Pear Ginger Jam

I've been making jam. Local pears from the tree of a friend of my parent's. I use the regular pear jam recipe from the Ball Canning Blue book and add 1/3 C of grated fresh ginger for every 4 C of pears. Process in water bath for 15 minutes. I've got a headstart on my holiday gifts! Its a bit spicy and delicious.

More on Bread.

Interesting article.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/9/10/141858/028?source=daily

homemade white bread

I can't recommend this site enough! Although new recipes are infrequent, they are amazing and they are the type to be made over and over again. Susan hasn't ever disappointed me. Her recipes are wonderful.

http://ayearinbread.earthandhearth.com/2008/08/sandwich-loaf-recipes-on-year-in-bread.html


Now to be honest, I am not really a fan of white bread. But, that was before I made my own. I buy large quantities of flour from my food coop. Currently, I am using the Swany Flour. Wiki has some interesting info about them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swany_White_Flour_Mills

I am certain that there is nothing better in the world than a BLT on this bread with local bacon, your own homegrown heirloom yellow tomato and beet greens. I forgot to take a picture, but trust me, it was delicious!

The change of seasons

We found one, yes one, morel this spring. I was told that perhaps we were too early, but I don't believe that as the floor of the woods is already filling in nicely with foliage.

I've been taking pictures from the exact same spot in the barn to the barnyard. Look at how much greener it is now versus one month ago (the picture that is in the header). I was struck by the beauty of spring and how each season seems to be more beautiful than the previous one and how nice, cyclically that works out. When winter arrives, the snow is so beautiful. It tricks the mind to forget the vibrancy of the fall colors and the snow seems so peaceful and soft. When spring arrives, the new green is a feast for the eyes and the soul, and the bird songs filling the air make winter seem cold and cruel. Spring is the time of rebirth. Then summer. Ah, the dog days - the garden planting is done, we are enjoying the bounty of the garden with fresh veggies. Languorous canoe trips. It makes spring seem like hard work. Then fall. Crisp evenings, rooms with soft lit candles, something simmering on the stove, the beautiful colors.

Each season is more beautiful, fragrant and appealing than the last one. It continues on and on.

We sauteed the one morel with butter and savoured it. We also had a salad of dandelion greens and sauteed dandelion root from the yard.

Spreading compost

Oh, the fun of spring! Husband and I spread our composted manure on Wednesday night. It was 70 degrees in Chicago.

I've also attached a picture of our rain barrels. We were able to maintain our garden and plantings entirely by use of these barrels last year. These two are ganged together. We also have one off of the garage roof that is on a soaker hose for the serviceberry and other new shrubs that we getting established. Note that these are built up off the patio on a platform to use gravity in watering and also allows us to get our watering cans underneath.

We spread all 15 bags of compost. Husband put about 7 in the front parkway. I used the rest on the gardenbed shown above and on the side beds. I was also able to get a mesclun greens mix planted. Hope to be eating fresh, homegrown salads soon. I need to convince Husband to build me a small coldframe to extend my growing season for greens.

Happy Earth Day weekend!

Seasonal creek is running

OK, so its more like a drainage ditch. :) But, it sounds like a creek and looks like a creek, so I can call it a creek, right? During the spring thaw and after heavy rains we have a "creek" that runs. It is fed by the runoff of the valley as well as the spring-fed small pond next to the barn. By the way, tThe pond never froze all winter. We hope to dig it out a bit and turn it into a real pond with native wetland plants and maybe some fish?

The previous owner had scraped the barnyard and put the manure in a pile on the side of the barn. During our realtor negotiations when we were purchasing the farm, I had requested that it not be moved and left for us. No problem was the reply. ha! On Saturday, we dug up 15 reusable bags (or previously used the type that mulch or compost come in - the big un's) of that gorgeous, lovely, amazing composted manure and loaded up the trailer. We brought it home to Chicago to amend my vegetable bed and our parkway. We had a major water main repair done last fall and it destroyed our good parkway soil with lots of clay from the deep holes the plumbers had to dig to get to our water meter and vault.

seedling pics

Slow going. I'm finally seeing some sprouting. No true leaves on anything yet. I'm a little bit worried about a few of my varieties. I've heard that heirloom (non-hybrid) are harder to start/grow. We'll see. Nothing happening at all on the basil front. I'll give it thru the weekend and if they still haven't sprouted, I'll re-do them.

A couple of the tomatoes are up. Brandywine, Green Zebra. And the kale is really rolling along. I think one of the brussel sprouts are also trying to peek thru. I started some herbs and peppers on Tuesday.