Pumpkins?

Look at my pumpkin haul!

Oh wait a minute, they aren't actually pumpkins ;)

They are actually miniature Japanese eggplants! These cute little pumpkins ... egg plants are sliced and used in Japanese stir fries, but most folks here use them for fall decorations. You will probably find them in a seed catalog as pumpkin on a stick. They dry very nicely and last a long time.

We have them at the farm this week: a pint box for $1 or we can go out and cut you a fresh stick with pumpkins attached for $1.

God Bless You All!
~Grama Sue 

Rope Swing Challenge

Take the rope swing challenge! Come see me this week, swing on the rope swing (or just stand by it and look cute), let me take a picture for my FB page and I'll give 10% of your purchase to the Nauvoo Food Pantry! Thursday - Saturday 9-5

Bonus! Mom and I are having a yard sale too! Go to my yard sale page on Facebook for pictures of some of the stuff we have for sale. We ran out of room, but we'll put more out as we have table space! We've only just begun to tap the vast depths of our treasuries ;)

On the menu: eggs, pumpkins, kale, chard, radishes, tomatoes, acorn, spaghetti, butternut and patty pan squash, aloe plants, egg plant, jams and jellies, apples, potatoes, sweet potatoes, basil, sage, tarragon, thyme, rosemary, chives, oregano, cockscomb ... probably for getting quite a bit as usual :)


God Bless You All!
~Grama Sue

Signs Done and Out!

They are done!  But not without peril to life and limb :( Yesterday, Grampa Tom had to go to Carthage. I really wanted to get these signs done and I was afraid he'd get home just in time to take off again, so I decided to try to get them down myself.

This is where they were:

Up above that door in the rafters of the garage.

And this is what was below, 'cept for a whole lot more junk. I had to move a bunch just to get the ladder in.

I got a couple of the smaller signs down with great difficulty and then decided I probably ought to tackle it from the other direction. As I took a step down, the ladder slipped out from underneath me. I grabbed the rafters and found myself hanging there yelling "Help!" Then it occurred to me that the only other people on the property were deaf and probably inside.

That wasn't going to work. I thought about just letting go, but the ladder was underneath me and there was no way I could do that without risking impaling myself on the various pieces of junk and metal surrounding it.




My life flashed before my eyes. At least the long forgotten parts about how bad I was at monkey bars 45 years ago.



A word fell out of my mouth that shouldn't have. Instantly I was convicted.


Once, years ago, I found myself driving a truck that was spinning out of control on the ice. Same thing happened. I thought to myself, "Now that was pretty stupid!" and decided to yell "Jesus" instead. The truck stopped instantly.


So, as I hung there, I basically had two choices. Hold on til Grampa Tom got home, or do something. I prayed, "Holy Spirit, help me!" and decided to let go with one hand and try to swing over to the sink. Don't know how, but I made it.

Needless to say, I waited till Grampa Tom got home to get the rest.

Fear and impatience will make you do stupid things, but yesterday, God was merciful to me :) And by the time you read this, the signs ought to be from the highway to here so a few more people can find us!

God Bless You All!
~Grama Sue

Fresh Produce Just Outside of Nauvoo

Goals for this week: MAKE SIGNS! Have yard sale.

I know, I know, it's the middle of September and I'm just now getting around to making signs? Yeah. Disgusting isn't it? But I'm done with the markets. Grampa Tom will be going to Burlington, Lomax and Keokuk this week, but I'm staying home.

This morning I have the produce tables set up. Hopefully, tomorrow I will have signs made and be able to start putting our our hoarded treasures :)

This week we have mums, hot peppers, Japanese egg plant (cute little things that look like miniature pumpkins), potatoes, tomatoes, peaches, nectarines, concord grapes, zucchini, radishes, patty pan, acorn, butternut and spaghetti squash, egg plant, kale, chard, basil, oregano, rosemary, stevia, sage, thyme, chives, tarragon, apple butter, raspberry, strawberry and peach jam ... of course I've forgotten some stuff ;)

Directions to the farm: Go to the Nauvoo-Colusa Jr. High. Turn east on the Colusa Road. Go ½ mile. Turn north on county road 1050 E. Go ¾ mile. The Whitson compound is on the east side – a white house and a single wide trailer. We are in the trailer. The goodies are set up in the carport beside Grampa Tom's folks in the white house :)

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue 

Thanking God for the Weeds!

After the 5 beautiful inches of rain we got last night, I decided to play hookey from the market so I could tackle this:

Last week when it rained a bit, I discovered that I still had strawberries in the Trinity garden, but  most of the bigger weeds were just too hard to pull. Several spots on our farm look like this right now because we haven't had anyone who could run the rototiller and I just haven't had time to pull them all by hand. I'm not fretting over it though. I'm thanking God for the weeds.

When I was a young bride, Grampa Tom's work took us out in the boonies. I was pregnant and the closest jobs were about an hour away, so we settled on me being a stay-at-home mom. After the baby was born, I grew bored, so I decided to read the Old Testament. At the same time this townie girl was learning a whole lot about agriculture. One of the things that really fascinated me was the practice of Shemitah. Several great things happened once every seven years. The one thing that peaked my interest was that the Israelites were instructed to let their ground lay fallow during the Shemitah year. They didn't plant, they didn't plow and they didn't weed. In this way, the ground was replenished and fertilized. I thought that was amazing :)

With the availability of fertilizers today, we really don't need to do this, but back then it was vital. I'm considering this something of a Shemitah year for my ground. The bigger gardens will have the weeds plowed under and I am using the weeds from the smaller gardens to fill my huglekulture dog house garden! After last night's rain, it really needed some more weeds!

So tonight, the Trinity garden looks like this:

and the huglekulture dog house looks like this!

Thank You LORD for the weeds!

Hope Grampa Tom had a good night at the market :)

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Watermelon Cubes

Grampa Tom and I love watermelon, but let's face it, unless you get one that's really tiny, it's hard for a two person household to devour one before it gets bad. We've had one in the fridge that I've been avoiding cutting into for just that reason, but today was a rainy day. Since I can't do much outside, I thought we'd enjoy some watermelon and make the rest into watermelon cubes to give the kids for treats this winter when the only watermelons available are those tasteless, mushy things from Mexico.

I like nice big juicy seeded watermelons. You could choose an unseeded one, but seeded watermelons are so much sweeter and I think you'd probably want to remove the white seeds anyway because they probably wouldn't puree very well.

 

To remove the seeds, I cut very thin slices and used a fork to poke them out.

 

I removed the rind and pureed the meat of the melon. I used a wand, but you could use a blender or a food processor.

 

You could use popcicle forms or small paper cups, but the grandkids that  frequent here most are pretty little and probably wouldn't finish anything much bigger so I poured it into ice cube trays and froze it. (In some of these pictures, the melon looks kinda orange, but I assure you, it was a beautiful red!)

Once frozen, pop them out and put into baggies!

It's a little bit of work, but the smiles I get paid for it will be well worth it!

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Chicken Deterent FAIL

Went out to check on my booby trapped lettuce today. Plastic forks may work for cats, but chickens just don't care!

Myth BUSTED!

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Chicken Booby Traps

Went out to cut lettuce the other day and this is what I found! 

Grrrrr ... DURN chickens!

Decided to booby trap what was left of my crop with plastic forks. Got the idea a few days ago from Listotic's website, which I promptly pinned! If this works, I'm buying a lot more plastic forks :)

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Full Tables ... So Much More to Pick!

The tables are already full and we have a bunch left to pick! Grandma Whitson is out picking green beans right now, Grampa Tom is picking currant tomatoes and egg plant. I need to pick radishes, lettuce, some more herbs and I don't know what all else! Only about 3 weeks left of this zoom, zoom, zoom and then on to the fall season of zoom, zoom, zoom!

Starting the week of the 14th, I plan to shift to mostly at home sales. Grandma Whitson and I really need to have a colossal yard sale, so we are planning on turning the carport into a big yard sale the last two weeks in September. I will still have veggies here so people who come will have a double treat in addition to the opportunity to play on the rope swing ;)

Today's menu: tomatoes, sweet corn, sweet onions, cabbage, radishes, new potatoes, green beans, peaches, beets, chard, kale, lettuce, acorn, turban, butternut and spaghetti squash, basil, tarragon, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, (Are you singing yet?) oregano ... lots more, I need to get out picking. Maybe I'll edit this later if I have time.

We'll be at the farm till one, then Grampa Tom will be headed to Lomax to take over for David at the Painted  Corners while I head to Burlington to take eggs to the Agency Hy-Vee and do the Riverfront market at the Port from 5-7pm.

Directions to the farm:

Go to the Nauvoo-Colusa Jr. High. Turn east on the Colusa Road. Go ½ mile. Turn north on county road 1050 E. Go ¾ mile. The Whitson compound is on the east side – a white house and a single wide trailer. We are in the trailer. The goodies are set up in the carport beside Grampa Tom's folks in the white house :)

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue 

Spaghetti Squash Anyone?

This spring I put in a bunch of acorn squash. This is what I got:

But, I think God knew what He was doing. I would never have found acorn squash :)

Thanking God for the weeds anyway! In the Old Testament, the people were instructed to let their land lay fallow every 7 years. This is how the land was fertilized. There's a lot of free fertilizer out there this year :)

God Bless You All!
~Grama Sue