FRUSTRATED CAT, FELINE FRIDAY

Haven't had a cat picture in awhile so I thought I'd share these two.

Poor Hobart, he was frustrated with Brisbane being on BOTH of these cushions...he looked so sad when we asked what was wrong.   

So we moved them apart a bit and all was right in his world once again...

GIANT OUTDOOR CHECKERS, 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!

Image via Pinterest

Now this would most certainly be much farther into the future, but hey, inspiration strikes anytime, anyplace.  I've often been mesmerized by the giant outdoor chess or checkers.  While Googling "outdoor games" I came across this set up.  We love the way it's set into the landscape....the benches...the plants and flowers around it, etc.  How fun would this be to be with someone, just casually sitting on each bench, glass of wine in hand, playing checkers outside?   I've seen this being done with large square pavers too.

Like I said, in the grand plan, this would be much nearer the end of our project list but hey, never hurts to dream, right?

Be inspired!

GREAT INTERIOR DESIGN QUOTE

Saw this quote online the other day while doing some research...
It's by the British craftsman and designer whose designs generated the Arts and Crafts movement in England, which later came to the states.

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful..."
                                                 William Morris

William Morris' Trellis Wallpaper, circa 1862

Words to live by for sure...
and words we will try to take to heart.

BAY LAUREL TREE

This is the bay laurel tree we blogged about a while back. 

 It had some leaf damage after this photo was taken and so we planted it into a larger, clay pot.

Bay Laurel tree

It's growing nicely in its spot and sprouting out new branches.  I'd like to plant it in the ground but not sure how well it would do. I know they are very slooooooow growing so maybe the large clay pot is better for awhile.  

Fresh bay leaves

This past weekend, 2nd Man asked me to bring some leaves home.  I wasn't sure where to cut them off but I chose the bottom of the plant and took some from there.  While I was at the farm, I left them in this basket in the sunshine where they dried nicely and now they are in a small jar waiting to be used.

Anyone have any Bay leaf tips?

WONDERFUL WEEKEND OF FUN AND FOOD

It was a great weekend!  The weather was almost perfect.  I say "almost" because I would have liked about 5 degrees cooler but still, it was nice.  

I got a lot done.

Woke up Saturday morning to this...

...homemade biscuits...

RECIPE HERE

Sausage gravy and biscuits

...with sausage gravy!  2nd Man said I needed to start the day with a hearty meal.  It was wonderful. 

Trails

 I got to the farm and roamed around exploring.  I like to do that, just to see how things are and to enjoy our property.

The grass is still short...not sure if I'll have to mow again this season.  Rain would change that but there is none in the forecast for the next week so we'll see what happens...

I came home Saturday night to grilled pork chops, mixed veggies, and saffron wild rice.  Of course it was delicious...

Wasp nest

Today, I went back out but just to finish up a few things and one of the first things I had to do was exterminated the wasp nests around the house and property.  This one was right behind the motion light on the side of the house... 

...and this was in a tree that I almost bumped into the last time I mowed.  That would not have had a pleasant ending.  The wasps didn't have a pleasant ending either.  I hate killing anything but wasps are just too dangerous to keep around. I'm sure there are plenty in remote parts of the property way up high in a tree, and they can stay...for now, ha.  

It was a wonderful weekend to open the windows and let the house air out.  Curtains blowing in the breeze are relaxing...and nap inducing.  

Cinnamon rolls

Waking up from a nap and coming back into town to homemade cinnamon buns, well, that was like a dream!  Recipe coming soon.

I got several projects done and did some planning and measuring for the fruit trees, garden stuff, edging, weed pulling, pulled some books to sell, etc.  More on those events in upcoming posts.

Hope you had a great weekend!

BEAUTIFUL WEEKEND

Great weather once again thought it could be a bit cooler, but we'll take what we can get.  2nd Man is staying in town today, he has an appointment  I get to spend the day doing fun stuff at the farm.  I can live with that.

I've got things I want to paint, plant, edge, pull, mow, hang, harvest, store, move, clean, and empty. 

Didn't get to comments last night as the Internet connection was spotty for some reason.  Will get to them this weekend!  

Hope yours is off to a great start!

SAFFRON AND HERBS OF PROVENCE

2nd Man is in love with any herb or seasoning...

Saffron and Herbs de Provence

And the other day, two of his favorites came in the mail.  I told him to let me snap a picture.  Some days, he must think  I'm crazy, but then I remind him that's what happens when he lives with a blogger, ha!  

Anyway, saffron of course is saffron, he uses it in rice dishes mostly but has been known to drop some in a casserole or a stew.  Saffron is very strong so it doesn't take much.  The other one of his faves is Herbes de Provence...the famous French mixture of savory, marjoram, thyme, rosemary, oregano and lavender.  That last one is what makes him like this this blend.  Often they include all the herbs listed except lavender.  He uses it as a rub on a pork loin that is out of this world.  The lavender adds just the right unique touch.

Do you have a favorite seasoning?

P.S.  Sorry I've fallen behind on comments this week, but will start replying and catch up tonight and this weekend.

RAISED BED FLOWERS, 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!

Today's inspiration post is courtesy of 2nd Man!

He found this photo and said "can we do this in some of the empty raised beds in the garden?".  The thinking being that is since we won't have vegetables in all of them until we get more experienced, we could at least put something in the empty raised beds and have something else useful (fresh flowers for vases)...or at the least, just look outside and see something pretty.

We certainly have the infrastructure set up to do this, the unused raised beds are just sitting there ready and waiting for something to be planted in them...why not flowers!  

Thank you 2nd Man!  I'll see what I can do about that next Spring...

Be inspired!

OVEN ROASTED OKRA FRIES RECIPE

OK...so here is our first experiment with our okra harvest...of course, getting 2nd Man to actually like okra is a different story.  He promised to go into this with an open mind.  He still made a face though...

We had a big basket of okra (and a few jalapeños).  First thing I did was rinse them and pat them dry...

Then I chopped off the ends and tips, and sliced them lengthwise...

I drizzled them with olive oil and sprinkled with salt.  I went for simple this first time, but you could use any type of seasoning at this point...hot pepper, garlic, onion powder, cajun seasoning, whatever you like.  Then just move them around to make sure they are well coated.

Okra fries

Place them on a foil lined baking sheet in a preheated 450 degree oven...

...and bake them for about 30 minutes (that's how long I did ours), stirring them around occasionally.  Right after I took them out, I sprinkled with just a bit more salt, just to make sure they had a taste.

Oven roasted okra fries

What you end up with is this.  They are mostly dried, a combination of crispy crunchy but still somewhat soft.  You can bake them longer to dry them out a bit more but I liked how they came out being some crispy, some parts a bit tender.  Kind of like french fries in the oven, smaller ones get crispy, larger ones have crispy edges and tender centers.  You could easily let them go another 10 minutes to get them crispier.  It's really just whatever you like.

2nd Man really liked them.  Our only problem is that they were gone much too quickly! Of course I DID have to sample them as I was cooking... I mean, chef's prerogative, right? 

Again, we're experimenting with what we like and how to use the bounty the next time we grow them and this use will definitely go on the list.

Overall, a good choice.  

Enjoy!

FAVORITE SMELLS

SOME SMELLS I LOVE...

IMPENDING RAIN...

BACON COOKING...

OLD BOOKS...

LAVA SOAP...

FRESH BAKED BREAD...

Care to share some of yours?

FALL GARDEN BEGINS

Great weekend.  

Got a lot done in the garden.  I started by clearing out the beds of the remains of Summer.  I didn't get pictures of all the beds before, but here are a few.

This was the tomato and jalapeño bed.  I pulled up the tomatoes and all that was left was the lone jalapeño.  What a bush, this one alone gave us dozens of jalapeños.  

Upon turning the soil in all the beds we planted in, we found nice, rich, dark soil.  Even a few worms (thinking of adding some worms next season).  I got all the beds cleaned up and soil turned.  Then it was time for planting.

In the tomato/pepper bed, I planted too more tomatoes, a beefmaster and a better boy.  The beefmaster has some yellowing leaves, it got pushed to the back of a group of plants I had and didn't get watered.  Oops!  I hope it bounces back.  Around them, I planted some buttercrunch bibb lettuce.  

There is more room for additional plants later in the season. 

In the old eggplant bed, I put in a yellow squash (bush type) and surrounded it by eight Chinese (Napa) cabbages.  

And this is where the okra plants were.  We decided to fill it with greens.  So we have kale, mustard greens, and collard greens.  

I also updated all the irrigation hoses and connections in each bed.  I'm finding the black portion of the hose is not lasting as long as I had hoped it would.  I'll just need to make sure we have some on hand.

Anyway, that's the garden update.  There is more space in another bed for more and there are some more vegetable that we can plant as it gets a bit cooler.

Lots of Fall veggies hopefully coming soon.

THE WEEKEND SO FAR

No mowing needed, yay, this is what it looked like this weekend after mowing last weekend.  There might only be one more mowing this season, but if not much rain, there might not be any more.  Also, no horse in 2nd Family's back pasture, they have moved her to their front pasture.   Boo!   :-)

I spend most of the day working in the garden beds, more on that tomorrow.  I thought you might like this picture.  What is this?  This is one of the okra stalks, the base of it after I cut it down, this was the base at ground level that I had to dig out with a shovel.  It's like a tree trunk!!  

Will definitely grow okra next Summer.

These garden spiders are in several spots in the garden.  As long as they aren't in my way of where I need to be to plant something, I leave them alone and let them do their thing.

And I found a great use, temporarily, for one of the 'found chairs' we got.  I moved it into the garden and wow, I never knew what I was missing by not having a chair in there, ha.  I even used it to sit and work the raised beds while leaning over in the chair.  They'll still end up painted and in a special area for 2nd Man and I to sit and enjoy but it makes me realize a chair in the garden is a good thing.

More later, hope you are having good weekend!

PERFECT DAY

Today is a gloriously beautiful day!  

And for us in this part of the state, it's finally feeling like a REAL first day of Fall. 

Highs in the low 80's (sounds warm but no humidtty) and lows in the upper 50's.  It will be a great day at the farm.  

Fall garden planting is on the agenda, after a stop at another garden center to look for more fruit tree bargains.  I also need to work on the drip irrigation, edge around the house and barns (for probably the last time this season) and do other cleanup projects in the yard where it's been too hot all Summer.

It's the first of many nice weekends ahead so let the planning start!

Hope your weekend is off to a great start!

DO I STAY OR DO I GO

Sometimes...things aren't so clear...

I came upon this stoplight the other day and it was this way in BOTH directions!  

 I did stop and look both ways, but then another had stopped and didn't know if they should go and another person just drove right on through without even blinking.  I did immediately call the city and report it so that it wouldn't cause an accident. 

TREE TABLE, 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!

Table around tree, image courtesy of Countryliving.com 

When looking at ideas for seating areas around trees, we stumbled across this...literally a seating area AROUND a tree, ha.  Kind of a cool idea.  Great for dining of course, as in this picture, but I was thinking more of something along the lines of a writing table.  A place to sit and blog, write, think, plan. And while I am quite sure this isn't TOO hard to make, I have zero wood working tools that would allow this (for now anyway), cutting curves is not easy as it looks ha.

But we do have a tree that that would work for this and so now we add this to our list of future projects. 

Be inspired!

FREEZE CHEESE RINDS

Tip of the Day...

Save and freeze your hard cheese rinds!  

They usually are leftover from a hunk of Parmesan...put them in a container or resealable bag and pop into the freezer.

Save your Parmesan cheese rinds

Why would you do this?  

Well, 2nd Man often makes homemade broth and in Winter we always having a soup or stew of some sort...and he uses these all the time.  Just like you can toss a ham bone or scraps into beans or soup for flavor, you can do the same with the hard cheese rind you have leftover after using up the cheese.  It gives a LOT of added flavor...and when the soup/broth is done, you just pull it out and throw it away.  You've used every bit of flavor that you could from that cheese.  

They are great in almost any kind of soup where you want to add that depth of flavor and you think it will be a good match.  We've used it in a potato soup, a chowder, bean soup, minestrone, broccoli cheese, etc.

No waste!

OKRA GONE WILD

These were the okra plants in July.  

We weren't sure how well they would end up doing...

What's that towering green bush inside the garden?

HUGE okra plants

Why it's the same two "little" okra plants.  

Well over six feet tall!

Okra up close

I swear, one weekend there were no pods and the next weekend they were EVERYWHERE on the plants!

 For those that don't know about okra, they go from flowers to small pods, growing upwards like this, in clusters.  They really have to be harvested almost daily as they grow that fast.  We had to let a bunch go because we just couldn't get to it quick enough.  2nd Family took some as well but it was coming in faster than both of us could keep up.

Basket of okra

This is one basket of okra, one of about six like this that we had during this end of Summer harvesting.  We'll definitely grow this next Summer (and plant it a bit sooner, this was coming in a bit late this year).  They grew like crazy, LOVED the heat and humidity, and were very drought tolerant.  A true Southern veggie!

We've pulled the plants up now, did that this weekend.  More in upcoming posts about how we ate it...and how it went over with 2nd Man.  

Anyone else like okra?  

Does it normally grow crazy like this?