our homestead: catching up at summer's end

The first official day of Autumn isn't for another two weeks and we've been experiencing our own version of the drought here in the Pacific Northwest. We haven't had rain in more than 50 days save for the quick nighttime downpour we had two evenings ago. Day after day, bright sun and clear blue skies. Regardless, I sense Autumn approaching. I see it in the leaves rolling across the roadway or blushing red in the trees, I feel it early in the crisp mornings when I curl up closer to my dogs and pull more blankets on, and I've started tasteing it via butternut squash and chanterelle mushrooms. Yes, it's summer's end. In recap, I feel rather satisfied by my summer. I spent time with loved ones including taking a girl's trip to Lake Chelan, swam, went camping at Coal Lake a few times, hiked a lot, grew fruits and vegetables and raised my first few clutches of ducks (and my chickens just started laying eggs), and worked farmers markets. I've been preparing for winter this past month- drying herbs and flowers for tea, freezing and canning our over abundance of tomatoes, cooking up apple pie filling with my sister-in-law. I never get enough done. I'll turn to this blog in winter to remember parts of the growing season. I never am able to post photos of everything, but at least I have a few glimpses. More writing about some life updates after the jump of photos...

 

1. Our little homestead

2. Magic, simply magic. Watching a duckling hatch.

3. These ducks were born this season.

4. Teddybear sunflower.

5. Italian white sunflowers.

6. Coal Lake.

7. My husband, Joe (left) and his goodfriend Nate (right) mountain trout fishing.

8. Banjo and Oswald exploring the mountain rock.

9. Working the Anacortes Farmers Market with Shannon.

10. Gathering herbs and flowers for winter teas.

11. My partners in crime this summer.

On to the updates. My husband and I might be moving from the Swan Slough. Not anytime soon, but possibly within a year. We made an offer on an affordably priced 2 acre plot of raw woodland near a small bass-fishing lake about 20 minutes north. Our offer was accepted, and we've been spending the past week and a half conducting a feasibility study to make sure we could live on the land before committing to the purchase. This is a huge step for our family as we've always talked about finding land and building a very small, energy-efficient home of our own. We thought we should look now since properties are priced so cheap. We don't own the land we're on at the Swan Slough, so we'll be moving towards ownership- which is both exciting and scary. If everything checks out with this property, I dream of building a little house with a woodland garden with walking paths and maybe a treehouse too. We want to have a clearing for a vegetable garden and greenhouse and a fenced-in duck oasis. I am definitely romanticising the possibility of being able to kayak whenever I please, as the lake is just a walking block or so from the property. We are still close to friends and family and in a good school district (perks!). Making a little home here will be a lot of work, but my husband and I look forward to the challenge. I am still considering whether or not I should start a new blog, or just rename this one. A lot of my past is in this blog, and I do plan to continue my baby-homesteading spirit to our new property. The topics might change. The name of the blog might change. But perhaps I should keep on writing here...*fingers crossed* that everything works out.

1. Our new road. The property touches this road from the subaru to where I'm standing.  

2. The property is heavily wooded with lots of ferns, mushrooms and old growth stumps.

3. I love this cedar grove. I imagine I'll make a woodland garden of bleeding hearts and hostas here.

4. The lake down the street.

 



our homestead: my first heirloom tomato harvest

This has been a rough year for tomatoes. It's been cold and wet; two factors that contribute to sluggishly slow growth and blight. Despite the weather, I was somehow blessed with baskets full of heirloom tomatoes, right from our little-greenhouse-that-could. These are the same tomatoes that I started from seed on my windowsills last winter, grown in dismal February light and then transplanted out into a frigid spring. I've been picking all sorts of tomatoes, including: yellow pear, black prince, sweet 100 cherries, evergreen (the middle photo) and pink brandywine (the bottom photo). Last night my husband and I enjoyed baked macaroni with bacon and heirloom tomatoes and today calls for BLT's with big slabs of tomato and smashed avocado. I've got a bunch of large, old mason jars, gifted to me from my Oma, running through the dishwasher at this very moment, as I plan on getting my can-on before work. Today I'll be canning stewed tomatoes (using our own homegrown celery, onions and garlic) and salsa. In the winter months we'll be able to roast chicken and potatoes with a jar of our stewed tomatoes, or snack on chips and tangy salsa. We are so lucky to have this bounty!

our homestead: sunflower season

Sunflowers and Indian Paintbrush are my most beloved flowers, and both appear in late summer; sunflowers in my yard and paintbrush on my favorite hiking routes in the mountains. I've tried to grow Indian Paintbrush in my yard but I think they really need a good alpine environment...at least for me. This year I grew Russian Mammoth Sunflowers (their heads were as big as dinner plates!), some red sunflowers and some of the classic yellow sunflowers with heads about the size of salad plates. The majority of my sunflowers grew at least 5 feet tall, some were even taller than me, and I'll admit I've spent a few summer evenings just standing underneath my sunflowers, admiring these gentle giants. I have my sunflowers standing tall in my back vegetable garden, attracting pollinators, and in my front yard, greeting any visitors that come a'calling.

I have three different life stages of sunflowers at this point. Some have already gone to seed and are ready for harvest. I hate having to cut down my sunflowers since they still look pretty, even when they lose their petals, so I have a few standing out in the field (their seeds will still be able to dry) and a few drying on my front porch where I can keep them relatively safe from birds. I'll probably move them all to my shed soon and hang them from the rafters to dry, and then I'll be able to collect the seeds for eating or for storing for next spring for a larger sunflower crop. I've been taking the spent petals of my seeded sunflower heads and have been drying them for tea, so later, in winter I'll be able to remember my garden. I also have plenty of sunflowers that are still in bloom, and about 5 sunflowers yet to bloom, so I should have some of their color for the next few weeks. With all of the seeds I'll be able to harvest this year, I'm looking forward to next summer. I hope I'll be able to plant a colossal sunflower patch!
 

trail setters: a day at the farmers market

Summer is market season, and thus it's always the busiest season for me. I often have lots of dreams right about this time dealing with produce: dreams where I'm helping a customer and bagging their vegetables and then I don't give them accurate change, dreams where I spill fingerlings and huckleberries all over the sidewalk (wait...I've done that in real life), dreams where the scale isn't working or dreams where I'm surrounded by homegrown kohlrabi microgreens and everyone is excited and cheering for me (that was last night's dream). Yeah. This year I'm especially busy since I'm working the produce section of our local co-op as well and maintaining a household, wrangling furbabies and a husband, and keeping my vegetable garden happy and healthy. As most folks already know or probably already suspect, I've been a part of the market scene since I was a kid, so I've grown up with a lot of the farmers and vendors I work with. In a sense, we're like a giant family or community where everyone knows everyone.

Yesterday was a slower day at the market (SeaFair's going on this weekend), so I could take the time to catch a few photos of my family's tomato stand, Flying Tomato Farm, and the stand I work at, Frog's Song Farm. It's been a cold summer this year, so everything, again, is late. We have had sugar snap peas and rhubarb just until last week! All the way through August! And I haven't seen any west-side green beans yet...although chanterelles (a late September mushroom) are already showing up out in the wild. Freaky weather. Anyway, I'm very happy that my family's now making it out to markets with some tomatoes and cucumbers. The top two photos are of their stand. In previous years they've been at the market with their produce as early as May, but they decided not to heat their greenhouse this year and the cool weather contributed to the wait. But let me tell you, their tomatoes have been worth this wait. I made a delicious caprese salad yesterday after the market using their tomatoes and cucumbers. Mmm mmm crunchy, juicy goodness.

The bottom three photos are from the Frog's Song Farm stand. Frog's Song Farm's produce comes from a small, family farm based on Fir Island (up near Conway/LaConner). It's beautiful up there...one of these days I'll post some photos of the area. As far as the market's concerned, we have had so much more variety than what we started the cold season with. Now we have the following up for grabs: several types of fingerling and round potatoes (apple rose finns and peruvian purples made their appearance this week), french breakfast radishes, Japanese salad turnips, chioga and classic purple beets, nantes and heirloom rainbow and big n' ugly carrots, fava beans, red and golden raspberries (though the red raspberries may be on their way out), loose and bunched spinach, rainbow chard, red and white kale, salad mix, all sorts of head lettuce, sweet onions, red onions, shallots, head cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, the first of the chanterelles, zucchini and their squash blossoms, sweet pea flowers, sunflowers, and much more that I'm probably forgetting. Anyway, that cute gal in the last photo is a my super awesome and creative coworker, Heidi. She lives in Kingston and takes the ferry over to sell with me. We always have a fun time working together (especially since we share an affinity for sweet, sweet baked goods from the market as well as the pasta man's rice pudding, oh lord!). She also hooked me up with a darling black rabbit yesterday...but that's a story for next time!

our homestead: scenes from my walk this evening

Today made for a very sunny day, followed by a beautiful evening and sunset. I had the chance to take my dog, Ozzy, out to one of my favorite spots to go for a late summer's walk: the levy that runs along the river. I have a special way to get here. The entrance is a bit of a local secret...you have to drive all the way to the end of a rural road, past a cemetery full of born-in-the-1800s tombstones and then hang a sharp left to find it. Once you get out on the levy, you cross fields of marshlands full of grasses, wild flowers, snags, giant thistles, willow trees and all sorts of critters. Today I spotted a giant toad, several ducks, a beaver and its dam, and an otter hopping into the river from the bank across from me. In times of heavy rain, these marshlands are meant to hold excess river water to help prevent flooding in the valley. The further you walk, the quieter your surroundings become until you find some true peace.

our homestead: scenes from my walk this morning

It was a warm and balmy, overcasted morning, so I decided to take my dog, Ozzy, out for walk down the slough to the river. Above are a few quick pictures I took of the area. The first is of my neighbor's pumpkin patch, full of big orange blossoms (these will later become big ol' pumpkins). The second photo is my other neighbor's field, rolled up into hay bales. Then, the last is the promise of a very good blackberry season (the bushes that line the roadside are littered in green berries). I'm very grateful to live out here. It's so peaceful.