Finally Feels Like Summer

Here in OR it takes a while to feel like summer. Yesterday was the first day of summer and it actually has felt like summer here. Tomorrow may be a different story but for now we are enjoying summer days. Our garden is finally sprouting and doing well for now. DH built me a couple of raised beds which I am enjoying much more than a huge garden.

Today the kids and I went strawberry picking at a local U-pick farm. We picked 100lbs of strawberries. It really goes quickly with lots of hands picking. I give all the credit to the kids since I only managed to pick one bowl full before having to put the baby in the backpack. It is really hard to pick strawberries with a baby in a back pack. Once we got home we had the big task of doing something with said strawberries. We froze a good bit, made a strawberry pancake syrup, blended some up for making jam tomorrow and are attempting to dehydrate some. I am not sure how that is going to turn out yet. They are still pretty mushy but if it works out it will be neat to have them around for snacking or adding to oatmeal and granola bars.

Busy Days

This is the time of year that I love to be outside. I know for most people that would be summer but not me. I wish I were better at doing things outside so I could help DH do all of the things that need to be done and then I could be outside more. It is a bit challenging to get out there with baby but we have managed to stay quite busy anyway.

We were finally able to pick our corn, pretty late in the season this year.

And this is just some of the apples we have been continuously working on. I think we may just save the rest of them for apple cider instead of making more apple sauce but then again it takes alot of apple sauce to get us through the year.

B#5 & B#6 shucking corn for our dinner.

DH is rebuilding this gate to temporarily keep goats and a calf out of our backyard. He has been busy putting up an electric fence to give the calf and the goats another pasture area so that has led to finishing most of the backyard fence to keep the boys in and away from the electric fence.

In the midst of all of the calf preparations we got our chicks this morning. Thirty-five chicks can be really noisy at 7:30am, luckily only 20 are ours for now. We ordered some for a friend. I think B#2 is planning on ordering some meat chickens next. I will keep you posted on how that goes.

Tis the season

Nope, not for Christmas....that would mean that we skipped my favorite season, Fall. Tis the season for picking and canning and baking and eating all of the wonderful things that are a part of this season.

Bread, apple butter and yummy apple blackberry crisp.

B#8 absolutely loves blackberries. If given the choice between blackberries and chocolate, he would definitely choose blackberries. Whose child is this anyway?!?!

And the season for soapmaking. We only made 2 large batches of soap this year, which yielded about 100bars. Not sure if that is enough for our family for a year or not. We shall see:)

We have also been working a bit at a time on applesauce as we pick our early apple tree. We are looking forward to making apple cider again this year from our other two trees. Don't you just love fall? What is your favorite season and why?

Gardening

We have recently started working on our garden. It has been tilled for a while but here where we are we don't usually plant until the end of May or beginning of June but even now we have had so much rain that getting back outside to finish planting or weeding is a bit of a challenge. This morning the children and I went out and weeded in the drizzling rain just to try to get ahead a bit. We still have lots more work to do! Anyway, this afternoon I was looking through a book of B#2's and ran across this about planting your garden so I thought I would share it.

Planting Your Gardens

As you begin the planting season, may I suggest the following for your gardens.

Plant three rows of squash:
1.Squash gossip.
2.Squash criticism.
3.Squash indifference

Plant three rows of peas:
1. Purity
2. Patience
3. Perseverence

Plant six rows of lettuce:
1. Let us be unselfish
2. Let us be faithful to duty
3. Let us search the Scriptures
4. Let us not be weary in well-doing
5. Let us be obedient in all things
6. Let us love one another

No Garden is complete without turnips
1. Turn up for church
2. Turn up with a smile, even when things are difficult
3. Turn up to always do your personal best
4. Turn up for your family and friends as needed.

Mrs. Dunwoody's Excellent Instruction for Homekeeping
by Miriam Lukken

First Harvest

Finally after the second try and lots of cold weather up here, we have our first harvest of the year...zucchini of course and a head of lettuce. Isn't that what grows best in most gardens? My problem with zucchini is that the only thing our family really likes it in is zucchini bread and zucchini cake. Anyone got some really great ideas for preserving it and what to make with it? I have shredded it and frozen it in the past which works ok but you sure gotta squeeze all of the liquid out before you can bake with it.

Putting in the garden

We finally got our garden area tilled, thanks to some good friends who loaned us their tiller. We are very new gardeners so we go out every morning hoping to see some new sprouts from the seeds that we planted. Not knowing too much about gardening, I am always worried when everything isn't up and growing as fast as I would like it to be. And I am not sure how gardening is supposed to help save money as we seem to keep having to buy stuff for the garden. Maybe next year?!?!


B#6 trying to keep the sun off her head and neck. Good thing we had this bonnet in the dress-up bucket.

B#1 and 2 working in the corn rows

Doesn't it almost look like B#4 is going to chop off B#2's head?

Little B#7 got to wear one of the girls pretty hats to keep the sun off himself.

Dad worked on getting a fallen tree out of the creek area so the grass could be mowed there. And where is B#3 in all of this? I am not sure. Maybe she was the one with the camera?!?!