"So, we know by the last ancient blog entry that you didn’t fall off the face of the earth, while in New Hampshire, however have you fallen into a sink hole since returning there in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The silence is deafening."
So- what have we been doing anyway? I can talk about a couple of things now, and save a few for another post SOON (soon, Danny, soon).
Harvesting the garden has been right up there on the list of must do's. We had a frost last week so scrambled to get in the basil and peppers and pick the cukes. The tomatoes that were ripe were canned and/or frozen as sauce, bruchetta in a jar, and salsa. Duncan had some awesome yellow cherry tomatoes in his garden that also went to the local farmers market and put a few bucks in his pocket (that he spent already on books). One more batch of Bruchetta and sauce left to go I think. We also learned that sheep and goats like green tomatoes. Will is always slipping Chunk, our elderly ewe a few and she follows him as he moves along the fence line. He is her hero and she always blah baaahs him when he comes outside.
The basil was just awesome this year!
Everyone helped strip the leaves off of the stems. Most of it was dried and two half pints chopped and blended with olive oil to keep in the fridge. Most of it gets slathered onto pizza dough as we have homemade pizza every Friday and watch a family movie. Last week it was "Rio". This week "Hoodwinked- Too". No grown up movies until after bed.
Last Saturday, part of my spinning group the "Eweper Spinners and Weavers" were invited to give a demonstration at the Marquette Farmers Market. Will and the kids and I drove seperately from the rest of the group and they toured the market and greater Marquette while I sat and demonstrated my drum carder and spun. It is a really nice farmers market. Scored some homegrown Portabellas (the nice small kind instead of the giants) that will go on this Friday's pizza. We also bought some Chocolate bread (it really was bread made with cocoa and dark chocolate chips), and sourdough baguettes. The Leeks that I bought were made into Potato-Leek soup and consumed that weekend.
Carol is warping her rigid heddle loom and Roberta demonstrating the drop spindle. The small loom in the front was available for folks to try out, and most of the weaving done by a young lad the age of 12, who is knitting his father a scarf! Karen Valley's table of woolen goodies and luscious yarn is in the background.
Will is wrapping up the field work he did on the Ottawa National Forest this summer, in addition to tackling a big community project that is a big deal for the school. He procured the timbers for the construction earlier this spring. We are pretty proud of him for volunteering to do this project. This was in todays local newspaper "The Newberry News"! (sorry about the photo quality- I had to scan it- if you click on it it will get bigger).
Lila and I head downstate on Saturday to go to the "Northern Michigan Lamb and Wool Festival" which only is in Northern Michigan if you live in the way southern lower peninsula.....
Wish I could send Chunk some green tomatoes; always an abundant harvest of them as frost threatens the north. We were spared in most locales here, though the threat was very real for 2 or 3 nights last week. I can smell the lovely basil...mmmm...and hope to come for pizza sometime during the long garden-less season. Love the little worker bees stripping the stems with their dad....speaking of Will, he is a treasure. What day is the barn raising at Three Lakes Academy...is the date set yet?
ReplyDeleteHow was the wool fest? Enjoyed this post.
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