Strawberries

Written by admin on June 19th, 2008

Yesterday I went to our local strawberry farm and picked zillions of strawberries. Most of them were rather tiny so it took me a long time to take the tops off and get them ready to make strawberry jam. Last night we had strawberries on top of strawberry cake! YUMMY!

So later today I’m going to make 8 pints of strawberry jam! I’m using a traditional sugar included recipe for this first batch. However, I am seriously considering going out again to pick another batch next week so I can try making a no-sugar strawberry jam recipe.

So this will be my first canning venture of the season. Later, I am hoping to can green beans, tomato sauce and possibly potatoes! (Probably with some serious guidance from my dear Aunt A back in IL!!)

 

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Tridentine Mass & Father’s Day

Written by admin on June 16th, 2008

Yesterday Dave and I took Dave’s father to Moodus for a Tridentine Mass (old Latin style mass Pre-Vatican II). It was a really nice experience. The priest spoke in Latin an absolute “mile-a-minute” so following along in the booklet was impossible. But I’d been instructed before hand that I should just sit back, pray, and participate internally. That was superb advice. I was also given this link to read instructions for the mass, which was also a GREAT help. http://www.fisheaters.com/TLMinstructions.html

The mass seemed more reverent, the attendees dressed very nicely (no shorts, tank tops, flip-flops, etc.), it was very quiet (and there were several little children/babies present) and several of the women attendees wore head-coverings. I’ve never contemplated chapel veils before so I don’t have an opinion on that practice. I just noticed it.

Dave said he’d like to go again. He would like to attend a mass with a priest who maybe doesn’t speak Latin as if it were a race though. Dave also noted that it would be nice if the priest used a microphone, but that isn’t traditional so it probably doesn’t happen.

After mass, we drove down to Old Saybrook and took Dave’s father to Johnny Ad’s, a seafood shack with great clams. I had my usual clam strips and Dave had the whole bellies. I just can’t get my taste buds around those whole belly clams yet. I like the little tiny ones Dave gives me, but those big bellied ones—not my thing. This place also has pretty great Lobster Bisque. They are a little lean with the lobster meat, but that isn’t unusual.

We drove a little further to a public beach after dinner. I wore sandals so I got to walk along the beach with no shoes on for the first time in a long time. I even waded a little bit into the freezing cold ocean. There was a little boy out on the sand who ran up to me to inquire about crabs being present before he dipped his toes in the surf. He was cute. He kept saying he didn’t want his toes to be pinched by crabs.

So we had a nice day with Dave’s father. Next year, Dave will hopefully be a dad too. At least we keep praying that will be true.

 

Posted in Catholicism, Marriage/Married Life, News, Trips | 1 Response »

Success!

Written by admin on June 16th, 2008

On Saturday, we participated in our first Farmer’s Market of the season. And we had awesome success with our maple syrup sales!! We are participating in two Farmer’s Markets this summer. The second one doesn’t start until further into July though. I am praying that we continue to have the kind of success we had this last Saturday. Dave was really happy with how well things went.

Setting up our area went smoothly too. We were told that the location we pick on the first day is the spot we will have for the whole season. For some reason the folks that arrived before us choose spots out on the lawn under direct sun. And there right next to the parking lot was an enormous maple tree (befitting our product sales too) with fabulous shade. So that is our location for the duration of the summer!

 

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Potential Trip Over my Birthday

Written by admin on June 13th, 2008

YEAH!! It looks like I will get to see my parents over the weekend of my birthday!!!!! I’m bummed that my brother, sister-in-law and nieces cannot come too, but at least I get to see some contingency of my immediate family. If this coming trip hadn’t worked out, I would not have gotten to see anyone until Thanksgiving….blah.

So it looks like we’ll be meeting kind of half-way in Erie, PA. I’m not sure what Erie, PA has to offer, but I’m sure they’ve got some neat stuff going on. And we’ll only be there for a very quick weekend.

 

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Taking a Look at Home Delivery Produce

Written by admin on June 13th, 2008

Today I was reading on a forum about how some ladies were trying to reduce their food budgets. One woman with a large family mentioned that she uses a home delivery service for her produce. This intrigued me greatly! So I took a look at the website and by golly, they service all of Connecticut. Everything is organic too. Now normally, I’m not real picky about my produce needing to be organic because it is generally cost prohibitive. So don’t think I’m an organics snob. But the idea of locally grown, seasonally available produce which happens to also be organic and cost effective is making me think.

I could have a small box of produce delivered from this service every week for almost exactly what I pay on a weekly basis for non-organic, typically foreign grown, produce at the grocery store. Hmmm… I’d be helping small farmers/business owners (which I adore the idea of), not using as much gas (which helps the budget) and eating better.

This is fodder for another post, but I’ve got some insulin issues (not diabetic yet, but headed in that direction) which are playing havoc with my body. So I am looking to reduce (eliminate) refined sugars & flours from our diets. I’ll still use healthier, natural sweeteners and whole grain flours so we aren’t exactly doing the Atkins thing. I’ve not become a liberal, a hippie or even “green”. I just would like to have children and be around to enjoy them. Thus the absolute necessity to alter our diets.

 

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Farmer’s Markets

Written by admin on 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

Written by admin on 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 »

Yard Sale Saturday

Written by admin on June 4th, 2008

This Saturday we are going to have a yard sale here at our house. We’ve invited Mike, Lisa and the kids to come over and participate. They’ve been wanting to do some cleaning/organizing at their house too. We’ve got rather a lot gathered already from last fall’s yard sale that we held on a freezing cold day and had very little traffic. This coming Saturday is supposed to be the hottest day we’ve had this year so I’m hopeful people will be out and about.

I’m going to walk through the house today and gather some more stuff. I know there is stuff around the house I don’t need… like 7 flower vases.

 

Posted in Homemaking & Recipes, News | 2 Responses »

Rainy Day

Written by admin on 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 »

Historical Society Postponed

Written by admin on June 4th, 2008

Dave was supposed to speak before the Somers Historical Society last week, but we had a pretty awesome thunderstorm which knocked out electricity in big chunks of Somers. Of course, the place where Dave was to speak was also zapped of its electricity so the speech has been postponed until September 23.

Dave practiced his presentation in front of his brother Chris and I earlier in the week. It’s going to be a really great presentation, when he finally gets to deliver it!

 

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