Love that garden food...

 Here Jordan is helping set up our table at the courthouse lawn.  Our Wahpeton market moved to the Courthouse last week in place of the Community Center.  It's still 4-7 p.m. on Thursdays.  We've still got bread, jams, jellies, and a variety of vegetables!

 Rebekah and Moriah having some last fun in the pool before we put it away for the winter.

 Moriah and Rebekah!

Love that garden food...  We made kabobs from our garden veggies and marinated meat.   The kids liked making their own.  I cooked the first ones a little too long so now I think I have the hang of it.  Some people even tried okra on their stick.

Tonight for supper we had enchiladas again and fresh cantaloupe from the garden.  It looks like we are going to get to eat the cantaloupe.   Some gophers have been gnawing on it and some grasshoppers.

I Am Four...

 My sweet little baby girl is 4 years old!!!  Em remembered at the end of the day that I found this "I Am 4" shirt last year and did a little photo shoot outside.

 She's sitting in our room where she was born.  Same old ugly carpet but beautiful little face :)

 It's all about presentation!  We would have invited grandparents over at least but we ended up eating at 9:15 p.m.  I don't think they would have like that!  I was canning crab apple jelly and corn relish during the day and trying to get the house in some sort of order for us to start school possibly Monday.  I started supper prep about 6 p.m. and it took 3 hours to make Green Chili Enchiladas, green beans and a salad.   For the enchiladas I broiled tomatillos (from our garden), garlic (also ours) and jalapenos (3 pans of this combo).  I removed skins from garlic and seeds from peppers and blended it with some spices.  Then I fried each corn tortilla in oil.  I imagined it was more authentic Mexican food than anything else we've had. Jordan said it looked just like what she ate in Mexico except it needed cactus.   I also blackened other peppers, removed skin and seeds and sliced to put in the middle of each enchilada.  The kids were busy snapping beans left over from market after I washed them all.  Emily did cut and wash the lettuce and do up the tomatoes.  The enchilada sauce ended up a bit spicy for some but I liked it overall. 

 Lena with the special day plate and special glass to drink her Kombucha.  This glass is set my Grandma Anna gave me once upon a time.  She got it for her wedding from her sisters, probably her most prized possession in life.

 Jordan did it again!!!  She made Rapunzel's tower with vines and pink flowers twining the walls and ground.  There is even a picture of Rapunzel in the tower.  She came up with it on her own, no cake book or online picture.  Lena kept saying she wanted a princess party.  Tangled is one of our favorite movies. 

 The traditional Daddy measuring the kids on the door.

 She wrote most of her name.  She can't do "n" yet but she can do the L e and a.  She's shorter than Moriah was at the age of 4.

 She got a little crazy eyed with all the attention on her.  She fell apart once during the night. I 'm sure it didn't help that it got so late.

 The kids each had ideas for gifts so she was a little bombarded.  Mom and dad were more practical as we have way too many toys in this house so she got jammies and bird feeders from us.  I wanted to get some bird feeders for our science unit we are studying in school so it was a two-fold gift.  I know she'll get a lot of enjoyment out of it.  We'll set it up outside the big living room window for all to watch.

Playing together!

Salsa Verde...

 Here we are at at the end of market in Lisbon on Monday.  Most of the bread went and a lot of jams and jellies.  It was a really good market overall. 

 Lena's too cute!  Must be telling Emily something. 

 Salsa Verde!?!  I'm not too sure about this yet.  I grew tomatillos this year and found a recipe for salsa verde, like green enchilada sauce.  I ended up taking the recipe times 6 and not sure I like it.  We plan to use it for enchiladas.  I should have made a single or double batch to try it first but if I'm cutting up stuff I may as well do it big is usually my motto.  I found the recipe online and the person bragged it up so much I was sure it would be great.  We may like it yet!  It tasted like it had too much vinegar in it. 

 It is pretty nice looking!

 We planted peas this week.  I'm hoping the season is long enough before frosts to harvest them.  We should have planted a couple weeks ago but I've had no time to prepare the ground.

It was a family effort.  I also got lettuce, spinach, beans, cauliflower and broccoli planted this week.  It's a bit of an experiment to see when it'll come up and how it does.  It makes a bit more work but we sure love to eat from our garden.

Taking a break...

It was a girls' weekend!!  I took just the 5 girls with me to the Lake Itasca Family Bluegrass Festival this weekend.  I so needed to get away from the gardens, canning and all the mess those things make in my house.  This was one of our absolute favorite entertainers, The Alaska String Band.  They gave quite an entertaining show.

This group tops my list though as my very favorite.  They are The TripleL band out of New Mexico.  I splurged and bought their CD and have listened to it many, many times.  Jordan bought the Alaska String's CD and she listens to that one the most. 

 We slept in two tents and the second night it got down to 42 degrees.  Brrrr!  I was frozen until I realized I was laying on top of a sleeping bag for cushion and climbed in it instead of laying on top and then I finally was able to sleep.  We had a lot of fun listening to a lot of different groups play and we had fun visiting with friends.  The kids are wiped out.  

We come home to more canning.  I promised Emily I would save the next picking of green beans for ourselves and not sell them at the market and look what my beautiful Jordan did today.  She canned all this by herself (well, the kids snapped the ends she said).  I cooked up the tomatoes for her but she canned them while I was gone for awhile today.  I bought a few lugs of peaches so that is our next big job.  I have market to get ready for tomorrow.  Bread has been selling very well and by the time August is done I will have made approximately 240-280 loaves of bread in the whole month.  I make 60-70 per week divided up into two different markets and times 4 weeks that is a lot of bread.  The kids are so great about helping in the gardens, I'm so proud of them for doing what they do to help me out.

Food Preservation...

 Jordan's beautiful basket of herbs.  She's been picking and drying from her garden when they are ready.

 Here we are at 2 a.m. finishing cutting corn off the huge load we got last week.  It was great to have some corn after a few years of not having it.

 We did up some cherries last night and today.  I love how they look.

My friend Jan gave me some good sour apples.  We made them all into juice for jelly.  I then discovered I could use the pulp from the apples into applesauce.  We then took some of that and made oatmeal applesauce bread for the market tomorrow. 

This was my supper the other night.  It's so colorful.  It's been about a month that I've cut out all grains and sugar and eat mostly veggies, avocados, bananas and some meat and eggs.  I feel great as long as I have time to prepare the food.  I also lost about 18 pounds.  I'd rather keep the 18 pounds and eat the foods I like!!!!  I like pasta, toast for breakfast and stir fry with rice.  I like a bun with my hamburger and potatoes cooked about any way!  I miss ice cream!  It's just for a time and I do like vegetables.

Moriah was helping pit the cherries with a cherry pitter we borrowed.  It was great!

Lena had a great time turning the crank and making applesauce today!  She has so much fun in everything she does.

Supper tonight was Ratatouille.  Jordan had fun going around to the gardens collecting the ingredients.  Mmmmm!  Love it.  She sautes onions, peppers, and fresh minced garlic in butter or oil until soft.  She peels, chops and adds the zucchini, eggplant and tomatoes with fresh basil and simmers it 15 minutes to 30.  It is really good. Most of the family eats it on rice.  I eat it plain and it is so good we had it two nights in a row. 

Isaac plays with his food!!!  This is his hamburger topped with avocado topped with a tomato topped with mustard decorating the top surrounded by the tomato peel.  He often does this kind of thing. 

Got Veggies?

 These aren't veggies but Saturday was a really good weeding day.  You can't even see the strawberries in here but when we were done there they were! :)  We neglected them since they weren't producing any more and we had more important places to take care of.

 Jordan has been making veggie soup each week for us.  Here she added about anything she could find outside; leeks, green beans, onions, zucchini, garlic, eggplant and golden beets.  The only things that wasn't from the garden were the carrots. 

 The goats get a good meal too when we are done.  I think the leftovers look so appetizing!

 Tomato hornworms like my veggies, more correctly my fruit, tomatoes!  Yikes these things are huge!  I didn't realize what was eating on my tomatoes.  I thought grasshoppers were eating them but I found these yesterday.  They do a lot of damage.

 My squash is exploding.  I've kept it watered in this heat and it's doing so well.

Supper tonight!  Oh, this was good!  I took it all from the garden.  It was peppers, onions, tomatoes, zucchini and eggplant with olive oil, garlic powder and coarse salt put on it.  I grilled it outside on low and it was good smelling and tasting.