Oct 13 Garden Harvest

We have a day of sunshine in between about four days each way of clouds and rain so I ran out to work in the garden and pick the garden. We've been picking the garden since May with the strawberries! Boy, we have had a ton of food and most of our evening meals have been from the garden.

We're not done yet! This is the broccoli harvest. I have actually planted more plants of various cold crops in the garden last week just before the rain. Yesterday I started even more seeds to either go in the garden and try to stretch our growing season a little more or else maybe they will go into the greenhouse!

Here's everything I picked today. I'm surprised to still have raspberries.

A new look at a favorite scripture

One of my favorite scriptures in the Doctrine and Covenants is this one:

D&C 64:34 Behold, the Lord requireth the heart and a willing mind; and the willing and obedient shall eat the good of the land of Zion in these last days.

The wonderful thing about reading and studying scriptures is that you can read them one time and get an understanding and then another time get a new understanding. I think it's based on what you are dealing with in your life at a particular time and what you need to learn through the scriptures.

Sunday in Gospel Doctrine we read that scripture. Our teacher, Rebecca, made a comment on this scripture that I had never thought of before. We were talking about the pioneers colonizing the west and how obedient they were.

She said that when she read this scripture and she realized that if we were obedient to the counsel of the Prophet regarding preparedness, we would eat well in the last days! She said that she is happy to learn that chocolate can be stored and is part of food storage!

I had never used or thought of this scripture as food storage and preparedness but she has a point! Luckily I will teach a class this week (and she's coming) on apples and making applesauce and apple pie filling (other good things to eat well)!

Fall Garden #2

Even though we are a third of the way through October, we are still gardening along. We have been enjoying broccoli. It's too hot here to plant it in the spring through early summer but we can pretty much grow it from fall to spring and it will survive our winters.

We have clay soil but with our raised beds and nice soft soil, I planted some carrots for the first time since we've lived in the South. Here they are coming up. I hope to have some by Thanksgiving!

This is a second planting of several varieties of lettuces that grow in cooler weather.

This is a bed of cauliflower and next to it is the fall crop of green beans.

Our banana peppers seem to have been revitalized with cooler weather. They are even still blooming. I've heard they can live if brought indoors so I may try to pot one of the plants and put it in the greenhouse when it's done!

My strawberry plants have filled out the beds with runners so I am giving away plant and cleaning them out so they can be ready for another spring!

Canning Cheese

Food storage without cheese would be a terrible thing! I have struggled with this reality for a long time. I have purchased some dehydrated cheese powder and some canned processed cheese but. . . it's not the same.

I was excited to find out a way unique to can cheese about the time I found 8 oz of cheese on sale for $1 each. I follow a blog, Ask Jackie, who is a homesteader in Minnesota and she wrote about it and then I've seen directions in a few other places and decided to give it a try.

You put your clean jars in a pot and put chunks of cheese in the jars and add some water around the jars and turn on the stove to boil the water. That helps melt the cheese. As it melts, add more chunks until the jars are full.

Take them out and clean the lids and put on the lids and rings and then process the cheese in a water bath canner! The cheese will age as it's stored so you can have some yummy sharp cheese.

We tried some of the cheese. Once cooled, it hardens back up. It's not quite as smooth as the original cheese but the taste is wonderful. At room temperature, it will slide out of a large mouth pint jar (12 ounces of cheese)!

HOW COOL IS THAT?!!!!

This and that

Amazing, it's the 3rd of October and this is what I picked from the garden this evening. Granted we are now only picking 1-2 times a week but it's still coming. We will probably not have any more raspberries (on top) but we still have a lot of peppers, okra, eggplant, green beans and tomatoes. We are also now getting some broccoli and lettuces!

Michael got the roof on the storage part of the greenhouse this week. He still has to do some finishing touches but if we get rain, it shouldn't leak!

Our cats think they own the house and they just let us live with them! If Michael is in this chair, our cat, Big Boy is on his lap. If he's not, he waits for him in the chair.

It looks like it's time for a nap - he has such a tough life!

A touch of Fall

It's going to get down to 52 tonight so I guess fall is definitely here! This morning, at breakfast, we heard a honking sound and saw these geese on their way South. I guess they stopped in for a rest stop on the pond.

I got the camera to watch them swim and soon heard a honk and then they all
took off.

We've had rainy days for almost two weeks so since this week is dry, Michael and Duane Jones worked on getting the roof on the storage building part of greenhouse. They got all of the wood foundation up and hopefully the roofing and shingles will go on Wednesday!

Become Who You Are

Last weekend was out stake conference. Pres. Duquette gave a great talk. He is from French Quebec and joined the church as an older teen and served a mission in Paris where he, incidentally, learned to speak English! He works for the North American Headquarters for Michelin and said that when the head of Michelin retired he was at a meeting that honored him. The head of Michelin spoke and told the leadership there to "Become, who you are." Pres. Duquette said he thought a lot about that statement. He said he could just visualize Heavenly Father sending us to earth with that same statement, "Become, who you are." We are of divine heritage and birth, we must find ourselves and "become, who we are."

Haily is 2!

Our little Haily turned 2 on September 14th. She is so cute. She's an angel but those are not her wings!

She was dressing up as a fairy with her sister Sydney!

The party was fun for everyone and she got some cute new toys.

Garden and Greenhouse progress!

It's time to get caught back up on our backyard project! We've had a week of rainy days so it's been kind of muddy in the greenhouse area but with all of the mulch, I've been able to get into the garden.

We're ready to put on the roof of the storage building side of the greenhouse. The big poles are for the supports for the ribs of the greenhouse!

I've also got a fall garden going so our raised beds are still all full. These are the broccoli and brussel sprouts that I started in July. The broccoli is just starting to head up but it all looks beautiful. Behind them is a bed that still is producing a lot of peppers of various kinds and eggplant.

These are collards in another bed that includes a little lettuce and Swiss chard. Besides them are also several types of cabbage. They are best eaten after a frost so we'll be eating them later this fall.

We've also started peas and carrots. Usually in the red clay soil and heat they are hard to grow here in SC but with the raised beds, we should have some carrots without problems and with a fall garden, it's cooler for the peas. There are really a lot of crops you can plant in the fall. We just started picking a new crop of green beans.

Here are our sweet peas with edible pods. The rain was great for what I had planted including cauliflower, onions, and asparagus.

I've started some more seedlings to put out as soon as we have a little bit more room in the garden and maybe for the greenhouse! Boy we've enjoyed the garden and with the greenhouse we should have fresh vegetables year round!

Sparanburg II Hmong New Year

Last week our ward had a Hmong New Year. It was wonderful evening learning about our friend's culture and eating wonderful food! Look at the colorful costumes that they made! Papa Lor is an American Hero from helping the US in Vietnam. Their stories are amazing that food was wonderful! We love having them in our ward!



Papa Lor playing an instrument.



We need to make this a yearly event!