Living the homesteading lifestyle

This is a homemade alfredo made with pesto from our garlic scapes this spring that was saved in the freezer, topped with a delicious veggie burger from Luna Burger, a Columbus company.

And the dryer broke, so we are now having to hang all of our clothes in the living room where the wood burning stove is to get everything dry.

Ultimately it just looks like a tornado went through and spewed clothes everywhere, but you gotta do what you gotta do I guess.  We're just living the gypsy lifestyle.

This is my first batch of homemade granola and it was amazing.  I even dehydrated some blueberries we got from the farmer's market to put on top.  Mix that in with some Greek yogurt and you've got yourself a nice healthy snack... much better for you then processed cereals.

This is chicken we got from an Amish farmer which we made unhealthy by frying, but who can resist fried chicken every once in a while?  And with it, is cream of sweet potato soup... yum!

Overall, we're really loving winter.  Although we live on a busy road, so we never technically get snowed in, we can always pretend like we are, snuggled up next to the wood burning stove.  And between all the canning we do, our milk that gets delivered to us, and the stuff in the freezer, we really only need to go to the grocery store for things like toilet paper and other things we can't make ourselves. It's a good life we lead!

We're officially members!

Today we joined the membership of the Bexley Natural Market and are super excited.  We are close enough to it that we feel like we are a part of a community, people striving for the same goal of local, healthy, and organic.  We look forward to the relationships we'll build and the sense of community we will gain.  Check it out y'all!

Fighting cabin fever

During the winter, Steve still needs things to do.  It's actually nice because we have time inside to focus on the house.  In the summer, we aren't really in it enough to spend time reorganizing and redecorating.  So, we got a new shelf to organize all of our goods.

All of our tomatoes from this year, some homemade sauerkraut, and some pickled grape leaves.

Our dried goods section, herbs and teas, beans, and some more canned goods.

This Hoosier cabinet was my Valentine's Day present 2 years ago and has really been great storage space since we have no pantry.  And sitting on top are a couple beers from Rockmill Brewery.  We went for a taste testing on Thursday, and the Belgian style beer was so amazing we had to bring more home with us.  We also discovered that good beer isn't served ice cold, that's just what the crappy tasting beer wants you to believe.  That way, you just taste cold instead of the flavor of their beer.  So, this good beer is served chilled, like a good bottle of wine. 

Bread from our baker friend at Lucky Cat Bakery.  His stuff is amazing!  This is his famous Focaccia, and his new Multigrain Rye Sourdough which is 90% organic and super yummy!  (The only things not organic are the local honey in it and the rye chops, which is like an oatmeal sort of mixture that helps the rye flour rise).  Ultimately, the best bread around!

After the kitchen reorganizing, we moved to the spare bedroom, and there is a floor... yay!

9 degrees outside doesn't hold us back!

Although we had some inches of snow in the past couple of days, it really just created an insulating layer and with the bright sun, it was nice and toasty in the greenhouse.

We even sanitized flats for our seed starting.  We just brought in hot water from inside and I got pretend I was on the beach with my hands in warm water and the sun shining down upon us.

Steve's showing those seeds who's boss.

My stack of sanitized pots and flats.  To save on plastic, we wash all of our plasticware and reuse it until it works no longer, then it gets recycled.

And, my Amaryllis I got around Christmas time is finally blooming.  It's nice to have flowers around in the winter.

Philo was enjoying being outside off leash, although he didn't quite understand the concept of the greenhouse.  It's like he was outside, he could see the outside, but he just couldn't quite get there.  He pretty much spent the whole time sniffing around, plotting his escape.

Overall, it was a good snow day for us!

Good eats after a hard day's work

Seared duck breast, Homemade french onion soup from a Jamie Oliver recipe with Lucky Cat Bakery toasted bread for the croutons, and fresh spinach salad with homemade dressing

Look at all these beautiful honeys.  The first three are from the bees at our place, the one with the comb comes from Honeyrun Farm.

Our homemade cowboy coffee.  Better than any coffee maker I've ever had!

Seed germination testing to make sure we don't over order our seeds for next year.

Cleaning out the garage, my flower studio is soon to take over!

The spinach wash area.  Don't let the picture fool you though, this greenhouse isn't heated, but it does feel better in there than it does outside, especially on a warm, sunny day.

Monday we worked like crazy while the sun was out.  The seeds will soon be arriving and seed starting will begin.  How quickly the season approaches!

Field Trip!

Now that we are home from our trip, we are enjoying the snow settling in.  It is definitely winter, but it's too bad that we don't ever officially get snowed in being so close to the city.  The farms that we just visited seemed to be far enough off the beaten path that they really would be snowed in.  First, we went to the Great Plains Growers Conference for an all day cut flower workshop with Erin Benzakein from Floret Flowers.  We learned about wedding flowers, some marketing tips, and got to be a part of a hands on workshop to learn more about how to make beautiful bouquets like Erin.

Look at my bouquet.  I'm so proud :)

Boutonneires... like little mini bouquets

That's Erin

Then we went and visited Lynn Byczynski at her farm.  This is Lake Clinton nearby in Lawrence, Kansas.

 Then we went to Dripping Springs Garden in Huntsville, Arkansas.  This farm was amazing and the Ozark Mountains were beautiful.  The snow started right when we got into the mountains.  I can't imagine what this place must look like in the middle of the farming season.

The tool shed... something we wish we had!

Their new house, timber built with earthen walls... it was so peaceful and inviting.  Hopefully we'll attain this after more years of farming.  Talk about the good life!

Some enormous pussy willow bushes... they make ours look puny.

Another shot of their beautiful house

Look at all those mushroom logs... yum!

And a shot of the Ozarks

Everything we experienced was amazing and totally inspiring.  Now we just sit inside and wait for warmer weather.  We have been doing our last changes to our seed order and getting things set up for the spring.  2011 here we come!

New Year's Resolution

So, this year I decided that for my New Year's Resolution, I want to start documenting my farming life better.  No one else is going to do it for me so I need to just stop procrastinating and get to it.  This includes pictures, blogs, writing for myself, and everything else in between.  We just recently got the memoirs of the farmer who used to farm in this area in the early 1900's until he died and the farm area was donated to the Metro Parks.  It is really cool and I thought, maybe someday somebody would want to read my story.  Who knows, right?

My holiday open house

The yearly holiday open house at Sue Renner's was a hit!  I even got some nice pictures that her daughter, Caitlin Renner took for me.  Check 'em out!