Happy New Year!

It's new years day and I'm catching up on my posting. It hasn't been a very great week for farming, with it being cold and wet, but we still managed to get a few things done. This shot shows the fruit trees pruned way down. Oddly enough, it also shows Buddy and Billy drinkin beer! I'm shocked!

One thing I did while I was stuck inside was make cheese. The first try didn't go well, but the second try worked just fine. I made a lovely nice bit of mozzarella (the easiest kind). Of course, then I had to make pizza out of it. This is all homemade except for the sauce. Next summer, I'll try to make more sauce.

And here it is cooked. It got a lil crispy but it was delicious.

Even in the dead of winter, we're eating plenty of produce. The broccoli is totally done and if Rick and Catherine don't grab some soon, they're gonna miss out! Yes, that WAS a threat :)

Yesterday we actually got a lil work done. I transplated a ton of the bok choi. It worked pretty well to start the seeds in the small patches that were open, and wait till more stuff had been harvested to transplant them. This patch is where they started, but I got a whole row moved to where the cabbage used to be. There is one lonely cabbage left, but we ate the penultimate one last night.

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What We're Eating

Pizza! Make fresh dough, slather with sauce, scrunch on homegrown garlic and homegrown oregano, and cover with homemade cheese.

Cabbage Torte

Cabbage: half a big one or a small one

Couple of big Yukon Gold potatoes

Sharp Cheddar, about 2 cups

Boil up a big pot of water and preheat oven to 400

Clean and chop the cabbage and blanch for 2 minutes in the boiling water. Drain.

Slice up the potatoes on the mandolin and toss with olive oil, salt and pepper.

Layer 1/3 of the potatoes on the bottom of a pie pan, top with half the cabbage and cheese. Put on another 1/3 of the potatoes, then the rest of the cabbage and cheese and top with remaining potatoes.

Cover with foil and bake at 400 for 45 mins.

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We brought over the pole building and set it up just to see how it would fit. We cleaned the area somewhat, but we need to finish it off. Our plan is to use the old trailer as the chicken coop. The plastic-covered wire is just the ticket to keep the chickens safe and sanitary. We're going to stand it up off the ground and make the bottom dumpable for easy cleaning. The whole thing will go over the area the cars were stored, to help bioremediate the soil.

The other thing I did was order some seeds. This isn't our whole order, but it will get us started. I wanted to make sure I had peas and lettuce to get in soon.

Park Seed

3912 Arugula
5182 Lettuce Green Towers
5238 Pea Paso
5169 Lettuce Baby Star
5142 Lettuce Buttercrunch
Nature's Aid for Peas, Beans, Limas, and Vetch (innoculant)

Burpee
53744T Snow Pea Oregon Sugar Pod II  (900 seeds)
62224A Garden Pea Burpeeana Early (200 seeds)
50393A Garden Pea Maestro (200 seeds)
52522A Lettuce Bibb Blend (500seeds)
50872A Carrot Little Finger (1500 seeds)
50179A Carrot Short 'n Sweet (1500 seeds)
65037A Hot Pepper Biker Billy Hybrid  (30 seeds)
50534A Hot Pepper Serrano Chili  (100 seeds)

Sarah and Gen gave us a lovely handmade blank book. I decided it would be just the thing to note the seeds I bought, with the pics and descriptions from the catalogs/websites I ordered from. That's easier than keeping track of seed packets, which tend to get muddy and torn.