CINNAMON SCONES

This isn't from 2nd Man, it's from 2nd Family's daughter Sarah...she is really getting into baking and on a "baking spree" as her Mom said. She wanted to share some with us so she brought these to us yesterday.

Cinnamon scones with vanilla ice cream

 Cinnamon scones!

Her first attempt no less!

We had a bit of homemade vanilla ice cream in the freezer tonight and we thought they would make an excellent dessert combination.  And wow, it was delicious!  She did great!  She just graduated from high school, we think she might want to pursue culinary studies.  She's really good at it, that's for sure.

Thank you Sarah!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

9/11 ANNIVERSARY

Remembering a dark day in our nation's history...

Bless the families and friends of all who were affected...15 years ago today...

I lost one of my Grandfathers on this day, sadly he had a heart attack while watching the live coverage...so I remember him on this day every year as well and miss him...

Thank you also to all military and first responders who put your lives on the line every day as part of your job to protect us...

EYE ON THE SKY

Well, I managed to get a lot more done today than I had expected, including all the mowing!

I got there about 8:30am..and it was blue skies.  But this was the sky as I was mowing the driveway, about 1pm.  It was definitely beat the clock. 

I literally got in the car, closed the door and it started raining.  

Talk about perfect timing!

This was the sky headed back into town...

...and then there were reports on the news of a funnel cloud sighting.  I'm not sure if that's what I saw the end of here (traffic was stopped, maybe that's why), but it was definitely making me think "what do I do if"...

Thankfully, made it back into town safely!

More later this weekend!

UPDATE:

Beef Stew

Yummy food!  It started in the ingredient stack as a beef roast and vegetables but 2nd Man decided to morph it into a stew.  It was delicious!

BEAT THE RAIN GAME

Here is today's forecast...

Forecast image courtesy of KHOU.com

...and as this posts, it's off to the farm time.  I hope to get a few veggies in the raised beds for the start of a Fall garden, plant some other plants we got unexpectedly (more on that in another post), and beat the rain...

That might be it though because...

Forecast image courtesy of KHOU.com

...here is the forecast for the rest of the weekend.  Pretty much a pretty good chance of rain every day.

Hope your weekend is off to a better start!

INFESTATION OF NIDORANS AND SLOWPOKES

Look what is at the farm now!?!?  The purple one is a Nidoran and the pink one is a Slowpoke!  

WHAT you say?  HA!  

What pesticide takes care of that?  

OK...our farm got into the Pokemon craze......not us playing though, I think we're well over the age limit for that, haha!

No, 2nd Family's daughter is playing and since it involves lots of walking, they asked if she could walk around our property.  Well of course she can!  

We said "you can roam wherever as long as you send us pics whenever you find one" and now we have these.  

Funny, I didn't see them when I was mowing...they must have been hiding well.  I'll have to keep an eye out this weekend just in case...

FLOWERS UNDER TREES, INSPIRATION THURSDAY

Every Thursday, we like to post a picture of something we've found online that inspires us to do something similar at the farm.  

Sort of our own blog bulletin board so that we can eventually look back and, hopefully anyway, recreate it...enjoy!

Flowers around tree, photo from Southernliving.com

With the thinking of fruit trees in raised beds the other day (I answered comments and gave some updated info on the raised bed idea) we were thinking we could put some flowers in the raised beds around the trees.  

But of course we also have lots of other trees around the property (and an area I'm slowly clearing) and so there will be many chances for under tree plantings.  We had another Inspiration post about  using "hostas" as underplantings...we love the thought of *shade loving* flowers too.  

Be inspired!

POP UP SNAKE

OK, I told y'all there was a snake story from the weekend...

Garter snake under porch

I was sitting in the rocker on the porch and I reached down to pick up my cup which was sitting on the porch floor.  I saw something move under the chair...

It moved in and out between the boards...

Garter snake closeup

...and poked its head out for a quick picture.  This is a garter snake and they are pretty harmless, at least from what we've read.  

And while I couldn't get a picture, the next day, when I went out on the porch in the morning sunshine, this same snake was on the porch railing, hanging off both sides, in the warm sunshine.  So apparently, "porch is home".  

Sigh...

What about you?  Is a small, harmless snake better than a big one?  

Or is a snake a snake regardless of size and/or threat?

LOCATING A MINI ORCHARD

After I mowed over the weekend, we roamed around planning (and daydreaming).  Here is our dilemma.  We have some fruit trees on "standby"...bought and being cared for but still in containers until the Fall when we plant them and of course we'll be buying more.  There are two places we are trying to decide between.  We have already planted a few trees scattered around the property but it turns out they are too far from water sources and therefore, much more difficult to care for.  

So we've narrowed it down to two spots:

The first spot is here.  

This is just behind the house.  

Our backyard I guess you'd call it.  A big, wide open space with a water faucet on the back of the house.  This space is bigger than the other one.  Plenty of room for the trees, and we'll still have space left in the backyard so it's not like we're giving up our yard.  It's not too close to the house either, this picture is a bit skewed.

Here is the second spot.  

This is directly behind the garden.  

Again, water access is pretty easy, coming right from the garden.  This spot is smaller but still enough room for just the fruit trees, which is all we are needing.  The thing with this site is that we had thought that it would also be the perfect spot for a future greenhouse but that is still a few years down the road and we need to get some more fruit trees started now. Plus we have many more alternate places for a future greenhouse.

Both areas have the space, both would provide privacy, with the one behind the house providing more personal privacy (somewhat hiding the back of the house from the property behind and whatever someday ends up back there.  The one behind the garden would sort of shield the garden from view as well, not that that is so important.  The backyard is bigger and gives us more leftover space for future use.  The backyard would also be closer to the house for easier monitoring.  The garden  of course would be right there with the vegetable garden so it's sort of like working it all at once, having tools and things already nearby if needed.  Having large trees could, someday of course, put part of the garden in the shade.  

The soil is the same in both spots so we are going to plant the trees in 4x4 raised bed boxes to give them a better head start.

We have to make sure we are happy with the final spot because wherever we decide, they are there forever... 

LABOR DAY 2016 AND WEEKEND UPDATE

It's been and hit and miss weekend.  Hotter than Hell on Saturday (we're still in the 90's with high humidity) and Sunday it was nice for a bit but then storms built up and it poured rain...

We got some things done, I'll have pictures and posts up.  Harvested jalapeños from the garden (a couple dozen!), our first harvest of okra too, though 2nd Man is ambivalent, he doesn't think he likes okra, but I'm going to teach him about fried okra.  I did a few small projects inside and out and got everything mowed but no edging, it was just TOO hot for too much of anything outside. 

Oh and there were snakes and spiders as well...

2nd Family horse Artax was in their back pasture (which is basically our front yard, separated by a fence, ha) and so it was nice to watch her.  There is something so peaceful about a horse grazing in a pasture.  And she of course came to "her corner" and I gave her carrots.  

She was happy... 

We were happy...

Win win.

And as usual, it's been a good weekend of eating...

Saturday night it was steak and oven roasted potatoes...

...and Sunday night it was oven roasted chicken, pasta with butter and parsley and green beans with tomatoes.

Hope your weekend is going well!

Day off for us today, staying in town and doing errands around here.

OFF TO THE FARM

First weekend of nice weather.  

So much on the list of things to do...

We promise not to make it ALL work, ha. 

Hope you are having a good weekend, it's Labor Day weekend, woo hoo, and extra day!

CHICKEN GIFT

One of my very sweet coworkers brought this to me the other day and said it was a gift for the farm.  It's an awesome, carved wooden chicken and I promised her a post showing it in all its glory.  It has a wonderful distressed finish and so we knew exactly where it would go at the farm...

...on top of the yellow hutch in the kitchen!  She looks perfectly at home up there, watching over the things we cook.  Rumor has it, there is another one, in a different color, that she is currently looking for.


Thank you very much "S", we love it!


TGIF!

WILLY WONKA, INSPIRATION THURSDAY

Something a little different today.  Inspiration can come in many forms, tmore often tangible but sometimes it comes to us in the form of a performance that stays with us...

Willy Wonka...the stuff of childhood dreams...much like The Wizard of Oz did and numerous other movies and TV shows of my youth, this movie sparked my imagination...

...I mean what kid didn't want to live IN a candy factory?  Or at least visit one?  And while of course he was just the actor chosen to play the role, he breathed life into the character and in turn, the movie became something much more...

...the immensely talented Gene Wilder, playing the iconic Willy Wonka.  Gene was a great actor, also bringing moviegoers such memorable movies as The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein and many others, but for us, 2nd Man and I, it was Willy Wonka that left an indelible mark on us.

From all accounts, he was a genuinely nice man, a good person with a good heart...as it should be in (and sadly, so often isn't) in Hollywood.  

Thanks for being one of our childhood inspirations. You will be missed.

CUT BASIL IN WATER

Recently, we had the issue of our basil turning dark.  After all your wonderful suggestions, we decided to try an experiment.  When I was at the farm, I cut some and put it in jars of water right after cutting. 

(Mason jars always come in handy, ha).

Cut basil in water

Here they are after I cut them at the farm, fresh from the garden.  I brought them back into town (thankfully they fit in the car cup holders!).  

We changed the water daily and just left them alone...

Basil cuttings in water

...and here are the same cuttings exactly one week later.  They are doing fine.  Not that we'd wait a week normally but we wanted to perform this experiment to see how they would do.  It's nice to know that treating them like cut flowers was a great idea, at least for transporting them back into town for later use and they won't be turning dark again.

Thanks for the suggestions!

SHIPPING CRATE FIND

Over the last few months, I've discovered some fun "treasures" downstairs in our loading dock area where residents put their trash.  Bag trash goes down the trash chutes into a separate area.  For large items, cardboard boxes, etc, we have large dumpsters to use.

So when I can remember, I try to go check them out.  Saturday, I went down to check the mail and struck gold again!

Someone in the building had something shipped from overseas.  It came in this crate.  It's awesome.  Solid wood, very well constructed...

...and large.  It has a heavy lid and it's big, about 3' wide, 2' deep and about 2 1/2' tall.  

Wooden shipping crate

It also has nice, heavy duty folding handles on each side.  I don't know what yet, but I have big plans for this. I was thinking that once I got it stripped of labels and cleaned up, it might make a great storage container?  It's too big (unfortunately) to become a piece of furniture inside the house at the farm.  There's just no space for it.  It could be painted?  Stenciled?  Put wheels on it?  I don't think it would hold up outside, exposed to the elements, so the barn/shed are the only options I can think of.  

So that's my gold find.  Well, at least "I" think it's gold.  I'm sure 2nd Man just looked at me dragging this thing back in and thought "seriously"?  But he just smiled and let me be excited.  

As it should be, LOL!

CANNING PEACH JAM WITHOUT PECTIN

It's time for more jam! We loved the way the blueberry jam came out, simple and allowing the full flavor of the fruit to come out in the end product.  Things became so much easier when I found this great three ingredient recipe over at The Yummy Life.  At HEB (grocery store chain) they had fresh from Texas peaches, and so we thought it was time for some peach jam.

Peach Jam without Pectin

This is 10 cups of pitted, chopped peaches.  No peeling, they cook long enough that the skins just become one with the jam.  Five cups of sugar and the juice and zest of one large lemon...

 I put everything in my jam pan and turned it on...

...stir and heat to boiling...

It will foam, this is normal...just keep working through it....

Mashing peaches

At the foaming point, I started mashing the fruit with the potato masher.  It's really just whatever you like.  We like love our jam to be chunky...

Peaches cooking for jam

It's bubbling and thick so it was almost ready.

Canning

I got the jars and my prepping area ready to go...the water was already boiling in the water bath canner...

One last check, it was dark and thick and passed the freezer plate test.  I put a plate in the freezer, put a tsp of jam on it, placed it back in the freezer for a minute or so and then checked to see if it ran when I tilted it.  You can also do this with the back of a spoon.  If it didn't run or ran very slowly, it was ready. 

It was ready!

Canning Peach Jam

I ladled it into the waiting, sterilized jars, lids and rings...

Peach Jam no pectin

I boiled them for 15 minutes, took the pan off the heat and let it sit for another 5 minutes and then removed them to a waiting towel for cooling.  This batch made eight, 1/2 pint jars.  

Homemade Peach Jam on English Muffins

Once again, it was so good on muffins!  And to think about having the taste of "Summer" in the middle of Winter will be wonderful.  We always have English muffins on hand but if not, 2nd Man can whip up a loaf or two of fresh bread.  So now our grand total is 15 jars (1/2 pints) of jam.

That canning bug has bitten!

DISCLAIMER:

PLEASE NOTE:  You are responsible to know and understand the current canning and processing recommendations for safety.  Canning is fun but you MUST follow guidelines to make sure you are doing it safely. I had to learn (and still am) so do your research on safe canning techniques.

 A great link to official information is http://nchfp.uga.edu/ and 

of course, the literal bible of home canning information, the Ball Website.

SUNDAY UPDATE

GOOD MORNING!  Sorry about being absent yesterday, we were out and about early, had some errands to run and were on the run all day.  It's been an odd weather weekend, nice in parts of the area, rainy in others.  

And at the farm?  Rainy.  Yesterday anyway.  

Homemade French Toast

Today is nice.  For now.  But more rain "possibly" coming this afternoon.  So we are running more errands. I'm heading to some garden centers to start the Fall garden planning.  

Guess what I'll be doing later this afternoon?  Canning!  Still doing jams and jellies, we want to get those fresh Summer flavors put up for use in the Winter.

2nd Man made us French Toast this morning, it was SO good.  Homemade bread dipped in eggs, milk, vanilla and covered in butter and yummy Pennsylvania maple syrup.

French Toast with Maple Syrup

Hope your weekend is going well!  More later tonight (and I'll catch up on comments).

CANNING THEMED DISH TOWELS

Found these at the store the other day, when I felt the need to do some "retail therapy, ha.  They have the cutest images and sayings on them:

There is one with 'blueberry lemon jam', another with 'farm fresh pickles'...hmm, where do I know about blueberry lemon jam?  Oh yeah, I made some!

...and another for 'strawberry jam' and then 'tomato herb sauce'.  They are so cute and are on their way to the farm this weekend!