There's A Nip In The Air

Foliage is past peak here,and many of the bright yellows,reds,are oranges are not quite as bright and pretty. Many leaves are in the process of turning brown. Our maple tree in the front yard has lost all it's leaves. While the we have been fairly fortunate with the weather-the temperatures haven't been too chilly-we are now starting a stretch of days in 40's and lows at night in the 20's. Today is overcast,and we had to start up the wood stove to ward off the chill. I have Cinnamon and Pumpkin Spice candles lit,and the heat and the scent make things very cozy.

We have finally figured out how big we want the barn.Now that the garden boxes have all been pulled up,it easier to visualize it and measure it out. The barn will be attached to our garage,and will measure 20' X 30'. Rick went down the street to our local lumber yard to check out pole barn packages with shiplap siding. We have to start digging very soon,before the ground hard freezes. As soon as we get our pricing,we can submit the plan to the town so we can get our building permit.

Today I am making soap,and am excited to use my new acrylic mold with dividers. I can make 15 bars of soap with it. I want to sell soap,and for it to look as nice as possible. I can not cut a straight line to save my life-so my previous soaps have always been less than pretty,which is OK for our use-but for selling purposes,not such a good thing.

I thought I would leave you with some photos of our Halloween outdoor decorations. You can see some of our new stairs/mini deck in the first photo. I am going to take better pictures when the new doors are in.

Have a lovely day!!!

Garlic Planting

It's that time of the year to plant garlic for next year's harvest. We decided this year to replant everything we grew this year,with the exception of  a few cloves that we had already used. This coming year,if all grows well,we should have 50 garlic plants,so can sell some garlic next year.

Rick has been taking the compost out of our square foot boxes and putting it back into the compost pile,saving the boxes that have not succumbed to the weather as of yet. Our boxes have been hanging out in NH weather for four or five years now,so it's understandable that some have felt the strain of winter and rain. As I mentioned in a previous post,we are moving our boxes because they are in the are where our barn/grazing area is going to be. Since I had to plant the garlic now,Rick moved two boxes next to the strawberries and herbs and refilled them with compost. I took the heads of garlic and removed all the cloves. I had 50 cloves exactly.

Each clove should be two inches deep and 8" apart. The pointy part of the clove should face down into the dirt.

Push that little guy down two inches....

...and cover it up with compost

Give the cloves a good watering and then cover them with 2-3 of mulch. We used straw. You can use leaves,etc.

Now you wait until Spring when the shoots first start showing up through the mulch! Pretty easy,isn't it?

Today's Harvest...

.......Greek Oregano and Rutgers Heirloom tomatoes! Delish!

My Favorite Time Of The Year

Fall is my favorite time of the year. The days may require a sweatshirt,but most are still comfortable,and the nights are nice and cool. Humidity goes away,although the random hot and humid day may make a brief appearance. It's time for apple picking,and decorating with pumpkins and mums. The leaves are starting to fall to the ground. I love when I am walking and am suddenly enveloped in gentle shower of leaves. The crunching sound they make as I walk through them is like a fall symphony. Crock pot meals are more frequent. I light cinnamon or pumpkin spice scented candles. It's time to make the house cozy.

This morning I was enjoying some blueberry coffee and sitting on the deck. It is a bit chilly in the mornings,usually in the 40's,so my bathrobe has become a morning fixture. We still have not started the wood stove,nor the furnace (we need to replace the furnace,actually). It hasn't been quite that cold or raw yet ,though a couple of mornings I was quite temped to throw some wood in the stove! Today it is cloudy,which has been unusual. Our weather has been glorious,lots of blue sky and bright sun.I guess the old sun has decided to take a break for a while!

The colors are coming in nicely on the trees. This is from Kings Highway, the front of our house, looking left towards the park across the street:

This is looking down Avon Lane,towards the back of our property:

We should be going apple picking fairly soon. Our apple tree only produced a few apples this year,but we were expecting that as we cut it back quite a bit at once. Our second tree is still too young to bear fruit.

I am by myself today. Rick,Zach,and Richie are with the Boy Scouts at the annual Fall Camporee for the weekend. My job for the day is to pick out windows and a door for the mudroom.

I thought I would leave you with an incredibly cute photo. Here is Richie with some of the kittens that we have been nursing:

Is that too adorable or what???

Sheep Make The Perfect Anniversary Gift

Yesterday was our 16th wedding anniversary. Looking back,time has certainly flown by.It seems like only yesterday we were just starting our life together. We have had our share of hell and back,but thankfully it has made our union stronger.

We always like to do something,just the two of us (this year,Richie was included,of course!). It so happened that we arranged to pick out our sheep on this day. We then figured we'd go to lunch,then take a nice drive through Sandwich,which is lovely little town north west of us.

Our first stop was at Colonial Acres Farm in Wakefield for 10:00 to pick out the sheep we wanted. Priscilla kept the ones that she is selling separate from the rest of her herd so we could get a good look at them. She had one white,and four black (three of were triplets). I wanted a white one so I could practice dyeing the wool,so that choice was easy. She was pretty,had a good body and was healthy.

Priscilla had just had these sheep sheared,and she had the fleece in bags separated. They hadn't been carded or cleaned yet,so we could feel and see the raw wool. The white one had a lovely wool,nice and soft. We felt all the black ones,and they were all nice,some more coarse than others,and there were some gray variations in the black wool ,but that didn't matter to me. The cool thing was we felt the lanolin in the wool,which of course,one does not get once it's been cleaned,washed,and carded.

I had my eye on on a little black one,mainly because I like her face and she didn't have a white mark on her face like the triplets. Her fleece was finer that than the others,and I liked that. She was shyer than the others,and faced away from us quite a bit,but she finally turned around and I got this photo of her:

Priscilla is very kind in keeping the sheep until the end of Nov for us when the barn should be complete. She told us all about the sheep's medical history,discussed when she had them sheared,and even the process of building the barn,though the more technical things she said her hubby would be better at answering. Since the black one we wanted was fairly small,she was nice enough to reduce the price by $50,saying that many folks wouldn't want a sheep that size. It didn't matter to me,I just feel in love her.

After we left Priscilla's,we went to lunch at the Wolfe's Tavern,which is located in the Wolfboro Inn in Wolfboro. Wolfboro NH is the oldest summer resort in the US. It's a cute small town,but the traffic is horrible. It's right on Lake Winnipesaukee,so there are a lot of tourists and second home owners who come up for the summer.( Many of the homes on the lake go for a million dollars plus). Rick and I each had nice cup of clam chowder,and I had a fabulous spinach salad with currants,caramelized purple onions,candied walnuts, and blue cheese crumbles,topped with a rhubarb strawberry vinaigrette.Rick enjoyed a chicken dish topped with provolone cheese,tomato relish that also had a tomato tapenade drizzled with lemon Aioli. It came with mashed potatoes and the veggie of the day.Rick told the waitress that it was the best chicken he had ever had,and she told us a bit later that when she mentioned that to the chef,the chef let out a whoop. Richie was very well behaved,and laid down under the table quietly the whole meal. No one would've known he was there if they had not seen us come in. The Wolfe Tavern is certainly a place we will go back to,and it's only 20 minutes up the road from us. New discovery!!!

Since the leaves are starting to change here,I thought it would be nice to take a drive somewhere pretty that we don't normally go to,and Sandwich called to me. Sandwich is pretty little town that was incorporated in 1763. There are gorgeous views of the mountains,and many old farms and colonial homes.I'ts the home to the League of NH Craftsman (gorgeous store),and the Sandwich Fair.It was named in honor of John Montagu,4th Earl of Sandwich( rumored to have created the sandwich).

Our trip took us to Sandwich Notch Rd,which is closed in winter. We stopped at Beede Falls,which was just a nice walk down a path.

Richie loves the water,and immediately went in. Rick said it was a good thing he had the shorter leash,because Richie would have gone right in!

We then walked to Lower Falls.

I love this photo!

Rick and Richie checked out Cow Cave. The story is that a local family's cow got caught in a storm and hunkered down in this cave until the storm passed.

We were both getting tied,so we headed back home. We did stop for a hot fudge sundae on the way,though. It was a lovely Anniversary!

Preserving Fresh Carrots

As you may have seen from my previous post,we did pretty well with our carrots this year. We wound up with approx. 8 lbs! We love carrots,but don't want to eat them morning,noon,and night,so of course,we had to preserve them. The choices:canning,freezing,or sticking them in damp soil in a bucket.

I opted for freezing,and keeping some to the side for meals this week,as well as some for Richie.

Now,many folks may think one just throws carrots in a freezer bag and plops them in a freezer (by many folks I mean me...I actually never preserved carrots,though). It requires a bit more than that,but not much. You have to blanch the carrots. Blanching is putting veggies in boiling water for a short period of time,then putting them in freezing water briefly,which stops the cooking process.It helps keep taste,color,texture from enzyme actions,cleans the surface of any left over dirt,and helps stop loss of vitamins,

The size of pot you boil them in depends on the size of the batch you wish to process. I used a dutch oven pot. While the water was coming to boil, cut off the ends....

.....and peeled them. I also set a large bowl in the sink and filled it with ice water. Since we have an artesian well,the water is very cold,so I didn't need to use ice cubes. I 

What to do with all the peelings and ends? Compost them,of course!!!

I cut the carrots into thin slices.(some thinner than others!) You can julienne them if you wish.

I put them in the boiling water and then waited for the water to come to a second boil. At this point,I boiled the slices for two minutes. ( Julienne carrots or baby carrots require a different boiling time). 

At the end of two minutes,I took the pan off heat,and quickly scooped out the carrots with a slotted spoon into the ice water. I let them sit in the water for 2-3 minutes.

I then drained the carrots and refilled by ice water bowl for the next batch. You can reuse the boiling water again,if you wish. If not,use fresh water.

You want to get as much of the water out of the carrots as possible before you bag them.

Fill your freezer bag. I used a gallon bag. You should leave an inch or so of space at the top,but get as much air as possible out of the bag.  I had been pressing on the bag to let out air,so that's why the bag looks full.

Write the date on the bag,and plop in your freezer! Ours went into our deep freezer downstairs. We will take out what we need for meals throughout the winter.

Enjoy!

Fall Harvest

Saturday I cleaned out the garden beds,with the exception of the pumpkin and tomato beds. 

Not the biggest harvest,but a harvest nonetheless:

The carrots were the biggest grower this year,beside the green beans. I could've left the carrots a while longer in the bed covered with mulch,but the beds are being moved.

See this photo below? This is where our barn is going to go.Right off our garage. The chicken coop is going to be turned to the left and will be  used for tool storage. The chickens will be kept in an area in the barn,with their own little outdoor roaming area. The window that you see on the garage is going-it's going onto the barn. That area will a door so we can access the barn from inside the garage. The back of the coop will also have a door so we can access it from inside the barn. Where I am standing in the photo will be a grazing area for the sheep and goats.

Next year,we are going to scale back the garden. It makes no sense to continue growing things that never do well,or that we never seem to eat. Garlic,carrots, and green beans are things we will grow,and more of them. This year's carrot crop was great. Plus,Richie eats green beans and carrots as part of his diet,so that will also save us money. What else we are going to do will be determined. I do want to grow a dye garden for dying my yarn.

Today I am going to freeze the carrots. Tonight it's ham,fresh carrots and potatoes (what we have of them).

How did your harvest go? Is there anything you have decided to stop growing because it just never seems to do well?