Fall Garden is still producing....

As you may have figured out, we love gardening and the farm life.  We pulled into the driveway of our new home on 13 May.  What a great Mother's Day gift :)  Most people would be worried about getting their house in order but not the Lambings.  Lol!  Our priorities were getting a chicken coop built and a garden planted.  There would be plenty of time to unpack boxes.

Papa Roo got him a fine new tiller and went to tilling.  We got our fall garden planted on the Fourth of July weekend.  We knew nothing about this area, the soil, what grows well or doesn't, so we were not even sure if our little garden would produce.  Sticking with what our family likes, we planted peas, green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers.  No garden would be complete without flowers :)  Before we knew it, the garden was producing rather nicely.  Papa Roo continued to research and read about various ways of planting and other crops that we might like.  After all, this is what we want to do in our retirement life.

Beginning garden in July

Cucumbers are looking good

Giant Tomato plant

The two green thumbs of the family

Fresh Green Beans

Yummy Cucumbers

Lots of Peas

Now it is mid October and this little garden is still producing.  Yesterday, Papa Roo picked about a half bushel of Italian Green Beans, a good family size helping of peas, about ten tomatoes, and several jalapeños.  Oh, and we even have a few ears of corn from our experimental planting method.   Not bad for our first garden here in VA.

Tomato plant is hanging in there 

A portion of what was picked 8 October 

See our corn in the back

Looking good

Chicken Girl's beautiful flowers

 I don't have a picture but we even have some potato plants that are looking awesome.  We plan to put a hoop house over them so they can survive after the first frost.  Another experiment  that Papa Roo read about.

New Life on the Farm

Today was a special day here at the Quad L Farm.  One of our Columbian Rocks went broody and we now have our first baby fuzz ball :))

Momma Bess and Fuzz Ball #1

When we realized that Bess was broody, we collected eggs over the next couple of days and put them under her.   We gave here 11 eggs :)  I was able to candle them about three days ago and saw movement in all of them.  Hens are always better with the incubation process than a homemade incubator.

Because we were unsure of the exact day she started sitting on the first few eggs, we had to guesstimate the hatch date.  Chicks hatch in 21 days.  We were thinking Wednesday was going to be the magic day but obviously we were off by a couple of days.  This evening I went to check on her and was trying to figure out what she had stuck on here beak (a feather), and all of a sudden, I see the little fuzz ball stick it's head out.  Yippee! Yay!  We had a surprise :)))

Momma is feeding her baby :)

Chicken Girl and I sat down at the coop and watched as Momma Bess gently called her baby to come out and then she gently fed her some food.  God's creations are so awesome!!!  Love, love, love watching His creations in action :)  My heart is singing tonight :)))

Fall has Arrived

I am loving these cool mornings.  I get to sit outside with my coffee and take in this beautiful masterpiece that my Lord has created for me.  I love watching how the cooler weather makes all of our farm residents a little spunkier than usual.  Ladybug, Ginger, Liberty, Neiko, and all our fine feathered friends have all got a little pep in their steps.  The roos are busy calling their girls to come get the tasty treat they have found.  Ladybug was even fast enough to get her squirrel :)  She has been carrying her trophy around as if to say, "Look what I got!"

Here are a few cool pics from around the farm.

The pretty Sunflower  that Papa Roo planted for his Chicken Girl

More flowers for Chicken Girl

Liberty has found the perfect resting place 

Just a cool looking mushroom!

We found a Smurf village :)

Table for one

Smurf House :)

Let the processing begin!

Our first volunteer

With school in full swing, hosting family and friends, and just living life, it has been a while since I have been able to blog.  I hope to get back on track soon, but until then, this is just a quick plug to let those of you following our broiler adventure know that we have started processing them.  I have posted pics on our "Broiler Adventure" page if you are interested.

More to life than rush hour traffic!

It's been a little hectic around the Quad L lately.  The kids and I have been canning like crazy.  You can read and see all about that in the previous post. Kevin has been putting in some really long days over the past couple of weeks, mainly due to that crazy I95 traffic.  It seems to be getting worse, if that is even possible.  He still takes the VRE sometimes if he is only going to the Pentagon. The van pool continues to be the best and fastest way for him to commute in, however, coming home is just down right painful in our fast pace life styles.

Fortunately for the kids and I, Kevin has some use or lose leave:)  For our friends who are not military,  that just means that he hasn't taken a vacation in a very long time and he better take some time off or POOF, it will disappear from the books.  You might say he is a borderline workaholic.  Well wait a minute, who's kidding here?  He is!  However, from the time he pulls into his parking spot on the farm, (yes, he has one here too), it is all about family, no matter how tired he is or how late it is.  Some how he manages a little one on one, quality time with each of us, and of course his garden!

This was a surprise welcome home for Dad after
one of his TDYs.  Lol!

Over the past couple of leave days Kevin took and this past weekend, the family has had some pretty awesome family time.  Thanks to our wonderful landlord, Mr. Zimmers, the guys got to scout out a beautiful piece of hunting property and help Mr. Zimmers mark some trees for those law breaking trespassers. Of course, the trip wouldn't have been complete without a little target practice.  In the midst of all their fun, they stumbled across a ground nest of yellow jackets.  They liked Noah the best.  He walked, or should I say, ran away with the most war wounds.  Seventeen stings!!!!  Ouch!!!

Noah ran right out of his boots!  Lol! 

Beautiful piece of property!

Back at the farm, Lydia and I did some baking and chicken bathing.  Lol!

Chocolate pie we baked for our neighbor :)

Baby, hanging his head with embarrassment
after his bath.  Lol!

This weekend we did a bit of exploring with the metal detector and working in the garden and yard.  We always find something of interest and it is usually Lydia who spots it.  That girl is attentive to the smallest details of nature :)  I love it!!!  As for Noah, well his definition of enjoying nature is to be out in it shooting targets.  Lol!  I am so thankful that God gave us such awesome children.  They keep Papa Roo and myself on our toes.  We try to stay just one step ahead of them:)  Heck, we still like to steal their ATVs and take a little ride.  Kevin and I even developed a RED NECK idea for our winter bon fires.  Lol!

Just look at the colors!

Tiny little LadyBug 

Our Red Neck chairs for sitting around the bon fire :)

First crow of the season
Yes, there is a Crow Season up here.

Noah thinks our landlord, Mr. Zimmers, is the coolest ever.  He brought a couple of these guns out for Noah to shoot.  Needless to say, he is loving life out here on the farm!

Gonna do a little shooting:)

Rambo style!

Well, I guess it is time to stop blogging and get to work.  We have family coming and we need to get our guest house ready. :)  Hope everyone enjoys this beautiful day God has created for us :)

Until next time ......

Dooms Day Prepper????

Lol!  I feel like a prepper over the past few days.  My counter tops have jars stacked everywhere.  As mentioned in an earlier post, canning is a lost art that I believe is making a come back.  For me, it is totally relaxing and very rewarding to "see" the end results.  It always looks so pretty in the jars and the entire house smells scrumptious.  Our entire family gets involved with the process.  Talk about great, quality family time.

We actually started canning a few weeks back when our favorite little farm, The Clark's Family Farm, started selling seconds on their tomatoes.  Seconds are those tomatoes that don't make the cut to the produce table.  They might have a crack, a bruised spot, or maybe just a bit over or under ripe.  In other words, they are not pretty and perfect.  They are less expensive and are usually sold by the half or whole bushel, which makes them perfect for canning.  So far we have put up spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, tomato soup, tomato preserves, and dried basil tomatoes.

Seconds

Prepped and ready to be cooked

Treats for the chickens

Removing the skins and seeds for the soup

Tomato Soup

Homemade candied ginger
I needed it for my tomato preserves

Prepping for tomato preserves

Tomato Preserves

Loading the dehydrator 

Spaghetti Sauce

Dried Basil Tomatoes

Simmering Pizza Sauce

So far, all of our tomatoes have been purchased from the Clarks', however, it won't be long until we can pick them from our garden.  Kevin planted tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, green beans, Brussel sprouts and lettuces on the 4th of July weekend.  Everything is looking good.  We actually have picked enough cucumbers to make our first batch of dill pickles.

Just one of our tomato plants
and she is loaded!

Look closely and you can see Lydia's
pretty flowers

Picking our first cucumbers 

Gonna be delicious!

Cutting Dill slices 

Making pickles :)

First 5 pints of Dill Pickles getting
a water bath

We are also fortunate to have a pear tree in our yard and it is loaded with pears.  So loaded, that a limb broke off due to the weight.  The pears were not quite ready but we didn't want them to go to waste so we made some scrumptious, old fashion, pear preserves.  The kids and I peeled over 100 pears from that one broken limb.  We still have a tree full!  If you are a friend or relative, you know what your Christmas gift is going to be.  Lol!

These pears soaked in sugar all night in the
fridge, creating a delicious syrup  

Preparing the jars.
I haven't found my canning pot yet! :(

Can you smell them?  Mmmm!

Getting their water bath

Ta Da!  Old Fashion Pear Preserves

I have to admit, the past few weeks have been fun.  I love being in the kitchen with my family.  Yes, it is a small kitchen and no, I haven't found my canning pot and some other useful tools, but that hasn't stopped the Lambings.  We just got creative and used what we had.  This is a picture of our results.

Just a portion of what we have canned :)

If you have never tried canning, give it a try.  I am pretty sure you will like it.  Oh, and don't forget, make it a family affair.