Last Day of June Happenings

The summer just started and we are already in the thick of reaping some of the fruits of our labor. We've been trying to get our projects worked on to make our animals more comfortable, to feed our family and make this place more complete (ha! What does that mean...I don't think it will EVER be completely complete). We knew when we bought this house that there were many projects that we would want to do to make it ours. We love the bones of this place, the wrap around porch, the pocket doors, the amount of land (although we'd always love more) - the previous owners did a nice job of adding flower gardens etc. but that wasn't really our main focus. Although we want this to be a beautiful home, we NEED it to be functional first. I feel like there are so many unfinished pieces, but I need to realize that we are just one family, working full time jobs, on limited incomes etc. With time, this place will continue to grow and morph into what we want.
Mark is working at P&R Communications for the summer. This is the place we worked when we first met each other and fell in love. Although it is nice to have the extra money for a bit, his time spent away from the house (it's an hour commute each way and he doesn't get home until around 6 PM each night) is challenging and we are still trying to find time to get his school/teaching/decorating stuff sorted through and into his classroom (have I mentioned how FREAKING excited we are that he is working as a Second Grade Teacher, starting this fall?!?!?!?! - He is going to do an amazing job, he's a good man and will be a great role model for those kids and it will bring consistent money into our home and he will be working SO close to home and we'll be able to be a stronger part of the community that we live in....all very good things). I see next summer being very different for us - we'll have bills under control and money in savings (knock on wood), we'll have some projects completed and working on new ones (to get the house and property ready for Kait/David's wedding), Mark won't be working (well, FT anyway - he'll have sorting/planning/organizing that he'll need to do for school and he'll be here to help with everything around the house, instead of getting home so late at night).
Even though we have so much going on - we've been trying to make time for relaxing and community. This weekend, we spent some much needed family time, fishing at Hueston Woods, picking black caps, having dinner at the church down the street, digging up our potatoes and more. Today we will be FINALLY planting the remainder of our garden - I'm SO not on the ball with all that. The weather hasn't been very cooperative either...today seems like a nice day, with rain expected later. So with that, I'll share some photos and videos of our adventures and then I will be off to start our day.

Mark and me at Hueston Woods State Park. I think that we've realized that we are missing a water element to our lives. We spent yesterday morning, sitting on the docks fishing for a couple hours. We didn't catch a thing, but it was relaxing and not too hot. It's not the beaches of Florida, but it'll do.

The kids on the dock - I love the picture, but I love the reflection of their heads and faces in the water so much more.

Potato harvest - this is how many potatoes we got out of the garden, before it started to rain. The next day, we pulled the rest out and were able to AT LEAST double this amount. Can't wait to make salt potatoes....delicious!

This is our first year for growing artichokes. This one is the biggest and it is so beautiful - can't wait to taste home grown artichokes.

Here's our oh so handsome, ever growing, young man, Drake - showing off just a bit of our black cap (wild black raspberry) harvest - so far, we've gotten about 4-5 quarts of berries off the bushes and there are SO many more to ripen and pick. I'm thinking that a batch of my Nana's berry dumplins is in our very near future.

This is SO exciting! One of our apple trees has four apples on it. We've been watching these trees...hoping and praying for some beautiful, tasty, homegrown apples (it takes several years for the trees to get established and start to fruit). This is a big step for our family and our food independence. We eat SO much fruit and knowing that we have four apple trees (hoping to add a Granny Smith soon...next planting season?), four peach trees, two pear trees, two apricot trees, two plum trees, two paw paw trees, a cherry tree (hoping to add a tart tree next planting season), several blueberry plants, a hedge filled with black caps, a few mulberry trees, purple and white grapes and both pecan and walnut trees - right here on our property. Just writing this makes me so excited about our property. Sometimes it is challenging to see the differences we've made from day-to-day...we are so knee deep in the thick of things, it's hard to step back and see how awesome it really is.

Some of our black caps over vanilla yogurt...this is SO good.

It's hard to see on this photo, but perched up in the tree is a turkey vulture. It was just hanging out, by itself. We really like vultures, they are nature's clean up crew, strange and cool looking and pretty fascinating.

My dad asked me the other day, when we are working with the bees, just how many bees are out and about. It's so hard to get a good idea - but we are estimating that the "good hive" has around 50,000 bees, maybe more - but as you can see, they aren't all in our business - they kinda just do their thing and only give us issues, when we are overstepping our boundaries. They start to let us know - they buzz louder, they send out guards to ping at our jackets, they start to fly around more...we are starting to know when to smoke, when to feed, when to just get out of the hive and let them go back to their business.

When we were in the hives, I took a few videos to give everyone an idea of what we see when we inspect the hive (what we are looking for vs.what we are seeing). Here are links to the four videos...let me know if you have any questions.

Bee Video Number 1


Bee Video Number 2



Bee Video Number 3


Bee Video Number 4

Going on a Pawpaw Hunt

The Pawpaw, also known as the Prairie Banana, the Ohio Banana etc. Around the Fresh Egg's Farm Homestead, we eat a LOT of bananas. We love them. They are so soft and tasty and delicious in a bowl of cereal...and also have a VERY large footprint. To say that we will omit bananas from our diet is just not likely; however, we've heard of a way that we can make that footprint a little smaller with the addition of pawpaws into our diet.
We heard of pawpaws just a couple of years ago, but never had the opportunity to try them. They aren't sold in grocery stores, because they don't have a very long shelf life. There is a Pawpaw Festival in Ohio (about 3 hours from where we live) - but it always falls on the weekend of both the Pork Festival (right here in our own community) and the nearby Wool Festival - and let's face it...fiber and racing pigs trump a long drive for some fruit.
We did plant two pawpaw trees on the property. I know, it's crazy to plant fruit that we've never even tasted - what if we hated them? If we hate them, we'd be happy to donate them to a school or shelter in the area. But, on the bright side - what if we LOVE them? I just wish we could figure out a way to try them out and know what to expect when we get fruit (in several years).
Last year; however, we heard, at another festival called the "Fall Gathering," at our local historical society that they had pawpaw trees right there in the forest area that surrounds the historical society property. At that time, it was past pawpaw season and we missed our window. But this year, I promised myself that I would remember to venture out and check those trees around September to see if we could try those sweet fruits.
Saturday morning, we got the kids ready for a hike and drove about 15-20 minutes from our house to walk through the property of the historical society and see what we could forage for. We walked through a corn field, along the edge of the forest - looking up, as much as we could, without tripping along the trail. We found leaves that looked similar to the leaves we see on our very small pawpaw trees.


This looks like the size and shape of the pawpaw leaves....but no fruit.

Hmmpt...keep walking...don't give up! Along the walk, we did find a few other cool things.

This is the style of door I want to use in the upper level of the barn. They had them on the stalls of their restrooms.

I just love the bark on this tree.



Fungus!

Well hello Caterpillar...don't you look beautiful today.

We saw tons of trees that looked like pawpaws - maybe we were too late again on the fruit...maybe we missed that window and would need to try again in a year. UGH. Disappointment! But then, WHAT is THAT??? We found a tree that had just a few of the little green fruits on some pretty high branches - I'm guessing that animals have taken their pick at the low hanging fruit. We worked to pull the tops of the branches down and reach those fruit. You could feel the excitement from the kids - they were proud that they help spot the fruit and couldn't wait to try it.

My little foragers - Mark, Gage, Drake and Cora.

Cora found some nice pieces of feed corn that were still in the field, after harvest. We also found a black walnut seed, a few other seed pods (Mark collects seed pods for teaching), and this is just three of the 10 pawpaws that we harvested.

The inside of the pawpaw - those brown pieces are pawpaw seeds - you don't eat those or the skin. But that sweet, cream colored flesh around the seeds is what you DO eat and it is DELICIOUS!

I can't wait until our pawpaw trees grow stronger and begin to fruit. I know it will be several years from now, but it will be great when they do. For now, we know where we can go to snag a couple each year and tide us over. They are free, delicious, natural and healthy - the perfect substitute for bananas!!!!