Changing Locations

This will be the last week we do open air markets for the season. We will be in Burlington at the Port on Thursday the 31st  from 4:30 - 6:30. On Friday Nov. 1st wee in Nauvoo at the Sinclair Station by Ducks from 11am-4pm.

We still have lots of squash, turnips, radishes, herbs, lettuce and other goodies so we will be setting up 4 days a week at the Painted Corners across from the Pink in Lomax, IL starting next week. Our hours will be:
Wed & Thurs 2 - 6 pm
Fri 10 am - 6 pm
and Sat. 9 am - 2 pm

Stop by and see what we have!


God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Late Potato Update

Today is the first day in nearly two months that my knee hasn't hurt. It's been a real struggle just to get my dishes done and get to the markets, so extra projects like making covers to put over my late potato garden experiment have gone by the way side. Alas! the frost hit before I felt up to dealing with it.

I thought about digging it up and just harvesting whatever might be there, but a couple of years ago I had potatoes at the very first market because I had missed some deep potatoes in a bed the year before. My brain has been concocting a plan.

These weren't planted very deep at all. Plan A had been to cover them with soil from the idle bed beside it as they grew and then return that soil on top of quite a bit of compost when I pulled the potatoes, but a certian body part was not co-operative. 

Potatoes grow on the stems, and if you bury the stems as they grow, you'll get a much bigger harvest.Since plan A was a bust, I decided to try to recreate my surprise harvest a couple of springs ago. 

Plan B is really a lot more fun anyway, given the cute help I had today!

First we went out to the compost pile so we could put another layer of compost on the garden.

Then like any good grama, I buried my help multiple times.

He was a little confused at first, but soon caught on to the fun! 

We had all sorts of fun jumping in the piles and throwing leaves into the garden until it was full. I still have ambitions to make hoop covers for it and cover this garden with plastic, but my help fell asleep and I need to follow :)

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Candle Powered Heater Comes in Handy

On Thursday's, I usually pick up a few things from my friend Seth at the Burlington Market because it is difficult for us to produce enough for the demand we have in Nauvoo and then still make the Saturday market.

Last night was going to be Seth's last night there for the season so he offered me all that he had left over for a really good price. Then he stuffed my truck :) He and his wife have a FaceBook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Huizenga-Family-Farm/111793305589433 if you want to check them out.

It was supposed to get down to 24 degrees last night. Having all that stuff on the truck when it was supposed to get that cold worried me, but instead of unloading it all and bringing it in, I put the candle powered emergency heater in amongst the melons.

Nothing is frozen! ... Now to find people to buy all this stuff! I'll be in Nauvoo today from 11 am to 5 pm and in Keokuk tomorrow from 8 am to noon. Come see me!

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

I Have a Dream

My dream is of 40 or more acres of gently rolling ground with a barn or two, a pond or a stream that runs year round, an orchard, 10-20 acres suitable for row crops, ample garden space, 10-15 acres of pasture, some timber, a milk cow, some sheep, some goats, maybe a pig or two, some geese and ducks and turkey along with my chickens and a house with a greenhouse, back on a lane that can't be seen from the road, or at least a place like that for us to put our trailer on. I like my trailer, and I have a fantasic plan to put a new roof on it and add a greenhouse. It doesn't have to be just exactly like that, close would be OK.

Grampa Tom and I are 55 years old with no savings and we live hand-to-mouth. It's an impossible dream, but I have a God for whom the impossible is nothing. Sarah went 90 years without bearing a child, menopause had come and gone, yet God gave her a baby and she called his name Isaac. Isaac means "Laughter". God is able, and when it comes, this farm will be called Isaac Hills. God is able!


God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Candle Powered Heater

A few weeks ago, my son (who is currently in Afghanistan) sent us a link for an emergency heater made with clay pots and powered by a candle. Grampa Tom thought it was interesting and decided to try it.

Being the cheap people that we are, we went to the locally famous fall rummage sale at the Sts. Peter and Paul School in Nauvoo and bought some old pots and a candle in a jar. This weekend, Grampa got around to building it. The instructions said to surround the candle with some jars and put the pots on them, but if you want to stablize it more, to put the whole contraption in a pot. Since we don't have much room and things get knocked down easily here anyway, we decided to do that. 

It took a long time for it to heat up. We lit it around 6 in the evening and the pots were just starting to warm up at 10 when we went to bed. We have it in the TV room. We are currently being cheap (as usual) and heating the house by canning, drying foods, etc. so at night the house is getting pretty cool. We shut the TV room door and have been heating it with the candle heater. That room is running about 4 degrees warmer than the rest of the house. The approximate square footage is about 150 feet. 

Grampa Tom and my boy think it would probably heat better if the clay pots were elevated above the cooking pot. We're thinking about putting several inches of gravel in the cooking pot to elevate them. Grampa also has an idea for some "legs" to set the whole thing in to stablize it.

It's a work in progress. After Grampa Tom gets out of the fields, he will tinker with it more. He's thinking he may make some that look better and sell them at the markets, so be in anticipation!

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

God is Able!

For the past 30 years, I've been bucking the status quo, choosing to rely on God rather than government for my provision, my health care, my children's education, whatever. And I have seen Him do some miraculous things! He turned my knee so I can walk straight. I believe He removed a 3 pound tumor from my belly in a dream one night many years ago. He's miraculously put food in a cupboard that wasn't there a few hours before. He's given me beautiful clothing and houses when there was no way in the natural. My kids didn't have a lot when they were growing up, but I honestly don't think we'd have the relationship we do now had I sent them to school. It was rough and there were days when I wondered why I was doing it, but I firmly believed it was God's will for my children. I've seen so much and yet ...

Recently, I've been seriously considering giving in. Our row crops failed, the markets have been down, our chickens haven't been laying well, old health issues as well as new ones have reared their ugly heads. Grampa Tom has been in a panic. I've been feeling so much pressure to just give up, get a real job, sign up for government healthcare and just be "normal". After all, this dream that I believe is from God looks incredibly foolish right now.

But, I've been here before and God has come through. I can't do what I believe God has called me to do and hold down a real job. Earlier today it occurred to me that if I don't have faith enough to keep going now, what will happen if they come to take me to prison or to torture me or kill me because of my faith in Christ? I had to admit it. I don't have that kind of faith. But it's not about me or what I can do anyway. It's about Him and what He can do through me. So I asked, "LORD, please help my unbelief!" And He has! God is able!

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue