*harvest time (again, and again)

 

 

 

 

 

It is time
to gather together in the warm sunshine,
taking great care
to gently pick all of the fruit ripened there.

 

 

 

 

 

Today was quite a day!  Shortly after waking from my deep delightful slumber, my feet hit the floor and the fun began.  The garden is in full force production at this stage. We are picking cucumbers, yellow squash, zuchinni squash, tomatoes, butter beans, peppers, cherry tomatoes, potatoes, snap beans and okra from the garden now.  Today momma picked a bushel of butter beans and we "put up" 7 quart bags of those babies!  We also cut, battered and froze okra and squash for frying at a later date.  Momma canned some peppers this morning and shortly after that I took my turn with the canning pot and made some pickles!  I must admit it was pretty exciting to do some canning. Tomorrow will look much like today and for that I am grateful, so grateful that our garden is producing at the rate it is.  

Momma's pickled banana peppers and hot peppers.

Never mind my dirty kitchen window!  Look at these tasty tomatoes.

Momma and I have been working diligently almost daily preparing sliced frying squash for the freezer.   Here momma is starting to bag the slices we did last night. We slice them, lightly salt them and then let them sit for a short while. Then we dredge them in a flour and cornmeal mixture and lay them on a tray with excess flour/cornmeal mixture and put into the freezer over night or for several hours. Once they have had time to freeze we then take them back out separating any that needs separating, remove all the excess batter before bagging them for freezer storage.

Today, for the first time I made PICKLES!  I was thrilled to be canning some of the bountiful harvest from our garden.  I decided since we were new at this pickling thing that I should put different things in some of the jars so we could taste test and make more of what we like most. We added dill from our herb garden to most of the jars along with dill see from the grocer.  Some of the jars got a small amount of powdered mustard, or garlic or peppercorns.  I can hardly wait for a week to pass so we can pop a jar open and start the tasting!

 

More squash and okra go into the freezer for frying in the months to come.  The Pampered Chef baking stones have come in handy for this little endeavor.  The stone holds the cold nicely and seems to help the slices freeze more quickly.

OKRA!  A very dear friend of mine gave these awesome Pampered Chef Stainless Steel bowls and they too have been a must have in our country kitchen.  So handy.

Momma dredging more okra, covering it good before it goes into the freezer to set up.  Momma and I have hit our stride it seems. Each time of her being back here seems we have to find our way with each other. We are having a blast together and I am truly grateful for her hearts desire to help at the level she is helping at. 

These zukes are going into the dehydrator for the use in soups in the winter months. We decided to slice some of our potatoes as well to fill up the other 5 trays in the dehydrator.  The potatoes will likely also be used in soups.

 

Our snap beans are almost finished producing, here Momma is putting up what might be our last picking from those this year. We probably have 25 bags of pole beans (snap beans) in the freezer from this years harvest.

 

 

As I said before, each time Momma is back here it seems we have an adjustment period to go through. I suppose that is normal?!  Sometimes I feel that certain boundaries have to be laid and protected for our family unit and while I still strongly feel this way, there have been some areas I could have possibly handled a bit more gently but didn't.  God in His mercy has helped Momma and I to begin to work together like a well oiled machine.   We truly are having a good time together, today was an amazing day all the way around. Our day began together in the garden and ended together on a walk to the garden to turn the sprinkler off. Our walk back home held a moment of prayer and thanksgiving to God for the abundant harvest He has blessed us with!  

 

*beeing brave

Getting suited up on a hot sultry day in Florida was less than fun.   But, it was recommended to me to enter  the hive area to do any work in mid day when the bees are busy.

To the left you see the supra that I am about to add to our hive. The brood has grown so much that we need to add the supra already.  I am getting my gloves on and making sure everything is tucked in before I begin working with the bees.

When I took the top board off it was covered with buzzing bees! I remained calm and carried on with my work.  To open the hive and hear the wings of the workers fanning hard and to see them buzzing around was a pretty awesome experience.

Carefully I am putting the top board back in place, doing my best not to kill any of our girls!

Success!  The job is done! In a few weeks we will open the hive again to check out the work that has taken place in the supra since we added it.

Since adding the hive to our farm, the tall sunflowers are covered with our "Honey's" early each morning. Our garden is now buzzing more ever too. Speaking of the garden, it is growing well and our freezer is starting to fill up with our harvest to carry us through some of the year.  Soon I will share with you a new way to preserve yellow squash for the freezer. Well, it was new for us anyway!

*sunflower, sunflower

"Keep your face to the sunshine
and you cannot see the shadow.
It's what sunflowers do."
by Helen Keller

*a morning at Erilyn in pictures

This is how the little girls act when they get to free roam the land. They come rushing out, then they act like they have no idea how to act!  These chickens (and other animals) are so entertaining.

*bee calm

 Do you know what this means?

YEP!  We got our first hive today!  We have been on a waiting list with Mr. Bundrick for a hive for a couple of weeks and now it is our turn.  I met Mr. Bundrick at his shop this morning at 8AM, I drove Eric's truck so I could bring the hive back (myself) this morning and put it in place.  Mr. Bundrick must have sensed that I was a bit nervous  because he offered to follow me and set the hive up here on the farm for me.  I was so very grateful!  He has been doing this for many many years and didn't even wear a hat, netting, gloves or anything - oh, he did use his smoker though!

The hive weigh about 45lbs at the present and he was a bit worried about me being able to pick it up and set it in place. Such a sweet heart of a gentleman!

The screen on the front of this hive was to keep the bees inside the hive while he traveled from his home, to his shop, then of course on to our house.  The strap around the hive is to keep the top plate in place.  This comes off so you can add a supra when that time comes (which for us is now!) Mr. Bundrick actually has had this family of bees for us since Easter weekend, and normally  when he cannot get in touch with the person on the list, he goes on to the next one.  Since Mr. Bundrick is so patriotic and so committed to showing his appreciated towards Eric for his service to the country, he kept these for us in one of his hive boxes until we got back with him.  The swarm has of course grown since that date and are now in need of more space, so the supra is getting painted today so it can start to cure. 

I asked him if he would mind if I took pictures, he told me to just make sure I was taking pictures of the bees and not of him.

He here is taking off the screen that was put there for the purpose of travel.  LOOK.. NO GLOVES... NOT FACE PROTECTION... Um.. you wont see me out there like that any time soon anyway.

So I fed the animals and then went back out to get some more pictures of the buzzing madness, and was chased off by a drone.. He was caught in my hair, got loose, continued to chase me from the hive area to the barn.. I was hitting myself in the head, accidentally of course, with my camera. Running along like mad, my pants started to fall off my non-existent waist even though I had a belt on.  Fortunately my next door neighbor, who is always out working in his yard was up the road helping a friend this morning, otherwise he would have likely had a good laugh.   Needless to say any further... this is the last picture I got of the bees on that walk.  I think I will wear my hat with netting next time I go out to "visit" the bees. I am also assuming they would have liked a little longer to get acclimated to their new surroundings.  Lesson learned.