Cucumber School

So, back from the Pacific Northwest. Almost two weeks have elapsed since our departure. It was a great trip (and more on that shortly, I gaurentee), but I am happy to be back on the farm. And what better time to be here than at the front end of harvest season!

I thought I would break the usual blog routine of family and kid tales to bring you some harvest news. Well, you could say that we picked a lot of stuff today. Or you could say that we toted a substantial amount of produce into our house. But the best way to describe our bounty would be the Old English term: butt-load or so much that you cannot carry it all with just your hands.

Ok, now to school.

We have 6 varieties of cucumbers growing in our gardens this year. Here are four we harvested today:

Burpee Pickling - A nice, productive cuke with a mild taste. Not my favorite, but they are crisp and not at all bitter.

Early Russian - A productive cuke with a mild taste. Great for pickles or fresh eating!

Snow - This one won our taste test. Great all-purpose cucumber melon... and sweet!

Suyo - A japanese cucumber with a thin, burpless (not bitter) skin. Tastes nice fresh, but it would make great pickles since the skin has a cool ribbed look. These two are about a foot long!

Not pictured are the mystery cucumbers from Mason's garden (they came in a package that simply named them "Cucumbers") and the Armenian cukes. I will torture you with pictures of them later.

So, there you have it: more than you ever wanted to know about the cucumbers in our garden this year. If you are still reading, I am beginning to question how you spend your quality time, or perhaps I have found a partner in my obsession. Whatever the reason, thanks for tuning in.

Oh, we also picked a couple tomatoes.

Spring Break

So, here we are in 2011, and here is the first blog since last July. Well, the chickens are all grown up now, the kids are a year older (almost), and we have had an event filled year. I could do a recap blog, but that seems like too much work, and since I have a bunch of work ahead of me for the rest of our break, I will just skip all that has taken place and just pretend like you are all up to speed. Ah. That is much better.

Spring Break is always a time to get those projects going. This break is no different. The family has spent most days outdoors on our "Staycation" here at the Big Brown Lawn. First things first, we had to deal with those plants!

So, we have now planted the 40 tomato plants, 20 pepper plants, beans, peas, basil, and a number of flowers.

This along with our 4 apple trees, two nectarine, two peach, three cherry, persimmon, plum, apricot, pomegranite, and fig. Mason told me yesterday that we are living on a farm, "but if this is going to be a real farm, we're going to have to get a whole lot more animals." True dat, true dat...

And here is a view of the somewhat-finished-somewhat-to-be-completed patio area. Note the reused concrete bits collected from busted up driveways. It has only been a year with all that in our driveway. Did I mention how tolerant Jen is?

And all this is great, but Mason and Ellie are content trying to break their necks on the hammock... er... I mean pirate ship.

Come on by and see for yourself.

And they said, "Let there be bark!"

And then, there was bark.

A ton of bark! Several tons, as a matter of fact! 

And once it was delivered, it had to be moved. At least we had help.

It was, as Mason put it, "Haahh Wuhk!"

Yard Work

It has been a full summer so far. We have spent the last two weeks working non-stop on our yard. Mason enjoys helping out with many of the tasks as well. Some of his all time favorites are:

watering the oak barrels,

checking the bean plants for ladybugs and, well, beans,

heading to the home improvement stores for more supplies,

helping mom shovel gravel,

and being an all around great helper!