Gardening/Farmers Markets

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My Day

Wednesday, July 30th, 2008

Well, this morning I’ve got an appointment with the CNM (certified nurse midwife) I see for all things reproductively related. We’re going to have the clomid talk since the glucophage I’ve been taking (which makes me sick as anything) for ovulation regulation has not worked one bit. I’ve also had recommended to me NaPro Technology and Fertilaid recently. Because of my age and the fact that we are talking about time clipping by, I’m going to ask to do a round or two of clomid first. I’d love to go a more natural route, but time is an issue in my case.

After that appointment, I need to come home and pack more maple syrup for the Farmer’s Markets. We’ve been selling syrup pretty well the last few weeks and the last 10 gallons we packed is almost gone. So Dave brought in another 10 gallons last evening for me to process (heat and package in smaller containers). We’ve been getting more sales on the realmaplesyrup.com website as well. So things are good in the syrup world.

If I have time later I might find a few recipes that use maple syrup for things other than pancakes/waffles. Dave and I talked about having a handout available at our table with recipes for people. We’re also talking about adding a pancake mix from a New England based company to augment out sales. And I’m also going to put together a couple of gift baskets full of maple and maple related products.

My nephew, JB, has been helping me with the Farmer’s Market on Mondays. It is nice to have the company and he’s turning into a good little salesman!

My sister-in-law back in IL e-mailed me new pictures of my gorgeous little nieces! I’ll have to get Dave to put them on here for me since I don’t know how to do that.

Posted in Gardening/Farmers Markets, Homemaking & Recipes, Maple Syrup, Marriage/Married Life, News, Trying to Conceive | 1 Response »

The Death Orb Strikes Back

Friday, July 11th, 2008

The Death Orb (aka the Sun) was gracious enough to burn the stuffing out of me yesterday at the Farmer’s Market. I, unwisely, decided not to wrestle with the tent and instead sat for most of three hours under the baking sun. With my genetic disposition, a person would think I’d know better…but NO! So today I am suffering with badly burnt arms, mildly burnt face and blistered upper chest and a stripe of burnt area on one side of my neck. Stupid Sun!

Posted in Gardening/Farmers Markets, News | 2 Responses »

Busy Week and Weekend

Monday, July 7th, 2008

Dave and I have been kind of busy lately so I’ve been neglecting the blog and my house…eek! Between Farmer’s Markets, holidays and visiting relatives, it’s been a bit hard to keep up with my housework.

Today from 11-2 I sold maple syrup at the Farmer’s Market here in town. It was our first day for this market so business was a bit slow, but I’m sure it will pick up as the summer goes on. The only blah thing is that I have to be outside for 3 hours in the middle of the day. Thank Heavens this isn’t Illinois so the heat isn’t unbearable, but it was still yucky today and all you guys that know me know that I melt when the temperature goes above 63. I swear I have polar bear in my ancestry cuz heat and me don’t agree with one another.

The rest of today must be spend doing some serious cleaning. I was reading on one of my favorite blogs today about her “two-hour” house pick-up after a holiday weekend. I think I’m going to follow her example, but make up my own version.

1. Take all the laundry to the basement and get a load started. (10 minutes)
2. Unload the dishwasher and reload it. (15 minutes)
3. Wash down all the counter tops, stove top and front of fridge (25 minutes because one of the counter tops has some stuff piled on it)
4. Make the bed (5 minutes)
5. Change the kitty litter (5 minutes)
6. Get another load of laundry started, hang previous load on the clothes line (15 minutes)
7. Clean bathroom sink, toilet, tub and mirror (25 minutes)
8. Vacuum living room and generally straighten that room (20 minutes)

Then after that I need to grate up zucchini for zucchini bread and prep some salmon for dinner tonight. I think we’ll have salmon (preparation method is yet to be determined), fresh fingerling potatoes and green beans, both veggies from this morning’s Farmer’s Market.

Okay, so it’s 2:45PM and Dave comes home around 5:15. I like to have my household chores and dinner started before he comes home so I can spend a few minutes with him when he arrives.

Posted in Gardening/Farmers Markets, Homemaking & Recipes, Maple Syrup, Marriage/Married Life, News | No Responses »

Poor Tomato Plants

Tuesday, June 24th, 2008

Because it has been rainy and cloudy here for what seems like weeks, my poor tomato plants just aren’t happy. Mostly, they are still leggy and small. A few seem to have shrunk. The bean plants, onions, sunflowers and potatoes are doing wonderfully. Our ag news said that tomato plants are “fruiting” in CT…hmmm, mine aren’t even flowering yet.

So unless it gets sunny and warm here soon, I might not have much of a tomato crop. I like the cool (cold) we’ve had, but I also really like fresh grown tomatoes.

Posted in Gardening/Farmers Markets | No Responses »

Farmer’s Markets

Friday, June 13th, 2008

Tomorrow Dave and I begin selling our maple syrup at a couple of the local Farmer’s Markets. Specifically, we’ll be selling at the Somers and Stafford markets this summer. I am hoping and praying for good sales!!

We bought one of those nice canopy tents (tent top without sides). The material for our tablecloth arrived too late yesterday evening for me to make our tablecloth, but I’ll be able to finish it before the next market. I did make a big sign that says 100% Pure Maple Syrup, which will hopefully catch the eye of people and bring them to our tent.

I’ll take photos of our set-up tomorrow and hopefully Dave will be able to upload them. I’m pretty excited about this because if it goes well, it could really help us toward making farming Dave’s eventual full-time gig. That is the long-term goal anyway. Dave would give anything to be able to provide for us as a farmer. (For the Illinois readers, in New England producing maple syrup is very much a farming operation!)

Lately, I’ve been reading so much about how harmful eating processed foods, white sugar and white flour are too my body that the idea of growing lots of our own produce also sounds like a very good idea. So maybe one day in the not so distant future, Dave and I will have enough land to cultivate our own veggies/fruits and produce gobs of maple syrup!

Posted in Gardening/Farmers Markets, Maple Syrup, News | No Responses »

Good Golly It’s HOT

Tuesday, June 10th, 2008

So Dave and I picked the hottest days of the year so far to hold our yard sale. Saturday was okay. We had about 30 people stop by and maybe about 5 folks just drove past without stopping. And we made some decent sales. After mass on Sunday, we got breakfast and then opened the yard sale again. It was not only hotter than Saturday, but we only had maybe 7 people stop by the whole time. I was getting pretty miserable by 2:00 so we closed up shop at 3:00. What we didn’t sell we are taking to the Salvation Army.

What was nicest about the yard sale was that we got to meet several of our neighbors. There are several very young people with young children living nearby. They were all very nice.

In gardening news though, my tomato plants are looking MUCH better in the heat. We bought a spray fertilizer also which Dave applied over the weekend, which must have done some good. The bean plants have done amazingly over the last four days. They went from barely visible green shoots just under the soil to plants 5 inches tall! The heat might wilt me, but it does wonders on a garden.

Today, as yesterday, I am staying inside and doing stuff around the house. We’ve got two window air conditioners running which make the house fabulously cool. Speaking of doing stuff around the house, I should probably get myself busy! Have a great day!

Posted in Gardening/Farmers Markets, Homemaking & Recipes, News | No Responses »

Rainy Day

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

It’s a quiet and dreary day here today. The only sounds are the occasional bird and the steady beat of the rain on the ground. Guess I don’t need to worry about watering the garden today!

I’m really hopeful that our tomato plants start to flourish pretty soon. This year I decided to start the tomato plants from seed inside. They grew great and then got tall & leggy. The starter containers I used were very small and I think I should have upgraded them to a larger container a few weeks ago. This whole garden thing has been a learning experience for Dave and I though…so I guess we’ll eventually figure it out. Right now the tomato plants look small and sickly, but of the 20 I planted I’ve got high hopes for eight of them.

We planted potatoes, yellow and white onions and sunflowers at Dave’s parent’s house. We’ve previously planted potatoes there and had great success. If we have a good crop again this year, we’ve got to figure out how to best store them. According to some preliminary reading, our basement may prove to be a good place to store them, but we’ll have to keep looking into our options. I need to figure out how to store the onions, should that crop prove bountiful as well.

If our tomato plants actually produce more than we can consume, I want to learn how to can my own diced tomatoes for use in sauces and things. So we’ll see.

We’d had a problem with wild turkeys taking dust baths on top of our potato mounds and exposing (thus killing) our seed potatoes. But my sister-in-law, Elizabeth, back in IL had a splendid idea of hanging swinging tin pie plates to a wooden post to frighten them away. So later today I’m going to pick up some pie plates. My parents-in-law love having the visiting turkeys, but we just need to keep them out of the garden.

Posted in Gardening/Farmers Markets, News | No Responses »

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