Life With The Crew

Sheep and Wolves

We knew that we were going to see sheep last weekend, but we did not expect to see any wolves.  I had placed a reservation through Airbnb to stay two nights at a sheep farm in Maine.  The farm was only about 20 minutes from the Common Ground Country Fair and sounded perfect for us.  On the way there, we stopped in Portland to grab some dinner.  (A mushroom and herbed ricotta pizza from Otto's - one of my favorites!)  Before picking up the pizza we made a quick detour into an empty parking lot near the harbor to change the little babe's diaper.  As we got out of the car, I believe I uttered, "What the *&#$?"  This is what we saw.

Need a second look?

And watch out for that wolf creeping up from behind.

 Totally bizarre.  See if you understand the meaning of the display.

Are they supposed to be wolves?  Coyotes?  Is that real fur?  Why are they displayed on an old pier near the ferry terminal?  

Anyway, moving on to the pastoral sheep photos.  We literally had sheep directly on the other side of the bedroom door.  To hear a sheep bleating while you are lying in bed or brushing your teeth is a fun experience.  (At least to this suburban farm girl wannabe.)  We rolled out of bed in the morning, opened the door, and petted the sheep while still wearing our pajamas.

We spent the day at the Fair and then returned to an amazingly quiet and picturesque sunset on the farm.

And of course, I now want some East Friesian Sheep!  (They are dairy sheep known for their high milk production.)

Shared on Our Simple Homestead BlogHop.

Thankful Tuesday - 9.29.15

Today I am thankful for...

-the opportunity to attend the Common Ground Country Fair this past weekend in Maine.  It was an awesome experience.  I need a particular little babe to take a long nap so I can process my pictures - stay tuned!  

-roadside farm stands arranged with seasonal goodies - real life works of art.

-the rainbow of homegrown goodness that awaited us when we arrived home.  

There was a fantastic squash display at the fair and we learned that the small orange red squash that we harvested in our garden (pictured above) is actually a yummy edible squash called Red Kuri.  I assumed it was just a decorative gourd - shows what type of gardener I am!  (I learned the difference between squash and gourds last year.  Coincidentally, the little babe is holding a Red Kuri in one of these pictures!)

What are you thankful for?

Shared on Our Simple Homestead BlogHop.


 

This Moment - Everybody Needs A Friend

 

~This Moment~

A Misty Moody Morning

The little babe and I were still in bed, the curtain closed, the day's weather yet unknown.  We start our days by wondering what the weather is like, rolling over to open the curtain and see what the day holds.  This morning I still had my eyes closed when the little babe opened it and declared that it was "mist and fog".  Oh, a misty moody morning (said in a slightly spooky voice); I wonder if there are any Mangy Moose around?  (Did you know that Mangy Moose are found in the mist?  Mostly in Maine, but maybe in Pennsylvania too.)  I had my doubts about a moose sighting, but spiders have been taking over our yard for the past couple of weeks, setting booby traps and hanging silken decorations everywhere.  I knew this would be the perfect weather to try to photograph them.  So leaving a pan of apple cider warming on the stove, I grabbed my camera and ran outside.  Of course my assistant followed me in her pajamas.

The webs were everywhere!  More than I imagined.  Huge orb weaver webs, more than a foot in diameter.  Smaller densely woven webs, more like a silk blanket than a web.  Single strands of web decorated the grape vines and apple tree branches like streamers.  It is amazing that I was able to walk through the yard without breaking one.

While I enjoy photographing the webs, the sight of the actual spiders gives me goosebumps.  I really have to try hard not to say, "Gross!"  The webs themselves are so fascinating and amazing.  Look at that hole in the web above.  What do you think happened there?  How long do you think it takes for them to make one web?  How do they decide on a size?  For some reason, the orb weaver spiders really love the tomato plants, so I have ripe tomatoes and I can't get to them!  

No luck on the Mangy Moose front.  Maybe the Corgis frightened them away.

 

 

Kudos for Trying

Having the willingness to try something new and learning something from the experience is just as or more important than the end result.  That is what I tell myself about a lot of the things that I do.  I'm not a perfectionist and I don't take the time/have the time to really dive into something with my undivided attention or do a lot of research to make sure I'm totally doing it right.  So while the little babe's newest skirt won't be winning any sewing awards, it will make me happy to see her wear it and it has pockets which will make her happy.  It was a one hour skirt that I whipped out while she played with playdough and ate lunch.  There are plenty of flaws, but I'm not going to worry about those.  The good parts - it wasn't made in China (outside of the elastic band), the printed fabric is organic cotton and the blue fabric is leftover from an old sheet that I also used to make my $12 Blanket.

The soul butternut squash that we harvested this year is another example of the end result might not being all that you dreamed of, but if you learned something and enjoyed yourself, then it was worth it.  We tried.  We tried hard.  We built a trellis, we bought compost and soil, we watered.  We watched.  Seedlings appeared, vines twined, flowers blossomed.  And then the groundhog attacked.  One of the more visible trails of evidence was a 3 foot long section of squash vine, still attached to the top of a devoured butternut squash.  This was found 10 feet away from the trellis behind the wood pile!  I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.  What I should have done was set the live trap, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.  After that, things went downhill fast.  So the small little squash is the only fruit of our labor.  Luckily, we have great farmers markets in our town and my husband bought this large Pennsylvania Long Neck Squash for just $3!  Oh well, we don't make our living from farming.  We enjoyed the process (before the attack) and we will enjoy the loaf of squash quick bread that I'll make from our lone survivor.

Keep trying folks and find happiness and purpose in the experience.

I shared this post on the Our Simple Homestead Blog Hop.

Thankful Tuesday - 9.22.15

Today I am thankful for...

local grown goodness!

-We had a bumper crop of apples from the mystery variety red apple tree in our yard, so it was cider making time!

Along with just drinking cold cider (it wasn't quite cold enough for hot cider yet), I made apple bars, apple cider pancakes, and apple butter.  This was my first ever batch of apple butter and I went a bit too heavy with the cloves (1 teaspoon when 1/4 teaspoon would have done it), but it is still yummy.  However, I didn't follow a recipe and so will just be freezing it instead of canning (not sure of the acidity).  I also boiled 4 cups of cider for about two hours to make an apple cider reduction.  I'm not quite sure how to describe it.  It is not quite as thick as honey and the flavor is...well, a mouthful.  Not totally sweet like I expected.  Not quite tangy either, but definitely intense.  We also froze several quarts of cider and the little babe has had apple cider popsicles for breakfast the past two mornings.  The season is just starting, so we'll be foraging from local abandoned apple trees in the coming weeks.

-The farmers markets are showcasing fall veggies now.  I love throwing beets into chocolate baked goods, so I made a Chocolate Beet Quick Bread, and I could just about eat an entire loaf in one day.  These petite personal butternut squash had great flavor.  I made awesome fritters using the squash, diced apple, fresh sage, and local goat cheese.

-And from our own garden, we extracted the mega gourd!  To be more precise, we actually rescued the gourd from its hiding spot in the large bush in the chicken pen.  My husband thinks it is a bit lighter than the little babe, so about 25 pounds.

And of course, I am thankful for this little family of mine.

What are you thankful for today?

Having Fun With Repurposing

A recent trip to Habitat for Humanity's ReStore yielded some odds and ends that made the perfect little secret playing spot for my little babe.  Using a solid wood cabinet door, four wheeled coasters, and a pretty ceramic knob (just $1!), along with discarded scrap wood from a local furniture making company (free!), and leftover paint from past projects at our house, my husband made a simple portable cube for the little babe to play with, sit on, hide her buddies, and terrify the dogs.  (It makes a rather loud noise when rolled along the floor at high speed!)  I painted the wood, along with the design on the top.  Nothing fancy, but the little babe said she was happy with my freehand attempt.  

The only problem?  We apparently made it a little too small!

 

Shared on Our Simple Homestead's Blog Hop.

Big Questions

 The little babe has been asking a lot of questions lately.  Questions about where things come from, how do you make things, why do you do that?  After answering 10 questions in less than 10 minutes, I start thinking about making answers up, heading off the question with a diversion (chocolate chip anyone?), or just saying, "Can you please not ask any more questions for a couple of minutes?"  But that would not be respecting her as a person.  She may "only" be a toddler, but that doesn't mean her questions carry any less importance than if an adult was asking them.  Perhaps they actually carry more weight, because what she learns now is setting the stage for what is to come later in her life.  And actually, I am quite impressed with the questions that she is asking and her retention of the answers that I am giving.  She has corrected me on several occasions, when I am thinking about something else and not giving full attention to the topic at hand.  "Oh, you are right - that was a blue jay squawking, not a crow cawing."  As her questions create so many opportunities for learning and teaching, I feel that she is almost doing my job for me.  Our roles of adult as teacher and child as student sometimes get mixed up.

"Did you make these cookies Mom?"

"Yes, you watched me make them."

"How did you make them Mom?"

"I mixed together flour, eggs, baking soda...."

"What is baking soda?"

"Ummm, well, good question!"

"How do you get eggs?"

"From chickens; you know that."

"From HENS Mom; you said the wrong word!"

"Yes, from hens, female chickens.  You are right."

I like that I am also asking more questions.  As I make the time and effort to soak up as much as I can from our outings and the natural world around us, I discover things that I am actually interested in knowing, for my sake, not just hers.  

 

Rainbow Tomatoes

Can I please show you my tomatoes?  They are big, beautiful rainbows of color!  I am so excited about them for several reasons.  First - I grew them from seed and they have actually turned into strong robust plants with edible fruit - yeah!  (I have no idea what variety they are; I just stick seeds in the ground and water them.)

Second - these tomatoes have been green for SO LONG and now, literally overnight, they turned a pale peachy yellow color, which turned into a deeper orange gold color, then actual red appeared!  On Sunday they were hard and green; on Wednesday they were lunch.

And third - heirloom tomatoes like these are going for $2.50 a piece at the farmers market, so the homegrown ones are definitely worth the money spent on a packet of seeds.

Also, can I tell you a secret?  I have a HUGE gourd growing in my chicken yard.  You could walk right by it and not know that it is there.  (I apparently did this for several weeks!)  Two out of control gourd vines have taken over the fence and bush in our chicken yard.  I was disgusted at having all vine and no gourds, when one day I happened to see this massive green THING in the middle of the bush.  I literally jumped back in surprise and made some sort of exclamation.  It is almost the size of a small Corgi.  I'm not sure how long to keep it on the vine and I check it every day to make sure it is not starting to rot.  Extraction Day will be a big event!  There are two other small orange gourds that are also growing in the bush.  

Along with the rainbow tomatoes and orange gourds, I have small green peppers, long green loofahs, cheeky orange marigolds, red Amish Paste tomatoes, tiny yellow pear tomatoes, yellow goldenrod and rudbeckia.  I don't have a big variety of veggies and there are no bumper crops, but a homegrown rainbow on a plate definitely makes me smile.

I also discovered something in the garden this week that is not as smile inducing as homegrown tomatoes, but it is a really interesting nature find, so I'm going to share it.  I was so disgusted by it that I actually didn't want to process the picture, but I made myself do it.  Here it is folks.  

A tomato hornworm caterpillar that is infested with Braconid wasp larvae.  And after reading this link, I think those little red bugs are the wasps that have emerged.  Gross.  I was just reading a book to my daughter, Up In The Garden and Down In The Dirt by Kate Messner, which mentioned tomato hornworms and I did not know what they were.  Then I did some research to share with you folks and discovered I have them right on my very own tomatoes - bummer.  But at least the wasps are doing me a favor.

Shared on Our Simple Homestead Blog Hop. 

 

Thankful Tuesday - The Light

 

Today I am thankful for...

natural beauty and light.

I like having a vase of flowers in the front hall.  It makes me smile when I come in the house, normally in a rush with my hands full, always to the craziness of barking dogs, sometimes dragging carrying a protesting child.  Truthfully, it is the only place in the house that I can leave a vase of flowers for more than two minutes - any longer than that and the cats somehow find it and either knock it over or chew the leaves over a period of days, resulting in tattered dying flowers and cat vomit on my sofa.  My garden does not have many cutting flowers in it - the Obedient Plant has taken over this year and smothered everything in its path - so I picked some purple phlox for this bouquet even though I knew the petals would fall off almost immediately.  And they did.  And instead of picking them up right away, I intentionally left them lie on the sill, because the way they looked in the late afternoon light was just as beautiful as if they had stayed on the stem.  

Everyday I hang laundry out to dry on a huge behemoth wooden drying rack.  During the past week, I have only had an hour or two of direct sunshine on the back deck.  Then I have to move the whole rack into the sunny spot on the grass.  Before this week, I had a full afternoon of sun on the deck.  In the earlier weeks of Summer, the best time for drying on the deck was right away in the morning.  It is something so simple - noticing the shift in the Sun's rays throughout the changing seasons - but I am thankful for being aware of it.  There are several reasons that I hang my clothes to dry - keep the electric bill down, use less fossil fuels.  Yes, it can be quite the hassle, especially on rainy humid days, and it definitely takes more time to hang the clothes rather than just throw them in the dryer, but it just feels like the right thing for me to do.  Normally at naptime, I'll go outside to rearrange the clothes, moving the damp spots into the sun.  Most days, along with the chicken and duck noises, I also hear a hawk calling far overhead and will turn my face upward, squinting into the light, to see him slowly circling under the sun, just like a scene out of an old Western movie.  (Except this is definitely a hawk, probably a Red-tailed Hawk, and not a turkey vulture.)  It has become such a regular part of my day that I notice an absence if my laundry companion is not there.  So much light fills my day - I am thankful for all of it.

What are you thankful for today?

*We do have a dryer and I normally throw the clothes in for 5 minutes when they are dry, just to take out any last moisture or tumble off any bugs.