TWO!!

Our little boy is TWO!  Can't believe how the time flies!  Here he is enjoying a cupcake (er, rather enjoying the frosting) on December 5th.

Halloween!

Bruce thoroughly enjoyed his first year of trick or treating!  (His mom and dad cheated him out of trick or treating last year, thinking he was too young to know the difference ... don't tell ...)

What a happy little fireman!

Heading to great Aunt Linda's house with Grandma DiDi

"Look what I got!"

"CANDY, grandma!"

The cousins (last weekend) dressed up in their Halloween best!  Trick or Treat!

Hooray!

Here's what we found yesterday ...

Finally!

A Visit from Grandma and Papa

A visit from grandma and papa also meant:

Bruce's first trip to the pumpkin patch! 

He wasn't quite sure what to think ...

 ... But he knew just what to do when he saw a kitty! 

"KITTY!"

Another kitty in the stone barn at the pumpkin patch ... jackpot!

Bruce also had his first visit to Henry's Candy Factory!  He was WAAAY more excited about the suckers than he was about the pumpkins!

... picking some out for Kalo and Maggie ...

 ... happy boy!!!

Labor Day is for Hammocks

Okay - should have posted these earlier in the week, but it's been a leetle busy to say the least.  Aren't these pictures the best?

The new fruit basket

 ... is the Vegetable Basket! :)  It could catch on.  You just wait and see.

I put this together for the weekly drawing at the Walnut Valley Farmers Market - complete with heirloom tomatoes, sweet burpless cucumbers, striped zucchini, yellow squash, pattypan squash, butternut squash, and sunflowers in all colors.   It was lots of fun!

Plus, it gave me the chance to play around with some potential logo designs for our farm. 

Just .... so .... tired ...

 ... can't ... quite ... make it. 

With all this heat, we've been a little lethargic around our house.  Little guy couldn't even make it all the way onto the couch.  (Notice the binky falling out of his mouth ... soooo pitiful!)  

I'm ready for FALL!!! 

Are you sensing a theme?

We've been in a "box phase" in our home lately. 

You may have noticed. 

In the latest episode, these tomatoes almost met an untimely fate as our little box crawler found his way into a box I was packing for market.  :)

Sea of Pickles

Yesterday, Diana and I made pickles.  Here is an important life lesson: it is SO much nicer to do large canning projects with someone else! 

Here is the finished product.  Next time I plan to make pickles, remind me that it is a whole day process, okay?  I'm not saying I'll bail on the project.  It would just be nice to be realistic about the time-frame, for once.

I swear, these cucumbers grow so fast, I think you could probably SEE them grow.  I sold a TON at market on Saturday ... then picked these on Sunday morning. 

Pretty sure these were gherkin-sized on Saturday.

Yikes.  Mutant cucumbers. 

What does a 19-month old do when his mom and grandma are canning 28-quarts of pickles? 

Climbs into the empty jar box with a wooden spoon and pretends it is a boat.  :) 

(Can't you tell he's saying the word "Row?")

Perfection

Oh yeah ... tomato time!!!

Baby in a Box

Is there anything cuter than this?  I think not. 

After typing the title for this post, I realize he doesn't look like a baby anymore, does he?

*sniff*  *sniff*

Notice he's "reading" the instruction manual on how to install his Big Boy carseat. What a funny guy.

Colorful

Picked these multi-colored carrots this afternoon ... cool, huh? 

Will be selling them at the Walnut Valley Farmer's Market tomorrow morning along with cucumbers, summer and winter squash, kohlrabi, cabbage, onions, and a FEW tomatoes. Oh, and sunflowers.  :)

Hello, Pretty

These pretties just opened up in the garden, a day or so ago.  I hope to have a few to take to farmers market tomorrow ... but I also want to have some for a 4th of July centerpiece!  

My selfishness might just win out and I may keep them all for myself this week.  :)

Oooo, I like the orange ones.



 ... but these are my absolute favorite! ... Deep red darkening to almost black in the center. Lovely.

Other farm updates - here is a new pic of our chickens.  Can you believe how much they've grown??? 

I'm hoping for eggs in October. 

Gage says it will be longer than that. 

Come on girls, don't let me down.

This past week was haaa-ard keeping up with the garden.  Gage has been doing most of the heavy lifting this summer in the garden, and I help ( a little ...) in the evenings and on weekends.  But with Gage gone for a week for wheat harvest, it was up to me.  I think I did okay, if I do say so myself. 

(I'm not going to talk about how Gage said he had to triage the plants last night to determine which crisis to tackle first.  Let's just say, I wasn't very happy about it.  We're in a stinkin' drought with 100+ temps, and I kept the plants alive.  That's all I'm gonna say about it.) 

Here is our row of squash plants.  The butternut squash (in the foreground) are going CRAZY!  Mulching and setting up drip irrigation systems this year has helped immensely in controlling weeds and maintaining moisture.  Of course, you can see there is still johnson grass creeping up through the squash.  But, if we hadn't mulch, by this point in the summer, you wouldn't even be able to SEE the squash plants because they would be so choked out by weeds. 

(Yes, I know this from experience.)

Here is a delicious pattypan squash.  These are YUM. 

Lookit!!  A watermelon!

Here is my row of tomatoes.  The intense heat this summer has been really hard on tomato production.  Tomato plants drop their blossoms when it gets too hot, too fast. 

Apparently. 

I still have a lot to learn.

I have a few green tomatoes from before it got super hot.  Might not be the best year for tomatoes, though.  We will have to wait and see.

On the topic of green tomatoes ... why does it always seem like it takes forEVER for the first green tomato to ripen???  Must be some Murphey's Law thing.

Cherry tomatoes are ready, though!  Only planted one cherry tomato plant this year in my kitchen garden.  Because they are so time consuming to pick, we decided we didn't want to sell them at market.

Speaking of my kitchen garden, look at these pretty bean blossoms. 

Confession:  I bought these green bean seeds specifically because it said they would have pretty red blossoms, not the usual white flowers.  I have no idea how the beans will taste.  They might taste like dirt. 

But the blossoms sure are pretty. 

P.S.  Any of our friends or family recognize that trellis?  Yep - it's from our wedding.  Of COURSE we are using it to grow vegetables now ... why wouldn't we?

There are also other flowers blooming in the kitchen garden ... zinnias and cornflowers.

I just had to throw this picture in, 'cause I didn't get it posted when I took it a month ago. 

YUM!  Spring strawberries!

This year we planted some "ever-bearing" strawberries (as opposed to these berries which came from "June-bearing" plants), so a few of those plants are putting on strawberries right now.  I found a few last night, popped one in my mouth and .... YUCK.  Suffice it to say, the ever-bearing berries are not the succulent, juicy, berries I am now used to in the spring.  Maybe the heat has affected them, too.  Who knows, but I think I will feed the rest to the pigs.

Our little girl-cat Lucy coming out to "help" in the field. 

Scenes from the farmer's market over the past few weeks. 

Carrots!  Last week was the first time I have had carrots to sell!  Fun.

Here's something funny.  After struggling with trying to figure out a display for my pricing signage, I came up with these little flower pots filled with wheat berries. 

Do you know how many people in Kansas don't recognize wheat berries when they see them?  Let's just say it's a lot ...  :)

Gage and I are working on a more permanent, easy-to-set up display, and the flower pots will probably go away at that point.  Until then, we will keep educating people about wheat.

I love the farmer's market. 

I love growing and selling fresh, wholesome food to people who love it and appreciate it.  See you at market!