Sugar plum jam recipe
Confession… I am an over-canner. I love, love, LOVE to can. So when my friend, who owns a farm market, said he had couple of plums for me, I thought, “oh goody, I’ll make some plum jam.” Unbeknownst to me, a couple of plums turned out to be twenty-four quarts of plums. Never one to shy away…
WPC: Connected (web)
One of my favorite things to do on a summer morning is to photograph the dew on spider webs (minus the spider, of course). I’m always amazed at how such an ugly bug makes such a beautiful masterpiece – each strand of silk delicately connected to the other.
Go greased lightning!
Pigs. They are deceiving. They look like a 1971 Ford Pinto, have the speed of a cheetah and are harder to hang onto than a bull at a rodeo. It was time to muck out the pig stall, which means I have to get the big wheelbarrow in the pen without losing a pig. My…
Ain’t no sh*t like pig sh*t
I’ve shoveled a ton of sh*t in my days – cow, dog, goat, donkey, and even some from a septic tank (I’m referring to the cell phone incident of 2013, but that’s a story for another day). Pig sh*t is hardcore – it’s not for the faint of heart. And since it was my idea to…
Basil and garlic tomato sauce recipe
The wonderful aroma from this sauce, as it’s bubbling on the stove, brings me right back to my Gramma Josephine’s kitchen. She would make this simple sauce and pour it over everything, from pasta to gnocchi, chicken and even fish. It’s a great sauce to can, but it also freezes well.
Wordless Wednesday: Good morning, Glory!
New beginnings
Whitetail deer are beautiful, graceful creatures. Our farm provides a great home for them, with green pastures for grazing and dense woods for bedding down. Throughout all my years here, though, I have never found an antler shed – one of the buried treasures of the woods. Every year, a whitetail buck will shed his…
Your tomatoes are splitting because you’re an a**hole
I love to grow cherry tomatoes. But they would perplex me every year. Within minutes of picking them, I would have half a basket of split tomatoes. So when the old timer up the road ordered me to get up to his house to test his homemade wine, I made a mental note to pick…
Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake Recipe
There’s not much to say about this recipe, except that it’s delicious. DAMN delicious. It’s one of those desserts that makes you sneak away with the last piece and hide in the closet so you don’t have to share (yes, I’ve done that – I’m not ashamed. I refer you to the Tastykake Chocolate Junior…
WPC: Beneath my feet (garden = sciatica)
The footrest has been beneath my feet this past week. Hours of power-squatting in the garden have lead to a nice case of sciatica (the one nerve I had left that someone wasn’t on). After a week of suffering and a quick trip to the chiropractor, I felt good enough to get back to tending…
Wordless Wednesday: summer sunset
WPC: Close up (heterochromia iridum)
I am a mutant. My left eye has sectoral heterochromia iridum – part of the iris is a different color from the remainder. My right eye is blue. My mutation is somewhat rare, being that my iris is dissected into two equal parts – hazel and blue. It’s something I don’t think about until people…
Tomato blight and my quest for world domination
Sometimes I wonder why I do this gardening thing. Just when I get one problem in control and things are looking good – BAM! Almost overnight, early blight sinks its dirty little spores into my heirloom tomatoes. And now… {cue dramatic music} I am in the midst of total tomato turmoil. Early tomato blight usually…
WPC – Half and Half (full moon)
DREAM ON… Weekly Photo Challenge
The Farmers in the Dell 