Y is for Yawn

the windmills of La Mancha, Spain

The week is winding down, and though a busy weekend awaits, it is a good outdoor kind of busy with soccer games and garden and household tasks.  Maybe it will be intermixed with a family game or movie, some reading and grabbing a bite to eat out.  Even a busy weekend is a relaxing change.  It is less regimented by the work and school requirements of the week, and there are fewer have to get done's.  Tomorrow also marks the end of this Blogging A-Z challenge, and with that, I can stretch out stifle a little yawn and relish in a writing undertaking completed.

Weekend Excursion and Maturing Tastes

A quick trip down to Chicago this weekend was our first such excursion to Chi Town since the kids were much younger.  Now as the teen years overtake us, longevity and interests allow for quite a different experience.  We had a beautiful, jacket free day near 60 degrees and with the insanity from Friday's windstorm past we were left with a gentle 10mph breeze. A perfect way to get our winter dulled endorphins kick started.

We began at the Museum of Science and Industry.  It is a fantastic museum, but with the exception of a handful of areas, one we had done enough when the kids were small, they felt a bit like they'd outgrown it.  A major hit for Sidney was the Chemistry area, she walked in and said, "now this is my wheelhouse".  Then she had me load a periodic table to her phone so that she could see if she could remember how to calculate moles.  She was successful.

After a nice tapas lunch we walked downtown for a couple of hours with a stop at Millennium Park and a few obligatory photos at the bean.  All in all a great day.  It was perfect for seeing the different ways that our kids tastes are maturing, and get ideas for next time.

Getting it All Done

This was truly a weekend of getting it all done.  Early Saturday B was able to take in a round of golf with friends while I went to yoga, and then we were off to soccer.  Once home we spent the afternoon, early evening and most of Sunday, except for soccer game time, working on farm projects.

The early season beds are doing beautifully.  Spring onions, radishes, kale, bok choi, kohlrabi, spinach and asparagus are all in various stages of growth, soon to be in our first farm bags.  We are able to eat fresh thinnings with our meals.  The lettuces, chickpeas, peas, beets, carrots, flower sprouts and chard are all poking their heads through loving the sunshine.  The rhubarb appears to be abundant and I made an amazing rhubarb upside-down cake last night... and well, uh, am eating some for breakfast too!

The tomatoes, eggplant, leeks & more onions are in the basement grow room, looking robust and ready to be transplanted this week!

The ducklings had their first venture outside and loved the grass.  I can't wait to hear when their voices begin to change from cheeps to quacks.  With this new experience, they are so different from chickens already, and are 3 times the size of the chicks that we got at the same time.

We painted the re-worked chicken tractor and it is almost ready to be the night-time haven for our free-range meat birds.

We also cooked out and had our first meal of the season on the porch.  Not too shabby.  How was your weekend?

Random 5 Friday

1.  For the last five years we have made and donated soup for our towns Empty Bowls event.  This year the health department is requiring that all Indy soups be made in a commercial kitchen.  Aside from all of our ingredients and spices, we have to bring all of our pots, pans, cookie sheets, knives etc.  The bags are packed and we will head off to make a parsnip and white bean soup later this morning...all garden fare from last season.

2.  Everyone seems to be very ready for the weekend this week, myself included.

3.  We have an old orchard on our property.  Well, what once was an orchard.  There are five large trees remaining, and though overgrown and dying, still produce very flavorful apples.  B harvested from last years new growth and has stored the samples.  We will be grafting them later this spring and hope to propagate the orchard this year.

4.   It is hard to believe that tomorrow is March first.  The start to the year has just flown.  We are approaching more records for the winter.  Earlier this week we were at 86 consecutive days of snow cover of 1" or greater, only another 20 days or so to break a previous record. With the masses of snow still on the ground that should not be too hard to do.  Regardless, thoughts turn toward spring and we are starting our onions in doors tomorrow!

5.  We should have some big news later today, but I learned early on that nothing is done until the last signature dry.  More to come.

Won't you join in?

A Lighter House

The day began with blowing and drifting, and quickly turned to sun and 32 degrees.  

Taking advantage of the much needed vitamin D we have spent some necessary time outside.

**The snow has been blown.

**The outside Christmas lights have been taken down.

**The porch been completely cleared and re-organized.

**The bird feeders all replenished.

**The kids have begun building a snow igloo.

It feels so good to be active outside.  Even once inside the breaks of bright sun through the windows makes my heart skip a beat.  It is hard to believe how very little sunshine we have had this winter! We are taking every advantage today since the deep freeze returns to us tomorrow.

We haven't neglected our inside tasks this weekend either.  Beginning after soccer yesterday we purged three truck loads of both ours and the previous owners junk from our basement. Some to recycle, some to trash, much to donate.  Everything remaining is now finding a new home in labeled buckets on shelves.  Old work benches and built in shelving are now emerging as our wine, honey and charcuterie supply center.  A work in progress, but oh so close.  Best of all?  We seem to have found a nice balance of work and rest with our tasks.  Work some, read or knit some, play some, then work some more.  

The house feels lighter, and is giving off a new energy.  A great start to 2014, and hopefully a force that will propel us into our ever growing farm to do list.

Ferments

We have been up to our eyeballs in ferments this weekend.  All of the crocks of veggies that we have been lacto-fermenting for the last couple of weeks we emptied and jarred.  This group we did as refrigerator picklings so that we could maintain the integrity of all of the good bacteria.  As we have already started re-filling the crocks, our next batch we will water-bath can and as a result will loose some of the benefits of lacto-fermenting, but we will gain the fresh taste of pickles for the months to come. 

We bottled the 2012 elderberry wine.  This batch we did as a straight run.  We did not add any other fruit flavors to it (like last years elderberry/rhubarb).  It will benefit from time in the bottle, but the flavor right out of the carboy is great.  We are considering doing our 2013 batch as a first press and then a second press rose.  All new experiments, so much fun!

We pulled all of the garlic yesterday and out of the entire row, we only found one head that we couldn't keep.  We are heavy in the garlic.  It was surprising how immense the root systems were.  The giant clods of dirt that the roots held onto took more than a little effort to free.  Thankfully, with B's broadfork. we were able to pull up sections, harvest, and aerate all at once!

 
To tie this in to the ferments theme here,  aside from farm bags, we are going to look into selling some at a local farm fresh store, packing in oil, and making some black garlic to sell and share. I am interested to try this out, the flavor is supposed to be fantastic!

I asked B this morning, how are we going to outdo yesterday?  We shall see...