Summer fun
June 10th, 2010

Well we can definately tell that summer is here, official or not. We’ve been blessed with abdundant rain for the past couple of weeks and while the yard looks a bit neglected (too wet to mow), the garden has went crazy! Here see for yourself…

In this photo; green beans, lima beans, potatoes, tomatoes and lettuce.

Beefsteak tomato plant

Onions, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage

Lima beans, eggplant, zucchini and potatoes

We’ve already harvested the swiss chard, spinach and some of the lettuce which is why there are blank spots in the garden. I’ve replanted those areas with more squash varieties and they’ll be up and going in no time. Some of the weather we’ve had has been pretty severe resulting in a few casualties (mostly tomatoes).  The broccoli is still producing which really surprises me since it really prefers cool weather. Last week I began picking green beans and even found a couple of  handfuls of red new potatoes, dinner was exceptionally good that night.  Today the cauliflower, cabbage and the first zucchini of the season were brought in.  I should have cucumbers ready in a week or two and I’ll start making  pickles. The dill and onions are ready and waiting for their role in the pickles.  Here’s the raised beds that I added this year, 3 of them are dedicated to more herbs (I’ve got them planted all over the place!) and 1 bed of asparagus. It actually came up so I’m really happy.

In the first raised bed; lemon basil, Provence lavender, rosemary. Second bed is asparagus. Third bed; basil and dill. Fourth bed; cilantro, flat leaf parsley, Thai basil, more lavender and more rosemary. I keep the thyme and summer savory near the kitchen in pots year-round.

We’ve been invited to a friend’s farm to come and pick blackberries next week. I’ll be trading some of our elderberries in return. I’m really looking forward to getting some berries put up this year and have already decided on making  jam, wine and freezing plenty for cobblers when the weather turns cold and blustery this fall.

In non related garden news, Josh and I will be celebrating our 7th wedding anniversary this month.  This year we will finally get to celebrate with a proper get away. We’re going to canoe the Bufflalo river in Arkansas and stay at a neat place we found called, “The Arkansas House”. www.thearkhouse.com is the link. Our friend Julia will be staying at the farm while we are gone looking after the animals and hopefully helping herself to some of the produce in the garden. We’re only going for a couple of days but are so excited to have a little break, our first in 4 years.  I’ll be taking lots of photos of our adventure to share with everyone.

Yesterday was really cool. My friend, Cairelle in New Orleans called me in the morning to tell me that the guys from the TV show, “Deadliest Catch” were down there for filming, “After the Catch”.  They were having a Jazz funeral for Captain Phil Harris who passed away earlier this year. Well, her mom is a huge fan of the show and managed to join in the procession remembering Captain Phil. After the funeral the guys were waiting for their car and Susan (her mom) asked them if they would like to wait in the air conditioning of her Cairelle’s shop, “Witchy Living”. They jumped on the opportunity (it is extremely hot and humid down there this time of year) and in the came with me still on the phone with Cairelle.  She handed Jonathan (Time Bandit Captain) the phone and I got to chat with him, he then gave the phone to Sig Hanson (Northwestern Captain) and I chatted with him briefly too. They are the nicest guys! It was such a pleasure to speak with them. Here are some photos of the Jazz funeral and inside the Witchy Living shop. 

Honorary Jazz funeral for Captain Phil Harris (Cornelia Marie) of Deadliest Catch. New Orleans 6-9-2010

Sig Hanson, Josh Harris, Jake, Edgar Hanson and other crew members honoring Captain Phil Harris.

That is Cairelle’s mom, Susan with the black and white umbrella and “Bitty Bobb” the chihuahua in the funeral procession.

Susan and Bitty Bobb chatting with Captain Sig and the guys at Witchy Living in New Orleans. Johnathan Hillstrand (Time Bandit) had to cool off more than everyone else!  Nice:) 

I probably wont post another blog entry until we return from vacation next week so until then…Have a great week everyone.

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A rose is a rose
May 26th, 2010

I just had to share the newest photos of the garden with you all. These were taken yesterday (excuse the weeds),  as you can see things have really taken off out there.

  

I dont know how we are going to eat all that lettuce!  This week I’m focusing on harvesting swiss chard, spinach and broccoli.  Salad anyone?

“Bright Lights” Swiss Chard that I’ve been harvesting. This is such a versatile veggie and freezes well. It’s delicious in soups and also goes great with pork.

This is the only rose bush that I have planted  (for now) , it blooms profusely and never complains. This year I made Rose Petal Jam from the flowers. The most time consuming aspect is trimming the bitter white base of the petals off. I’m passing along the recipe in case you’d like to try it. Please don’t use flowers from the florist, they are full of pesticides. This is a special treat that is perfect on a warm buttered scone with a cup of tea. The flavor is delicate and floral. You wont like it on a peanut butter sandwich:)

Rose Petal Jam

8 oz  fresh pesticide free rose petals, white base trimmed off.

2 cups white sugar

3 cups water

lemon juice

1 package (1.75 oz) powdered pectin

Directions:

Layer the rose petals and sugar in a bowl, ending with sugar. Cover and let stand overnight. The following day, bring the water to a boil in a saucepan over medium high heat. Add the sugared rose petals and stir until the sugar has all dissolved.  Reduce the heat to medium low and simmer 20 minutes, stirring often to prevent sticking.  *At this point I went ahead and pureed the mixture in a blender for a smoother consitency. If you do this be very careful as the mixture release alot of steam and can blow the top off of the blender*. Return mixture (if you pureed) to saucepan Increase the heat to medium high and return the mixture to a boil that cannot be stirred down.  Add 2 or 3 tablespoons of lemon juice (bottled is fine) and something wonderful will occur! The jam will change color becoming the most beautiful shade of ruby. Stir well and add the powdered pectin, boil for one minute stirring constantly.  Pour the jam into 4 sterilized half- pint jars, wipe rim of jar and seal with sterile ring and lid. I processed mine in a water bath canner for 5 minutes. 

Enjoy!

Switching gears…

I managed to get some new pictures of the horses last week too.  I’ve been riding quite a bit in between farm chores trying to beat the heat. The horses are really enjoying the shade of the pole barn and our lovable darlings, “Chief” and “Tonner” have taken to swimming in one of the berms. They of course, only do this when they see me bring out a saddle…can’t ride a wet horse.

This is “Chief” showing me the cows. Chief has worked cattle most of his life and is a retired roping horse, he really loved his job:)

Hi Chiefy:)

“Danny” coming to say hello.

“Stage Boss” and “Tonner” hanging out.

Well folks, that’s it for now. Have a great week everybody. Until next time.

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First week of May
May 9th, 2010

I’m jumping right in with the photos. Let me show you what we’ve been up to…

10 of the uprights are now in place. We’re pretty happy with the progress on the stable. The uprights seem to be getting a little easier to manage….practice is indeed making perfect:)

And we finally have the new paddock fenced in.

 

I think it ties the property together nicely.

We even have a new boarder to occupy the paddock!

I like to sit here in the morning and drink my coffee.

The garden is growing pretty good this year too (knock wood) and I finished up the planting yesterday by adding sweet potatoes, zucchini, patty pan squash,  both pickling cucumbers and salad cukes, winter squashes and more eggplant. The herbs are all doing great in the raised beds and the rhubarb has settled in nicely in it’s new home with the strawberries.

I took these  photos 2 weeks ago…

The white powder on the beans and potatoes (first pic) is diatomaceous earth (most likely misspelled).  This is our first year using it and so far I can’t say enough good things about it!

And today….look how much it has all grown. Yay!

Josh and I still managed to sneak in some riding time for my birthday. We spent the day with the horses and then grilled some burgers. Even the weather was perfect, something we don’t get to say around here very often.  Just a lovely, lovely day.

Here are a couple of shots before we hit the trail…

Well it’s time to go do chores and get everyone settled in for the evening.  Hope you enjoyed the photo tour as much as I enjoyed sharing it with you. Until next time.

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Best invention ever….white paint.
April 29th, 2010

Here are some pictures that I took today highlighting all of my hard work for the past 2 days…translation; making a mess with several gallons of white oil based paint. I’m still not finished since there are a few places left in my hair that have not been “frosted”. Definately making progress though on both fronts:)

This is a view from the stallion pasture. To the left (through that gate) you will notice more T-posts, that will be a new turn out pasture next week. We’ll use it to introduce any new horses that come in to board before turning them out with the rest of the herd.  The paddock is in a great location and perfect for monitoring a new horse. The horse would of course be brought into a stall with turnout in bad weather or if it is extremely hot outside. This spot is already booked out for a new horse arriving in the next couple of days.  

A view with my lovely painted horse fence. The alleyway design was a spur of the moment idea that is actually going to work out very well!

I’ve also been working long hours (usually 7+ hrs) in the garden trying to stay caught up with weeding. Talk about an exercise in futility! It’s alot like housework…never-ending but still required. I finally got the raised beds filled and planted. There was nowhere else to put my herbs since the place they used to be has been taken over by luscious strawberries…I can live with that. The 4 new raised beds have been planted with asparagus in one and the rest in rosemary, dill, Italian flat leaf parsley, honeydew melon sage, pineapple sage, Thai basil, lemon basil and probably a few other things I can’t think of offhand. I treated myself today to 4 beautiful lavender plants, replacing those that didn’t survive winter, a lovely French tarragon and a few more flowers; foxglove, gerber daisy and geraniums. I was hoping to find some shasta daisies (my favorite flower) but will settle for what I got. If the rain holds off for a bit tomorrow I’ll take some pics of the raised beds and garden (which is almost completely planted!). I will be posting recipes occasionally highlighting the foods we raise here at the farm.

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A historic moment..for us at least.
April 27th, 2010

Many of you remember me talking about the massive  stable that we tore down and relocated to the farm.  Time definately slipped away from us and now over a year later, we have finally begun the reassembling process!  We have already rebuilt the pole barn and tack room but were lacking the uprights for the stable itself.  We thought that we would be able to use something like 6 X 6 posts but after careful ponderings determined that they simply wouldn’t be able to hold the weight of this structure. A few days ago luck was on our side and Josh found someone selling a huge stack of utility poles for a very reasonable price. Loading those poles was an adventure in itself! First, they were sitting in a field over an hour away from here, which wasn’t bad until the return trip hauling them. Most of the poles were 30-50′ long and were incredibly heavy. It took us 4 hours with a tractor, chains and various props to even get them on the trailer. What’s ironic, is that we only had to load 10 of them! Out of those 10 we will easily get the 24 uprights needed to get the stable rebuilt. Here’s a pic taken with my cell phone of Josh cutting the last pole to get on the trailer.  There was no rolling it over to finish the cut either, that required the tractor yet again. That trailer is over 30′ long and is used for hauling a bulldozer.  I’m not sure of their exact weight but I do know that that load weighed several tons and made our one ton dually pickup grunt and strain.

 

There was an unexpected surprise that day. The man who sold us the posts pointed to the tree line and upon further investigation revealed an old “highway”. 

It doesn’t look like much in that photo does it?  But wait….

This is the old wagon trail to Tulsa via Claremore.  The trail is circa 1880 and was the only way to Tulsa at that time. The trail is completely tree lined on both sides and follows along the Arkansas river.  The man who owns the land was given the original maps when he purchased the property several years ago.  All of the farms in the area have maintained the old trail keeping the grass mowed and trimming limbs, even replacing trees over the years as needed .  The trail is about 40 miles long and is as passable today as it was then.  Standing on that old trail brought of flood nostalgia to me and a deep respect for everyone who has continued to appreciate the historic value of that old “highway”.  Interestingly enough, the man who owns that land is a developer.  However, he purchased that land to preserve it and has no intentions of changing it.  Kudos to him! 

So back to the stable…

We did make it home without incident albeit very slowly and yesterday construction began!  One of Josh’s friends from work brought over his tractor (ours doesn’t have a bucket) to help set these things in the ground.  And here are the obligatory photos of our own “historic event”….the setting of the first post!

In case you’re wondering that post is 16′ long and weighs over 500 pounds! That should give you an idea of the scale for how big this stable is going to be….

Here’s a photo of the stable area which measures 40′ X 100′.

only 23 more uprights to go…

Well, I guess we better get to work! Until next time….

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Morels
April 26th, 2010

Just a quick little blog to let you all know that we are still here. I’m testing a new blog site, one that enables me to share pictures with you. I hope you enjoy it!

Morel mushroom season is just finishing up in our area and we had a fantastic season.  Here are  just a few of the many that I found right here on the farm. If you’ve never tasted a morel you have not lived life to the fullest!  They are truly a gourmet treat, highly anticpated every year with the arrival of spring.  The flavor is rich and earthy yet not overpowering.  There are many recipes for morels but our favorite way to eat them is simply sliced, lightly floured and fried in real butter.  Sublime.

Morels come in three different colors. The first ones to appear are blacks and grays. The tan morels follow about a week later and tend to be much larger.  The season itself  is quite short, lasting only about 2 weeks.  This year due to perfect weather and rain conditions, our season lasted nearly three weeks. We were thrilled!

I’ve been experimenting with ways to preserve them and afer a good bit of research decided to try freezing them. To do this prepare them as you would for pan frying by washing them well and lightly dredging in flour, lay them out on baking sheets lined with waxed paper and freeze until solid. Pack them into hard plastic freezer containers to prevent them from being crushed.  Simply take them out of the freezer and let thaw a bit, then fry in butter.

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