Where does your food come from?

Check out this great post from Nature Mom's blog. She put into words better than I could the many reasons to be intentional about your food choices.


p.s., It's so nice to post about something besides hospital stuff. We're doing great tonight. Noelle and I took a walk up the street from RMH to this fabulous little store called the Metropolitan Market. A bit spendy but such a treat for the senses. Much of their produce is out front in little umbrella covered carts and the entryway is lined with cut flowers. Not to mention their incredible deli! Sweet Noelle stopped to smell the flowers and admire the colors and shapes of the fresh fruits and veggies. I love that kid!

Weeding Nightmare

This is what we get for going on vacation... ATTACK OF THE KILLER WEEDS!!!! We could hardly see the carrots and onions. Poor neglected veggies.

Ahhhh! Much better! After a week of intense weeding we have very sore hamstrings and much happier veggies.

Now this makes it all worth it! We rewarded ourselves with with garden fresh stir fried yellow squash and zucchini (I wish the other vegetables were also from our garden but we're not quite there yet).

Hilty Farms Website Is Up!

Check out my farmer hubby's new website! Thanks!

Where Do I Begin? An Update of Sorts

I have been so busy finishing up the school year, hanging out with dear friends and planting our massive garden that I have neglected this whole blog thing terribly! Here's what has been going on lately in pictures:

A fabulously fun wedding (I only have pics of the rehearsal... I need someone in the family to take pity and send me their pictures of the actual wedding as I was too busy being IN the wedding to take any!)...

Joel's baby sister was the beautiful bride! It seems like just yesterday that she was one of my bridesmaids!

Sportin' our fancy red shoes! No one fell or even tripped, it was a miracle! Standing next to me is Joel's brother's girlfriend. She is such a lovely person inside and out. I love her to pieces!

My children are "helping" grandma decorate the reception hall.

A trip to Point Defiance Zoo

A preschool play and a kindergarten field trip

My little guy was the Red Bird from "Brown Bear, Brown Bear".

Then he received his certificate for completing his first year of preschool! My big boy!

My cutiepatootie Kindergarten field trip group!

Farmin'

We REALLY liked this little rental tractor... too bad it's not ours! I even got to drive it which was great until the dumb thing popped out of gear, I couldn't figure out how to stop it and then I nearly ran over my husband! My farmer hero dove out of the way then leaped onto the tractor to save the day as I panicked! It was a bit of a Lucille Ball moment. So very dignified.

This monster of a garden is approximately 1 acre. Whew!

It's Planting Time Again

We are getting spring fever around here! Joel built his long-dreamed of mini greenhouse and the planting has officially begun! It may look a little redneck (note the well placed satellite dish...it's gotta go somewhere) but it's a heck of a lot better than last year's setup in my dining room! The exciting thing is that most of the materials were reused, from the windows that were taken out during the remodel to the boards from the torn down hay barn (check out the drama of that moment here). He used egg cartons to cover the vent spaces and as seed planters. The only things he had to buy were the corrugated plastic sheets and the cement corner pieces to hold the frame in place.

In another stroke of genius I suggested the hanging shelves as a space saver.

It was a dad n' son operation this year.

From the Garden to the Pantry

I have to say that my husband ROCKS! He works so hard and is so passionate about growing and preserving our bountiful harvest!

Bountiful Produce

We've been busy...

Dear Hubby Has Joined the Blogging World

So I guess Joel has stuff to say to the world and rebel that he is, he decided to start a blog over on wordpress. He named it An Ode to Farm Life. So go check it out and get to know the real Recycling Man!

How Does our Garden Grow?

Our garden is growing quite well, especially the weeds. Yes, the weeds are flourishing, I have to give them an A for effort. The most prolific are "curly dock" which have huge, long roots that will simply re-grow if you pull them and leave them out on the ground and if you leave just one tiny piece of the root in the ground, it will grow a whole new plant. They have survival skills alright.

The intentionally planted parts of our garden have really taken off lately too. We have been picking snow peas, zucchini, crook-neck squash, eggplant, tomatoes, onions, and beets. Yum!

I love tomatillos. They look like miniature paper lanterns. I don't know much about them except they are used to make salsa verde.
Okay, true confession time. I don't think I have ever eaten eggplant. Are they good? How do you cook them? Their flowers and fruit are gorgeous, I just don't have a clue what to do with them. For now, Joel is selling them to his coworkers.
We have a few broccoli plants that made it. Note the happy weeds in the background.

Mmmmm. Onions!This is one of the few loofah plants that survived the Memorial Day storm. I really want to try drying them for sponges. I just think that is so cool.

This is not the best picture but it's the best my old camera can do! We steamed some Swiss chard and lightly stir fried zucchini, garlic, basil and onions tossed with fresh tomatoes and topped with mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. Oooh baby!

Fresh Picked Goodness!

We picked this yummy gourmet salad mix and baby spinach to sell to some people at Joel's work. It was so peaceful in the garden this morning and I felt so happy to be out there picking lettuce and enjoying Joel's company. The radishes are also getting big enough to pick.

The whole garden is growing so fast with the hot weather we have had for the past few days. It's really exciting to watch our little sprouts grow into such big, robust plants.

The Garden Lives!

Setbacks

It was another beautiful day, blue skies, puffy white clouds, 71 degrees. It was the perfect day to plant a garden. Despite the weather forecast, it seemed unlikely that a thunderstorm was going to materialize. I guess that's why you could call us rookies, we have not yet developed an accurate weather eye. We planted about 1/3 of the garden, both seeds and some of the seedlings we have been babying since March including tomatoes, cucumbers, luffa (or loofah), and artichokes. As we were finishing up we began to see some threatening clouds over by the mountains but still didn't think that it would come our way. For days the same thing had happened. The clouds built up in the distance and then skirted around us, why should today be any different? We were oh so wrong.

The marble and pea sized hail and the torrential downpour resulted in the loss of approximately 70% of what we planted today.

Then we discovered this. As the cliche goes, when it rains it pours. Well, in our case, literally. As Joel and I placed buckets under the coal chute to catch the downpour and hauled boxes upstairs away from the 1/4 inch to 2 inch floodwaters, we kept looking at each other with this dazed expression on our faces. We had to agree that it was so bad it was almost funny. The great thing is that God is so faithful even in the middle, no, especially in the middle of setbacks. While Joel was busy sucking water out of the basement with the shop vac, our friends Rob and Erin called to tell us that they wanted give us 17 varieties of heirloom tomato plants from Rob's dad. One of the plants already has tomatoes growing on it! This will actually put us way ahead of where we were when we planted our tomatoes today.

Just as a side note, have you ever been in a house with a metal roof during a rainstorm? It is incredibly loud. Check this out:

Jen