The BIGGEST Onion Competition

Well, today was the day.
Here were the entries...

(Trav)
(Steve)
(Trav)
(Steve)
It was a close one, but as you can tell, Steve won with an over 1 pound onion. Now Trav owes his dad a steak dinner (or supper wherever he chooses).

Congratulations :)
~Becky

Weekend on the farm...

These are from two weeks ago, and I just haven't had enough time to do everything I need/want to, let alone blogging regularly. These are kind of for KT, because we were missing her and thought she wouldn't want to miss the new baby. So, without further ado (and there have probably been 4 or 5 calves born since)...

These are just a few of Mummy's crazy tomato crop. I'm not even going to guesstimate what she's got going on in her soil, but her potatoes are so nuts I couldn't even describe them without a picture. Maybe she'll post more of her garden pics (her peppers are also awesome; and with our garden you'd think we'd have a ton, but I actually stole some of her peppers and tomatoes for another double batch of spaghetti sauce- that's why I'm still up right now, waiting for my steam canner to get done).

~Becky

It's officially fall...

Be prepared to be impressed- Brad actually made the apple grinder and press (including the fancy, and actually very heavy, buckets). And he likes to put a motor on everything (yeah!).

Processing-

The "Apple Inspectors", feeling a little overwhelmed by the apples that surround them-

Hey! Where's she going with that cup in her hand!?!
(nt. that's actually her old sippy cup, and she's still our little honey baby :)

Overview, before we officially started-

Brad and his famous apple press-

My absolute favorite picture-

Lots and lots of apples (and that wasn't even all of them!)-

The apple grinder at work-

Team work-

And that folks, is Apple Cider Part I...

Love,
Becky

Mt. Sterling

Check out the most recent post on the Cheese Underground blog (link locate down and to the right). Milk from the goats I just sold is going to this creamery! There are a couple of nice videos that I enjoyed watching that shows two parts of their Jack making process. See you guys soon when I come home this weekend to make apple cider!!

A pear is a pear, appearantly...

This picture (though somewhat dark) pretty much sums up my weekend. But, I've finished all of my pears! I guess I still have a batch in the dehydrator, but the real work is done.

To be honest, I can't say my sealing rate, minus the stewed tomatoes, is one hundred percent. I forgot that I also did a small batch of beets, and the one pint I did (versus the rest, which were half-pints) did not seal. Travis was happy about it, though, and ate the whole jar in one sitting:) I think all of the pears sealed, so I'm on a roll now, anyways.

~Becky

August Harvesting...

I came home from work one day earlier this month, and Trav had picked me a mini supper. The watermelon had needed to come off, and it was a little green; but how sweet is that? (I figured I better put my hand in for reference, or else who would have known they were mini?)

Here is the product of what I am considering to be my first official "start to canning". I refuse to count the stewed tomatoes I did a week earlier, as that would throw off my current 100% sealing rate. One top popped off (which my mom, with years of canning experience, even thought was crazy). And I (know I shouldn't of, but tried to anyways) used old sealing lids. Oh well, live and learn, and probably don't eat. I then went out and bought new lids (side note: which are silver this year; weren't they gold last year? love the silver but they clash with the gold rings) and resealed. Hopefully they are okay to use, as I read about resealing being fine, but I will definitely use the "smell test" first. The one that popped off smelled horribly raunchy, which does make me worry a little; but I'll label them separately. Maybe I just won't use them. I guess I haven't decided yet- its just frustrating when you put all that work into them, and Trav picked me onions and carrots to go in, which I then had to peel and chop; but it is better safe then sorry, so they say. I guess its not like there's an onion shortage. *Picture above is spaghetti sauce.

And finally, terra masu from my Knit Wits party. We had a fabulous spread, thanks to KT. She went all out, and right down to the black berries that my dad picked, most everything was homemade/fresh from the garden. I regret not taking a picture of my table full of fresh vegetables with homemade dip served in half of a green bell pepper (and not typical dipping vegetables, we had zucchini and peppers too, with teeny tiny tomatoes, cucumbers, and carrots). As well as tomatoes and cheese broiled on homemade french bread, and of course the terra masu. Beverages included Spring Grove pop and Honest Tea. KT was worried about an hour before the party that things weren't turning out, but she seriously out did herself from last year, which I did not think was even possible. I then stated, "No way you can do better than this next year." Its just not humanly possible. But, she reminded me she will be fresh back from Italy with all new tricks up her sleeves, so I guess we shall see...

Well, time to prep up a giant feast for Trav's lunch and get myself to work.
*We are now followers of The Lingens' new blog. Check out their tomatoes!

~Becky

Beautiful Vegetables

First things first, though...

Trav's new ride-

I thought I would catch up on the pictures I have;
before we have produce coming out of our ears.

Kohlrabis and rutabagas from our soup making days-
Green, yellow, and purple beans-
Purple cabbage-
Can you tell what my favorite color is?
~Becky

Hey Good Lookin'

Here's what's cookin' tonight...

Italian Zucchini Casserole
3 medium zucchini, sliced (about 6 1/2 cups)
3 TBS. olive or vegetable oil, divided
1 medium onion, sliced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 can (28 ounces) diced tomatoes, undrained (I used fresh)
1 TBS. minced fresh basil or 1 tsp. dried basil
1 1/2 tsp. minced fresh oregano or 1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. garlic salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 1/2 cups dry instant stuffing mix
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
3/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

In large skillet, cook zucchini in 1 TBS. oil until tender, about 5-6 minutes; drain and set aside. In the same skillet, saute the onion and garlic in remaining oil for 1 minute. Add tomatoes, basil, oregano, garlic salt and pepper; simmer uncovered for 10 minutes. Remove from heat; gently stir in zucchini. Place in an ungreased 13-in. x 9-in. x 2-in. baking dish. Top with stuffing mix; sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Uncover and sprinkle with mozzarella cheese. Return to the oven for 10 minutes or until golden.

Apple Cole Slaw- recipe from allrecipes.com

I think Meow is tuckered out from our new schedule. She hardly got up for breakfast this morning, and the whole time I was in the kitchen she was sleeping here on the bed (on the afghan Trav's grandma made :)

~Becky

Gardening, Victoriously

On July 18, 2009, Trav and I went down to Seed Savers Exchange near Decorah, IA during their annual SSE's Conference and Camp out. Reason being, Trav's sister (under her father's tutelage) gave Trav a hardcover copy of the wonderful Garden Primer by Barbara Damrosch. Ms. Damrosch and her husband are both gardeners and authors (check them out at Four Season Farm), and were both speaking at the conference. We did not attend the conference, but Trav did get his book signed! After waiting in line for about 30 minutes, Trav said quietly to Ms. Damrosch, "It's nice to meet you," she signed the book, and that was it. Apparently Steve had a question for Trav to ask her, but neither of them could remember what it was.
After that, though, we checked out the farm, but because it was so busy we did not get see everywhere. We plan to go back at some point, maybe even for the conference next year as the food sounds REALLY good and is all local; as in everything is grown at the farm, or within a 50 mile radius of the farm.
There were example gardens for making salsa, herb gardens, tons of gardens! and an example Victory garden. I thought the sign was neat, especially after Time Magazine devoted a large amount of space towards Victory Gardens this spring, I think when Michelle Obama started one at the White House that apparently echoes Eleanor Roosevelt's from back in the day, and then there's our very own Victory Garden...
Anyways, the whole premise behind Seed Savers is saving and sharing heirloom seeds; they have the largest non-governmental seed bank in the US- now how cool is that?!? I could go on and on about specific seeds, i.e. how they finally found back a certain type of pure Swiss Chard seed in Australia that they had been looking for 10 years for (of course we purchased it along with sweet chocolate peppers, purple tomatoes, Italian broccoli, two kinds of cabbage, and Wenk's Yellow Hots Pepper). It was pretty inspiring for us, for obvious reasons (now I just have to catch up with the weeding again).
So, without further ado, (a small portion of) Seed Saver's Exchange-

Trav checking out the "example" gardens (By the way, a woman shrieked when she saw Trav's SDSU t-shirt, and was sorely disappointed that Trav has never actually been there. He told her he was just a proud brother, and agreed that his sister also thought the new jackrabbit image is just not as good as the vintage version)-
Myself, in the middle of the herb garden- which I bet would be neater earlier in the year before many of the herbs go to seed; but man! it smelled sooo good in there-

Our very own personal Victory Garden (look familiar?)...




Oh, and by the way, in case you haven't heard- We're famous now, too! You can check out our garden, which is now featured in a wonderfully written article, in the Springfield Advance-Press. (OK, they don't have an online paper to check out as they have a circulation of 1,685 according to the MN Newspaper Directory, and you'll have to ask us to see our copy; but Trav's sister wrote us a rave review, and it was pretty neat :).

Happy Gardening,

~Becky

Go directly to jail and do not pass "Go."

Here's a photo taken at our new place. Brad and I took Truman and neighbor Karl for a visit a few weeks back. Karl had me retake the picture below so that you could suck in his gut - I caught him off guard the first time around.

Also, Karls' been in jail for a full week now. We still don't know how long he's "in for."

I'm going to visit him after work tomorrow.

Anyway,

Everyone behave themselves and sorry it's been so long since I blogged:(

Liz

Cream of Kohlrabi, Rutabaga, and a few Turnips

Busy weekend...

I actually have interesting things to blog about, but no time to do so at the moment. I have to get to work pretty soon, but we had a very busy weekend. It was Trav's birthday, we picked and froze black caps (my dad is a great "scout"), and visited Seed Savers in Decorah, IA (more on that later); went to Trempeleau, WI for Lizzie's birthday and had a great brunch the next morning, and made 20 more batches of Cream of Turnip/Kohlirabi /Reutabega soup (100 cups of broth and 80 cups total of those three veggies...pictures to come, because it took us ALL day and I'm still in the process of freezing).

Later,
~Becky

PS I would have blogged yesterday, but I can seriously use the excuse that we had no electricity for several hours after I got home from work. A squirrel fried himself on the power line behind our house in the alley, and for some reason it took hours for the electric man to flip a breaker switch. I was sitting there using our brand new vaccuum packer (Trav's birthday present from his parents), and all of a sudden heard a big POP, which all of us neighbors agreed sounded like fireworks, which we are totally used to because somebody shoots them off daily in our neighborhood(even in the winter and regularly during the day when you can't even hear them). Regardless to say that squirrel put a big holt on my food processing and blogging last night.

Parsnips

This is part of our parsnip patch, which we finally got weeded and mulched last week. My grandparents saved their old grass clippings (from WI), which worked great and smell fabulous. I'll be outside and get a whiff of pine. So these things stay in until spring, and then we get to dig them up. Trav added more seed in the bare spots, so hopefully they will be nice and big before winter.
For supper tonight (not that everyone probably cares what we have for supper every night, but anyways) we tried mashed kohlrabi and potatoes with venison and gravy. It was interesting.
Mom and Dad, I hope you finished haying tonight (and aren't out there unloading right now).
~Becky

Trav made supper tonight!

Vegetables and steak (steak cooked separately)
When I got home from work, Trav already had cut up Anaheim and Pablano peppers, rutabaga, kohlrabi, zucchini, and onion. Mmmmmm... all from the garden.

Garden pic of the day...
A, still green, Heirloom Anna Russian Tomato from Seed Savers
Its just an interesting looking tomato. There is only one plant, so we have it in a container (actually its in a container because Trav ran out of room in the garden).

We've had to start watering everything like crazy, but once we started all of the plants seem to really appreciate it (which always makes it worth it).

I realize all I've been blogging is garden related, but that's really all we've been up to lately. Maybe we'll have something different after the next couple of weekends. One thing's for sure, we'll need to get out on the river when it supposed to be so nice out later this week.

Well, better go check the grill,
~Becky