We have our first green beans! I didn’t even realize that
they were growing until I was weeding yesterday and saw something weird coming
off of the plant. It looks like we will be having green beans with dinner this
weekend. :)
Our cucumbers are going to be crazy this year – there are
about 20 blossoms on our plants and some baby cukes are growing already. We are
going to try making pickles this year. I found some recipes for fridge pickles
as well as canned pickles. I suppose that we’ll be trying the fridge pickles
first. That should be a fun project while my sister in law is visiting.
The chickens are about 8 weeks old now and get bigger every
day. At first we were allowing them access to the garden, but then they started
eating all of our plants. So chickypoos are now banned from the garden, although one or two seem to find
a way to get stuck in there every day. I’m hoping that once their permanent run
is constructed that they’ll be less likely to want to get in to the garden. We
should be getting our reward of fresh eggs in about 2 months. Supposedly our
black stars will start producing eggs at 16 weeks, which is July 29th. Our silkies (the white fuzzy chickens - Mouse and Dresdy) aren't very smart and are definitely near the bottom of the pecking order... but they are so freaking cute and SOFT. They feel like bunnies! We've been trying to make the chickens more tame by handfeeding them treats and petting them. When they hear the back door open and see someone, they all come running. It's pretty adorable.
Here is Jay having a mealworm frenzy with the chickypoos
As I think I mentioned before, we are planning to have a
green carpet unveiling. It seems that the party keeps getting pushed back to
later in the year. When Jay and I talked about a date, it now seems that our
party will be at the beginning of October. I really wanted to still have fresh
tomatoes to make bruschetta for our party, but I suppose that I could can my
bruschetta mixture. Who knows, I may still have tomatoes in October. I sure
hope so! I found this recipe for canning
bruschetta that I will probably try out:
http://motherskitchen.blogspot.com/2008/08/bruschetta-in-jar.html
Part of the fun of the party that I’m planning is that I
want to use all (or at least mostly) locally-sourced ingredients. I’m sure that
most of the firemen sure to be at our party won’t appreciate it, but I know that most of
my friends (and the firemen’s wives and girlfriends) will enjoy it.
Here is the first draft of the menu... we may add or remove some items:
Chips
& Salsa (fresh made salsa from our garden vegetables)
Deviled
eggs (fresh from our chickens)
Duck
w/ goat cheese, shallots, apples wrapped in phyllo (locally sourced duck and
goat cheese, if I can find them – shallots from our garden, apples from a local
orchard)
Bruschetta
(fresh made from our garden on homemade bread)
Buffalo
chicken dip (we’ll tell everyone it’s an unlucky chicken)
Salad
(not sure on this one yet, but we have Bibb lettuce growing in the pallet
garden)
Quiche
(made with our eggs and garden vegetables)
Pulled
pork (from Cedar Run cattle, a local farm)
London
broil (also from Cedar Run)
Sandwich rolls
Fresh
pickles from garden
Chocolate
chip cookies
Brownies
I want to have a signature cocktail and do a twist
on Long Island Iced Tea. I'm trying to think of a fun name to call it –
Delmarva Iced Tea sounds kind of lame. I’m going to experiment with it, but
it’s going to be some kind of peach sweet tea with a kick. I’ll probably make
it with peaches, peach nectar, vodka or rum, and iced tea.
I’m also in the process of attempting to grow rosemary from
cuttings. We have a rosemary bush that is completely out of control, and I was
thinking that it would be nice to give little potted rosemary plants to our
guests. There will be a little sign that says, “Take a piece of our garden home
with you.”
Some more exciting news on the home front - we should have our siding completed sometime around July. This should fix our leaky family room window situation, which I'm pretty concerned about because of the weather forecast for tonight:
THERE IS THE POTENTIAL FOR SOME STRONG TO SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS
LATE THIS AFTERNOON AND TONIGHT AS A COLD FRONT ARRIVES. ANY
STRONGER THUNDERSTORM COULD BE CAPABLE OF PRODUCING LOCALLY
DAMAGING WINDS AND HAIL. IN ADDITION, HEAVY RAIN COULD ACCOMPANY
THIS SYSTEM WHICH MAY RESULT IN LOCALIZED BUT BRIEF FLOODING. AT
THIS TIME, THE GREATER CHANCE FOR A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM APPEARS TO
BE ACROSS DELAWARE AND MARYLAND TO PERHAPS INTO SOUTHEASTERN
PENNSYLVANIA.
i miss maryland thunderstorms. congrats on the green beans! i finally just got mine in the ground today. way behind.
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