bellevett

weekending x 2

 

 

 

so the past few weekends have been just the sort of weekends i have needed most.

both were made up of relaxation and productivity.

truth be told, i have been a bit preoccupied with a project here in my little land.  and that project is a new quilt for my boy for his first birthday.  which is coming up next week. on valentines day.  also known as my baby boys first birthday.  so, i deemed it fit to begin sewing him a quilt 2 weeks before, cause that's just what i do.  so, the knitting has been put down and all other interests have been put on hold until this quilt is finished.

except.........

we did find our way out doors 2 weekends ago when the weather got to a point where it should have been considered a sin to stay indoors.  it was still a bit cold, but the sun.  oh the sun.  it was quite nice.  seeing as though this winter has been unseasonably weird and totally unpredictable, seeing sun after months of overcast and rain and 50 degrees with no snowflake to be found, the sun was a welcomed player.

i dug up my beets and one lone carrot, just to see how it was doing.  i planted some arugula and some french breakfast radishes, just for kicks.  who knows, we may not get below 40 degrees at all this winter.  i am proceeding forward with my plans.  after all, the farmers almanac does seem to back up the claim that we will most likely not have any substantial winter here in the valley. 

i pulled up some spinach and re-mulched the kale. 

i turned all of our cover crops on our other two beds.

crosby took the whole garden bed terminology to heart and took up residence laying and rolling in the bed like it was his personal space. 

sourdough bread was made.  and....... meeeh. it needs some work i tell you.  i wont give up yet..

last night i made a giant salad and i used some pickled beets that i canned last summer.  they were by far one of the tastiest things i have canned ever.  and i now remember why i always plant so many beets.  also, the miniature beet eater in the family had some fresh beets last night roasted in the oven with salt, pepper and olive oil.  yes. they were Tasty.  capital t.

the truth is, i have begun my new pinboard on pinterest for my future farm. and i am seriously craving some fresh foods right now.

but, before i get into all that, i have a few days left to finish a quilt that i spent all last night seem ripping out the border after i saw a mistake that i just couldn't ignore.  so, the farm talk will have to wait for a few more days. 

happy tuesday.

tour of the grounds.

daily tour of the grounds begin like this:

wanna join us?

first stop, watering pail.

beets:

kale, still growing strong:

looking up:

looking down:

and we're off:

 

 

Friday was a beautiful sunny day.

by the time crosby and i got home, it was a bit overcast. 

that didn't stop us from our daily tour of the grounds.

crosby has gone from laying on a blanket outside.....

to sitting up attempting to reach the nearest sticks and rocks......

to scooting to get a stick........

to crawling to find the biggest stick and most dirt......

to speed crawling around our house for his daily tour of the grounds.

his daily adventures happen in the cold and the sun and the warm. 

in the beginning, i thought i would be taking crosby for a local hike at least daily.

i have learned that it doesnt matter if it is the top of the mountain or the patches of grass and garden around our house, adventure is adventure.  when your 11 months old, if you're outside, the awesome factor is pretty high.

*************

i was actually kind of getting depressed that we don't seem to be getting a decent winter. 

i am the type of person who enjoys a lazy day on the couch with some knitting and a fire in the woodstove.

but, big news.  i have moved on.

i am tired of waiting, so  i am accepting our non- winter winter, and i am now moving forward.

bring on spring!

and my fresh vegetables.

**************

i have been watching my frozen and canned veggie stash dwindle away slowly. 

i used the last of our frozen blueberries the other day. 

i am ready to start again, and every year, my garden and preserving plans get bigger and bigger.

i am hoping this is leading me up to finding a super awesome and cheap piece of land in the near future.

one can hope. and dream.

pretty sure my sourdough starter would for real be better on some land.  on a farm.  yes indeed.

 

ohhhhh, forgot to mention, i have moved my 365 project pics over here:

http://bellevett.typepad.com/threehundredsixtyfive/

add it to your reader and visit. 

Thankful five- day 2: fresh foods.

 

 

when we bought this house 5 years ago, we had big gardening plans.

each year, our garden plots have expanded, adding new ones, enlarging old ones.

each year, we plant more and different and we hope and plan and tend as much as we can.

we have lots of failures.

we have lots of successes.

i am so grateful for the fresh quality food we have been able to grow each year.

 

"inch by inch, row by row, were going to make this garden grow."

 

 

five days of thankfulness links:

day 1

outdoor goodness.

exactly 2 months ago, 2 weeks before our first almost frost, we dug up our sweet potatoes and planted our garlic.

on this day, it was unseasonably warm, think 80's. thus, the baby in the onesie.

we thinned our beets, lettuce, and our kale.

yesterday, we spent the day corralling leaves. mixing them into the composter with the last of any fresh grass clippings until next year, and layering them over our garlic.  we gave all of our ridiculously out of control kale and beets a good composting layer and then topped it with leaves. 

i picked a rediculously large amount of kale to eat this week and freeze, and covered our spinach up with compost and leaves, it will come back in the spring.

i thinned our baby carrots with the intent of bringing the thinned carrots in and steaming them for crosby.  they never actually made it that far.  actually.

i made plans to move a random shaded blueberry bush to the front where it will get sun and most likely produce blueberries, but i guess that is a project for the spring- no need to shock the roots now, with the cold moving in.

i also moved my collection of rubber gardening shoes to the basement instead of right outside of our door, which produced a fake protest: "awww, why did you move our rubber shoe collection out of eyesight??" insert sarcasm.

in one month, garlic is sprouting, the cover crop is growing good, the beets are standing tall, the kale is pretty much out of control, all of our carrots are growing straight, and the weather is about 30 degrees cooler.  if i could be a farmer, it would be a cold weather crop farmer, because somehow, i have the magic with cold weather crops.

you may be asking yourself why there are no pictures of yesterday.  well, in one month, we have a baby that crawls. no more sitting him with a bucket of potatoes to let him gnaw on while we slowly finish the garden chores, while casually snapping a few cute photos.

if you read what was accomplished above- maybe read it again in your fastest speed reader voice, and that would have been more of the pace that i kept yesterday.

as the keeper of the crawling baby, we spend a lot of outdoor time doing multiple mouth sweeps to clear various species of leaves and branches and dirt from actually being ingested. 

also, he is now obsessed with crawling after the dogs, and i have visions of the dogs leading him down the road and away from the house to rid themselves of the constant hair pulling and general dog obsession shenanigans.

this all may sound crazy to you, or normal to you, depending on your situation.

but the truth is, no matter what the pace of our outside time, it is always extra enjoyable.  crosby is an outdoor baby.  he would live, sleep, play outside if that was an option.  he can be at his fussiest, and when we leave the inside, no matter the temperature, it calms him.  the outdoors are like a drug for him.  comforting, soothing, and entertaining.

 

 

last taste of summer- or the little melons that could.

note to next years gardening self: grow more baby watermelons.

 

 

 

 

while we were out watering our little fall garden and taking note of  the million and a half things that need to be done in the garden before the first frost (and i was simultaneously having a semi panic attack internally)- i went with crosby in arms to check out our delinquent and sad watermelons. 

these watermelons had a sordid past.  i planted a whole bunch of these watermelon seeds with big hopes.  they didnt take off quite as quickly as the squash, and were getting slightly shaded by some peas that were somehow still going strong at the end of may.  when i realized they werent going to make it, i promptly dug up a few of the plants and moved them over to another bed where they would be free to grow at their own speed.  a montessori bed, if you will. even as i moved them as gently as possible, they just didnt really want to be uprooted from their un montessori bed, and never really thrived.

i nurtured them with water and compost, and even a trellis, which they seemed to enjoy greatly.  only two small plants survived, and by the end of august we had 3 baby watermelons.  i really didnt have any hope for these watermelons, and had prepared my speech for those plants along the lines of ," you had a good run, babies, next year, next year will be your year to shine."

so you can imagine my surprise when i walked up to the watermelon area and pushed gently on the biggest watermelon to check out if it would ever be edible and it cracked open, revealing a bright yellow center.  loving all things melon, crosby immediately stuck his tongue on the watermelon, which i had predicted to be tasteless, as it was smaller than even a baby watermelon should be.  when he started furiously sucking the juice out, cody and each tasted it.  cody deemed it a watermelon that tasted like straight sugar, and the rest was history. (see above.) 

the little watermelon that was so small that i almost threw it into the compost bin was just the perfect size for two small little chubby hands. 

the melons that could.  i still have one more on the vine. 

if you love your freezer.

if you love your freezer.

if you have anywhere from 8- 25 (or more) stray tomatoes.

if you arent into canning.

THIS is a good post for you to read.

here is how i make my basic roasted tomato sauce.

sometimes it's more like a paste, but ok. here we go.

 

you need:

a baking sheet covered with aluminum foil with about a tablespoon of olive oil spread around on it.

tomatoes

a knife.

a preheated oven to 325.

around 4 hours of time for cooking. (unless you leave your house when your oven is on, and in that case you may only need around 30 minutes or so.)

step 1: wash your tomatoes.

i use a produce wash with mine. 

step 2: core tomatoes 

 

step 3: cut tomato in half and use your finger to get out all of the seeds and juice from those tiny pockets.

step 4: lay your seedless, juice-less tomato down onto your oiled sheet with the skin side up.

step 5: put into oven and roast at 325 for around 3-4 hours.  turning your sheet every hour or so.

step 6: when your tomatoes are looking less juicy (see below.), and it's been about 3 or 4 hours, take them out of the oven.

step 7: after letting them cool, gently peel off the skins.  they should slip right off. or squeeze the tomato out of the skins if they are giving you any trouble.

step 8: optional! put into bowl, drain off any excess juice, and mash up with a fork. you have to do this in small batches.

now you are pretty much done.  you can put these into the freezer just the way they are and use them to make an amazing salsa, or pasta, or whatever.  you could put them into a pot on the stove and use an immersion blender to really puree them.  and then cook them longer on low reducing them to a delicious paste to use for a pizza sauce (try it with roasted garlic.  o my.)  skip the freezer and eat it that night! the world is your oyster at this point. 

for those of you who are interested, i filled up 2 baking sheets with tomatoes.  i ended up with a little over 3 cups of tomato puree.  i used a better boy tomato.  if you use a roma, polish linguisa, or other heirloom tomato with a saucy less juicy quality you will get quite a bit more.

go and make your freezer happy.

weekending with tomatoes.

this weekend was my last and final fling with the giant boxes of bright red tomatoes. 

around 3 o clock on friday afternoon, we were home, armed with around 75 pounds of bright red spotless tomatoes.

i started roasting, canning, freezing, and repeating.

by 7 o clock, the idea of eating tomato sauce from a bpa containing can that i could buy from the grocery store in the middle of december was looking pretty enticing and i was a little more than over these tomatoes. 

i was cheering to the fact that i would not be elbow deep in tomato juice again for at least another 10 months.

i started to get in that deep dark place.  why were we dealing with these blasted tomatoes when we should be out enjoying a beautiful brisk friday night?

i began lamenting in my head how its friggin september.  and you know what you do in friggin september?  you make apple butter.  applesauce.  start building fires.  making chili.  repeat.  and i was dealing with tomatoes.

so, i took a break.  and made a pizza. 

while the tomatoes were simmering on the stove and in the oven, we went outside and sat with the pizza.

i am pretty sure it was only 68 degrees out or something amazing like that.

it made me think about eliot coleman's mantra in this land is in your hands, during times of car trouble, compost issues, weather problems, etc.

as told by his daughter:

"how many son of gun's are this lucky."

(there are actually i think some choice words in that statement)

 

here i was, eating a delicious pizza. on a blanket. in 70 degree weather. and i am lucky enough to have 75 pounds of tomatoes in the kitchen to can, freeze, roast, and dry for the winter. 

 

so while i chugged on with an often hungry and eventually tired and fussy baby, 2 hungry dogs, 2 cats that want to go outside and come back in two seconds later- i could only think of the future when all of our kids will be grown and away, these animals will be long since gone, and it's just Cody and I in the kitchen. while i know that we will be old and happy and in love, i can only imagine that i will wish that i could see and feel this very moment for just a few minutes longer before it vanishes back into the memories of the past.  the moment of your tiny first born desperately trying to crawl on the kitchen floor just to reach the very end of a dog tail.  the two sweet cats that have various personalized theme songs and lounge about in front of any door you are trying to walk through. the two dogs that have seen it all so far:  love, marriage, tears, happiness, heartbreak, apartments, houses, and many mountain trails.

 

so with a giant to do list that has to be completed pronto, knitting that needs to be finished before the weekend, and a laundry pile that might actually over take me at some point, i am currently feeling like a lucky son of a gun.

 

linking with amanda.

hope the legends arent true....

i remember avoiding watermelon seeds as a small child for fear that a watermelon would grow in my stomach.

then i got a little older and a lot more rebellious, and started swallowing the seeds.

apparently the rebellion has already begun, and this one is going straight to the source, a seed packet:

 

 

 

 

things have changed since this picture.  it is 30 degrees cooler, and our sprouts are 3-4 inches higher. no more diaper only clothing optional days in the garden for us.

but our future is looking up:

warm spinach salads!

kale soups!

roasted carrots!

beet salad!

 

 

 

grow.

above: baby kales.

after writing this post, i promptly went out into my smallest raised bed and did a little makeover. 

non producing tomato plants that had run their course were ripped out as well as some straggling cucumber plants.

we filled the bed to the very brim with brand new compost. 

i promptly planted the seeds of kale, spinach, carrots, and beets.

we have daily watered and watered and our water barrel is now completely drained.

above: baby spinach.

above: baby beets.

 

all of our seeds have now sprouted.  it is such a breath of fresh air when those tiny little sprouts come up.  now that crosby is sitting up and able to feed himself, we are introducing more and more solid foods into his diet.  happily, most everything is from our garden.  somehow, i can grow a dang good carrot, and luckily, he has an extreme affection for carrots.  and squash.  and sweet potatoes.

as well as an extreme affection for water. 

yarn along.

linking for this yarn along.

while i am still reading through to the lighthouse by virginia woolf, i have been flipping through this canning for the next generations book.  i scored this copy from the library, and had intended on copy a few stellar-have-to-make recipes out of it for my personal recipe book.  i do have about 100 canning books, after all. 

after perusing this book for a little while, i simply have to own a copy.  there are so so so many delectable treats of recipes in this book that i cannot pass up.  eeeekkkss.

i also have this book, this book, and this book added to my wish list.  apparently, i have an epic canning year in my future. 

in knitting news, i am finishing up the last sleeve on my levenwick.  the above yarn will soon be turned into a sweater of perfection for cody.  i am swatching this yarn today.  i purchased this yarn at my lys, and it really is dreamy.  and milled in the us.  score and score.  this is a project that i am vowing to dot every i and cross every T.  complete with making, and BLOCKING the swatch and all that type of stuff that good knitters do.  because in the end, 1200 yards of yarn for a big man size sweater is a lot of time to spend on a sweater that you wonked up here and there to get it to fit.  for a change, i will follow someone else's directions.

in preservation news, i have a few pounds of peppers to chop and freeze and a 5 pounds of cucumber to turn in to freezer pickles.  (of the dill variety...)

oh, and before i go, here are a few pictures of another being in our house who finds much fascination in yarn and a metal bin that is easily banged on for maximum sound pleasure. (and sometimes chewed on, if you are into that sort of thing.)

oh the blurry quality of the photos? yeah, that is possibly a result of a certain small being who enjoys licking and touching the camera lens.  yeah, maybe clean the camera is going to be added to the todo list for today.