Country Living, Having More...

Luscious, bountiful greens!  Don't these look delicious?  Our hard work has paid off, and now we're heading out are back door for some bountiful gree...

Every wondered why certain canning instructions will say to allow the water to come up to have the size of the pint jar and then add the rest of the water to cover once the jars are in?  I have just figured it out...it's because without the water level being low enough, you'll have a real hard time with those jars not bobbing while you're trying to put them in there.  Whew!  Consider it a lesson learned :...

Well, it's that time of year again...you can feel it in the air.  The leaves are changing colors, birds are feeding everywhere and we've got our fall crops ready!  Check out the pics.  Here you'll see some of our plantning: brocolli, kale, mustard greens, cabbage and the li...

We're getting ready for canning.  I am running this cans (minus the lids) through the dishwasher one time, for a quick rinse and sterilization.  These cans and lids are brand new so only a light but thorough cleaning are needed.  So here's to some canning prep wo...

Q:  How does a fresh egg actually taste?  What's the difference between it and the ones that you'd get from the store? A:  There are three the things that make a  difference in the eggs that you would get at the store and the eggs that you'd get from home.  The first is: just holding the "homegrown" egg, you will notice the difference.  The homegrown egg feels more dense where as the one from...

Okay so, we are pretty excited here.  This is our first (fresh) egg, ever!  Did I say, "fresh"?  Yep.  Papa went out to feed the chickies a little squash for lunch and look what he fou...

Well here we are with another fresh batch of tomatoes. If you'll looking closely in the white plastic bag you'll notice some of the heirloom quality.  This year we grew roma tomatoes, some of the marmande variety,a German pink tomato, as well a a Bulgarian tomato...y...

Wow! (It has really been a while...I am so glad that I have pictures that have photographed our journey along and along on the way). Our garden has truly come a long way. To date we have fresh vegetables GROWING in our garden. Just to name a few, we've got zucchini, cucumbers (see the two in photo), watermelons, potatoes, butternut squash, yellow squash, peas, carrots, potatoes, sunflowers, corn, peppers, three types of onions, lettuce, rutabagas...you...

And row two is: peas, carrots and rutabagas. Can anyone spell "rutabagas"? (I had to check the packag...

Here goes row one of two that we planted this afternoon: lettuce, spinach and swiss chard...

So now we had to make the actual rows, to show where we'd be planting each vegetable. The rows make a lot easier to picture the spacing for the garden. This is starting to get to be fun...

So the next part in planting the potatoes is, "layering in the compost". We took bails of compost from our heap and the end of the row and I'd fill up a bucket and Papa would layer it...over and over again, until we were do...

Today Papa went to get us a boat load of compost. Later, he went out to the garden to dig a two-foot trench where the potatoes are going to go. If I understood it correctly, a combination of the potatoes, dirt and compost will go there.Good job, Pa...

On this day we were out planting our first outdoor section of our garden. This section, the first row, included shallots, onions (red and yellow) and my favorite: (you guessed it!) garlic! Papa plowed the first part of the row, I finished it and then he had me start planting the garlic in the ground. Our little angel was also there and watched as we got things started. There is so much more to come as you can see the size of this monstruous (country)...

I think that you could say, that the picture speaks for itself. Over the last month Papa has worked hard getting things ready for our country garden and now it's time to grow. We've since had to ground plowed up, Papa has carefully nurtured some twenty plus different vegetables (in doors) and we're ready to grow! Take a lo...

Today, Don began digging up the area that part of our garden will grow. This is a 20foot x20 foot plot of ground and here will grow all different types of seeds. The garden will extend forward towards the road, running parrallel to the house.It's going to be exciting to watch our garden grow from "nothing" to "somethin...

Thursday night, Don filled up all of the water bottle cups and loading them with all different types of seeds: two type of tomato (roma tomato and ugly (heirloom) tomatoes), peppers, and cucumbers. He will let them sit inside for awhile until the time is "ripe" to move them outdoo...

Five days ago we started with "the water bottles" (see photo). Don had been collecting them for a while. In times past, whenever we'd be finished with them we'd just put them aside for recycling but now they have found their new purpose. They have become the "houses" to part of the beginning of our new gard...