The berry patch, living a simple life in the city.

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Wishing you all

Canning totals

I have decided that I am more of a reader than a writer.  I love reading other people's blogs, but have a hard time keeping my own blog updated. Either I am too busy with gardening and canning or I have the feeling I have nothing interesting to tell.

I do want to give you my (almost) final gardening and canning totals. I went to my allotment last week to start on fall cleaning and to take home some harvest and I ended up taking about 10 kilos (22 pounds) of carrots, red beets, peppers and endive with me. I still have more endive, some carrots, beets and brussels sprouts to harvest. No canning there, it will all get eaten in the coming weeks. We ate the red peppers and I cut up the green ones and put them in the freezer.
My harvest total until now is 131 kg (288 pounds).

Here is my original canning planning  and the actual canning:

                                                       planning                     actual
strawberry jam                               8 small jars                 8 small jars
rhurbarb jam                                  5 small jars                 5 small jars
raspberry jam                                 5 small jars                       -
peaches in light syrup                    12 large jars                 6 large jars
rhubarb-strawberry pie filling        4 small jars                 6 large jars
peach pie filling                              3 small jars                       -
tomato sauce                                 28 large jars               21 large jars
salsa                                             14 large jars                14 large jars
green beans                                  14 large jars                21 quarts
runner beans                                 14 large jars                      -
kohlrabi                                          7 large jars                 6 quarts
roasted peppers                            14 large jars                       -
bread and butter pickles               15 large jars                15 large jars
runner bean relish                          3 large jars                  2 large jars
applesauce                                    14 large jars                  7 large jars (7 more to come)
gherkin pickles                                ?                               10 large jars
plum jam                                                                            7 small jars
blackberry pie filling                                                         7 large jars
apple pie filling                                                                  7 large jars
elderflower syrup                                                              2.5 quarts
elderberry syrup                                                                6 quarts
cooking pears                                                                   14 large jars
crushed tomatoes                                                              14 large jars
pickled peppers                                                                  9 large jars
zesty zucchini relish                                                           4 large jars
spaghetti sauce                                                                   7 quarts
chicken soup                                                                       7 quarts
red beans                                                                           7 large jars
brown beans                                                                       7 large jars

My small jars are about three quarters of a pint and my large jars are about three quarters of a quart.

I have put 4.5 kg (10 pounds) peppers, 2 kg (4.4 pounds) chard, 2.3 kg (5 pounds) strawberries, 0.5 kg (1.1 pound) raspberries and 1 kg (2.2 pounds) blackberries in the freezer.

All in all, I am very happy with all the things I have put up, but now time will tell if it is enough.  I hope to be even more strict with seasonal (and local) eating, but the main problem is fruit. We always have fresh fruit with our breakfast and although Frank and I are happy to eat pears and apples for most of the winter, the kids prefer some variation. Frank is also used to eating an orange every day. So I buy oranges and tangerines from Spain (which sounds easier than it is, a lot comes from South Africa, California and such) and occasionally some kiwis for Cassandra and bananas for Wesley, but only in the fall and winter.
I have been able to buy raspberries locally up until now, which are grown in a non-heated greenhouse, but that won't be much longer.

That's it for today!

blessings, Ellen

Happy birthday Cassandra!

Today my (not so) little girl turned 15!  
She is a lovely young lady with lots of love to share and I am very proud of her. She loves to be with her friends and likes to make edible creations. I wonder what she will be when she grows up.

Here is a picture of her with my bil and a dear friend of ours, when we were in Belgium for our annual weekend:

I hope you had a wonderful day!

love, mama

weekend full of canning

Last weekend I did a lot of canning:
14 large jars cooking pears (we actually call them stewing pears)
  7 large jars applesauce
  7 large jars apple pie filling
  3 large jars pickled peppers
  2 large jars runner bean relish
  7 quarts chicken soup

Here's a picture of all the jars:

Almost done!

blessings, Ellen

Winter wood

Last week Frank and his brother Maarten made sure we have lots of wood for our woodburner. They cut, split and stacked the wood. We always get our wood through Frank's job, it's old wood from bridges, canal sides and such. It would go to the land fill otherwise, so it's a win-win deal.  This year they worked on our wood only, Maarten still has enough wood for his wood burner. They didn't have enough time to do it all, but we have enough for a few months and later Frank can cut and split the rest.
They did it a month earlier than last year, but right on time, because yesterday I had our first fire going. Over the last couple of days fall has come to our part of the world, and for me personally it is very welcome.  I just love fall and winter.
Here are some pictures:
My hubbie with the chainsaw: 

Maarten splitting the cut wood:

Our full wood shed and the rest:

I thought it was also time for some new pictures of my girls. One of them, Clarabella, is moulding, so she doesn't look her best , in fact, she almost looks like when she came here. She also stopped laying, but luckily the others are still going strong.
Here she is:

Here is Betsy, she is the shy one and the lowest in the pecking order, but she does make sure she gets enough of the treats I give them.

Here are Emma, the nosy one, on the left, and Henrietta, the loudest and smartest on the right:

I hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Have a great weekend!

blessings, Ellen

stocking up

Sorry I haven't been blogging much lately, but with the start of my classes and canning I am still very busy. Besides that, I have been stocking up more than usual as well.
I have kept some sort of stock for as long as I have been keeping house. The last couple of years I have been more organised in that way, buying all my wheat, flours, dried beans, seeds and such in bulk (for about 6 months), while keeping an emergency stock and water too. Last year I added canning to all this (I have always made my own jams, but that was it). But this year I feel the urge to really stock up, I don't know why, I just do. Luckily I have a husband who doesn't mind all my 'crazy' notions.
I had kept several receipts of my monthly shopping trips, so I was able to put together a kind of basic stocking list for 6 months.
I had to rearrange some cupboards in the attic, where it gets quite cold in the fall and winter, but it doesn't freeze there, luckily, because that's where Frank and I sleep.  I did some major decluttering at the same time, and together with decluttering the kids' rooms at the end of the vacation it gives us a real nice organised house.
Then I did two big shopping trips and now I have enough food for about 6 months.  It does feel good. Some would say, it isn't very smart to buy all that food at once and not wait for sales, but most of the things we buy never go on sale. I still have to buy some meat, but first I have to make some room in the freezer.

So, at the moment there are 7 large jars of blackberry pie filling in the canner, made with lots of blackberries from the freezer. Earlier today I made 7 quarts tomato sauce, which gives me 21 quarts in total.
In the last two weeks, I have also canned 15 large jars of crushed tomatoes, 14 large jars of salsa, 7 quarts of green beans, 6 large jars of pickled peppers and I have put more peppers in the freezer.
I still have more canning to do, but hope to finish within the next two weeks.

On the garden front, well I have to admit that I have been neglecting the garden some what. , but I am still harvesting. Yesterday I fetched the last head of lettuce and almost the last of the zucchinis, but I still have some peppers, green and runner beans, lots of chicory, beets, carrots, and hopefully brussels sprouts. I think I will plant some lettuce in my small green house, see if that works.

Well that's it for today, I do have more to tell, but that's for another post. See you soon!

blessings, Ellen

Busy, busy, busy

These past few weeks have been really busy with gardening, canning, children coming home and starting school again, and a son wanting to redecorate his room at the last moment.  Besides this, I had to order all the study books for the first half year, since I am the book person for the Celtic Student Society. The Society orders the books for all the students from publishers in Ireland and Wales, that way we get a nice discount.

On the garden front my green bean plants are producing very good, I have picked almost 18 pounds so far.  There are still beans on them and even a few flowers. The weather forecast is very good, so I hope to get even more from them. Even the runner beans are producing nicely, but since only a few came up, there isn't enough to can, but I do hope to make some runner bean relish. We've been eating lettuce, green beans, runner beans, kohlrabis, corn, zucchini, strawberries and the last cucumbers.

Since I came back from Wales I have canned bread and butter pickles, plum jam, green beans, tomato sauce, spaghetti sauce and elderberry syrup, bringing my canning totals to:

15 jars bread and butter pickles
10 jars gherkin pickles
4 jars zesty zucchini relish (recipe Ball book)
6 jars of peaches in syrup
6 jars rhubarb-strawberry pie filling
8 small jars strawberry jam
7 small jars plum jam
4 small jars rhubarb jam
14 quarts green beans
7 quarts tomato sauce
7 quarts spaghetti sauce
6 quarts of kohlrabi (I wonder how they will taste, since they changed colour a bit)
6 quarts elderberry syrup
I have strawberries, blackberries, peppers and chard in the freezer.

Because I had to pull my tomato plants, I decided to buy a lot of tomatoes locally to can more tomato sauce, crushed tomatoes and salsa. At the moment there are 70 pounds of tomatoes sitting in my kitchen , waiting to be processed later in the week.

Our harvest total at the moment is 93.85 kg (206,5 pounds) for both gardens with, hopefully, more to come. The girls have given us 293 eggs, the eggs they layed during our vacation not counting, because those went to our neighbour who took care of them.

Tomorrow I have my first class of the new year, which is Medieval Welsh Literature. I also have advanced Middlewelsh later in the week. I am looking forward to the new year, but it would have been better to start a few weeks later, with all the canning and gardening still left.  I'll survive.

blessings, Ellen

We're back!

Actually, we've been home for a couple of days now, but they have been busy days. It also has been very hot, which I do not like very much (the girls were having a hard time as well today, but I watered a big part of their coop, so they could cool off a bit), but it ended tonight in a big thunderstorm. I was looking forward to the storm, but also a bit apprehensive, because hail was predicted as well. Luckily, we only had lots of rain, lightning and thunder.

Wales was wonderful, Frank and I did some serious walking, some sightseeing (of course we visited some castles ) and lots of reading. We stayed in a lovely B&B, called Ty Mawr, where Emma and Menno pampered us. The weather was really Welsh  with lots of clouds, some rain and wind, but also two beautiful days.
Here are some pictures:
On a clear day you can see for miles:

but on most days it's like this:

Streams, lakes and waterfalls are everywhere:


Caernarfon Castle:

Anglesey Island

and finally a lucky shot from the little steam train, while trying to stand up, but actually slipping :

Yesterday I came home with a big harvest, 7 little pumpkins, 13 kohlrabis, 5 ears of sweetcorn, almost a pound of strawberries, 3 zucchinis, 5 cucumbers and 4 heads of lettuce. Luckily, the girls love zucchini and lettuce as much as we do.   I also put 6 pounds of elderberries in the freezer. We had the corn for dinner yesterday and kohlrabi tonight, both times with a salad of course. Next week I hope I can pick the first of the green beans, with lots to come!
Tomorrow I want to make another batch of bread and butter pickles (the last) and maybe some zucchini pickles. I have raspberry jam, blackberry pie filling and lots of tomato sauce on the list for next week.

blessings, Ellen

Quick update

I have been busy with gardening and canning. I'm still at war with the weeds , but at the moment I'm on the winning team. I did have a big disappointment in the garden, I had to pull all my tomato plants, because they had blight.  Several fellow gardeners had the same problem. I have put brussels sprouts and some white cabbages there. I also planted a bunch of endive plants, Wesley just loves eating mashed potatoes with shredded raw endive and bacon bits.
My strawberry plants are producing very good, even though it's their first year. Next year hopefully I will be able to make jam from my own strawberries. We've harvested the first elderberries as well and the blackberry bush is still going strong.
We've been eating lettuce, kohlrabi, onions and cucumbers regularly.

Our harvest total at the moment is 46.4 kg (102 pounds) for both gardens (home and allotment) and hopefully we have a lot more to harvest: corn, pumpkins, green beans, more kohlrabis, endive, lettuce, carrots, red beets, zucchini and cucumbers.
So far the girls have produced 251 eggs for us.

Canning totals:
10 jars gherkin pickles
10 jars bread and butter pickles
4 jars zesty zucchini relish (recipe Ball book)
6 jars of kohlrabi (I wonder how they will taste, since they turned colour a bit)
6 jars of peaches in syrup
6 jars rhubarb-strawberry pie filling
8 small jars strawberry jam
4 small jars rhubarb jam

The kids left on holiday with  their father and his family last week, they are in Spain. We miss them very much, but we know they are having a wonderful time, since they love the heat and we don't.
Frank and I are leaving for Wales this evening, we're taking the night ferry to Hull (England) and tomorrow morning we will drive cross country to the north of Wales, Snowdonia. We'll be staying for a week, hiking, sightseeing and just enjoying nature and its peace.
I'll show some pictures when we're back.

blessings, Ellen

War on weeds

We've had some strange weather last week, lots of rain, but temperatures weren't too bad. The result is that the weeds seem to have exploded on the allotment.  Between the wet weather and a house guest, I didn't have time to go and when I went on Saturday, pffff, it wasn't a pretty sight. At least the weather has improved and that gives me a chance this week to try to win this war with the weeds. I'll start today!

I did manage to can my first gherkins last week, I got four large jars, and I canned 6 large jars of rhubarb strawberry pie filling for some sunshine on a dreary day in winter. I hope to can some more gherkins this afternoon and also some kohlrabi. Yesterday we enjoyed the first cucumber with Cassandra's stir fry. Wesley cooked dinner on Saturday, so I had the weekend off from cooking, very nice!
The blackberry bush is producing big sweet berries this year, better than last year. There's no immediate need to make jam, because I still have several jars left over from last year, so maybe I'll make a blackberry cobbler tonight. I also froze some blackberries.

My runner beans are doing poorly, just a few came up. I know there won't be enough for canning this year, but hopefully my green beans will make up for that. We'll see, I can always buy some at peak time to make up for the loss.

Frank adjusted my closets in the hall way at my request, so I now have more room to store my canned goods and other goodies. I already made my twice-a-year run to the mill, where I buy all my grains, flours, seeds and dried beans. This time I also bought enough chicken feed and some extra things to last the girls for six months. I mix my own chicken feed, but this time I used the mill's mixed grain (wheat, broken corn and barley) as a base. I added oat berries, millet, split peas, lentils, hulled sunflower seeds and linseed. They do get kitchen scraps (sometimes prepared just for them ) and they search the garden for insects. Besides, they also get grass everyday, which we pick for them in the neighbourhood, and of course they get a little bit yogurt every day before they roost.

The extension of the girl's coop is working fine, yesterday they spent a large part of the day in there, because we were in the garden ourselves and it's nicer not to have to look before every step you take.

I hope you all have a great week!

blessings, Ellen

Sisterhood award

I am very honored to receive the Sisterhood award from Lori at the Garden of Faith, thanks Lori! I'm still amazed by you all wanting to read my blog.

The rules:
1. Put the logo on your blog or post.
2. Nominate up to 10 blogs which show great attitude and/or gratitude!
3. Be sure to link your nominees within your post.
4. Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
5. Remember to link the person from whom you received your award.

My picks are:

Homemaking Homesteader
Holcomb Happenings
Grow the Change

I enjoy reading these blogs very much and have learned so much from them. I hope you enjoy them just as much.

blessings, Ellen

First real harvest

On Friday Frank and I were busy in our back garden, he was cutting some wood to make room for some other wood. We get our wood through Frank's job for the city council, when wood (in for instance small bridges) is replaced, he tries to get a part of it. Last winter we almost exclusively burned that kind of wood. It looks like we'll be able to do that again.  It's free and otherwise it would go to the landfill.
While he was cutting wood, I extended the the chicken coop around a corner into the border. The girls were having fun roaming around the whole garden , other family members (aka Frank and the kids) weren't very happy with all the mess they made and I wasn't very happy because I had to clear it all several times a day. So I decided to extend their coop with about 55 square feet and keep them locked up at least part of the day. I have to say it's working out very well, we can walk in the garden without having to watch our steps very carefully and the girls aren't complaining too much.
Here you can see what I did:

I have decided to implement more ideas from Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon into our diet. Yesterday I drained some buttermilk to get whey, but what's left after the whey has dripped away is what we call hangop, a kind of creamy thick yogurt, delicious with some kind of (canned) fruit. With the whey I could make the first stage of Crystal Miller's soaked whole wheat bread this morning, but it has to sit for 24 hours, so I can finish it tomorrow. She has adapted Sally Fallon's recipe to stay close to her own recipe. I'll let you know how it turns out.
Today I hope to make lacto-fermented salsa, for which I also will use an adapted recipe by Crystal, but I'll half it.

This morning I picked the first blackberries in our garden.  I'm not sure what I'll do with the blackberries, I still have 5 jars of jam left from last year. I probably have to make some jam, but just one batch I think.
Last week I didn't spend much time on my allotment, partly due to the weather, and it showed when I went there this morning.   Well it wasn't too bad, of course the weeds had grown, but my vegetables too. I pulled up all my onions, they 're drying at the moment and weeded my pepper plants in my little green house and my green beans, which almost all came up. But my runner beans aren't doing very well, I sowed two kinds and one kind didn't come up at all and the other not even half.  I have sowed them again, so hopefully they will do better this time.
I came home with the first kohlrabi, some chard, zuchinis, gherkins and a few strawberries. Tonight we will have chard pie, with our own eggs in it.
Today's harvest:

blessings, Ellen

Productive day

I took a little break from my allotment, but still had a busy weekend. I just watered everything twice, because until today the weather was very hot (at least for us, it was 86 F) and dry. There were some heavy rain showers on Friday and Sunday, but they all fell somewhere else . Today we had really nice weather (75 F) and tonight finally some rain.
I did some weeding in our front garden yesterday, which was really necessary. I still have to move some lavender plants from there to our back garden. I used to have a herb garden in the back, but with the girls roaming free there is nothing left but the rosemary.  So I want to put some lavender there and plant my herbs in the front garden. I'll do that this week, because the temperatures won't be high and we'll have more rain, perfect planting weather.

Today I had a lot of things on my to-do list, so I started early with the dishes. I have been doing the dishes by hand for some months now, because our dog Chip (who will be 11 years next month) is afraid of the dishwasher ever since our rabbit Cuddles died some months ago (don't ask me what the connection is, because I really don't know). He gets really stressed when it's running. I tried it again a few weeks ago and he continued to be stressed even after it finished, so I have decided to do the dishes by hand indefinitely. I don't mind at all, I look out my kitchen window and just enjoy looking at the girls or other birds. It really goes with simplifying, I think.
Well back to today, after the dishes I cleaned out the chicken coop, did the finances, while enjoying a cup of tea (got to have my tea at regular intervals ). When Cassandra came down after sleeping for 15,5 hours  (she had a sleepover the night before and didn't sleep at all ), we visited for a while. She wanted to bake some cup cakes and I had to grind grain for bread and granola. While she was preparing the batter for the cup cakes, I put my Bosch grain mill to work. I always grind over 2 pounds of wheat at a time.
I put all the ingredients for the granola together while the cakes were baking and baked the granola right after they came out of the oven. I also made the starter mixture for Frank's favorite bread, which has to ferment for at least six hours. At the moment the finished dough is rising together with a 'normal' bread, both breads are whole wheat mixed with plain flour. I will bake them shortly.

After that I started my really big job for the day, to clean out the shed. Really necessary because of a lot of clutter, but also because I ordered 60 quart canning jars last week, which arrived on Saturday, and I had to put them somewhere. I needed a permanent place for all my canning jars anyway, because they were all over the place. So I rearranged things and threw out some junk and a lot of wood, which ended up in the wood shed. The junk is in the car and I will take that away tomorrow morning.

Then it was time for yet another cup of tea, or even better two , together with Wesley and Cassandra. Of course we had a delicious cup cake with our tea. After this I vacuumed downstairs, sweeped the garden (I do that at least twice a day, because the girls just drop everything everywhere ) and finally made dinner. We had chicken wings with rice and vegetables with peanut sauce, one of my all time favorite meals.

First thing tomorrow morning I'm taking the junk to the dump and after that I'm going to the garden centre for some things. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and I can spend some time at the allotment also, but in the afternoon I want to do some sewing. I need a few new skirts and I also have a new pattern for a jumper.

I'll keep you all posted!

blessings, Ellen

Nearly there....

Today I finished clearing the last bed, yeah! Of course this doesn't mean there are no more weeds on my allotment, but it does mean I am on the winning side.
I sowed green and runner beans, a lot more than last year, hoping to meet my canning goals.

The weather has been hot this week and I don't really like hot weather, but the forecasts say it will cool down after tomorrow. We'll get some rain too and that's badly needed, because I have to water the garden almost everyday.

I have some pictures for you to enjoy, of my allotment and some of my home garden.
This is the last bed I had to clear, but over half of my garden looked like this.

My onions, chard and lettuce:

My pumpkins, corn, cucumbers (far right) and my little greenhouse with pepper plants:

My kohlrabis and cauliflower in the front:

As you can see there is still some grass on the paths and on the edges of the beds, but I'll take care of that in the coming days.

A few pictures of my girls, first Clarabella and Betsy taking a dust bath:

and then in contrast, Henrietta the mud queen :

My elder tree in the back garden:

and the blackberry bush in bloom:

Foxglove, one of my favorite flowers:

Herbs drying in the kitchen:

Well I hope you enjoyed the little tour, see you soon.

blessings, Ellen

Hard but rewarding work!

I have been working very hard in my vegetable garden lately. Because I was late getting started (again ), the weeds and especially the grass had a head start on me. But I'm finally getting there, just two more days of hard work, cutting everything with a spade just below the surface , and I will have my garden back. This week I planted tomatoes, lettuce and peppers, sown chard, aragula, radishes, red beets and carrots. Still to sow green and runner beans and to plant brussels sprouts and white cabbage.
The weather has been very warm and still is, luckily we had some good rain last night, so everything can grow like crazy.

The children are almost done with school, just two more days and a fun day the week after. They worked very hard over the last couple of weeks and I'm very proud of them for that. Wesley will be going on a camping trip with his friends for the first time, to a small island of the coast. Not too far so mom can get used to the idea. :) It's not that I can't be without him (or Cassandra for that matter), because they go on holiday with their father every year. But just the idea of Wesley being on his own, that's why we didn't want him to go abroad, next year he can, he will be eightteen by then.

I didn't finish my last two courses, but I can do them again next year or the year after. Due to all the stress around my trip to Wales, another cold, and our trips to Paris and Belgium, , I didn't do very much studying and got behind. I decided it would be better to concentrate on my garden and my health and just take the classes again. I feel it was the right decision, I am feeling very good, all the hard work in the garden is making me stronger physically.

Well onto Cheryl's question about how to use kohlrabi. I peel the kohlrabi and dice them, about half inch big. Then I just boil them until just tender and eat them with potatoes and some kind of meat. I think they taste like delicate cauliflower. We really like them.
I haven't canned them before, but intend to peel and dice them and then raw pack them, like I did with my green beans last year. I'll let you know how they turn out, but I think they will be fine.
Cheryl has a really nice blog, maybe you can take a look sometime.

Have a nice Sunday!

blessings, Ellen

Too long

It has been too long since I posted, but I have been busy with all kinds of things. That and another cold, which always makes me feel miserable.

My garden is coming along nicely, but I am not done yet. I have planted corn, lots of kohlrabis, a few cauliflowers (which I got from a fellow gardener), gherkins, cucumbers, pumpkins and I've sown some chard, radishes and arugula. I have still to plant my tomatoes, some more kohlrabis (I see a lot of canned kohlrabi in my future ), peppers, lettuce, brussel sprouts and white cabbage and still to sow more arugula, chard, radishes, green beans, runner beans, carrots and red beets.
Our weather had been strange, higher temperatures than normal, wetter, but also very dry in between and all of a sudden a few cold days, mixed in with one really bad thunderstorm. Hopefully the weather will be a bit more normal from now on.

Canning season has started as well. So far I have made rhubarb jam, strawberry jam and elderflower cordial. I also put 2 pounds of strawberries in the freezer.
Last weekend I made a planning for this canning season, looking at last year, which was my first serious canning season. I plan to can
strawberry jam                               8 small jars
rhurbarb jam                                  5 small jars
raspberry jam                                 5 small jars
peaches in light syrup                    12 large jars
rhubarb-strawberry pie filling        4 small jars
peach pie filling                              3 small jars
tomato sauce                                 28 large jars
salsa                                             14 large jars
green beans                                  14 large jars
runner beans                                 14 large jars
kohlrabi                                          7 large jars (maybe more)
roasted peppers                            14 large jars
bread and butter pickles               15 large jars
runner bean relish                          3 large jars
applesauce                                    14 large jars
gherkin pickles                                ? (depends on how well my plants produce)
probably something with blackberries as well, our bush is flowering like crazy, as is our eldertree.
(my small jars are somewhere between a half pint and a pint, my large jars are between a pint and a quart):

The girls are doing very well, three are laying almost every day and the fourth one is starting as well. We've had two days with four eggs and 49 eggs so far.   Frank made an alteration to the coop on Sunday, after we were woken by Emma calling danger at 5 o'clock that morning (I couldn't find what she was scared of, but it can't have been much, we don't have any predators here). We haven't had any complaints, but I'm sure there were more people startled like we were. So Frank made a little sliding door on the night coop, which I let down when it's dark and open when I'm up. It works wonderfully, no more early morning scares.

Well that's it for now, I'll be back a lot sooner next time, I promise.  Tomorrow marks my first blog anniversary, a year ago I started this blog and it still amazes me how many of you read it. Thanks!

blessings, Ellen

Happy birthday Wesley!

Today my son Wesley turned 17, although sometimes you would think he's a lot younger!   I'm very proud of my manneke (little man as I often call him ), who knows so much of what is going on in the world, but at the same time can make us laugh with his silly things.

Here we are with Cassandra in Paris:

Have a wonderful day!

love, mama

Lots to tell

We've had our first eggs! While we were away for a few days to Paris, our friend and neighbour Rosy, who was taking care of our cats and chickens, found the first two eggs and today Emma produced another one.  I'm pretty sure the others are hers too. Here is a picture of the smallest and probably the first egg:

The girls having fun with a bowl of spaghetti, which Cassandra made specially for them, she also took the picture:

Frank, the kids and I went to Paris by train on Wednesday, where we stayed for 3 nights. We walked and saw a lot and conquered a lot of stairs. We went to the Notre Dame and the Sacré-Coeur, climbed part of the Eiffeltower by day (Frank and the kids went to the second floor, I stayed at the first) and went back at night to see it with all the lights, which was very beautiful. We did some shopping, visited the Louvre, where we saw the Mona Lisa and the Venus of Milo, stood under the Arc de Triomphe and the Grande Arche. We had a great time and enjoyed each other's company very much. Frank and Cassandra took lots of pictures, here is one of the Eiffeltower at night:

Yesterday was Mother's Day and since we came back Saturday evening and I told Frank and the kids that Mother's Day is flowerday, they didn't have a present for me yet. But I got pampered anyway, they made breakfast, lunch and dinner, Frank took care of the laundry and Cassandra made me a gorgeous cake, a lovely day!  You can see the cake in the picture, it says happy Mother's Day:

This week I have to spend a lot of time in my allotment, I want to sow and plant almost everything before Ascension, but still have to do some tilling. All my seedlings are doing well here in the back garden and the blackberry and elderberry bushes are almost flowering.

blessings, Ellen

Odds and ends

In contrast to what I said earlier I did not go to Wales. I cancelled at the last minute (two days before departure), because it gave me too much stress to leave my family and home. Part of me wanted to go , but a bigger part just wanted to stay home and take care of my family and little homestead. When I explained to everybody how stressed I was, physically and emotionally, they all understood and were very sweet about it.
So I stayed home and enjoyed my children's company after their trip to England, enjoyed time with Frank and just being at home.

At this moment it's raining, so it looks a little less like spring, but the rain is needed after summer temperatures this past week. On the allotment, I have planted my strawberry plants, finally, and onions. Cassandra came with me for an afternoon and helped with all kinds of things, so sweet of her. At home I have repotted all my kohlrabi and tomato plants, so it looks like a nursery in our garden. I have to keep everything high, since my lovely girls are becoming savages with almost everything green.

Speaking of the girls, they are doing very well, only Clarabella seems to have some trouble breathing through her nose (well the holes which could be her nose ). For over a week now not one of them is on medication, finally, so now we're waiting for that first egg.

Last weekend we had our first rhubarb of the season, we always look forward to eating rhubarb crunch again. The rhubarb was not from my own plants, they aren't big enough yet and besides, they're still young plants, so I won't be able to get much from them this year.

The recipe for rhubarb crunch comes from a little cookbook, called "Cooking and Memories, Favorite Recipes from 20 Mennonite and Amish Cooks" by Phyllis Pellman Good (People's Place Booklet No. 5).  I bought this book years and years ago, well before I had my children, but I still make some of the recipes in it. I don't think it is still for sale.

Rhubarb Crunch
Crumbs:
1 cup flour, sifted (ww flours works just as good)
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed (I usually just use cane juice crystals)
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cup oatmeal flakes
1/2 cup butter, melted
4 cups rhubarb, diced
Glaze:
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup water

Mix the crumbs until crumbly. Press half of them into a greased 9" x 9" baking pan. Cover with diced rhubarb.
Combine the glaze ingredients and cook until it thickens and clears. Pour it over the rhubarb. Top with the remaining crumbs; then bake at 350F for one hour.
Serve warm plain or with milk or ice cream.
Makes 8 servings.

I usually double this recipe and we eat it hot with cold custard (we call it vla) at dinner time, but the leftovers are for breakfast the next morning.

 We also had Dutch pancakes for dinner last week. I made plain ones, apple pancakes and bacon pancakes. We eat them with sugar, molasses or jam. Here is a picture:

Cassandra likes to bake, just like her mother , and she made these beautiful cupcakes a few days ago. She is very creative and I'm very proud of her.

Last week I finished knitting a poncho for myself (it took a while ), but I decided I like crochet more. So I crocheted some pot holders just for fun and started a poncho for Cassandra. I find it more relaxing than either quilting or knitting.

I wanted to thank you all for the sweet comments, I love to read them.

blessings, Ellen