Fishing and Snapping Beans

Josh and Rory have two days a week that are their "boys days."  I know they both look forward to them.  Rory has been asking to go fishing for quite some time.  This week they were able to go to Josh's parents and get some good quality fishing time in.  I was at work but it sure was fun to hear their fishing stories and see the pictures.  Rory assured me that he caught 4 fish--although he did confess that he didn't touch the worms or the fish.  I can't blame him there--he must get that from me.  Rory also took a ride with Pappy on the John Deere lawn mower and saw his baby cousin Carl.  It made for one busy day!

The boys got home a little later than usual so we canceled our usual evening plans and stayed home to work in our yard and garden.  It ended up not being what we had planned but it was a beautiful evening and we had a lot of fun being together and pretending to be farmers. 

I wish I could say that these lovely green beans are from my garden but **big sigh** they are not.  We were able to get one good picking off our beans.  It must have been at that point that the neighborhood rabbits realized that we had in fact planted the beans for ourselves.  Within 2 days all 3 rows of beans were chomped down to stems.  Stinkin' rabbits.   Josh's sister, Rebecca and her husband are real farmers and I'm thankful that she had plenty of beans to share. You can read all about her farm adventures here.  As dorky as it sounds I was excited to have a bushel basket too!  Even though we are smack dab in the middle of suburbia it makes me feel like we are living on our own little homestead.

Rory was a good helper snapping beans--he lasted for at least 15 minutes and was able to keep the ends separate from the good pieces.  Once Josh started pulling weeds and digging in the garden I lost my little helper.  In all it took about 2 hours for me to snap 1/2 bushel.  This may sound even more dorky but I LOVE snapping beans.  It's very therapeutic.  I can get into a good rhythm and move my fingers without thinking.  In some ways it reminds me of music and playing the piano.  Get into a rhythm and let your fingers do the rest.  

When I was younger I would stay with my grandparents in Indiana for a week in the summer.  I loved it.  There was always some adventure to be had.  I can remember sitting on the screened porch with my Grandma snapping beans.  I don't know why I distinctly remember that but I'm thankful it's a memory I have.  She passed away when I was 15.  I have some great memories but I wish she was still around so I could more solid memories instead of fuzzy ones that are in pieces.  Most of the things we did revolved around food and the kitchen.  There was always something to be learned.  I can remember calling her once I got back home to talk me through how to make something.  I miss hearing her voice and her advice.  I really could have used her advice once I started to can these beans.  After all this hard work not one of my jars sealed so I froze them instead.  After a telephone consult with my mother -in-law we discovered a few crucial mistakes that I can fix so hopefully when I can the next batch they will seal.

This is our resident green bean stealer...a.k.a Jessie Mae.  She would run up on the deck, grab a few beans and then run away before I could catch her.  She is a sneaky one!

We stayed outside until it was bedtime.  We were all exhausted after such a long productive day.  It's days like this that make me so happy.  No running around to do and all of us are together.  It didn't cost us any money to dig around in the yard, have fun and be together.

I'm looking forward to many more days like this one!

The Harvest Begins....

As with the rest of the Midwest we have been pounded with rain everyday.  Although normally this is great for crops I was worried that ours were going to rot from lack of sunshine and the ground hasn't dried out in over 2 weeks.  Luckily, the things we have planted loved the rain and have flourished!

Tonight was the first "picking" and it was very exciting!  Rory wasn't too sure at first but he got the hang of it quickly--and he was allowed to walk around in the mud.  Not sure which he thought was more fun-the mud or picking from the garden!

In all, we picked 2 zucchini (there are lots more that are just days away from being ready) and about 16 ounces of green beans!  One thing we learned already that we should not have done is stagger our beans.  I thought we would be overwhelmed with beans so we spaced each planting about 2 weeks apart but since I'm planning on canning them it would make more sense to have a bunch of beans ready at the same time.

Josh said we could get probably 3 pickings off of each bean plant so hopefully I can refrigerate what I have and time things so I can can a full batch at once.  I don't really want to drag out my canner for 1 or 2 jars.  Next time we will plant all our seeds at the same time, at least for things I want to preserve.

Before we put a fence around the yard, a deer came and munched our strawberry plants to the ground.  I thought there was no recovering from that.  I've heard strawberry plants are fairly hardy so I let them be to see what would happen.  They came back--and with more blooms that they originally had!  There were 2 berries ready.  I think Rory was most excited to pick those!  The birds had done a number on one so really only one little berry was ready for eating.

He wanted to eat one right away.  In the spirit of eating fresh from our garden we all gathered in the kitchen and I sliced up our one little berry.  We counted to 3 and popped our teeny tiny bite in our mouth....it was one of the SOUREST berries I've ever had.  Rory was a trooper though--he made a pucker face and eeked out, "yum..."  I had to laugh because he was being such a good sport.  In the fall, we are going to clear a larger portion of the yard and move the berry plants.  Maybe next year we will have more than one berry to eat!

This is the first year Josh and I have purchased fresh beef....as in, fresh from the farm--can't get any fresher.  Josh's sister and brother-in-law are dairy farmers but also raise cows for meat.  It is the BEST meat I've ever had.  No joke--will never buy red meat from the grocery again.  In comparison-the grocery store tastes like rubber.

This is also the first time I've ever called the processing place to order what I want.  Bless the woman's heart for helping this city girl out.  She was asking me all sorts of questions about what I wanted and I had no clue what she was talking about.  I do have a few cuts of meat, like short ribs, that I've never used before so this will expand my cooking horizons!  She did throw me a bit when she asked if I knew what cow I was getting...I paused and said that if she had the name I would prefer not to know.  I still don't know and I don't want to.  That lead me though to ask her about the whole process.  I know that Becca and Dan are nice to their cows and treat them humanely.  The barns are clean and the cows look as happy as the ones in the commercial on tv. :)  I'm happy to report that the whole process is as humane as it can be--and quick.  No suffering on our part.   I'm not a part of PETA or anything but it does make me feel better knowing exactly where my food came from and that no cow was treated wrongly.  

I thought one cooler would fit  most of our meat...luckily, Josh thought to take laundry baskets and that is how our meat rode home!  Our freezer is now chock full and I'm just itching to get the grill out!  Our next menu plan should be quite exciting!

I've been trying to purchase local and organic because it's better for our bodies, the animals and the environment so I'm really pumped that the majority of what we will be eating over the next few months is about as local as we can get!

How does your garden grow?

I haven't waited for this evening ever since we looked at our house before purchasing in December--time to plant the garden!  Rory and I have been talking about it so I knew he was excited too!  

Josh and Rory worked in the garden before I got home to get the ground ready.  I see my men have a thing for wearing shorts and boots!  Ha!

Today was an extra special treat because not only was there dirt to dig and seeds to plant but huge machinery at the pond behind our house.  You can kind of see an orange truck just above Josh's left shoulder.  A new bike path is going in so tractors and dump trucks of all sorts were just a short distance away.  To say Rory loved it would be an understatement.

The boys are perfecting their skills at mound building.  I didn't know this but some plants have to be planted in a mound.  Not sure why--I'll do some research.

Rory was such a good helper at counting out the seeds, digging the holes and patting the dirt back over the seeds.  It was much harder keeping him from plodding through all the mounds we had just built!  He kept calling them "mountains."

We did not have any plants around our deck and if I planted something tall it would block our view of the water so for now, I have strawberry starts, green peppers and tomatoes here.  I have 7 different kinds of tomato plants.  I didn't mean to do that but I bought 2 packs from a garden center after my order from a catalog didn't show up and then, literally today, 6 different types show up from the catalog company.  I need to review tomato and spaghetti canning recipes, stat!  I find it a bit ironic because none of us like eating just a tomato--we do however love spaghetti sauce and tomato sauce.

Here is the finished product of the "big" garden.  I'm hoping to reap a harvest of dry soup beans, zucchini, carrots, cantaloupe, watermelon and green beans.  I have two packets of green beans left to plant but will space those out over the next 4 weeks so they mature at different times.  I'm so excited for Rory to see this process from start to finish but also provide food for our family.  It's been a rough economy for everyone and once we buy some wire and tomato stakes we will still have less than $50 total in the entire project.  I spent at least that produce every 4 weeks...if not more.  Some things I will freeze but the rest I will can.  The jars can be a bit pricey but also last forever so it's a one time investment.  I'm looking forward to harvest time--the kid in me wants to go out tomorrow morning and see a beautiful crop but it will be at least 5 weeks before anything gets here!