Other tidbits...

Yesterday we bid farewell to our lovely round 2 of guests and embarked on round 3 - I told my Great Aunt Eleanor when picked her up that she was going to have to eat a lot and make a lot of noise to compete with the last crew occupying the in-law quarters. She said she'd see what she could do! So more on that visit, which is just starting, down the road. But for now, here are some other random tidbits that didn't fit neatly in the last two updates, but which are notable nonetheless! In no particular order:

Dolly has been spotted too in the seed sanctuary! So we know that both of our resident toads are still alive and considerably bigger than when we put them in to eat the bugs. They must be finding enough!

The pigs have been moved to their fall quarters where they will reside until butchering time. So no more pig moves every other day for now. Now that the nut grove rotation is complete, Jason will finish the final cover cropping of rye in there today.

While the food processing has slowed considerably, we are still tucking things away here and there. I had a great helper the other day working on drying MORE apples from the tree out front. We've been able to pass many apples along to others and now have just a fraction of a bushel left. A few more drying rounds and another apple cake or two are likely in our future before we come to the end of the box.

The ginger harvest is partially processed. Kali made our first round of candied ginger and I imagine there will be another made before too long. I now have on my mental list to grate the remainder of last year's harvest to try freezing it pre-grated to see if I can get into a habit of grabbing it more often in cooking. It still isn't in my regular routines, but we are getting enough now that it's time to move it there.

This past week was the end of sweet potato curing. So the three other families came and got their cured potatoes and we also managed the feat of moving nearly 700lbs of sweet potatoes from the crawl space curing room into the root cellar. Ivy was over the afternoon we weighed, sorted and tucked them away so we had a grand little assembly line of me, Alida, Ivy, Terah and Jason. Another "many hands make light [and fun] work!"

Once the curing room was decommissioned, the box fan was free again for a day of winnowing and jarring up many seeds. This was mostly Jason except for the brief time he had this little "helper!"

The corns are all still drying and the final paprika peppers have been dried and turned into powdered paprika. 

All the corn stalks are now moved from corn patches up to the pad and once dry will be chipped for chicken bedding. Yep, we are just moving stuff around again!

The number of fresh things to eat is slowly dwindling. We have a few greens - new kinds we haven't grown before and so I'm again not in the routine of harvesting and using them. There's an itty bit of parsley and then some other frost hardy herbs, as well as tea. And nettles, so so so many nettles. There's an abundance of turnips ready any time. And we are savoring the last of the kiwis and still getting a few white and red raspberries. 

And there are a few things sprouting giving us reminders of the 2023 season to come. We have the loveliest stand of spinach we have had in years. I'm obsessing over it a tad - watering daily to monitor if I'm seeing a reduction in little plants. We've had such trouble with slugs and grasshoppers and crickets and who knows what else this year. But so far, it's looking like a pretty perky patch!

And, finally, I'm just loving the fall colors. The mountain in front of us is more oranges and yellows, but our sumac helps add the red hues to our landscape!

And the lilac out back seems a little mixed up as it is blooming beautifully. This comes by way of my cousin and originally from my great uncle Warren's lilac bush. Apparently there are probably hundreds of people that are now growing Uncle Warren's lilacs. I'm glad we are one of them!

Guests: A Fun and Loud Round 2!!

On Monday we welcomed to Tangly Woods Janie and Ryan and their three energetic, creative, curious, and sweet kiddos for the week. We added a 5, 9 and a second 11 year old to our trio of kids. Their kids more or less got out of the car warmed up and ready to interact, and it wasn't but a few moments before Goshen, Starling and Juniper were tearing around with Alida and Terah. Their car wasn't unpacked before we took a spin around visiting all the animals and perusing the gardens. They had made the long journey from Flint, Michigan to visit. We last saw them about 7 years ago and it was double that time since they were living here. Ryan was part of the CJP program as well as working next door at Hickory Hill Farm with Jason. Janie was a colleague of mine at CJP for a few years. We've been in touch sporadically but nothing like multiple days together for great catching up time and a load of fun together! I honestly think it was more concentrated socializing than I have done since Covid started. Who knew you could be bone weary from hanging out and having fun with good friends - I guess those muscles haven't gotten much of a workout for a few years. It was most certainly worth the exhaustion. Below is a smattering of the fun things we packed into our time together (the days are running together in my mind so hopefully I'm slotting things where they belong!

They arrived Monday evening just a bit before the girls arrived home from their playdate with Ivy. As mentioned before the chickens got some immediate attention (i.e. corn!). We enjoyed dinner and diving into an array of catching up things. We also roasted the last of this year's chestnuts! 

We spent all of Tuesday together. What a glorious day! 

I arrived back from a morning walk with a friend and found Ryan and Janie already out in the garlic patch with Jason spreading compost. The next few hours were a beautiful representation of "many hands make light work!" I don't think we ever got beds prepped and garlic planted/covered in just a few hours. By early afternoon it was all in, thanks to some very consistent help and some very sporadic help. At the height of things, we had 10 people in the patch! It was quite the operation!!

All those helpful hands meant that the afternoon slotted for garlic planting was not needed for that. While our tendency/temptation can be to think, "Yay, we can get more stuff done now!," we did not succumb. We packed up kids and snacked and headed off to enjoy the afternoon via a hike to Hensley's Pond with a kite in tow. We swung by Jonathan and Christen's to get our old jogger to assist some kiddos in making it there and back. That jogger has held a lot of kids of many ages since Kali first used it in her infancy!!

These pictures speak for themselves. It was gorgeous, and the kite was a great added touch!

On that day it seemed like some pairing took place - Alida and Juniper are just about 3 months apart. Then Terah and Starling at 7 and 9 really hit it off (Terah showing her hula hooping skills and Starling teaching her how to do a cartwheel). Maybe the most surprising pairing was that Goshen seemed to adore Kali. And Kali has always been amazing with kids and engaging them and making them feel heard and enjoyed. He didn't want to let her out of his sight and jabbered at her pretty much nonstop on the hike back from the pond.

In the evening we were introduced to the incredible versatility of crepes! We got to learn more about the restaurant Ryan is a part of in Flint where crepes are the main deal. We enjoyed pesto chicken cheddar and tomato crepes for our main course and chocolate, butter and pecan dessert crepes. Both were winners and I believe we'll be doing these again!

Finally, for better or for worse, we introduced them to the Netflix show, Is it Cake?, at the end of the evening.

Wednesday they did some of their own stuff out and about but returned in time for us to enjoy a long evening by the fire, making pizza pockets, Jason birthday sausages, Alida's bread that we could shape in various ways and cook over the fire and of course s'mores to top things off. The snow suits all got pulled out for this one as it was COLD! But no one seemed ready to go in for a long time. We were all telling stories about our childhood or recalling funny things our kids have said. 

On Thursday they again had a few other things going on but we wanted to squeeze in a few more food favorites and as much time as we could. So brunch included nutty sweet potato waffles with Tangly Woods chicken sausage and bacon. I got to enjoy some very lively games of Uno with Goshen at the end of the meal when most kiddos had already scattered. 

Then in the evening we watched Because of Winn Dixie while munching on Tangly Woods caramel black walnut popcorn or regular popcorn and freshly candied 2022 ginger. The evening ended with a very energetic dance party for 10!

There was silliness all over the place this week. There were intricate block houses. There was a lot of laughter and screeching and running. There was tree climbing and playing at the swing set. And while much of that is credited to the younger generation, some of us older ones still joined in enthusiastically 

They left this morning! We miss them already.

Guests: A Lovely Round 1!

While my parents gallivant around the US, we are making good use of their quarters (with their permission of course!). What was intended to be a Benner family weekend, with some cousins, aunts and uncles included, ended up at the last minute being a visit from Mom and Dad Benner only. Sadly illness bollixed our plans once again! We were grateful that they still decided to make the trek to Keezletown and the silver lining is that we probably had more low key time with just them than would have been afforded us with more kiddos and activities happening. Here's how we savored our time together!

Due to various other guests coming later this month we didn't fully pod up and instead enjoyed socializing outside. For that reason, we were super grateful for a glorious weekend with delightful weather for outdoor hanging out. In short we enjoyed a farm meander, music time, coffee time, and chatting over good food, along with celebrating all our birthdays with a cake decorated mostly by Alida and Grandma.

Emily, Jonas and Ivy joined us for the Saturday evening meal and fireside time!

It's always impossible to show everything in a short yard walk, but we did enjoy introducing them to kiwi. They've been SO delicious. I'm gonna be sad for that season to end here shortly.

The breakfast deck time was particularly special as a slow morning doesn't come round often enough for us. 

Alida got to try out Grandpa's dobro guitar!

It was a short but sweet visit and we're still hoping for a more expanded gathering before too much more time passes. We said our farewells on Sunday and, while savoring the memories of that visit, shifted our attention to getting the space ready for our next round of loved ones coming our way!