Category Archives: Family

peas in

I know – there’s really nothing to see in this pic. But, since this post is as close to a “record” as we’ll get, I’m gonna post it. Every year I begin charting garden planting data on a calendar and then fizzle out halfway through harvest time. Figured if this blog is my “virtual scrapbook“, it might as well be our “virtual garden journal” as well, lol! ๐Ÿ™‚

[Planted 2-2/3 rows of Little Marvel (bush) peas.]

celery, broccoli, & cabbage in today

Originally, we started our own plants from seed, in newspaper pots. We had good success at first, but steadily declined from that first year.
We began with growing them in our basement on top of our chest freezer (just like my Grandpa used to do…) under lights. ๐Ÿ™‚ That worked well for the first couple years – until we started using our freezer more, lol. So, we switched to our heated garage under fluorescent lights. It worked well for a couple years – until our heater died… Then this year we used our milkhouse since it’s also heated. Once we started milking, though, we moved the plants to Mike’s parents’ heated garage. And just as they started looking really good, mice found them and ate off most of the tops! Grrrrr… Guess we just aren’t ready to start the amount of plants we need from seed!

How thankful we are for our friends at Skipper’s Greenhouse in Carrollton!! We picked our plants up this week & Lord willing, will be getting everything planted soon.

[Garden Journal: Today we planted 16 celery, 12 Red Acre cabbage, 16 Danish Ballhead cabbage, & 20 Packman broccoli.]

Sometimes it’s hard for us to admit we can’t do it all. But when the dust clears from failed efforts, the path becomes more clear. Thank you, Lord, for preparing us to be receptive to help, and for surrounding us with support & cooperative efforts. We pray for the “fruit” of these plants and our efforts. May the harvest be plentiful. Amen ๐Ÿ™‚

A night out-dinner & a concert

A Mother’s Day gift from my 3 boys…
1st, a fun dinner in Akron. A friend recommended we eat at Luigi’s.(Thanks, Kellen!)

Next stop, Hudson – Christ Community Chapel – for a Fernando Ortega concert! I love his simple, melodic voice & that he writes/plays/arranges songs that are a witness to his walk with Jesus. ๐Ÿ™‚ We were blessed with a front row pew – got to watch his fingers playing on the grand piano… I’m so grateful for being able to share this evening with my family. Thank You, Lord. ๐Ÿ™‚

Workin’ up the raised beds

We put these raised beds in many years ago. I had big dreams of them overflowing with colorful flowers…until I finally admitted that I just don’t enjoy weeding around flowers, lol! ๐Ÿ˜ฆ I don’t mind it around veggies, just not around ornamentals…

Don’t get me wrong – I LOVE ENJOYING BEAUTIFUL GARDENS – just other people’s! ๐Ÿ™‚

So, one bed has turned into Paul’s strawberry patch, and the other two are for Michael’s pepper gardens – hot & mild. ๐Ÿ™‚

Taters in…

Bought a 50# bag of Kennebec seed potatoes, and during the boys’ baseball practice I cut them into one or two-eyed pieces for planting. We got home from practice & planted them! Tomorrow and for the next week we’ll continue to mound the rows & add some old hay for mulch. ๐Ÿ™‚

Hooray – kittens at last!

With only 2 female barn cats left to be “fixed”, there have been less kittens on the farm this year (much to the boys’ dismay)…

Our boys LOVE all the cats. And yes, each cat has (at least) one name + a story, lol! ๐Ÿ™‚

Just this morning at milking, the boys said they thought it looked like Cloudy might have been nursing babies. So, once their schoolwork was done this afternoon, they went on a “kitten hunt”. ๐Ÿ™‚

It didn’t take long & they found them! They were in a hay hole all the way at the top of the stack. One boy and one girl. Names are currently being brainstormed…

Chocolate Syrup

In anticipation of possibly having some HOMEMADE ICE CREAM in the freezer soon, the boys and I made some chocolate syrup this week.  Here’s our recipe:

1c (106g) cocoa powder (organic preferred)

1-1/3c (298g) evaporated cane juice

1c water

1t (8g) sea salt

2t vanilla

6T (3 oz) butter

Mix everything together in a saucepan and keep whisking on medium heat until smooth. Besides on ice cream, it works well for chocolate milk & hot chocolate!  Yields 3/4 of a quart of syrup.

Homemade Ice Cream

Made our first batch of homemade ice cream for the season TODAY!ย  An early Mother’s Day gift from Mike & the boys.ย  ๐Ÿ™‚

We use a White Mountain hand-crank ice cream maker (it used to be Mike’s Grandma’s) – and each boy took turns churning…

Here’s our vanilla ice cream recipe.

Whisk together:

6c cream

6c milk

3T vanilla

2-1/4c evaporated cane juice

3 pinches of sea salt

MY FAVORITE FLAVOR is Coffee, so after the first batch of vanilla, they made another batch & whisked in 1/4c instant coffee granules to the above recipe.ย  YUM! ๐Ÿ™‚

And what do 3 ornery boys look like when there’s a crazy woman “blogging” them as they work???

I LOVE MY BOYS, LOL! ๐Ÿ™‚