Autumn on the farm – Lot’s of pictures

Fall pictures on the farm. No a lot of writing needed. We got our first frost the other day and I snapped some pictures early morning. I also found a big ‘ol groundhog out back. He turned to face me and charged. I jumped onto the tractor to protect myself but he ended up not really charging me just running into the barn. Ohh and check out the wooley bear I found. Have a great Halloween!

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Let’s carve some pumpkins!

After planting, fertilizing, pollinating, watering, growing and harvesting pumpkins…..there’s just one thing left to do……… Carve ’em! and that’s what we did tonight and I took lot’s of great pumpkin carving pics:

 

What I’ve learned about carving pumpkins, Step by step carving techniques:

1. Cut the top off for the kiddos’
2. Draw your design on the pumpkin (do a couple on paper first)
3. Follow said design the best you can
4. Use serrated knife, steak knife to saw through pumpkin flesh.
5. Have the little ones pull out the pumpkin innards and keep paper towels on hand.
6. Follow said design the best you can
7. Turn the lights out to take pics
8. Strain out the seeds and make baked pumpkin seeds by drying seeds with a paper towel, spray pan with Pam. sprinkling seeds with salt, pepper and garlic. Put in the oven at 350 degrees for 20 min.
9. Eat seeds with cider.
10. Repeat.
11. Always remember that older people don’t like to carve a pumpkin for themselves but they do enjoy helping kiddos with there pumpkin.
12. take lot’s of pics.

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Public Speaking….what’s not to like?

I gave a presentation to the Hudson Garden Club on Thursday, October 20th about the farm, organic gardening, this blog and Project Garden Share. It was a huge success! I just want to say “Thank You” again to Sherry Beam and Mary Gallo for inviting me to come lecture.

Thanks to some great marketing (see news coverage below) we had a full house of 80+ guests. Thanks for saving the stories Dot Reid! She gave me the copies before I began for my scrapbook, how sweet….

Other than a few technical glitches, the program went very smooth.

For more information about the Hudson Garden Club, please visit their website  The Hudson Garden Club is dedicated to spreading the knowledge and love of gardening, the beautification of public property and the support of education in horticultural and related fields. Wonderful!

Also, I started a Facebook Page for Project Garden Share Please help our little non-profit group get soaring by “Liking” us and asking others to do the same. PGS is a non-profit organization helping those in need of food with individuals who own land and allow needy individuals to farm their land to cultivate fresh vegetables and herbs. The land is tended to by the needy in order to grow their own food.

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Make your own baby food, it’s easy!

It’s so easy even a baby can do it….well, not really but you get my point. We were given a little machine from our Aunt Kim (a foodie and excellent cook) She does catering in the area and her bruchetta is to die for, here’s a plug for her website; http://garlicmango.com/ The machine is called a Baby Brezza. It looks like a mini food processor but it’s a lot more. It’s an All-in-One baby food maker that dices, steams and purees your veggies or fruit to perfection.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 1) Get some fresh veggies from the garden
Step 2) Peel the skin and chop into small pieces
Step 3) Load up the Breeza

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 4) Set the steamer for as many minutes as the manual states (i.e. green beans steam for 20 minutes)
Step 5) Walk away and wait till it beeps
Step 6) Load the contents into small containers

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 7) Feed to baby

I like making our own baby food for several reasons:

• It saves money – Roughly $500-$1,300 a year
• It’s fresh – No added preservatives
• It’s good for our environment – No additional plastic containers and packaging
• Piece of Mind – Knowing what I cook is the best possible food for my daughter.

Let me end by just saying that I am in no way associated with the manufacturers of this machine, I just like it. You can also go with the Baby Bullet by the maker of the Magic Bullet but you have to cook the fruits and veggies yourself.

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Quick, I need a Mycologist!!

I discovered six different mushrooms growing on the farm. I’d like to eat some, maybe put some on my pizza or in my omelet but knowing my luck, I’d probably end up tripping and spending the evening in my room underneath a blanket wishing the walls would quit melting.

So, I need to find a good reliable mycologist. Don’t worry, I had to Google “mushroom expert” to find the word mycologist I’d like to talk to one, I’m sure he’d be a fungi. I wish there was an App to take pictures of mushrooms and find out if we can eat them. If you’re a developer, call me I think we’re sitting on a fortune here…..

Separating edible from poisonous species requires meticulous attention to detail; there is no single trait by which all toxic mushrooms can be identified, nor one by which all edible mushrooms can be identified. (Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think all this rain has produced this mushroom epidemic. Here’s the creek next to us. It’s overflowing and the front yard is soaked. We got almost 5 inches of rain in the month of September, we average about 3.75 inches during that month.

Keep dry everybody!

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