Weekend Adventures

We had a very busy weekend. We had help , and we had fun. ;-)

Lets start with a nice picture.. because it just goes downhill from here.... These apples have nothing to do with anything other than , we eat apples, they were there... and I took a picture of them.

Mmm, chicken feed... more on them later.

First project was planting cover crops along the side of the house where earlier there had been butternut squash vines, peppers and cucumbers. We are hoping to plant hops here next year... that may or may not happen . But we wanted to improve the soil anyway and cover crops are a good way to do that.

Prepping the planting bed..

Scattering the seed... we put in a mix of rye, vetch and field peas. Hopefully they will all be good little seeds and all sprout and give us lots and lots of bio mass. Because we need all we can get around here!

Casualty... What do they call that in war? Collateral damage?? Anyway....

What are you doing with my toes??

Hmmm, toe art. Then the wind blew and knocked it all down.

Then we plied our help with food and homebrew (this is an IPA..) and then....

They start doing things like this...I don't think I shall ever understand men.

Just so you know, it wasn't a fly maggot... but one of those annoying moth larvae.. the ones that get into grain and all that. These were in a jar of walnuts that had been stashed in the back of the drawer. Yummy.

Then since we had them, we thought it would be great fun to have a race. Only bet on the lively, frisky ones. We had several qualifying rounds. ...

And they are off! They start to tire after awhile so having too many qualifying rounds isn't a good idea. They need to be fresh to move fast . Otherwise they get tuckered out and don't want to do much more than mosey along. And you can't win no race with a mosey! I tried blowing on them to make them go faster but it didn't work. I think tickling with a feather might work better.. but I didn't have one and I might have been disqualified..

Moving on.. I have a Jerusalem Cricket biting my skirt. He was flung there... ahem...

Digging for gold... well digging IN gold (gardener's black gold that is... compost. :-) ) for chicken feed.

The little dears. How plump and juicy they look!

Flame roasted to perfection. You know, they puff up like marshmallows when they reach the right doneness.

Aww, sad sack. SMILE, you're on camera!!

There were more happenings, mostly , the great moving ... or uh, building of the new garden beds. But that will be another post.

Elly May in the Kitchen

Mocha nut chiffon cake.... mmmmmm

Matzo

No pictures of the finished stuff, but just imagine it all stiff and crispy and looking like a giant cracker.. ;-)

Happenings...

Nothing incredibly exciting has been happening... Annabelle has spent a lot of time resting on the couch pinned down by Punker Man because of some flare ups with health stuff.. But some things did happen this week. Elly May got a new dress.

Elly May made apple pie out of reject apples. She is going to get mad that this pic is posted because she isn't proud of the crust... She does fabulously beautiful crusts , but she took this one off to stick butter under it and then it wouldn't crimp right after being handled that much. ANYway, it tasted wonderful , and if you just look at the center, it is gorgeous.

Why do they do this to me???

Sauerkraut in the making..

It is a really good upper body workout if you are interested in one. We follow a recipe from either Sandor Katz "Wild Fermentation" or Sally Fallon's "Nourishing Traditions" , sort of anyway. We have since added a lot of things but the steps are the same.

This pounder thing is from Lehman's. It looked a lot smaller in the picture you know... And when it came everyone was all, "What on earth are you going to do with THAT??? .... Uh.. hang it from the ceiling as decoration?? Actually, it works great for what it was intended... pounding kraut. So there.

Such paws..

The weekend's gatherings from Farmer's Market.

Results.

Cobbler to be... 'tis in the oven now. The rest pureed and frozen in bags for smoothies later.

Why so sad J.B.?

Things that have no rhyme or reason

These made fantastic French Dips . And that there is a really really good bread book if you are looking for one.

We want some meat...

Cinderella does her own birthday dishes.. She said she likes scrubbing pots... whatever .. More power to you sister. ;-)

She makes her own cake too..

She could too. (It was on the cake in the fridge by the way.. she doesn't care if you touch the counter..)

When we were racking plum wine.

Doggie treats... with liver. It smelled... like liver.

Just because. Freeze frame!!! More like Raid frame I guess...

Fennel Salad

This is a really really good fresh salad. We used to just saute fennel and onions and it was very very good that way. But now we prefer it fresh. The fresh (and mild) anise flavor really grows on you. Anyway, start with fresh fennel. We usually use about 4 bulbs.. you don't use the tops, you can put them in a vase as they look pretty. If you have a mandolin slicer you can use that, if not just slice them thin.. thinner than this...

More like it..

Slice a read onion really thin too, then rinse it under cold running water and that will take a lot of the heat out. Otherwise it will be too overpowering for the fennel.

Dump everything together.

Like so.

Cut up some Valencia oranges. About 2 or 3 . Depending on size and juiciness

Squeeze over fennel stuff.

Also, you are going to put salt and pepper on it, then drizzle generously (but not too generously) olive oil over it all. Then toss. Taste and check seasoning. Add more salt or pepper if need be.

Voila. It is even better a few hours later after it has marinated .