End of Season Ramblings

We've decided we won't be opening at the farm in October. We will continue to go to Lomax on Wednesday evenings and if anyone wants anything, I'm making deliveries to Nauvoo on Mondays around the noon hour.

I've been letting Grampa Tom go to most of the markets by himself so I could get stuff done  before he went into the fields.

Here's an old trike that I planted in my new peppermint patch. That thing has been driving me nuts! It doesn't work, but every child who comes here insists on riding it. Grampa Tom has been saying he was going to scrap it out for years now. There comes a time when a girl just has to take matters into her own hands! Can't wait till next year when I can sit some flowers on it :)

And I've been piddling around the house. Actually found my living room and kitchen. Now I have to organize the disaster that is my store room that has spilled over and taken possession of the grandkids bedroom as well.  Normally, I keep the kids room accessible, but when we had to rearrange the entire house to get the hospital bed in, everything got shoved in there and it has been accumulating :(

I've been harvesting and drying quite a few herbs.

This is my stevia. Yes that is a shower curtain. Don't worry. That bathroom hasn't worked since the pipes broke when we were pretending to be snowbirds several years ago. It's mostly just and extra storage closet now.

Stevia doesn't put out a great deal of fragrance, but this holy basil has the whole house smelling wonderful! Yes, I know, some of it has flowered. I like the flowers. They are pretty and they taste good! I'm betting they will make an awesome oil as well.

I've been experimenting with making massage oils with my herbs and olive oil. So far, I've been very pleased with the results. Our friend David heard about what I was doing and offered me several thousand little spray bottles to package them in. That should do me for quite a while :)

This week's goals: Start teaching/babysitting my grandkids. I'll try to post some of our activities on my Almost Unschooling Grama blog, pull a ton of weeds, pick my dried beans, dig more potatoes (still have several rows), study more on how to be professional about this blogging thing (I feel like a kindergartner who only knows how to count to 3), straighten the store room and kids room, build a fence around the new garden space I am making south of the deck, bring home more clay blocks from the neighbor's house ... yeah, that's how I roll ...

God Bless You All!
~Grama Sue

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

State of the Business Report

Good morning folks! We are open at home and ready for business! 

This morning I decided to do a comparison from this year to last of our business records for the farmer's markets. We actually are about $1000 over last year in sales compared to this time last year!


Praise the LORD!

God Bless You All!
~Grama Sue

It's Sunshiny in the Carport! - Menu Update

 
Would you look at all these beautiful colors? And I'm so organized this morning! Got everything out but the kale, chard and herbs. I wait as late as I can to cut those so they are as fresh as possible. I'll be out there during let ups in the rain to get those this morning.

So whats on the line up today? Tomatoes, green beans, cabbage, green peppers, hot peppers, cucumbers, beets, watermelon, peaches, new potatoes, zucchini, spaghetti squash, spazhini squash, blackberries, peas, egg plant, sweet onions, basil, tarragon, Greek and Italian oregano, sage, parsley, thyme, dill, peppermint ... possibly spearmint and rosemary ... aloe and lemon balm plants ... of course I've forgotten something ;)

Hopefully this weekend we will have sweet corn, acorn squash, peaches and other goodies. Check out my Facebook page for daily updates and more pictures!

We will be open at the farm Wed-Fri from 9am-1pm, at the Painted Corners in Lomax from 3-7pm Wed-Fri and 9-1 Saturday, and we will be at the Port in Burlington from 5-7pm and at the Keokuk mall from 7-11am on Sat morning

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. Grampa Tom's folks are in the white house :)

God Bless You All!
~Grama Sue

Under Cover Produce - Click to See What We Have!

Well, after last week's torrential rains on Friday, I finally bit the bullet and asked my in-laws if I could use a part of their carport to set up in. They of course said yes because they love me! I thought about setting up in the yard again today, but in the carport I don't have to chase the shade and that sounds good to me.

This week we have: red and white sweet candy onions, cabbage, tomatoes, kohlrabi, kale, chard, black berries,  zucchini, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, beets, carrots, egg plant, new potatoes, green beans, carrots, peas (yes, it's July 30th and we are picking peas), jams and jellies, cilantro, basil, dill, sage, tarragon, oregano, parsley, thyme... there's always something I've forgotten. We have a few ears of shucked sweet corn today. Tomorrow we will have lots more sweet corn and some really good mini cantaloupes that have almost paper thin rinds. Friday we should have peaches, bigger cantaloupe and watermelon.

Stop by the farm from 9-1 today through Friday or by the Painted Corners on 96 across from the Pink in Lomax from 3-7 today through Friday and on Saturday from 9-2 or at the Burlington market in Crapo Park Thursday evening from 5-7 or at the Keokuk mall Saturday morning from 7-11.

 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. Grampa Tom's folks are in the white house :)

 

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue 

Rhubarb, Comfrey and More

There's lots of rhubarb and comfrey in this garden. Rhubarb for a spring crop and comfrey for my chickens and some salves I want to try. Planted lots of flowers to hold the spaces until they take over.  Thank you to my sis and her hubby who helped me dig it and to my neighbor who gave me the comfrey :)

This Weeks Goodies!

We're running a little late here today folks! It was so hot yesterday that I thought it would be better just to pick this morning and if anyone wanted something I didn't have yet, I'd just go out and pick it while they waited.

 There's still a few things we need to get out there yet, but here's the line up: peaches, watermelon, cantaloupe, tomatoes, onions, zucchini, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, beets, carrots, new potatoes, green beans, kohlrabi, radishes carrots, cilantro, basil, dill, sage, tarragon, oregano, parsley, thyme... there's always something I've forgotten ... oh yeah! Peas! Can you believe it? It's the 23rd of July and we are picking peas! We'll have sweet corn this evening.

We're open at the farm Wednesday through Friday from 9am -1pm. At the Painted Corners in Lomax from 3-7 Wednesday through Friday and on Saturday morning from 9-2. We also go to the Burlington market on Thursday evening and to the Keokuk market on Saturday mornings.

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. Grampa Tom's folks are in the white house :)

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue 

Blackberries are coming!

Had two of these beauties today! For a while there we thought the cold winter had probably put us out of the blackberry business this year, but they are coming on strong!

Menu Update

Woo hoo! We should have sweet corn, red raspberries,cantaloupe, watermelon and peaches tomorrow up at Lomax from 3-7 and here Wednesday morning from 9-1! Other possibilities include: radishes, new potatoes, cabbage, cucumbers, pickling cucumbers, dill,  kohlrabi, turnips, green beans, cilantro, beets, tomatoes, zucchini, summer squash, basil, tarragon, oregano, chives, sage, thyme, spearmint, peppermint, cut flowers, aloe and lemon balm plants ... probably a whole lot more!

If you come out to the farm, tell me you saw this post and we'll give you $2 off any purchase of $5 or more this week. Only one discount per customer please!

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Nettles

Stinging Nettle is an herb that grows wild all over the place. A while back, I had the opportunity to go to a wild foods class. There I learned about how to identify stinging nettles. I had heard about this herb before, so I went out and found some to transplant to my garden.

The leaves have one of the highest protein contents of any plant. Back in WWII, when meat was rationed, people would use it in all kinds of things to up the protein content.

From what I understand it is a jack-of-all trades when it comes to medicinal uses. Some common uses are: arthritis, an herbal treatment for allergies, relieves hair loss, treats Celiac disease, bleeding, bladder infections, skin complaints, neurological disorders and a long list of other conditions.

I grind it in a coffee grinder and put it in capsules to take as a supplement. I also use the leaves in soups or to make tea.

There is quite a list of drug interactions so if you want to use it, do your research. I'm not a doctor :) It is a diuretic and can affect blood sugar and blood pressure. Be careful!

The fresh leaves and stems can sting you so I only sell the dried form.

Our chickens love dried nettles. Not sure about fresh ones. Occasionally our flock gets a “cold”. Usually if this happens, they drop production for a few weeks. Sometimes they even go into a molt.

This spring when they started to sneeze, I put some dried nettles in a pillow case and stuck it in their water. Within a couple of days the sneezing and coughing had stopped and the egg production was better than normal.

It's a pain to harvest (quite literally), but we have decided we need to grow a whole lot more of this gem :)

Have you learned something? One wonderful life rule is : "Learn something every day." It's a good rule. If you have, you can go back to bed now :)