Happy 4th, everyone.
Tag Archives: Seasons
The Longest Day
The solstice this year also happened to be the hottest day we’ve had yet, nearly 100 degrees, so we celebrated the way you normally celebrate a super hot summer day.
By lazing about.
We tried to stay inside during the hottest portion of the day – it wasn’t just hot, it was thick. You felt like a hot, wet blanket was hitting you square in the chest as soon as you walked out the door. We ventured out early to feed and water the chickens (and then every hour or two we had to go out and made sure everyone still had water – especially the 50 meat chicks we have in the brooder).
I stumbled around the garden a little bit, pulling a few things here and there for our dinner in celebration of summer’s official start. Neve kept stealing out to where the wild blackberry bush has started to fruit, sneaking ripe berries by the handful.
It was also high time to make a blueberry gateau – Paul’s favorite dessert ever.
Once the sun had begun to set the kids began begging for a fire to sit around and play Mad Libs, and maybe roast marshmallows.
I did one slightly better – I made homemade graham crackers from the July 2012 issue of Martha Stewart Living. The recipe is HERE.
Then after dinner I brought them out to the fire along with some marshmallows and chocolate squares for the first s’mores of the summer.
(I didn’t have square cookie cutters, so I made them round. )
They were gooey, crumbly and messy, but they were good.
We sat out by the fire watching the bats and the fireflies and playing Mad Libs and laughing until after ten when the fire started to die out. We all went to bed with our books, smelling deliciously of summer and woodsmoke.
Happy summer, everyone. Let’s enjoy it to the fullest.
Holiday Weekend in Pictures
Although we are not technically on summer vacation yet, we still tried to enjoy the first official weekend of summer to its fullest.
Happy Memorial Day, everyone!
The Beginnings of Something Wonderful
Happy first day of spring! I may not be a fan of summer or very-warm weather, but I just adore spring. My sinuses aren’t too thrilled, but that’s another story.
This first of spring is even more exciting and special for me because I am finally seeing the ideas and desires I have held for so long come to fruition. Especially with regards to the new garden.
I’d been wanting to move the vegetable patch closer to the house and make it bigger (with room for a beehive) and so a few weeks back I got outside and started making it happen. I pushed the kids’ giant wooden swingset about 15 feet from where it was (by myself! And yet I wonder why my neck and shoulder is bothering me so much lately??) and started staking out the outline for fencing.
Then I got to work digging. By hand. Again, by myself.
I’d had the idea that we really needed to move things along if I was going to get the early spring seeds and bulbs into the ground. Our only machinery with a tiller attachment is currently down (and ancient). I didn’t have the funds to hire someone to come with a big tractor, so I grabbed a shovel and went to it. The finished area is just under 1,000 square feet.
I decided I wanted rows of raised beds in this garden because I’ve lost so many plants over the years due to excessive moisture pooling at the roots. In a slightly rounded and raised bed the excess runs down the sides and away.
To do that, I started digging furrows, or trenches. I probably made them too wide and too deep (stubborn digging without a plan isn’t the best idea) but there are now 5 long raised beds out there. They still need to be tilled, since the dirt is nearly solid clay. Thankfully I still have a whole shed full of composted llama and goat poo to mix in. Still, I am concerned I may need to order up some dirt due to the extremely poor quality of the soil I dug out of our ground.
The clay is so hard I had to use a mattock to break it up.
There’s space in the shadier back – side of the garden for the bees to go so they have free access to keep our plantings pollinated.
Soon the onions will go into the ground along with the beets and once they are ready, all of the vegetable seedlings that are currently germinating in the dining room.
This is not nearly as impressive as Caroline’s seed selection! But this represents about 2/3 of what we are planting this year. I’ve ordered onions, seed potatoes, and blueberry and raspberry bushes as well. Come fall we’ll do another crop of late summer vegetables and some things to overwinter.
The biggest challenge in all of this?
This:
Keeping these insatiable scratching and digging and eating machines out of the garden. I’ve got the woven wire up: I just need a gate. Paul has a friend coming out to plan out the logistical part of clearing our wooded acres here and fencing it all in. Hopefully giving the poultry a wider ranging area will make the vegetable patch less of a lure for them.
Hopefully by fall you’ll be hearing me say how sick I am of preserving so many fresh veggies!
Saying Goodbye to Winter
Normally I wouldn’t give up on winter so soon. After all, where I grew up, March was blizzard season. Even here in Virginia we’ve had more than a few surprise March snowstorms; at least of those was nearly record – breaking. However, given the incredibly mild weather we’ve had since fall I think it’s not foolish to expect winter is done. Perhaps we’ll have another blow-out – who knows? But I am not holding my breath. Not when in the same week we’ve had several inches of snow followed by nearly 80 degree temperatures three days later.
So, over the course of the week we’ll be washing and packing away the heavier winter items and changing out our winter decor for spring.
Yes, I change the art on the walls along with the sheets, the pillows and the blankets to coordinate with the seasons. It’s easier than a re-doing your furniture every time you get sick of where it all is.
It’s hard to believe I took all of these pictures not eve a full week ago, considering a few days ago we were outside like this:
I gave in and planted some of the cold crops: beans, peas, arugula, Black Seeded Lettuce, and Red Romaine. I’m afraid if I wait for the normal planting date it will be too warm.
Spring cleaning, here we come.
Snowy Sunday in Pictures
I didn’t think it would happen – I dismissed all talk of it.
But it happened – we got SNOW! Not only that, we should be around 4 inches by the time it stops – a positively HUGE amount for us!
The recipe for the French Onion Soup comes from Susan and it can be found HERE. It is AMAZING. I made some crusty bread today to go with it and pulled out my French Onion Soup pots, filled them with soup, stuck a thick piece of bread in each one, topped with grated gruyere and OH MY GOODNESS.
Best way to warm up on a snowy, blustery day!!!
Citrus-y
Even though the weather is NOT cooperating (as in, we’re having fall followed by spring) I am still trying to enjoy all the goodness that winter has to offer.
Cozy handknits, warm fires, hot tea…….citrus fruits.
Yup, citrus fruits are in season now, and we have plenty of my favorites: clementines and Meyer lemons. I’ve never actually been able to find Meyer lemons locally before, so I was surprised to find them at (of all places) our local WalMart. (I know….I am not a WalMart fan. But…..when they carry Concord grapes and Meyer lemons, how can you resist?)
Last week I made a lovely Shaker Lemon Pie, and we’ve been snacking steadily on clementines, but as of this morning I still had plenty of both.
So I rooted around a bit on Pinterest until I found what fit the bill for some lovely citrusy fare: recipes for Chinese Orange Chicken and Meyer Lemon Pudding.
Oh yeah.
Neither one was particularly difficult to make, and the results were outstanding. Seriously.
Paul declared the chicken “The best orange chicken I’ve ever had”. That’s saying something, because we are quite fond of Chinese food and we’ve tried quite a lot of it. It was fresh, bold and bright, with a strong orange flavor. If you like orange chicken, you HAVE to try this recipe. The only change I made was when frying the chicken, I simply coated the raw chicken pieces in cornstarch (I didn’t use the egg or flours at all). This was due to simple laziness. The sauce I made no changes to.
We followed the chicken with the Meyer Lemon pudding served on a slice of pound cake (which Paul picked up from the grocery – I didn’t feel like baking any).
After all of this it is a very good thing that I have been following a workout routine for the last week. SO MANY CALORIES!!!
Wrapping Up 2011
I’ve been trying to think of a clever post to end the year and welcome the new one, but I can’t seem to rally any real creativity this week. I worked myself pretty thin leading up to Christmas and since then I’ve basically been couch – bound, resting up and relaxing and enjoying the lack of a deadline. It also doesn’t help that we have finally caught on to the “Dr. Who” craze, and have been watching it every night (starting with the 2005 season). The kids are obsessed and I couldn’t be happier.
So instead of something witty or profound, I will use this chance to catch up on a few things.
I’ll start with bread.
One of my early Christmas gifts this year (and Susan got me a second one in a different size!) was an enameled cast iron dutch oven pot. I’d been wanting one for quite awhile, after seeing this book about baking artisan bread in a pot rather than on a peel. I tried some when Zac made it at the farm and was in love with the results.
You pre-heat the empty pot in the oven and throw your risen dough into it. Once you place the lid on, the water in the dough creates the steam needed to properly bake and finish the bread. The crust in crispier without being too chewy or dense and the crumb is more reliably cooked through this way. Plus the pot is such a pretty green!
Thing number two I need to show off is the lovely ornament my friend Amy found for me.
I just love her! I love the creamy white colors, I love that it’s a shepherd with her sheep, and I love the vintage look about it (in fact, it just may BE vintage: Amy has quite a knack for finding amazing vintage and estate items for a steal). It’s so hard to find sheep – related trinkets that aren’t totally tacky. I don’t know where she found this, but I am thrilled she did!
Speaking of all things sheep-ish, I finished one of my super – secret holiday knitting projects in time to gift it!
A Sluggy Bonnett for my mother! I can’t even believe how fast this knit up – it only took me 2 days! I should have started earlier and made Sluggy Bonnetts for everyone! I still have 1 super secret project on the needles, but it’s just about done. I’ll be sending it off to its intended recipient just after the new year. But here’s a sneak peek of the yearn sitting on my new swift:
Today and tomorrow will be spent cleaning up the holiday clutter and making room for 2012. The girls and I are headed to a get – together this evening (after which I’ll have to talk them out of staying up until dawn watching Dr. Who) and then we’ll spend the first cold months of 2012 doing a lot of what we do best:
Reading! The girls all got Kindles for Christmas (mostly for school, but when you enjoy reading as much as we do……..).
Enjoy the rest of 2011 and I’ll see you all on the other side!
Final Day Challenge – Hamantashen
Okay, so Hamantashen aren’t a true Christmas cookie. They’re a traditional Purim cookie. But, hey. They’re yummy!
This recipe comes via my husband’s family.
Ready?
2 bars of butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/4 cup orange juice
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp salt
4 tsp baking powder
4 cups flour
Solo brand fillings of choice ( we like apricot, prune, strawberry & poppy seed)
Start by creaming together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs, orange juice and vanilla. In a separate bowl mix together the flour, salt & baking powder. Add this mix slowly to the wet ingredients. Refrigerate the dough for at least one hour – or overnight.
Once chilled, roll out the dough to about 1/8″ thickness. Using a round cookie cutter (or glass) cut round shapes into the dough.
Place a dollop (about 1/2 tsp) of filling in the center of each circle. Next, you’ll need to fold in the edges to form a triangle.
Start with one side.
Fold it over at a jaunty angle. The, fold the oppostire side at a jaunty angle, so they slightly overlap.
Now fold up the bottom.
Now you’re ready to bake them. 375 for 15 minutes.
Voila! Delicious Hamantashen!!!
And with that, I have completed my self – imposed 6 days of baking challenge.
I am exhausted.
But Santa is coming tonight!
Merry Christmas / Happy Hanukkah – and I hope all of your crafty and foodie dreams come true this holiday season!
Day 5 – Florentine Cookies!
Let me just say: I just love Susan Branch. I use so many of her recipes at Christmas.
Today I made Florentine Cookies. You can find the recipe online HERE.
To start, I made candied orange peel. This is the step that took the longest. You can certainly buy candied orange peel to save time, but it won’t be quite the same. To candy orange peel you cut it into little strips or squares and boil it in water, drain it, and repeat 2 or 3 times to remove the bitterness. Then you boil the peel again with a small amount of water and some sugar.
Once your orange peel is done, the cookies are a snap to make.
Boil together your milk and sugar, add your orange peel (I didn’t use citron – I doubled up the orange peel), almonds, extract, flour and butter.
Once all of this is boiled together it looks like this:
It’s pretty gooey. You have to use a teaspoon now to drop small little rounds of dough onto your cookie sheet.
While baking they will SPREAD, so you have to be sure to use no more than a teaspoon.
See? You end up needing to reshape them somewhat since they don’t always spread out evenly.
Once cooled, you can spread melted chocolate on the back of your cookies, and, using a fork, make little zig-zag designs in it. This is really just for fun, though.
I like to stick them in the fridge or freezer at this point to speed up the cooling process so the chocolate hardens back up.
These are unbelievably delicious and mouth watering. I like to hide a few of them from the rest of the family for me to enjoy when no one’s around.
Don’t tell.
Merry Magpie Farm 