Thursday, October 29, 2020

Composting and Tomato Haul

 I don't think I mentioned that I got a new composter.  I filled up one side right away, and it is sitting on my deck:

Then I found out that our conservation district was giving away free compost bins to people who watched the online training, so I got one of those, too:

Now it is about half full, and I will finish filling it this weekend, most likely.  I also cleared out the compost from my worm bin and spread it on the prepared garlic bed.  I've planted only a little garlic so far, but I plan to plant more ASAP.

Then, Lydia and I visited June.  It is probably going to freeze tomorrow, so yesterday, Lydia and I picked basically all of June's tomatoes.

Hundreds of tomatoes!

I am hoping to get some of the green ones to ripen, but some I will use green.  I've got a green tomato salsa recipe I'm planning on trying tomorrow.  Today, I canned one batch of red salsa and one of tomatillo salsa (because I also hauled 4 pounds of tomatillos from our garden).  I may get in another batch later today, but we'll see.  I'm excited to have such bounty.  This is the first summer in years that I haven't been able to can any of my own tomatoes due to a pathetic harvest.  



Saturday, October 24, 2020

Sweet Potato Harvest

 I never shared the sweet potato harvest.  We got 9 pounds this year!  Here are about 2/3 of them:

We had large potatoes, for the most part.



Wednesday, October 21, 2020

Camping Fun

 

We had our annual family camping trip last weekend, and the weather was gorgeous.



We went on plenty of walks, and Lydia and Gyunay were able to spend more time camping with their dad, since they went up Thursday morning.  The teens and I weren't able to leave until Friday evening, but we still had a good trip.




Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Book Review - The Key to Love by Betsy St. Amant

 

Can I just start by saying that I love the author's last name for a romance novelist?  The story itself is good.  I enjoyed the main characters, and although Gerard is very prickly in the beginning, I found his character development very nice.  His interactions with the town pastor were well done, too.  Overall, this is a good contemporary romance, with some humorous parts.  The author threw in some twists.  I really enjoyed the story overall, although it did drag just a bit in a few places.  This would be a great vacation read, because it's easy and enjoyable. 

I received a copy of the book from the publisher, Revell, for the purpose of writing a review, but all opinions are my own.

Wednesday, October 7, 2020

Chicks and Pumpkins

 

The kids enjoyed playing with the chickens in the third yard on this beautiful fall day.





Gyunay and Lydia like finding worms to feed the chickens.  Lydia found this huge grub. I love her face in the second picture, though:



And here is Malachi with his favorite chick, the lavender orpington.  He's still debating a name for her.  He's wanted one of these chickens for years.


Lydia had a good time arranging our front porch for fall.  Some pumpkins/cushaws we grew, and some are from the orchard.  The butternut squash and spaghetti squash are from the farmer's market.  Elijah plans on making the big green one into a jack-o-lantern.

Friday, October 2, 2020

Wrecks and Rainforests

Gyunay made a rainforest diorama.  He has been studying South America in geography, and so we did some extra on tropical rainforests.  He did a great job, and he really enjoyed this activity.  We didn't have any toy jaguars, so Lydia drew dots on some of the lions with a dry-erase marker for him.  

Yesterday, Elijah and Malachi were in a car wreck on the way to school.  Gyunay kept asking questions on what happened, so Malachi brought out the cars from the Life game:  





 

Thursday, October 1, 2020

September Harvest Totals

 Beans, crescent - 2.2 lbs

Beans, dragon - 10.4 oz

Beans, Kentucky Wonder - 1.4 lbs

Beans, runner - 2.4 oz

Carrots - 27

Chicken - 47.9 lbs

Chicken hearts - 13

Cucumber, Edmondson - 73

Cucumber, pickling - 6

Cushaw - 1 (19 lbs)

Eggs - 41

Jalapenos - 7

Peppers, Bulgarian - 5

Pumpkin, Long Island Cheese - 1 (19 lbs)

Tomatillos - 4.9 lbs

Tomato, Golden Jubilee -6 (1 lb)

Tomato, Purple Russian - 1 (1.4 oz)

Tomato, St. Pierre - 3 (11.8 oz)

Radish - 2 

Squash, yellow - 2