farming family

Hello to all of my fellow friends who are green at heart.  Today, at GreenHearts Farm, we had loads of fun with my birthday gift, a refurbished sewing machine!  I have been employed in the creative task of making bio bags for my soybeans.  I recently decided that I was not going to buy anymore bags, paper or plastic, and that I was determined to sew my own.  I have had so much fun in my new endeavor.  I went to Walmart and bought 2 yards of the cheapest white cotton cloth, that is so threadbare it is almost see-through (perfect for veggies and fruits at market).  I took a piece of regular paper and made it my template for tracing. Then, I cut and sewed the fabric and applied ribbon and my logo.  They are super-fun!

We also tie-dyed a batch of shirts and aprons in blue and yellow today for the Short Pump Whole Foods market and we are waiting for them to dry to do the finishing touches.  We have a new addition to the tie-dye family, a sweet little onesie with longsleeves for 12 month babies.  I can not wait to put Kemp Kemp in one.  He will look so hippie, handsome. A mommas dream come true.  By the way, not all of my keys are working on this keyboard which can be frustrating, I mean no apostrophes, what is that about! I feel like I am writing an MLA paper for English 101, hahah.

I also made a batch of wassail pear butter which is totally yummy and has been slow cooking in the crockpot all day.  I went to a ladies house yesterday who said I could pick her pears, which were so high, I could only reach the bottom branches.  There are so many more pears to be had for taller people or those with ladders.  so I picked yesterday with the boys and peeled, sugared and spiced this morning.  My favorite flavor in the make up of the butter is the orange zest and the fresh squeezed orange.  It reminds me of Christmas morning and clementines in my stocking. That is one of my favorite Christmas morning family traditions, besides going to Grandma Mills for breakfast.  I love sugar gravy! aka strawberry freezer jam.

We made something that was so scumptious for dinner using hollowed out yellow squash. I will, hopefully, post the recipe for all that love squash.  A lady told me about it at market on Saturday and I had to replicate it to the best of my ability of her desciption of her grandmothers squash dish from when she was a little girl in England.  I love nostalgic people.

The hubs brought me a couple of barrels off the big farm to make rain catchers this evening.  Nothing says I love you like a rain barrel. He just got off a combine only to eat and now he is outside working on our homemade greenhouse. Gosh, I love that guy to pieces. So now, it is time to clean up in order to sit around and watch a family movie. I checked out Snow Dogs from the library for the boys.  It promises to be a few laughs.