Keeping up with Putting Up

It seems like forever since I last blogged, but I've been pretty darn busy in the meantime.  Here are a few highlights of our last couple weeks:

When the Easter Bunny brought us 5 Easter-eggers and 1 Hubbard Isa Brown, we knew we'd have some good layers on our hands.  Then we learned a little more about the Isa.  Apparently this is a genetically engineered egg-laying chicken manufactured by the company whose name it bears.  The girl lays AT LEAST one brown egg per day, if not two.  This doesn't seem natural, does it?  She seems happy, but she does eat a lot!  Meanwhile, our Easter-eggers just started laying their cute little blue eggs right up in their cozy boxes.  

Addie asked me if we could go blueberry picking, so we wandered up to Blueberry Hill.  The picking was good, but what was better was running around, playing with the farm dog (an energetic and friendly pit bull), and eating lunch under this apple tree.  Also, after I gave the farmer a jar of blueberry jam, admitting the blueberries I used to make it were from Libby's, he drove the girls and I across the farm to his enormous and beautiful crab-apple tree and told us to have at it.  We picked a five gallon bucket full of the little gems, then ran home and made crab-apple jelly.

Now, I won't be selling any crabapple jelly to the general public, but you can pick up lots of other kinds of good stuff at Anderson Farm's newest farm stand in Waterboro.  They've named the place The Farmer's Daughter, and so far it has been a great success.  The town has received the stand so well, and everyone who stops by is happy to be there.  It is a wonderful place to visit, or to pick up some yummy produce or jam!  And speaking of canning, I've been doing a lot of it, not only to sell at the stands, but for our family.  After making the 150th jar of pickles for the season, I decided to put up some tomato sauce, as well as pickle some hot peppers.  Do you think it will bother anyone that they look like brains inside jars?  Oh, and did I mention that we got another dog?  I didn't feel like we had much going on, so why not add to the family!  Welcome Jackie Jethro Junior.  We call him any of these names individually, but I'm thinking we'll pick just one of them in the next few days and stick with it.  And yes, he looks just like Bubba, but this guy has a tail. 
 

And let's see... how does a mother sum up a day at Story Land?  How's this:

Ok ok, I can't lie.  This photo was actually taken after a terrific morning at Ferry Beach a few days before the Story Land adventure, but you get the idea.  They all loved it, and we were all exhausted at the end of the day.

So there you have it.  A whirlwind tour of life at my place over the last couple of weeks.  I promise next time I'll be less confusing and random.  More details on the farm stand coming up, as well as my obsession with our sunflowers. 

peaches

Mud Pies

While Joe spent the last few minutes of sunlight planting a peach tree out in the field, Charlie and Ruby "helped" him by gathering dirt around the tree and making mud pies.








Meanwhile, Al Cole gave Ed 60 pounds of his least pretty peaches for me to make jam.  WHOA.  This is NOT a box of bananas shoved into my fridge.  I'm working on them as fast as I can get to them.  My fingernails have an orange tinge I can't seem to remove.

Blackberry Season

I've been stocking up on blackberries over the last couple of weeks.  I've managed to  make a few batches of jam, as well as I've thrown a few gallons, yes gallons, into the freezer.  They are plentiful around here to be sure, and our whole family mostly just loves to pick them and eat them on the spot.  Thanks to a little help from the incredible season we're having, and to the coolest-ever-pie-decorating tool, we had an awesome blackberry pie at last Friday's happy hour.

                                            

Oh, and look who decided to make a little home out of our patch of berries.  One day we found there were two eggs in this nest, and the next day there were two baby finches and one very protective Momma looming in the blackberry patch.  Don't worry-- no birds in the pie.