LOVE THE SMELL OF FRESH BAKED BREAD

Came home today to fresh baked bread.  Don't you love that aroma?

2nd Man got home early and baked some bread that he had rising since this morning.  I know you'll want recipes and all that goes with that, but this was already a done deal.  Sadly, I didn't have the chance to photo each step, and besides, he just sort of wings it, experimenting with different ingredients and amounts .  For example on this, same bread dough, he was trying out different designs on top, go figure.  Side note, I like the one in the foreground.

Still I wanted to share what was baking in our oven today, what's baking in yours?  Bread?  Pies?  Casseroles?  Cakes?

Soon, when we're at the farm more regularly, or have some rainy weekends in town, he wants to regularly bake all sorts of stuff and I reminded him we'll need recipes and photographs to share every step of the way.

You live with a blogger, get used to it.

He just rolled his eyes.

Whatever.

Yummy Homemade Bread

WALL SCONCE CANDLE HOLDERS, THRIFT STORE FIND

Wall Mounted Candle Holder

Here is a lunchtime thrift store find, two wall mounted candle holders or sconces!  They are metal, sort of a tin type metal, and are in a shape that sort of reminds me of a pineapple, though I think it's probably just supposed to be leaves.  They hold one candle each with a small area to catch drips.  Of course, we have a huge supply of smokeless/dripless candles so that's not usually an issue but it's still a nice feature to keep any wax off the floors.  I almost wonder if there was some sort of glass hurricane shade of some sort on them at one point?  I'll keep my eyes out for something that might work for that.

I thought about painting them, but after hanging them on each side of the clock to measure them and see what they looked like, I decided I kind of liked the look and the character it brings to the living room.  So they will be left as they are.  Best part of all?  It was only $3.50 for the set of two!

Buying these and putting them up reminded me that we want to have other things in the house that could provide alternative means of light in the event of a storm or some other reason we are without electricity.  I have some oil lamps that I salvaged from my Grandparent's cellar years ago and I need to get them cleaned up and usable as well.  We already have the wall mounted oil lamps in the dining room that I blogged about HERE, so we just need some more "alternate light sources" in the other rooms.  What about you?  Do you keep oil lamps and other similar things around just in case you need them?

MESQUITE THORN, FLAT TIRE, AND GREEN SLIME, OH MY!

As luck would have it, or is that "unluck", I got my first mesquite thorn mower flat tire.  Yes, the mesquite thorns here are big enough to flatten a tire.  Even a CAR tire!  Several people recommended something called SLIME, a liquid, tire repair system.  The stuff was AWESOME!  Here is a picture of the tire with the offending thorn...

It comes in a bottle like this (and yep, it's fluorescent green!) for about $12.  The black cap on top is a valve stem removal tool.  You just unscrew the cap, flip it around and use it to do this...

...unscrew the valve stem core.  This pretty much immediately removes all the air from the tire and gives you an opening for this...

 ...the tube that it comes with is attached to one end of the bottle and the other to the valve stem.  Then you just tilt it up and squeeze.  It's a flowing liquid so it's pretty simple.  For this size tire, it's about 2/3 of a bottle, but I cheated and used 1/2 on this tire and 1/2 on the other front tire.  After you pour it in, replace the valve stem core, and air it back up to regular pressure.

Once it was aired back up, I pulled out the thorn and it started bubbling and fizzing where the hole was. That's the air pressure forcing the SLIME into the the hole.  After a minute or so, it stopped, and hardened. I went on to mow 2 acres without any loss in air pressure.  The best part is that this stays liquid inside the tire and if you run over another puncture causing item, it just reseals and you keep driving.  Everyone is telling me the best thing is to just put them in all four tires as a preventative measure.  Well I did it on the other front tire, and will most likely do it on the rear two tires soon.  For those curious, this does not affect 'changing' a tire at a future date.  The only downside is that it's messy, being a liquid, you have to wash a tire if you take it off the rim or you'll have fluorescent green all over everything.  Still, it's environmentally safe and not dangerous for future tire changes so that's important.  I'd highly recommend at least one can of this in your barn or shed if you have any sort of tire usage on your property.  It works on ATV tires, mower tires, tractor tires, even wheelbarrow and bike tires.  They have different varieties for the various tire types, so just check out your local auto parts store, or even the big box retailers.

Get some "Slime", you won't regret it!

VINTAGE POSTER SUNDAY, MARY MARY VICTORY GARDEN

Well, today is Mother's Day, so first and foremost,

Happy Mother's Day to all of you Mom's out there.

Hope it is a happy day and you get treated like the queens you are!

We miss ours terribly, but we know they are always here in spirit to watch over us (and help us make the right decisions on the farm, ha). 

Mary Mary Quite Contrary, Victory Garden poster Courtesy:  Chicago Art Institute Archives

For today, here is a cute poster.  I'm not sure about the rhythm of the 'poem', it loses a bit at the end, LOL, but it's still funny and definitely original.  It uses a classic Mother Goose.  This one is from WWII and once again, they urged everyone to plan their "Victory Gardens", which helped the war effort.  I know I am planning ours now!

For those new followers and new visitors to the blog, every Sunday, for about a year now, I've posted an image of a classic, vintage, gardening or canning poster that I've found online.  Usually from library collections or historical societies or just found randomly online, you can click on the 'history' tag below this if to view them all. 

As always, we hope you are having a great weekend!

WHY HEIRLOOM SEEDS ARE SO IMPORTANT, WOW!

I recently found this graphic illustration over at National Geographic and it's pretty startling to see.

It shows us that in only 80 years, if you can fathom this statistic, we have lost 93% of the variety in our foods.

Let me repeat that, we have lost 93 PERCENT of our food varieties!  What does this mean?  Well, looking at this chart, let's take cabbage for example.  In 1903 (the chart uses stats from 1903 to 1983) cabbage had 544 varieties...just 80 years later, it had only 28.  Tomatoes had 408 varieties that dwindled to 79.

This lack of biodiversity is why HEIRLOOM SEEDS are so important to us all.

Save the heirloom varieties by planting them and saving the seeds for future use.  There are many companies that sell them.  Not only are they delicious, they are unusual, unique and actually quite beautiful.

Heirloom Tomatoes

Heirloom Eggplants

THANK YOU

Today, I found out I was the winner of a contest celebrating the 100th post over at one of my favorite blogs, Prairie Cat over at Back to Basics.
She has a great blog by the way, check it out!

The strange thing?  Somehow I missed entering her contest, probably the two days I was without computer access and fell behind on my blog reading.

So how did I win if I didn't enter?

Well, therein lies the other cool part.  Three awesome and faithful readers of our blog told Prairie Cat that if their name should be drawn, they wanted me to have their prize.

I'm at a loss of words for the kindness they showed.  I want to, in a small way, give back to them.  So, I'm asking that you all visit their wonderful blogs, and if you don't already follow them, please do, let's share the blog love.

Granny over at Annie's Kitchen Garden

Cloud over at The Stay @ Home Gardener

Jenny over at Simple Garden Made Easy

So thank you to Prairie Cat, Granny, Cloud and Jenny...you rock!

I WON A CONTEST

More details later tonight when I get home and have full computer access, but I wanted to let you know that I won a cool prize via another blog, and some awesomely generous blogger friends.

HOME CANNING, FRIDAY FUNNY

OK, my canning experience so far has been limited to a few times, and they were successful.  But I intend to start canning in earnest later this Spring/Summer and I only hope when I'm doing it on my own without class instructors and friends around me, it's not like this!  

Very cute though, love the book she has on her counter, "Home Canning in 327 Easy Steps"!  Too funny.  Hope you have a laugh and hope your canning experience is much more relaxing than hers apparently is.

INSPIRATION THURSDAY, VEGETABLE GARDEN

Photo from CountryLiving.com (via VonnieThe HappyHippy!)

Sometimes, we get unexpected inspiration from other places.  This photo was sent to me by Vonnie over at "The Happy Hippy", one of our very sweet readers.
Please be sure to check out her blog: CLICK HERE TO VISIT HER BLOG.

She found it while she was surfing the web for ideas and inspiration and was kind enough to think of me!  (THANK YOU!)

I love this image, everything about it just screams to me to do something similar.  From what I have learned, it's the Connecticut garden of Pamela Page.  It looks like is LOTS of work, but hey, nothing beautiful is ever accomplished without a little sweat equity, right?  Ironically, when I was looking at the area that I am slowly, but surely, clearing out for our future garden, I decided something simple and rectangular would be the easiest to work with...fence off a big squarish space and then start filling it in, a little at a time.

And here it is, almost pulled from my imagination.

Be back here tomorrow!  Have a great day!

HOUSTON, WE HAVE ARBEQUINA OLIVES

Arbequina Olives close up

What is this, you might ask?  It's a closeup of some olives.  Yes, olives, growing on a tree, in a clay pot, in the back yard!  This is one of several trees I still need to transplant to the farm, just not sure where I want to put it yet.  If it survives in the ground, it is a tree that will last literally for decades and I want to find just the right spot for it out there. 

Arbequina olive in a clay pot

Above is a picture of it in the clay pot where it is now.  It's a large pot, about 18" across, and when I bought the tree it was probably a foot tall, if that.  It's 5 years old now and about 4 1/2 feet tall.  It needs to get in the ground so it can grow to its full potential! 

Closeup of tiny Arbequina olives

Here is a closeup of how they grow, almost like clusters of grapes, and as you can see, in all stages of growth, from tiny to large.  I would assume they produce at various times later in the year.

This is the Spanish, "Arbequina" variety, and is supposed to do well in our Southern climate, which is similar to the climate in the region of Spain that they come from.  In fact, there are a few places here in Texas that produce olive oil and this is one of the trees they use most often.

Without a doubt, having fresh olives at the farm in a few years would be an amazing thing.  In fact, if it does well in the ground, and since it's done well in a clay pot I don't see why it wouldn't continue to thrive in soil where its roots can spread out, several olive trees scattered around the property might be pretty nice.  Not enough for olive oil of course (it takes dozens of trees for that) but wow, I could dream about that all day long!  Having enough to be able to use them in cooking would be great.

BATHROOM SHOWER CURTAIN, DECORATING INSPIRATION

Here is the shower curtain we got for the bathroom.  It just came in the mail the other day (bought it online).  We liked the colors, because the yellow is a recurring theme in the house, and the gray is a nice accent color we hadn't thought of.  We will be able to pull from it when decorating the bathroom.  I'm seeing yellow and gray towels, rugs and accessories.  The white is a slightly "off white" when you see it in person, and that fits in as well.  Heck, the pattern is even reminiscent of the pattern on the master bedroom comforter so that's a nice bonus.  This is one of the rooms that we weren't sure what direction to go as far as decorating so hopefully this will let us move forward.  Of course, we still need a water heater, but that's another post...

AIR CONDITIONING BUT WITH A GLITCH

Sears Kenmore 15,100 BTU Window Unit

Yay, we have cold air, but, alas, with an asterisk.

We bought two of them Friday night after work.  Since they were on sale at a great price, and were the largest BTU's you can get for 110V electrical, the timing was just perfect.  We got them loaded into the Jeep, took them out there, and carried the heavy monsters into the house.  The instructions, as I feared, left a little to be desired, but after about 2 1/2 hours, we had the first one in and turned on.  Wonderful cold air blowing into the room and it started cooling down the house, at least the front part of the house.

So we decided to go ahead and unpack and install the second one too.  Actually, 2nd Man voted for waiting until next weekend, but I said let's just do it, while we don't want to do it and get it over with.  You know, like when you just rip off a band aid.  So we did.  Second one only took about 30 minutes start to finish!  No, we are not available for hire, haha.  We turned it on as well, and there was even more cold air blowing.  It started cooling the back half of the house, and was awesome.  First time in years the house had been that cool,
well, on a 90+ degree day of course.
So we were enjoying it...until....

Blackout

With both of them turned on and running at the same time, they tripped the circuit breakers and everything went dark and quiet (not mention, warm).  I did some checking and it looks like the two outlets, even though they are in different rooms, are on the same circuit.  Unfortunately, we can't move them to different windows and the cord is only long enough to reach those outlets.

However, we can at least run one of them at a time with no problem, so it's not like it will be hot in the house.  Just need to call the electrician back out to do some more work (ugh, more $$).  Until then, we'll just cool the part we're in at the time.  There are a lot of home renovation projects I'll at least attempt to tackle, but electricity is something I don't want to mess with.  Sure I can put up a light fixture, change out a switch, or do something simple like that, but when it comes to circuits and rewiring, I'll leave that to the experts.  If I mess up the plumbing, I get wet.  If I don't lay the tile just right, it will just bug me every time I look at it.  If I paint something wrong, I can just paint over it.  But if I don't do the electricity just right, it could have serious, life altering consequences, LOL.

Anyway, we have them in, we know they work and we know they will completely cool down the house so this is but a mere hiccup in the road.  At least the next time I mow, I will have cold air when I come inside.

EASY WAY TO FREEZE BERRIES

Here is just one of the many dewberry hauls we have gotten over the last few weekends.  Sadly "dewberry season" is officially over now.  I got the last couple of buckets yesterday.  Now, what to do with all these berries?  Here is how we do it, a great way to keep them almost as fresh as the day they were picked:

The first thing to do is...

 ...rinse and wash them!  I use this berry colander, which was my Mom's, it's ceramic and supposed to be non reactive with berries, but there were so many, I ended up using a mesh strainer anyway, no problems with reaction.

Once they were washed a few times, I poured them onto a couple layers of paper towels, just to take some of the moisture off.  Then you take some more paper towels...

...and put them on top of the damp berries, gently patting them down.  This takes off some more moisture from the top side. 

Then spread them out in a more or less single layer on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.  They can stack a bit it's ok.  I use that new "pan lining paper" from Reynolds but you could use wax paper too, just something that keeps them from sticking to the metal. Once they are all laid out, just put the tray in the freezer as is.

Here is the same sheet pan of dewberries, taken out the next night (you can see that they are a bit frosty from the temperature change).  By doing it this way, they are individually frozen.  They are almost like little "berry marbles", which is exactly what you want them to be like.  They can thaw rapidly so work fast.

Then I simply take a 2 cup measuring cup and fill it to the top.  In this case, I filled it past the 2 cup mark, you know, just to have a little "extra", ha.  Two cups is a great measurement for cooking.  For example, our cobbler recipe (posted soon) uses that, so it's easy to grab one package out of the freezer and be good to go.

At this point, you can put them into whatever package you want, a ziplock baggie, a tupperware container, or as we do here, a vacuum sealer (awesome device, and a must have in your kitchen).  We like the vacuum sealer for long term storage and since there are no berries until next Spring...

...we'll have lots of packages like these in the freezer.  I just wrote the quantity and date on each package and plopped them back in the freezer.  You can use this technique for any berry, and it works great for the delicate ones that might otherwise become a frozen clump a few months later.  Enjoy your berry haul!

PASSION FLOWER, MAYPOP, APRICOT VINE, MAY APPLE

After my blog post the other day about the unknown flower, which has since been identified by all you wonderful readers, I have been doing some online research and learned all sorts of fun facts.  Turns out this wild variation of Passion Flower, which later develops into a fruit, is closely related to the more common Passion Fruit (they are cousins).  It goes by a number of names when it grows wild: Wild Passionflower, Maypop, Apricot Vine, Mayapple, MollyPop, Maycock, Old Field Apricot, and White Sarsaparilla.  Who knew?

They bloom from May thru September, and then edible fruits emerge about two to three months after the flowers.  The fruit is sweet smelling, yellowish, and about the size of an egg when ready to eat and are pulpy and sweet inside.  They also "pop" when squeezed or stepped on, hence the "Maypop" name.

It is a perennial vine in the Southern US, and grows wild in these parts pretty much anywhere...on the side of the road, old railways, bridges, thickets and, apparently, unmowed farm pastures just outside of Houston, LOL!

I'm excited to discover these new things on the property that I didn't know were there.  Even more excited that it's something edible.  I'm sure if I deliberately tried to cultivate them, it would be an epic failure, ha.  The vines can be up to 20 feet long and are spread by underground roots.

Vintage Mayflower illustration, image courtesy of Wikipedia

Sometimes, it's Mother Nature that does it best.  I'll just mark where they are and check in from time to time and see how the fruits are doing.  It's too far from the water source on the farm to try to water it myself, though if we have another drought, I might be persuaded to carry some water to the main vine and try to baby it along...assuming of course I could ever even find where the main vine starts!  Thanks again to everyone who commented and taught me what this was, it's great to learn just one more little thing about the property.

VINTAGE POSTER SUNDAY, VICTORY VITAMIN C

Victory Vitamin C image courtesy of: Florida Historical Society

Here is a double feature for today.  I thought these posters were pretty neat.  During WWII, they not only urged people to grow their own food, and can their own veggies, they also pushed locally grown (and US grown) fruits and veggies.

In this case, the push was for the nutritional and health benefits of Florida grapefruit juice by showing, healthy, in shape soldiers, presumably to persuade others to buy Florida grapefruit juice and get just as healthy.

Cool to see the push from the farmers and growers. Perhaps an early version of the "Got Milk" or similar ad campaigns that we see today.  I guess Vitamin C does a body good, ha. 

OFF TO THE FARM TODAY

A view on the property

Here is a picture I took last weekend while roaming around picking berries.  It's where I found the "Passion Flower Vine" that I blogged about HERE a few days ago and I just thought it was so peaceful.

We'll be out there today, wandering this path at some point I'm sure, but doing more work. Still don't have the flower beds whipped into shape, of course I'll have to mow and edge, have an old chicken coop building to help 2nd Family move down to their house, and just general 'stuff to do'.  If I can squeeze in one last berry picking adventure, I'll do that too.

Oh, I almost forgot, we may end up getting window unit air conditioners this weekend as well.  At least that's the plan at this point.  It's just getting to be so hot out there, we want to have the option to make it more comfortable if we decide to turn them on, and of course, have any guests comfortable as well.

Ripples in a pond!!


UPDATE:  Didn't get as much done outside on Saturday, because a majority of the day was spent putting in  two window unit air conditioners.  But it's done, and it 'almost' works, but more on that during the week.  For now it's off to bed and early to rise tomorrow morning to head out again and work on the outside projects (including the weekly mowing).

SUPERMOON

 Tomorrow night (Saturday), there will be a sky watching treat as the moon not only becomes it's regular "full moon", it will also make it's closest approach to Earth all year.  It will appear in the sky to be much larger and up to 16% brighter.  When it lies close to the horizon, it appears even larger, something they call the "moon illusion".  This time around, with the moon at its closest point as well, it should make for some stunning photographs, and I hope to capture one or two while at the farm.

The full moon in May is traditionally known as the "Flower Moon".  It's also known as the "Full Corn Planting Moon" and/or the "Milk Moon".

Image courtesy of: SPACE.com

Click HERE for the fancy pants scientific explanation.

So go outside tomorrow night and look up at the sky, instead of down at the garden, and enjoy the supermoon!

THRIFT STORE SILVER TRAY HAS A HOME

The silver plated thrift store tray I blogged about HERE has a new home!

It's on the coffee table in the living room at the farm, and looks exactly as I had hoped.  Sort of shabby chic/casual.

Now I need to figure out what to put on it.  Seems like everything I put on it took away from the beauty of the tray.  There is the obligatory tea service but again, I put some china tea cups on there, and it just didn't look right.  Then I put a glass dish on there but being clear, it sort of just blended in with the silver.  Not sure what other options there are.

Any suggestions?

INSPIRATION THURSDAY, OLD POTTING SHED

Wow, I could just stare at this picture all day long.  I've always wanted little space, perhaps a potting shed, perhaps a craft building, perhaps just a place to escape to and enjoy some quiet time.  I saw this picture while randomly surfing online for photos and oh my, it is SO exactly what I pictured in my head as what would be perfect for what I'd want.

I love the re purposed/reclaimed nature of the materials, the shape of the old windows, the roof, the old fence, the flowers, the bushes, the French doors...sigh, I love every single part of this.  It almost looks like a little chapel.  It's not of course, it's supposed to be a gardening shed.  But wow, how I adore this little building.  It's definitely going on the farm bucket list.

See you back here tomorrow!

RAISED GARDEN BEDS IN THE CITY

A couple of years ago, I built three raised beds in the backyard.  Our postage stamp sized city yard has no grass, it's mostly all concrete patio, deck and garage.  There was a small patch of "dirt" in the back corner, where a tree used to be, and so I thought that would be a great place to put a few raised beds.  Since we didn't own the farm at the time and it wasn't on our immediate future radar, it seemed liked the perfect plan. It's an oddly shaped space so I was only able to put in three beds.

A 5'x'5' square, a 3'x'3' square, and a 2'x'3' rectangle.

Last year, with the farm pre-closing stuff going on, and then trying to start the remodeling, not to mention our epic drought, I just let them go.  This year though, since I ran out of time to get a large garden built at the farm, I figured I'd live vicariously through fixing up these three small beds.  So last weekend, I started cleaning them up and getting them ready for planting, it's fun having something else to garden.  I'm going to have plenty of planting to do at the farm, more fruit trees and bushes and flowers and other landscaping plants, so a smaller scale but hopefully productive garden, will definitely keep me busy.

Ichiban Asian Eggplant in a raised bed

Above is the first one I worked on.  It's the 2'x3' one.  I practiced Square Foot Gardening in these beds in seasons past, but this year, I'm just planting a few things we want to grow since I'm getting a late start.  This bed has two Ichiban Japanese eggplants.  I grew one a couple of seasons ago and it was very prolific, producing all summer long.  I figured two in this bed would give us plenty. 



Beefsteak Heirloom Tomato in raised bed

In this bed, which is a 3'x3' square, I put one tomato plant.  It looks kind of lonely, ha, but it's an heirloom Beefsteak tomato.  I grew one a few years back and since it was indeterminate, it got HUGE (and gave us a lot of tomatoes in the process, hoping for that again).  A 3'x'3' is about the right size for it.  I might plant some herbs around the edges just to grow a little something else.

Side note; these are plants I bought that were already grown at a local nursery, not a big box chain.  They are non hybrid, heirloom plants.

I have one last raised bed, the largest 5'x5', and I'm going to get it fixed up this weekend.  Not sure what I'm putting in there, but I'll keep you posted.

WHAT IS THIS FLOWER?

Saw several of these the other day in the middle of a patch of wild verbena.

It looks like something I've seen before like at a garden center store, but I can't remember what it was and just can't quite place it.  I figured I'd put it out there for the faithful readers of the blog to help me identify.  I've walked by the patch a few times recently and never saw it before, so these literally just bloomed open in the last week.  Not sure if it's a free standing flower or a vine twining around in the patch.

There is only one spot that I've found (so far anyway) on the whole property where I see these.  Not planted by me or the previous owner and not watered or taken care of, they are just somehow growing wild and blooming.  The one thing I do know for sure, they are beautiful!

WE NAMED OUR MESQUITE TREE

If you are a regular reader of the blog, you know that we have this great Mesquite tree that, because of it's old, gangly appearance, it just really seemed like it needed a name.  It's the area I've been working on and we call it "the party tree" or "the dinner/picnic tree".  Somehow, it needed a name:

So, without further ado, introducing "BARNABAS"!

Yes, as in that Barnabas.

A couple of weeks ago, Jonathan Frid, the actor who played the iconic vampire Barnabas Collins in the original series Dark Shadows, passed away.  Here in a couple more weeks, a remake is coming out starring Johnny Depp in the role of the very same vampire.  So when I was out there this weekend, working on the yard and clearing the area under the tree, I was thinking of movies and it struck me that it seemed to be a pretty cool name for an old tree with such character.  With Dark Shadows in the news so much lately, it's almost like the tree just named itself.

I know the character is a vampire but the tree doesn't have to be a scary thing.  In fact, when we get the table in, the area around it cleared and planted with some new plants, some lights in the branches, it will be a pretty cool space, with good old Barnabas right in the middle, watching over things.

What about you?  I know we all name our animals, but have you ever named a feature in your yard?  Be it a tree, or a cool plant or some rocks or something similar?  Or maybe you named a favorite appliance or tool?