My life in Post-it Notes. If you get a chance to visit us and you want to know what is going on around here, check the refrigerator.
January is probably our quietest month of the year, no goat babies, no milking and no gardening. Usually we are just grateful that the holidays are over and our freezers and root cellar are still full. It’s a good time to think about what worked and what didn’t the the previous year before spring comes and things get crazy. The seed catalogs start to arrive. Mark orders chicks for Easter, and I make pie!
Last year we went to this awesome Country Life Expo and Cattlemen’s Winterschool, a one-day annual event in Skagit County sponsored by Washington State University. They offer a stunning array of classes from butchering your own chicken to sourdough bread baking. Highly recommend this event and the prime rib lunch was awesome!
Pie: Blackberry, Key Lime, Chocolate Cream, and Blueberry Peach
February comes and goes quick, usually! I try to get my seeds ordered by the first week and do some root cellar clear out. The carrots (harvested in September) usually give out first. I kick around the greenhouse and throw out stuff that I didn’t have the sense to get rid of over the summer. We look for deals on quality potting soil, row cover and hoses and prune the fruit orchard (Mark is better at this than me, but I provide moral support). I start the compost and squeeze in some last minute bulbs. If it’s warm enough and not too wet, I’ll weed. As soon as they arrive, the 10 blueberry bushes we ordered last month need to go in behind the guesthouse. It’s time to immunize the goats and find two spring piglets (we’d love to get a couple of Berkshires) and get some starts started in the greenhouse.
Surprise snowstorm on Feb 8th! Crazy! All of winter came to Washington in one week (8-9 inches here)! I will be scrambling to get the greenhouse cleaned up. A pile of seeds have arrived, now sitting on the end of my kitchen table with my garden diagram notebook.
Pie: Yellow Plum and Sour Cherry, Blueberry Rhubarb with a Crumble top
March is all about the goat kids. We try and time things to have goat babies on the ground for Easter. Around the time the daffodils and tulips pop out, we are double checking due dates and making sure kidding pens are ready. Please excuse my messy house in advance. Last year we had five does kid (17 babies!). I am too much of a weanie to dis-bud (remove horns) and neuter male goats by myself – so I helped our vet. Mark prepares the pig pens. We rotate the space they’re on every year because pigs make such a mess. Also need to make sure all the milking equipment is in good working order and get the brooder ready for chicks. Make Pie!
Pie: Blackberry (if we have a lot in the freezer), Butterscotch Cream, and Chicken Pot Pie
April has us kicking into high gear as the piglets, chicks and more goat babies arrive. Milking starts. Between visitors and bottle feedings, we make cheese and ice cream. With the extra daylight, the orchard blooms and egg production goes up. All those starts that I should have put in – in February (tomatoes, broccoli, eggplant, cauliflower, alyssm, zinnias, and herbs) better be doing something in that greenhouse. We always have a big family gathering at Easter so there will be extra pie preparations and a huge egg hunt.
Pie: Lemon Meringue, Chocolate Cream, Vanilla Cream, Quiche Lorraine, Apple, Peach something and Blueberry
May is time to til, soil test and get that rabbit fence up – Mark does it as soon as the fields are dry enough and the tractor won’t sink! That 150 x 50 garden layout better be done. I am usually scribbling and shoving stuff into the plan at the last minute. Last time I screwed up and put the peppers and the Brussels sprouts way too close to the tomatoes. Need to remember to leave lime free area for potatoes, and succession plant the green beans. We don’t want them all coming up at the same time (like last year). The chimney needs cleaning and the freezers need to be cleared out. Make sure there are enough jars, lids, canning and freezing supplies.
When are we harvesting meat chickens, Mark? Did you rent the processing unit from the county? Do we have enough hoses? Water wands? Tomato cages? Stakes?
Pie: No time, order pizza.
June is for berries and rhubarb! Strawberries are first, then raspberries and blueberries (July). We love Picha’s Berries and Richters Produce (across the field) for rhubarb. I order a case of pectin and put out an all points bulletin to friends to come jam with me. We scramble together a couple bags of lemons, 20 pounds of sugar and six or eight boxes of pint jars and do freezer jam (mostly). Yeah it’s basic, we love it. I use the strawberry jam to make a very dangerous strawberry ice cream and pssst I put a tablespoon of raspberry jam in my Blackberry Pie. Last year, Mark scored a couple grocery bags of yellow plums from an overloaded friend’s tree. We made about eight pints of yellow plum preserves with it that were positively swoon worthy, like the best apricot jam you every had.
The weeding and watering that dials up is the least fun part of June. It takes hours and hours every day to keep up! Our friends work for pie (hint, hint)
Pie: Strawberry Rhubarb,Peach Raspberry and Blueberry Rhubarb with a Crumble Top
July is full of endless weeding and watering, amazed visitors and those damn fireworks. We bring Gwendolyn (livestock guard dog) inside on July 4th so she does not lose her mind over the noise. Gwen’s partner, Sadie, doesn’t seem to mind them and stays in the barn with the goats. Folks, when you visit, please wear farm shoes and leave your pretty sandals at home. We try to send visitors home with couple of baby goats (just kidding). Yes, time to say goodbye to the kids and make room in the barn for next year. Mark shells peas in front of the TV (every night) and tries to pick the blueberries before the birds do! Tomatoes start to swell and we start begging people to take zucchini and figs. The sweet cherries get eaten as fast as we pick them and ice cream flies out of the freezer about as fast as I make it (especially chocolate and strawberry)! I stockpile pie pie dough for Dad’s Annual Pie Open House Birthday. He’ll be 87 this year.
Pie: Chicken Pot Pie, Ham and Onion Quiche, Ratatouille, Chocolate Cream, Vanilla
Cream, Blueberry, Lemon Meringue, and Peach Blueberry
August plunges us into harvest. The back porch becomes a produce stand and the kitchen processes whatever comes in from dawn to dusk, five gallon buckets of green beans, boxes and boxes of tomatoes, cucumbers, collards, peppers, fist-fulls of parsley and more. The place is full of bubbling pots, jars, huge cookie sheets and wet dish towels. In the garden, we have won the weed war (mostly), but still we are still watering and begging people to take zucchini. Mark keeps his eyes on the orchard, thank goodness, and brings home a couple gallons of blackberries that he picks everyday. I don’t have a minute to spare. Pretty soon we’ll have wagon-fulls full of apples, pears and plums and maybe peaches (we planted two trees in January). The goats and chickens are happy. There are plenty of treats!
Pie: Peach, Tomato, Ratatouille, Blackberry, Blueberry Rhubarb with a Crumble Crust (yes, Zach)
September brings this thing in the air that tells you this won’t last forever. I try to recruit a few helpers, and we process as much as we can as fast as we can all the while wondering if the zucchini will ever give up?? Even the animals won’t eat anymore of it and I start putting the stuff out on the road. The onions start falling over (finally), our clue to get them out of the ground to cure in the shed before the rains come. Potatoes need to come out too and get in a cool dark place, but I have to sweep the root cellar first. My fingernails are absolutely gross, and I keep cancelling hair appointments. Pumpkins are getting close, but we don’t pick until the stems are dry. Will the tomatoes ever quit? I am running out of jars. Pull the broccoli stalks and feed them to the goats. Watch the corn so the birds don’t get it. Pick apples!!! Let the pears wait. Who has time to dry parsley?!
Pie: Bake something from the freezer
October signals the end of harvest. It’s time to get those all those pumpkins, squash, apples and pears picked! Seriously, our fields get so wet, you can’t walk out there. Need to make sure all those shallow boxes I get from Costco will fit under under bed. Yeah, that’s where we put the squash. This year we want to can enough apple pie filling for Christmas presents. We plowed through the applesauce by Christmas last year. Still have pear butter. We got a nice Weston Apple Press last year and a crusher, works great. Plan to add apple pressing to our annual Harvest Party for family and friends. After the first rain, Mark will be on the hunt for Chanterelle mushrooms. I want to try drying and making a powder out them.
Lease a buck from Mountain Lodge Farm so we will have goat babies in the spring. When are we harvesting meat chickens, Mark?? Did you rent the processing unit from the county?
Pie: Apple, Pear, Plumb
November is all about Thanksgiving. Last year we seated 33 people, not including children and dogs. Mark puts up a party tent on the back of the house to expand our dining room. It takes a solid month to prepare this feast and a lot of it comes from what we grow right here on our farm. It’s all totally delicious, exhausting labor of love that we wouldn’t trade for anything on earth. If anymore people come though, they may have to eat on the beds or sit on the stairs (laughing out loud).
Return visiting buck to Mountain Lodge Farm (he will have his done duty).
Pie: Coconut Cream, Pear Cranberry, Pumpkin, Blueberry Rhubarb and Blackberry
December is the month before I collapse which is January. Usually, Mark and I have set ourselves up with some kind of handmade gift project. I made blankets one year and aprons the next. I can’t say what I will do next year because it would spoil the surprise (plus I am not sure yet). Mark has made cookbook holders, cutting boards and clocks and trivets (wood being the dominant theme) I try to avoid hosting anything too big so, we just schedule a bunch of little gatherings one right after the other. I made gumbo and cinnamon rolls one night, and pies another. For Christmas I made three pans of lasagna and six apple pies. I can make a pie when I am asleep.
Happy Holidays everyone no matter how you celebrate!
Pie: Apple, Sour Cherry, Tourtiere and lasagna. Lasagna counts as pie in my book.