This Moment

This Moment

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment.   Linking up with www.soulemama.com

This week in my kitchen

Linking up with:  http://beautythatmoves.typepad.com/beauty_that_moves/2014/05/this.html

 Rhubarb for my toast

 Just boiled new york style bagles

Fresh out of the oven

Growing

Welcoming with open arms these rain clouds - will take these over snow any day.

Oh life has been so gloriously busy these days.  Lots of hard work, sweat and smiles happening in our little piece of the earth.  The garden is (mostly) in and I'm just praying for my peppers - which were planted late - to come up.  My sugar snap peas are now house plants, tied up from pot to window frame with strings and I see three little pods on them.  That little project I started in March to help welcome spring with Jenna from Cold Antler Farm.  It was more fun than for food.

 I found several patches of rhubarb as I got the garden ready.  I don't make many pies but I did boil it down with sugar the way my grandmother did when I was a girl and my mother and I had it with toast.  Oh such sweet memories.

 I am so looking forward to my onions, squash, cucumber, peppers, tomatoes, lettuce, beets, chives, sage, celery, kale, basil, pumpkins strawberries and raspberries.  Is it too late for potatoes?  I'm not sure but I may just plant them anyway.  A neighbor gave me acorn squash (I have butternut) and zucchini so those will go in today.

My "kitchen garden" where I'll grow the peppers, tomatoes, herbs, lettuce.

The "main garden" before tilling - pumpkins, squash, cucumber, onions, beets, potatoes.

Cilantro and chives coming up at the back of the yard.

The weather here has been beautiful.  I'm home all week this week and looking forward to all of the extra time with my girls.  These days I can barely pull myself into the house to vacuum but all the laundry is done since that means hanging it outside to dry.  I am so incredibly thankful right now for all of our blessings.

I'm sad to say that we are taking care of a sick chicken.  We aren't sure what's happened to her but we talked to the vet this morning and we will be bringing her into the house and syringe feeding her.  She is very dehydrated and can't hold her head up.  In fact, when she does try to hold it up it waves around wildly.  We think it might be botulism.  Donny had mentioned before that she seems out of sorts, then getting better, than hiding.  But just yesterday I went into the coop and as all the chickens rushed to greet me she fell right out of the door poor thing.  It was then that I saw how sick she was and immediately starting looking up the cause.  We've put her in a rubbermaid container and gave her some water and sugar water soaked bread and we hope to nurse her back to health.  Please send positive thoughts our way that she gets better.  And any advice is appreciated.

Neighbors and visitors

Living where we live we rarely see other people.  Which is a nice contrast from my city job where I see hundreds of people on a daily basis - and that's just my commute.  We do have a lot of visitors to the farm but mostly on weekends and as I've mentioned before we try to limit those visit's to Saturdays so actual work can get done Sunday's.  If folks do visit Sunday (as they did last weekend), I usually task them with some work as well.  On Mothers Day I had my mother and my aunt (and my uncle, cousin and sister) over for the afternoon.  I showed my sister the garden and that led to 2 hours of weeding and spreading horse manure.  I asked my cousin to move a particular bin of twigs closer to the fire that had gotten very heavy from sitting in the rain.  And my husband asked my uncle to help him with some work on another part of the property.  My sister made dinner and did the dishes.  Lots of other work got done that day and there is a lot more left - as it goes on the farm.  This weekend we are having my brother, sister in law and their two boys over for a few days / nights.  It's time to plant and they want to help with the work - bless them.  But we'll also clean out the barn, clean up the pastures, the chicken coop, mow the lawn and in between hopefully have a little fun and eat a lot of good food.  I'm really looking forward to it.

But besides visitors we also have met a lot of our neighbors and people who work in the area, and people who are lost and people who come and ask if they can hunt on our property.  It's been an interesting 8 months to say the least.  My husband has helped people get unstuck from the snow, our neighbors have come to help us out of the snow.  We've had neighbors and farmers show up unannounced for a beer,  neighbors calling to tell us they have our dog or to bring him back.  We've had neighbors park their horse trailer on our driveway and then their cars because they couldn't get down their own driveway for the ice this past spring - this was in March! It really has been a huge change for us.  I'm getting a real sense of community here but not too much community - like it is in the city.  Just enough to know that we are all looking out for each other and we are all in this together.

Glimpses of our weekend

We spend Saturday driving two little girls to art and sewing classes.  Why no, I do not sew, thank you for asking.  I do appreciate those talented folks who can sit for hours at this machine but I've never been inclined.  After the class TT's passion was ignited so I pulled out my 50 year old sewing machine that my aunt had given me several years back.  I was delighted to find out that it still ran after years and years of storage.  I went out in the afternoon and bought thread / fabric and a little sewing kit for my little one and then found out that the needle was broken so the machine couldn't be threaded.  Another shopping trip is in my future.  I promised I'd show TT how to sew a pillow, the only thing I know how to do.  And I see more sewing projects in my future.  

Sunday we got up and dressed, loaded into the truck and went out to plant 30 trees.  They were just baby trees with no root ball so other than a shovelful of dirt, 30 times, it wasn't too labour intensive and it felt darn good to get it done.

After washing up and a few loads of laundry I decided to do a bit of baking - especially since the hens have been so generous lately.  An oven baked omelet for my lunches and cake made from scratch with lemon icing were produced.  The girls raved about the cake so I think I'll make that one again but I will add tiny chocolate chips to it just for fun.

I'm already looking forward to next weekend.  I have tomatoes, celery, green peppers, kale, beets to plant and the chicks will be out of the house by then.  Note to self, next time build a brooder in the barn for these lovelies.

I hope you had a lovely weekend.

This Moment

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.  **Inspired by www.soulemama.com**

Sunday's

The sky last Sunday 

Sunday's at the farm are my favorite day.  We try not to schedule any travel or visitor's that day and I find myself waking early and looking forward to all the work I'll get done.  Last Sunday was no exception, I got up early, baked a cheese bread from a Betty Crocker recipe card, went out to the chickens for a visit and to pick up the morning eggs and then, after cleaning up the kitchen, I headed outside for the day.  It was a lovely, sunny day last Sunday.  I cleaned out my poor car whose interior has been beat up from a hard winter of commuting, kids and dust.  I packed a lunch for two little girls who wanted to explore the pastures around our house.

I shoveled up buckets of branches that were strewn all over the property and since it was perfect day for a burn, I started a fire in our fire pit.  The wind coming from the north and blowing the smoldering leaves and branches between the house and the workshop and not toward the house and the barn which to me are perfect conditions.

I sat down and smiled.  This is living.