Blogging Break

Due to the craziness of the garden and our life, I have decided to take a two week blogging break. I hope y'all come back and rejoin me again for more garden updates and farm living when I get back to blogging. Summer on the farm is one of my favorite times, but it is also the busiest. We did get the rest of our garden planted over the last week so I will have lots of great pictures to post about our garden experience when I return! Who knows what wonderful dishes will cross our dinner table between now and then. If I find any treasures, I will be sure to post the recipes. Did I mention that today was the last day of school for my children? I don't know which of us is happier...me or them!!! I am ready to celebrate!!!! It is the time of year to fire up the grill and plug in the electric ice cream maker. We have turned our carport into an outside family dining area, and we have eaten out there almost every night for the past week. It is so nice to have the breeze blowing and wind chimes ringing during dinner. Enjoy your next few weeks, and I am sure I will enjoy mine! See ya soon!!!!

grace and peace,
julie

Graduation: Mission Accomplished

We have been busy in the garden, and now we are starting to reap the rewards. Fresh broccoli is so wonderful. I am thinking about making a creme of broccoli soup with homemade bread for dinner tonight. Don't forget to add a huge garden salad to the mix. It is tasty and cheap so what could be better?


My flowers decided to bloom at just the right time this year. I had a beautiful vase for the entire weekend. I got to share them with the out of town family that came to celebrate the graduation with us.

And speaking of graduation...it was wonderful. I am thankful that the weekend went so well. We all had a lot of fun!
Matthew had asked his dad if he could have a big camp out with some of his graduating friends on Saturday night. They were going to camp out by our pond and fish all night. My husband said yes, but he forgot to mention it to me. By the time I found out about it, it was pouring down rain and all the extra boys ended up in our basement. They had a ball, and I was happy that they found a safe place to spend graduation night. We have one major rule at our house for sleepovers with teenagers. We make all teenagers leave their car keys in our bedroom at night. This way they can't leave without our knowledge. This was my husband's idea...I wonder what he did at sleepovers when he was a teenager????

grace and peace,

julie

Life is Good

Garden progress is continuing rather slowly, but at least it is getting accomplished. If the wind stops blowing so hard, I plan on finishing planting the green beans. If the wind keeps blowing, I am going to head to the basement and watch t.v. How is that for taking my lemons and making some lemon aide?

We have a super busy weekend and I am trying to get myself together to make sure everything is in order. Our oldest son is graduating this weekend, and our third son is playing a travel ball tournament against his most feared opponents. To make things even more stressful, our son will be pitching for one of the games. I already have butterflies in my stomach over this! We will be having out of town family coming for both events. Too bad that the three ballgames are played an hour away at the same time the graduation is scheduled. Of course we will all be at the graduation except for our baseball player pitching to his most dreaded opponent. I feel like we have left him out to dry all alone since none of us will be there to support his efforts.

I was going to host a huge graduation dinner, but I knew when to throw up the white flag of surrender. I did that two weeks ago, and our graduate didn't mind one little bit. We offered to take him and his grandparents out to Carraba's as a celebration. He was good with that so I got myself off the hook for hosting a huge dinner. I will make a special cake for us all to enjoy later that evening. I don't like to say I can't do it all, but sometimes that is the only sensible thing to do. I don't like the fact that we can't be two places at once, but there are times that it just doesn't work out the way I would like.

I have worked on getting our house in order for our company so that the last minute cleaning thing won't be so overwhelming. I have also planned my menu and I will buy the groceries on Friday. If all goes well, I will bring two weeks worth of groceries home to a clean house! I will then bake a cake and greet relatives. I will then be watching my first born graduate and be wondering what my little man is doing on the pitcher's mound. Life is good, and I wouldn't change a thing...except the time of the graduation!!!!

grace and peace,

julie

Garden Tidbits

Our sunflowers are coming up wonderfully this year. This picture was taken with last year's supply of sunflowers. The sunflowers didn't do much last year. I don't know the problem, but this year I planted more and more and more sunflower seeds just to make sure we didn't have a repeat failure. I see lots of different types of sunflower seeds poking up their pretty little petals down in our garden area. We didn't get as much done in the garden on Mother's Day as I had hoped, but we sure had a nice day. I have spent much of my day out there today working hard. I am hoping a husband or a son will come home and get the tiller going this evening so I can finish up the planting in the big garden. We have had so much rain this year and I am so thankful, but it has slowed us down a bit planting the garden.

Our table is filled with fresh garden lettuce of all different varieties, spinach, broccoli, green onions, and a few strawberries. The squash, cucumbers, okra, and zucchini plants are doing nicely, but still way too small to produce anything as of yet. I have an entire bed full of beautiful peas. I also have some beets, radishes, and cabbage plants that are growing. I will be succession planting more lettuce and spinach very soon. I may also do another planting of squash and zucchini. My goal for tonight is to plant green beans. Surely, I can get that done!!!!

grace and peace,

julie

Happy Mother's Day

"Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward."
Psalm 127:3

I pray y'all enjoy your special day and the family that the Lord has given to you.

grace and peace,

julie

Pantry Count and Clean Up

I finally conquered the cleaning of our laundry room/pantry area. It was a job that came complete with me threatening to throw excess shoes belonging to the children into the neighbor's donkey field. Apparently they all believed me because amazingly everyone took their shoes and put them away in a safe location. With the cleaning of the laundry room came me counting and organizing my mason jars. Remember that last year I had EVERY jar we owned filled with something yummy to eat. We have eaten our way through lots of the canned goods, but we still have lots left so I am pleased.

After counting the remaining jars, I know I will not have to can cinnamon applesauce, jalapenos, green tomato relish, red tomato relish, dill pickles, or lime pickles for this upcoming season. We still have plenty to last us another complete year. This will save me a lot of time this year, and of course I am thrilled about that. I encourage you to take count of your remaining items in the pantry. I was blindly assuming that I would have to can both kinds of pickles this year so I was planning on planting an entire bed of cucumbers. Now that I realize my pickle supply is good, I will only plant a half bed of cucumbers for eating and sharing.

The thing I hate about organizing is that I spent the entire morning working and the laundry room is the only thing that looks nice. The rest of the house looks like a bomb went off during the day! My day today will be cleaning the rest of the house and making a nice dinner. By the way, we are having our first meal with garden broccoli for this season. I am looking forward to that!!!!

grace and peace,

julie

Gardening

Our garden is growing nicely. I am going to harvest broccoli and some strawberries today. I could cut some lettuce, but it doesn't go with my supper menu so I will leave it to grow for another day. I have many plants sitting on my patio table waiting to be planted, but the rain won't stop long enough. I am waiting and hoping that by Sunday it will be dry enough to plant. I planted an entire bed of baby zinnias, but something happened and they are all gone. Zinnias are my all time favorite flower so you can bet your bottom dollar that as soon as it dries up I will be planting lots of zinnia seeds. I do have some sunflowers poking through the ground. I love to make flower arrangements with different varieties of sunflowers. They are so cheerful placed in pretty vases throughout the house.

In some ways, it seems like a slow going garden season. I know that shortly we will be living, eating, and breathing garden produce so I am o.k. for now.

grace and peace,

julie

Mother's Day Desires

My love language is acts of service. I enjoy a nice gift, but I LOVE when somebody does an act of service for me. This brings me to Mother's Day. Every year I ask for the same Mother's Day gift. My oldest son already is dreading his part. He has a job now, and he would rather spend $$ on me than what I really want. He knows me well enough to know that won't work. So he is preparing himself for the day ahead. My desire is that everybody work in the garden with me, and be HAPPY about it. We will finish planting, and we will set up the drip works to the beds that are already planted. We will weed the strawberries and just get everything in tip top shape in the garden. In the past, I have spotted our two oldest boys doing a rain dance on Mother's Day. If you want to see happy kids, come to my house on Mother's Day if it is raining HARD outside. This happened last year. Truth be told I just like all of us to be together on Mother's Day, and if we can do it in the garden that is just a bonus for me! The one thing I don't want to do on Mother's Day is to go to a restaurant. I like having my men folk grill a nice meal, and I don't even mind chipping in and helping in the kitchen. Some may call me weird, but I would so much rather eat at our own table than at a busy restaurant. How about you? What do you enjoy doing on Mother's Day?

grace and peace,
julie

Want Some?

We love Dessert Pizza. It is a nice make ahead dessert that always hits the spot! If you want to make it yourself, here is the recipe that I use. For the crust, I use a Walmart brand sugar cookie roll. This stuff NEVER comes into our house unless I am making dessert pizza. It has a lemony flavor that is nice. You could make a homemade sugar cookie crust if you wanted.

For the crust: Spread out one roll of sugar cookie dough onto a regular pizza pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes. Take out and cool completely.

Mix a regular package of softened creme cheese and 1/4 cup powder sugar, 1 Tablespoon half and half, plus a teaspoon of vanilla. When crust is cooled, spread creme cheese mixture over the cookie crust.

Use any assortment of fruit that you like for the topping. We always use sliced kiwi, sliced strawberries, and blueberries. Often times I also add some sliced pineapples. Cover it and refrigerate until ready to use. I usually make it in the morning and serve it in the evening. It is still good the next day. This is a great dessert for picnics!

grace and peace,

julie

Farm Thoughts

I found an article today written by another farmer. Wow, did he hit the nail on the head of what we have been feeling here on our little homestead. I encourage you to go read it at the following link: http://midlandagrarian.blogspot.com/2009/05/agrarian-rat-race.html

I have had these exact same thoughts. I may not MAKE any extra income, but if I can save $10,000 from not having to buy items at the grocery store then that is quite an income indeed! We still have a large grocery bill even though we raise most of our own vegetables. The real savings comes when we no longer have to purchase our meat at the store. It won't be much longer now seeing as how the cow, the sheep, and the chickens are all growing by the day! We also drink an enormous amount of milk in our house. I could save a ton of money by milking the cow. Perhaps one day I can really achieve that goal, but for today I will be happy with meat and veggies!

grace and peace,

julie

Bittersweet

I found our horses a new home yesterday. I am so excited that they are going to a good home with older girls that will care for them. I know the horses will be trained and brushed like they never were here. I am excited. However, this means that my days of horse ownership will soon be coming to a close. I will miss their sweet loves and the sound of their hooves running down the hill. I have so enjoyed these big babies, but I know we are making the right decision. I didn't think it would be easy to give them away, but the Lord has given me such peace about it. They will remain on our farm until June. This will give me a few more weeks to enjoy them.

grace and peace,
julie