A little update

In my typical fashion, I have neglected my blog. Sometimes, I just don't have a lot to say, and, during those times, it is probably best to remain silent. We have been busy, and life is full and rich and good, and we are grateful for the joys of the past year. I think I have felt more reflective, and less talkative as a result. Also, my mother's dementia has progressed, and been hard to watch, difficult to,process. We are busyness"putting the farm to bed" for the winter. The tractors are all being tuned up, the store is closed,,seed catalogs are arriving in the mail, and the once continuously ringing phone is now largely silent. We are enjoying the last vegetables of the season- the squash, potatoes,quince (fruit, I know), and onions. I also strained my first batch of raspberry cordial, and we are now happily sipping it around the fire in the evening.

 

We were pleased to host Thanksgiving again, once more turning the store into a festive dining hall. Delightful friends, good food, and plenty of wine to cheer us. Two of my three sisters were there as well, and I was once again filled with gratitude that we live close to each other and are best of friends. After the main meal,,everyone pitched in to clean up, and then we drove to the nearby home of our friends and dinner guests for desert and games. They have a lovely, large fireplace (and are gracious hosts! ) and we curled up,in front of it and savored the warmth.

I will wrap up this little update with a picture from a drive we take every year. This was taken at Sahalie Falls, and I will have to find my atlas (which is in the car which my son has right now) to tell you the exact highway this is on, but it is near the McKenzie River. Anyway, we hike the falls every year, and it is absolutely beautiful. Even my daughter, who hates hiking and would rather be reading anyway, loves this hike. Until next time!

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A little update

In my typical fashion, I have neglected my blog. Sometimes, I just don't have a lot to say, and, during those times, it is probably best to remain silent. We have been busy, and life is full and rich and good, and we are grateful for the joys of the past year. I think I have felt more reflective, and less talkative as a result. Also, my mother's dementia has progressed, and been hard to watch, difficult to,process. We are busyness"putting the farm to bed" for the winter. The tractors are all being tuned up, the store is closed,,seed catalogs are arriving in the mail, and the once continuously ringing phone is now largely silent. We are enjoying the last vegetables of the season- the squash, potatoes,quince (fruit, I know), and onions. I also strained my first batch of raspberry cordial, and we are now happily sipping it around the fire in the evening.

 

We were pleased to host Thanksgiving again, once more turning the store into a festive dining hall. Delightful friends, good food, and plenty of wine to cheer us. Two of my three sisters were there as well, and I was once again filled with gratitude that we live close to each other and are best of friends. After the main meal,,everyone pitched in to clean up, and then we drove to the nearby home of our friends and dinner guests for desert and games. They have a lovely, large fireplace (and are gracious hosts! ) and we curled up,in front of it and savored the warmth.

I will wrap up this little update with a picture from a drive we take every year. This was taken at Sahalie Falls, and I will have to find my atlas (which is in the car which my son has right now) to tell you the exact highway this is on, but it is near the McKenzie River. Anyway, we hike the falls every year, and it is absolutely beautiful. Even my daughter, who hates hiking and would rather be reading anyway, loves this hike. Until next time!

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Fall begins

I just spent twenty minutes typing a long overdue blog post. Ignoring lunch dishes, laundry, bill paying, and pear butter making to do so. And it was all lost, with the tap of a wrong button! So I am trying again, with fewer words- maybe that is a good thing! I went for a brief walk this afternoon and enjoyed seeing the signs of Fall all around me. The sky is a beautiful blue, the sun warm, and it is hard to believe that the rainy, cold, grey season is just around the corner. The raspberry bushes look a lot different than they did just a few weeks ago, when they were still a lush, overgrown green.

Pumpkins! Here is a sure sign of fall! Lots of lovely orange pumpkins, a field full of them. I picked up two or three little pie pumpkins as I was in the field, with the idea of making a Pumpkin Bourbon cake for dinner tonight. Then common sense came to me rescue; I have to leave at six this evening, and before leaving I need to clean the kitchen and make dinner and so the list goes. The cake will have to wait until I have free afternoon. It sure sounds good though, doesn't it? I am looking forward to the pumpkin patch being open this year!

The pumpkin field! It looks lovely with its green leaves sprawled all over the place, but by the time the season is in full swing, those leaves will be gone, leaving a tangle of vines snaking its way across the field. I actually look forward to the leaves dying off, as I can then see the pumpkins more easily. It is also a reminder that this, our last crop, is almost done, and the cozy, lazier winter days will soon be here!

More potatoes, almost ready to be dug! I love potatoes, and am so happy that our they did well this year. We have been enjoying huge pans of roasted potatoes, with olive oil, garlic, rosemary, kosher salt, and cracked pepper. I also made a big pot of lentil soup for lunch yesterday, full of potatoes and carrots from the garden. I also made bread, and it was coming out of the oven right at lunch time. These are the things I love about fall!

The last roses of the summer smell especially sweet. It is as if all of summer's warmth and sunshine and joy have been captured to give us one last taste of summer. As much as I love Fall, I am surprised to find myself missing summer-already. I miss sun warmed fruit, lunches eaten outside with good friends, warm evenings playing cards outside of our favorite coffee house, morning coffee in the garden, naps during the heat of the day. However, in the spirit of learning to be content whatever the season or circumstance, I realize that there are things to look forward to as well! Things like knitting by the woodstove, snow (please, please let it snow this year-lots), barn parties and hot apple cider around a bonfire, and the smell of fresh bread and soup simmering on the stove on a cold, cold evening. So! That said, happy Fall! Enjoy these last weeks of sunshine and warmth!

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Untitled

 

This little boy? Knows the difference between a baler, a swather, and a combine. He also knows the difference between a Dixon harrow, a disc, and a plow. And corrects me if I am wrong!

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Testing

Just seeing if I have finally figured out this blogging from an iPad thing. Is this working? Did my picture print? Here's hoping!

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dinner

Do you ever have days where nothing goes as planned and all of a sudden it is five 'o' clock and everyone is hungry and you don't have any idea what to make for dinner? I do, and today was one of them. What was supposed to be a half hour meeting with the nursing supervisor at my mother's assisted living facility turned in to four hours spent getting my mom taken care of.  Five 'o' clock found me staring vacantly in to an empty refrigerator, wishing we could just eat out. However, with six children, eating out becomes expensive, and since I love to cook, we save eating out for treats or true emergencies.

Taking stock of what I did have, I decided to do some experimenting. I had Italian parsley, mint, and pine nuts in the fridge. I found two pounds of the same type of pasta (a small miracle!), and while that was cooking, I made the herbs and pine nuts in to a pesto, adding garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, and a small amount of cumin. I roasted cherry tomatoes with fresh thyme, kosher salt, olive oil, pepper, and a dash of dried chili peppers. The package of Italian sausage links (which would have fed Graham alone) I sliced up and sauteed, and also sliced up and sauteed zucchini with rosemary, salt, and ghee. So, we ended up with pasta with really yummy pesto, topped with sausage and roasted tomatoes, and sauteed zucchini (you wouldn't believe how many time I had to respell that word to get it right....) . Despair to delight in just half an hour. Why is it that the meals I just throw together using what ever I have on hand are always delicious? I don't know the answer to that one, but I do know that this meal was easy, and inexpensive. It was a good reminder that home cooked food really is better tasting and more affordable than restaurant or pre-packaged food. Neither of those things are bad, and I have certainly relied on them as needed. But sometimes, we come to rely on these things so much that we forget that with a little creativity and forethought, dinner can be quick, healthy, inexpensive, and really tasty. It was a reminder I needed.

I would have taken a picture of our meal, the roasted tomatoes and emerald green pesto really were lovely, but my family always looks at me askance when I start dashing about the table photographing food as they are waiting to eat it! If I take pictures in the kitchen before taking the food to the table, I can hear long-suffering sighs and subtle hints as to just how hungry every one is, and "Gee- wouldn't it be great if we could eat soon?" kind of comments. So, enjoy the lovely garden scene and remember that leftover bundles of herbs can save dinner!

Evening walk

Cleaning the picking machine

 Our evening walk consisted of eating a lot of yummy fruit! We sampled the last of the raspberries,

 found a very juicy plum (the only plum of this particular variety, too bad as it was delicious!),

 and ate an apple from the first tree to have ripe fruit. These are, I believe, the Lubsk apples.

 On our way home, we spotted the lovely moon rising over the Cascades. We watched it rise, and then I snapped a picture or two. As it peeked over the Cascades, the moon was a deep, glowing orange. This has been one of the first evening walks I have taken in a while, and I was very happy to witness the moon rising tonight- it was truly spectacular.

This kitty accompanied us, frisking on ahead of us if we were too slow, and coming back and weaving himself in and out of our legs if we stopped. He was on the constant alert for mice or grasshoppers! I discovered that our crab apples are ripe, which adds another item to my lengthy to-do list. I have a recipe for making pectin from crab apples that I have been wanting to try. Although this is rather low on my list of priorities, I want to make a real effort to try this. Sounds intriguing, and as I have had to make two emergency trips to the store (so far) to buy more pectin, the idea of having lots on hand in jars is very appealing! If I get around to doing this, I am sure I will be posting pictures as my recipe says the pectin in jars is beautiful!

thoughts on photography

I finally, after about eighty attempts, got a decent picture of a hummingbird and a butterfly in our garden.I just bought a telephoto lens, and have been having fun figuring out how to use it. The garden is full of beauty and inspiration right now, and actually getting these pictures felt like winning a prize. Have you ever tried to capture a hummingbird on film? You just focus in on them and they go buzzing away. Or, their little wings beat so very quickly that all of your pictures are blurry. Same goes for butterflies, but they seem to flit about with an effortless grace, as opposed to a hummingbirds nervous energy.

I always enjoy taking pictures. I have had no lessons (other than a free "learn to use you camera" class) and have no photo editing software. I am certainly not a professional, and am very grateful for digital photography which allows me to erase my many bad pictures.

One thing I have just come to realize is that sometimes I get so caught up in getting a good picture that I don't truly notice and enjoy the moment. This evening, a warm breeze was blowing, the garden was sweetly scented, my children begged me to run races with them, and the sun was shining golden on the Cascades- a truly lovely evening. I was so busy trying to catch a good picture of the hummingbird that I didn't really step back and enjoy the evening, or watch the humming birds play or just sit down and rest. Tomorrow evening, I think I will make a date with the garden, and leave my camera inside!

summer vegetables

We are moving in to peak produce season, with zucchini, beans, cucumbers, carrots, beets, and a few tomatoes available. I don't can many vegetables, preferring them fresh from the garden. I do pickle some beets and can tomatoes, maybe freeze some corn, but that is about it. I have cookbooks full of recipes using fresh vegetables-salads, quiches, vegeterian burritos, and so on. However, no matter how good those recipes sounds, I have yet to make one. I have discovered that (in my humble opinion) fresh vegetable are best one of two ways: Sauteed lightly in browned butter, or roasted with olive oil, coarse salt, fresh pepper, and several sprigs of fresh thyme. So simple, and very delicious. Everything is better with browned butter on it! The past few weeks, I have been sauteeing a mixture of potatoes, beans, zucchini, and carrots, then adding tomatoes at the end. With grilled chicken and a salad, a loaf of freshly baked bread, and cherry buttermilk cake or fresh berries with honey creme anglaise, summer meals are tasty and inexpensive!

I am attempting a post from my iPad.. It is very easy to use, but I can't for the life of me get it to upload a picture! I will have to play with it some more when I have more patience! Around the farm not much has changed. Blueberries are in full swing, as are kotata blackberries. I have decided on Wednesday as my big jelly making day, and I am hoping to get through a whole year's worth in a day. We will see how that goes! This evening I took the three youngest farm children to visit my mother. She was charming as ever, and knew who we were, which is always a good sign. Her dementia has progressed a little more rapidly in the last few months, and so I am always grateful when she knows who we are. She loves to come and walk through the garden and pick blueberries, so I will try to bring her out this week. She has taken to doing imitations which amuse my girls to no end, her favorite being an angry dog. So, if you are on the farm this week and hear an angry dog, do not fear, it is likely my mother amusing my girls. I made a delicious cherry buttermilk cake yesterday, and we demolished it in moments. I will post the recipe soon, but I need to figure out where I found the recipe first so I can give credit where credit is due. The two youngest farm children sat in front of the new oven and watched the cake bake. they were mesmerized, and I can't blame them. I got a certain amount of joy from clicking on the oven light and seeing my lovely cake baking! Our old oven light ceased to work years ago, so my children have never gotten to watch things bake. Simple joys, right? Still no luck on the picture, so I will end my musings and figure out my menu plan for the upcoming week. I need to make sure we are eating a lot of the vegetables that are ripe in the garden now!

Color everywhere!

The garden is in almost full bloom. It is rich with color, and the sweet scent of lilies. The Gladiolas are not quite in bloom yet, and when they are, the garden will really be full of color!

The hummingbirds love the garden, and as I was taking pictures and wandering through the garden last night, they were buzzing and darting about like crazy. I still haven't captured a good picture of one, and finally decided to put my camera away and just enjoy watching them!

Crocosmia- These are about the funnest flowers ever!

I tried to have my coffee here this morning, but our unfriendly barn cat decided he loved me (or was it my scone?) and wouldn't stay off my lap. I have zero tolerance for cat hair in my coffee, especially at 6:30 on a Monday morning!

One last picture to round out our tour! The green stalks on the left are the Glads, in a week or so that area will be a mass of color! The garden is open to the public, and we love to have people wander through and enjoy it!

Preserving season!

 I always promise myself that I will keep the blog updated no matter how busy I become. After all, posting a picture and tapping out a few sentences can't be that time consuming, can they? However, some weeks, the items on my to do list are urgent and time sensitive, and so being online takes a back seat to more important things. Things like slicing crates of strawberries to dehydrate, making fruit leather and jam, and strawberry sauce to top pancakes and scones with in the winter.

 There is also the making of raspberry cordial. I made this for the first time last year, and it is so delicious (and easy) that this year I made twice as much. The cordial steeps for four months, and then is strained and bottled. Last year, I strained and the cordial in early November, on a very cold, rainy night. As I poured the cordial in to bottles, the wind was howling outside and rain was lashing at the windows. One sip of cordial though, and it was summer in my mouth! The raspberry flavor is really intensified, and we found ourselves drinking a small tumbler of cordial most evenings as we read by the fire.

 Raspberries, sugar, and vodka. That is all there is to it! I gently shake the jar every day or so for the first week, and then forget about it until November. The man who gave me the recipe for this says he gives this away as Christmas gifts, and I think I will follow suit this year!

All those strawberries on my dehydrator trays in the first picture, which were destined to top my oatmeal in the winter, ended up being ruined when a (very adorable, very beloved) toddler turned up the temperature on the dehydrator to 155. I always dehydrate at 105 or below to preserve nutrients, and so strawberry fruit leather and sliced berries usually take 24 hours to dehydrate completely. I checked them after 18 hours, and discovered I now had strawberry chips and strawberry glass. the children still loved the strawberry glass (which should have been fruit leather), so it is at least being eaten. However. I have no fruit leather and no dried strawberries to show for my efforts! At least I have plenty of freezer jam, strawberry sauce, and raspberry cordial! Consolation, indeed. Next week's big kitchen job is raspberry/red currant jam, followed by raspberry fruit leather and blackberry jelly. The above picture was taken on my iPhone, which takes such good pictures that I have been using it more than I have been using my fancy camera lately. It is just as well I didn't spend that $600.00 for a new lens!

around the farm

 Raspberries are almost ripe! The bushes are loaded this year, and the one ripe berry I found was sweet and delicious! The sun was just beginning to set as I took my walk, and the golden sunlight filtering through the lush raspberry bushes was incredible. Honestly, I think the summers in Oregon are so beautiful and pleasant that it makes up for the seven or eight months of grey and rain!

 The garden is looking lovely right now. Not quite in full bloom, but lovely nonetheless. I took a lot of pictures last night, as we will eventually have a data base with a picture and description of every plant we grow. This will be a big project, so I am working on the pictures as I can. I thought about buying a macro lens for my camera, but the one I really wanted was six hundred dollars. Yikes! Maybe if I were earning a living by taking pictures I would plunk down the money without a second thought, but I am not, and so I will just keep an eye out for the lens used somewhere.

 Love having roses in bloom. This time of year is so crazy busy for us that my house is often times not as clean and organized as i would like it to be. A vase of beautiful roses always seems to add a note of beauty and charm, even if the rest of the house is lacking in those areas! I have them in the (clean because I can't stand a dirty bathroom) bathroom, dining room, kitchen (which is also clean because i can't work in a dirty kitchen and also because my new stove is coming today and I am too proud to let the installer dude see a dirty house) and living room. I am planning to go see my mother this evening, and will take her a big bunch, as she loves roses and always had a beautiful planting of them.

And, just because I really like the looks of the silo in the late evening light, one more garden picture! Blue berries and blackberries will be ready soon, and the eldest farm child just picked the first batch of green beans this morning! Hooray for fresh fruits and vegetables! Green beans with a garlicky, Asian sauce are on the menu for dinner tonight, along with champagne to celebrate the new stove and the harvest season! On second thought, the two don't really sound good together- better save the green beans for tomorrow night.....

another season

Beautiful strawberries

Coffee for sale, fresh roasted and delicious!

Baked goods on display

Strawberry tart

Colorful beets from the garden. Roasted in olive oil with fresh pepper and coarse salt for a perfect side dish!

Antiques for sale

Another farm season has begun. U-pick strawberries are in full swing, and the store selling already picked strawberries is also open. The store opened ten days ago, U-picks four days ago. Today was the first absolutely crazy day, where I was on the run from sun up until sun down. Even after the store and u-picks were closed for the day, I had to drive in to town with a load of (very, very) overdue library books. While I was downtown, I ran into a friend and her daughter and we walked to the gelateria and had gelato and coffee. It felt good to relax and enjoy the last few minutes of daylight, and unwind from the craziness of the day. Sometimes, the days are so busy and the cares of farm and home weigh heavily on me (not to complain-I love the life we have chosen and the business we have and life with my farmer and the farmhouse full of children) and I forget to enjoy the moment or season I am in. I feel as if I don't even have the time to enjoy it, I must just get through it. I am learning though, that the attitude of "I must just grit my teeth and get through this" is not the best attitude to adopt. Sure, there are lots of unpleasant tasks and onerous responsibilities that require such an attitude, but I do not want to view my whole life that way! I am much happier when I learn to enjoy the work I have been given to do, to laugh at the crazy days, to be grateful for this growing business, and to look for the joy in what seems sometimes to be an overwhelming day. It is there. I need only look for it. So! Enough philosophizing for one night! Tomorrow morning will come bright and early, and I am going to need a lot of coffee to make me bright!

The season begins!

Strawberry season has officially begun! The store selling already picked berries opened Monday, and u-picks will begin on Saturday. I am trying to figure out how to get pictures from my iPhone to my computer, as most of my photos these days are taken with my phone. On my phone I have pictures of beautiful, ruby red strawberries, darling little strawberry tarts, fresh beets, pies, and scones. You will have to imagine them until I either figure out the picture transfer thing or get down to the store with my camera! The last few days have been rainy and grey, and I have had no energy or motivation. Today, I woke to partly blue skies, sunshine, and a nice breeze which, if I were to be fanciful, I would say is blowing summer in for us. However, we will have more rainy, grey June days before summer really begins, days when I long for a warm fire and endless cups of hot coffee. My husband heard a quote (I believe in a British gardening book) that said "there is nothing as cold as a June day in England." We have decided, as we hug our mugs of coffee tightly to us this morning, that the same can be said of this area of Oregon!

Progress

 Plums! The few red ones we have (either Hollywood or Early Laxton) are putting on size nicely, and should be ready in a few weeks. After last year's miserable crop, I am really looking forward to fresh plums!

.

 One of the green plums varieties- I think these might be Green Gage (the farmer is already asleep, so I can't verify the variety). These trees are loaded! I am going to try a plum cordial this year, so as happy to actually have some fruit to use. The plums are not u-pick at this point, but we will sell them already picked at the store.

 The blueberry bushes are now loaded with little green berries! Looks like a good year for them, and they will hopefully be ready to pick by July 4th.

 Lots of lovely green strawberries! The bushes are loaded, and the weather right now is ideal for ripening. Last year's crop was a near failure, so we are very grateful for this healthy crop and perfect weather!

 Lots of apples this year! I haven't looked at the apples and quince in the front orchard, but the trees in the back orchard look great! We should have a good crop this year, and I will be spending days canning applesauce and making quince preserves!

 Raspberries! The bushes are loaded right now, so we wait with bated breath to see if there will be enough to meet demand this year! So far, they look great. The raspberries are so hard to grow here, and are also very popular with our customers.

 And, finally, no farm update would be complete without a mention of the garden! The roses are coming on nicely, and I have vases of them all over the house. I love these roses, and always feel as if my house is cleaner and more beautiful when a vase full of them is gracing my table (or bathroom, or book case, and so on!).

The rest of the garden is a verdant green, with splashes of color here and there. Most of the flowers are summer blooming, so apart from some roses and columbine, not much is blossoming right now. I picked up two new canning books this weekend, and can't wait for fresh fruit and vegetable season to try some of the recipes. The first book is The Preservation Kitchen  by Paul Virant. He has not only recipes for jam and jellies, but for relishes, Aigre-doux, cured meat, and fermented  food as well. The book has a lot of seasonal recipes, so you get ideas for using spring and fall crops as well as summer's bounty. The second book is Food in Jars by Marisa McClellan. She has fantastic recipes for jams, jellies, fruit butters, pickles, syrups, and nut butters (and that is only a partial list.) What I really like about this book is that the recipes are for small batches, so if I only have a small amount of time, I can still get some preserving done. Between the six children, the running of the farm, and the cooking and cleaning, small amounts of time seem to be all I have! I am especially looking forward to trying some fruit butters. The author also includes recipes for mixes in jars (the pancake mix sounds especially good), and this is something I have wanted to do for a long time. On those super busy days, the idea of having a healthy, pre-made mix is very appealing, but I try to stay away from store boughten ones which often have a lot of additives and are expensive, especially for a family of eight! Time for all good farm wives to be in bed, so thus ends the update from Fordyce Farm!