Happy Monday

It’s a wonderful hot and sunny summer day around here. It’s in the mid 90′s, with wispy clouds and blue skies!

I have spent a good amount of time today talking to people for work, a few friends and customers have called or emailed and I think the theme for the day is IT’S HOT!…

I say to this well, it’s SUMMER it’s supposed to be hot~ Don’t crab about it because before I know it in 3 short months the wind and snow will be blowing again.

I had a “now why didn’t I think about that sooner” moment a few days back…

A few weeks ago I was planting lettuce (that didn’t come up) and had a handful of seeds left and tossed them in these empty hanging baskets. When they were large enough I transplanted them to the main garden. It worked like a charm. I have never had much luck sowing lettuce directly into the garden they came up spotty at best, with lots of wasted space.

The extras I fed to the chickens for a treat. I reseeded them with lettuce seeds again.

Daisy and I went to the strawberry farm and picked the late strawberries. We had fresh strawberry shortcakes with whipped cream and the rest I made Jam with.

 

 

We picked blueberries too. These all went into the freezer.   It was hot and very muggy so we gave up after we picked about 4 pounds. Blueberry season is just starting so we have time to go back again.

 

Hope your day went well!

Karyn

Happy 4th!

our 2012 limited edition of NH Blueberry soap ready to celebrate the 4th!

We are taking a few days off today and until Thursday to celebrate, rest up and visit with friends and family. A mini vacation at home

I finished a batch of these up just in time…The are a limited edition so when they are gone they are gone….

Our Fireworks Guest Soap scented with mouth watering, farm fresh blueberry.

Here is what the listing has to say about it…

I love to celebrate our Nation’s Independence and this is our July 4th fireworks bar soap. What says America any better than stars, stripes, the red white and blue and fresh summer blueberries?
Our fireworks bar soap has all that, each star has embedded into it red and blue stripes and is packed full of the scent of fresh New Hampshire blueberries, warm and ripe in the field just picked from the bush and nestled in your basket….

 I’m also enjoying this mouth puckering bar of soap called Iced Lemonade. These are our Farm House bars that weigh in at 6 ounces, a huge bar that rolls in your hand nicely the first time.

And I will spend some time enjoying the garden that is slow to start this year. I have been so busy I just got everything into the ground and what has been planted is just starting to take off. We have been enjoying our fresh lettuce, radish, beet tops and eary peas…

Have a wonderful holiday.

Karyn

As Promised it’s Raining!

I don’t often get very excited about rain when I have yard work to do. But this rain is different, we need it very badly. We have had no snow cover all winter to speak of and so far this spring very little if any rain. The garden beds are bone dry dust at this point.  The chickens are loving them to dust bathe in. Glad I can make them happy. Outside fires have been banned for several weeks and wild brush fires have been reported. We don’t often have brush fires in these parts.

I’m not worried about our water supply, we have an artesian well that pumps out more than 60 gallons a minute. We also have a hand dug well that is currently full to the top.  But I do worry about other’s wells, I would hate to see them have to buy tankers of water to put in their wells. Water troubles are almost unheard of in these parts of the woods.

Anyway I traded that rake in and stayed away from that attack rose bush and took out my shiny bright red Kitchen Aid mixer and put it to good use today. Daisy and I baked 2 loaves of pound cake.  Pound cake has been on my mind the past couple of weeks with the abundance of fresh eggs I have, 14 or so a day now. My old stand by recipe has shown up missing so I went looking on line for another recipe. To my surprise my friend Mitchel has recently posted his recipe for pound cake and it is WONDERFUL, a breeze to make and did I mention yummy with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. If you need the recipe to use up a few (8 eggs!) eggs this is a perfect one to try, you will not be disappointed with it. We ate one with dinner and the other was put in the freezer. I will do this again soon to stock up on baked breads in the freezer. They will be handy later in the summer when it’s too hot to turn on the oven and fresh strawberries are ready to pick in the garden.

I also put up another batch of Red Beet Pickled Eggs for snacking on this week. Over the weekend I will can up a batch of regular pickled eggs for the pantry. They are yummy in potato salad, tuna salad and for a side dish. I know – I know…many will tell you canning pickled eggs at home is unsafe and there is no approved method to do this if you don’t keep them refrigerated. I do it, have always done it and will continue to can pickled eggs.

And I had another treat today, Dick took me shopping for a new skirt and blouse. We have several Lodge functions soon and he wanted me to have something new to wear. You all know how well I like clothes shopping…not….but I found a nice organic cotton skirt and blouse that will do nicely.

We also stopped at the new feed store and I picked out 10 pounds of Yukon Gold seed potatoes. Being able to pick out your own is something new for me, usually the only way to get seed potatoes is to order them on line or purchase them from a local farmer. Well these are local and it was good to pick out just the ones I want. I always feel cheated when seed potatoes arrive in the mail and they are huge with only a single eye on them. Happens more often than not. I picked the smaller ones with several eyes that can be cut into chunks and still leave a good amount of potato with it. I feel it was a good, no a VERY good deal at 69 cents a pound. On line a single pound is $10 plus shipping. Think I will go back tomorrow for another variety, I didn’t want to push my luck with Dick, he hates standing around while I look and make up my mind what I am getting. We had already worked our way through 3 clothing stores, and he didn’t say a word about it or the feed store. He is sweet.

This will also give me the chance to look over the fencing supplies there. I would like a few cattle panels for the garden.

The attach Rogusa Rose last summer

Lastly I finished up a new batch of laundry soap and finished up the laundry for the week. So how did you weekend go? Hope it was a good one.

 

 

FROST!

This little fella is not cold!

The weather man said it would happen last night and he was right. There was a light frost covering the grass, gardens and windshields this morning when I went out to feed the animals at 6am. I am so not ready for the changing of the season, it seems so early after such a late spring.

Dalton is warm too...

I was pleased with myself for harvesting and picking another good batch of Calendula yesterday morning and setting them to dry. There have been around 12 pounds of these dried so far this season. Quite an accomplishment for me, that is a pretty good size bed of plants. With the tops harvested every couple of days just after they have bloomed and before they begin to wilt with age. We will have quite a few seeds as well.

Fresh Dried Calendula Petals

Have you ever seen what a pound of Calendula petals looks like? They will fill and packed HARD into 4 Quart canning jars! So that is around 48 Quart Jars full of these lovely and treasured petals. Available in one ounce, half pound and one pound in our Etsy shop. They have been popular and I expect to be sold out of them before the winter is out. No worries here though I have several pounds set aside just for our use in our soap, salves and other herbal goodies.

The Chamomile did not grow well in our gardens this year. Instead I purchased several pounds from a local herbalist and have those stashed away and in our shop. They make very tasty tea when I mixed them with our bee balm and a bit of our mint and chocolate mint.

Some side shoots loaded into the dehydrator

Today we will be sadly putting away some of the summer time toys and yard ornaments. The wading pool, all but one bike and a few other toys will be washed, dried in the sun and stored safely away until its time to take them out again. We will pack a picnic breakfast/brunch and head over to the town park to watch and cheer on Daisy for her Soccer practice today. She is very excited and can’t wait for the first one to start today.

Side shoots grow off the side of the broccoli stem after the main blossom has been cut. They ae smaller but just as tasty.