packaged, labeled and arranged in the basket.  All before 9am.

The result...

Comparing it to last year, this basket is 2 weeks later but at least twice the amount of produce...partly because only half of my customers wanted a basket.  I'll try to fill it that full every time, but no promises!!  

Thanks to my unpaid seed planter, Ginny, I am not short on a variety of kale.  Today's basket had (or should have had):

   1. Several different types/sizes of kale

   2. Arugula---enough for a village--

   3. Mixed greens

   4. Tatsoi

   5. Radishes

   6. Spinach

   7. Cilantro

   8. Dill

   9. Mystery Lettuce (failed row marker)

  10. Broccoli Raab flowers (yes, edible)

It's all been washed twice and should remain fresh for the week, if it lasts that long!!!  

I'll try to post a few recipes shortly.

 

Go Green!!

I think I complained a few months ago about seeing nothing but brown. 

 I longed to see our farm sprout up that first green grass for the animals to devour.

Well, my husband and children will tell you that I just CAN'T BE PLEASED!!!

ENOUGH is ENOUGH!! 

Everywhere I look...green.  Lettuce, kale, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, beets, tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, onions, garlic, potatoes, sweet potatoes, peas, beans, melons.  Aaaaahhhhhh!!!!!  

Oh yeah, I shouldn't forget to mention the green WEEDS...thankfully these giants aren't in my garden, but they are everywhere on the farm!!

I requested colorful shirts from my unpaid helpers.  Isaac wore this dumb shirt today grinning all the way down to the garden.  "Hey, GREEN is a color". 

Hey, wait a minute.  Money is green.  

Nevermind.

Bringin' Home the Bacon

Remember this young lady?

Well, Agnes checked in at 407 pounds live weight and has returned in the form of shoulder roasts, Italian sausage, Cajun sausage, a few pork chops and bacon.

The biggest struggle for me is to price the food I grow.  It's not that I want to give it away for free, but I have spent my whole motherhood trying to find ways of cutting my food budget while still feeding quality food to my family.  I've done that by buying directly from farmers in bulk quantities.  So when the kids ask how much a pound of bacon is, I have no clue.  I never buy my meat from the store so I have NO CLUE what the prices are out there.  I decided to take a rainy afternoon and do a little research.  Wow! What an education!!

Here's the local Lincoln farmer's pricing for his pasture raised pork:

This farm is called Pawnee Pride and Paul, the owner, is such an awesome guy.  He came to help us set up our farm for animals soon after we bought it.  He does this for a living so his meat is priced for his family to thrive.  Incidentally, his CSA is full and has a waiting list (at least the last time I checked).  He believes the very same things we do and if for some reason my farm goes away, I will buy from him.

While foods proved to be pricey as well... but again, if it was pay that price for wholesome food or pay less for junk, I would choose option A:

We are in a blessed position to be able to  educate customers about proper animal treatment/clean eating and sell to them without having to sustain our family with the income resulting from that effort.  That being said,  I won't lose money helping you feed your families.

Those of you who wish to buy a bundle of pork, I will package up 50 pounds for $200.  Buying that way saves you money and clears my freezer space.  

Buying individual items is also an option, of course.  

I have three more Red Wattles ready to go to butcher and will send them if the demand is more than the supply.  

BLTs are THAT close!!!