Around the farm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not much blogging lately!  We’ve been keeping busy with the garden, moving the sheep around the farm, harvesting seasoned wood for our fuel for the winter, keeping the pastures watered during this dry phase, which was thankfully broken by some nice heavy rains today…

 

 

Boomer and Drover have been keeping up with the lawn mowing out front!

 

 

The beans are in full swing right now!  We’re eating them and freezing them as fast as they can be picked!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We ended up with a huge crop of basil this year.  In previous years it seems as if we could never grow enough of the stuff!  Now it’s in abundance!  We’ve been freezing it as pesto and individual leaves, but this week we tried drying some as a means of preservation..

 

We layed it out on paper towels…

 

 

Put them in the microwave covered with a second paper towel…

 

 

About 90 seconds later, they’re dry…

 

 

We can store the leaves this way for use in the winter.  I’m not convinced, though, that they have as much flavor as they do coming from the freezer…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first tomato sandwich of the summer!

 

 

 

In the midst of everything going on here, Roy found time a couple of evenings to help our new neighbor lift some of the framed parts on his new post and beam home!

 

 

 

We picked our first apples, which I now know to be “William’s Pride.”  We had planted several varieties, so it took a little time to work out which ones these were.  They are one of the first varieties of red apples to mature.

 

The weeds are finally getting a bit overtaken by some of the mature plants in the garden, but second and third plantings of things like lettuce, peas, beans, and fall plantings are trying to fight their way into the garden, so we’re still doing battle with those weeds!  We did add a new working partner to our mix – a Troybilt Horse rototiller!  What a weed-eating beast THAT is!

 

Tomorrow we are set to enjoy a farm to table dinner – right here in our own home…BBQ red broiler chicken, accompanied by sauteed greenbeans, pickled beets and freshly picked sweet corn!  I’ve been waiting all year for this!  There is nothing quite like an entire meal you grew yourself, right here on the farm!  That’s what it’s all about!