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Harvesting Carrots: From Dirt to Freezer

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It’s the most beautiful time of the Fall season here in New England, with tree foliage at the peak of their most vibrant colors, on show. Soon, the leaves will be falling all around us, and swirling around our feet, as we go from here to there. The gardening season for this year, is surely all but behind us.  Looking back, we’ve had a wonderful and productive season, for which we are very thank for.

(August 2018 – when all was thriving.)

Now that we are well into this Fall season, where all that grows comes to the end of life, little by little the Fall clean up in our organic gardens has been done, and all looks barren and just about ready for a long winter’s nap.

One of the last fruits of our labors to reap, is the harvesting of our organic, non-GMO carrots!

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Harvesting Carrots

Everyone has their own ways of doing things when it comes to harvesting and processing the vegetation that comes from their gardens. You just tend to find a system that works best for you, with a little experience.  In this post, we thought we would take you through how we get our carrots from the ground to the freezer, in the way that we find to be the fastest and easiest manner.

In the spirit of sharing, the variety of carrots we have been growing are Shin Kurodas.  The bright orange roots of this type of carrots typically grow five to six inches long. But honestly, we have pulled up a wide range of sizes, depending on how close they are grown together, or how long we have left them in the ground, growing, since we often harvest as needed; ground to table. This type of carrot is stump-rooted in shape, and are tender and sweet flavored.

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As fun as carrots are to grow, they are even more fun to harvest! It’s rather exciting to them pull up out of the earth, one after the other, and see how big (or small) each one is going to be. Ripping the roots from the ground is also rather therapeutic and gratifying, if we do say so ourselves.  (Fall clean up in general, is gratifying, in that light.)

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Here we have one of the biggest carrots we have grown to date. It was mammoth, compared to the others.


I’d say it was well over 9″.  It had a healthy girth, as well. Me and O couldn’t even wrap our fingers around it towards the top.
(Although admittedly, us girls don’t have the biggest hands.)

O.k., let’s get to our process.
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From Dirt to Freezer:

Our Process of Harvesting Carrots

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The Fruits of the Accidental Jack-Be-Little Pumpkin Patch

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If you’re a gardener, you know as well as we do that it can be full of surprises! For example, we’ve shared with you about the surprising amusement of the accidental, ever-growing Jack-Be-Little pumpkin patch in our gardens, on our social media accounts on Facebook and Instagram, and gave you a peek of it at the time. So we thought maybe you’d be interested in reading the short tale, and know what fruits that came of that accidental Jack-Be-Little pumpkin patch, in the end!

And by the way, if you’d like to follow us on our other social media, as we invite you to, you’ll see our social media buttons in the right-hand sidebar of our blog here.  See them? Old colorful wood boards?
Click on them to get to us on Facebook or Instagram, to ‘Like and/or ‘Follow’ us.  And don’t worry, they’ll open in a separate window, so you won’t need to find your way back here.  Because we gotchu.

The Pumpkin Patch Madness……


The photo above is the ever-growing patch in progress in our gardens, and frankly, as shown here, it wasn’t nearly done taking over….well, almost everything!
You could say it got out of control. But then, that’s what pumpkin patches of any kind do. They need ample rambling room. And if you don’t give it to them, they’ll just go head and take it!

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What in the Heck?!….

We first saw it started in one of our raised beds. To be honest, we actually weren’t even sure exactly what it was, when it first started growing.  We thought maybe cucumbers. Then we realized, no, no, it seems to be a squash. 

Next thing we knew, [Read more…]

From the Art Studio | Watercolor Painting | 1 Apple and 4 Chicks

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I’m so glad you are paying a visit today to one of my favorite places in the world to be:  my art studio.  
I’m going to chat a bit about watercolor painting, and show you some fun pieces I did.
  

Not too long ago, I invested in more art supplies, some of which are shown above.  Supplies such as professional-grade watercolor paints, some high-quality brushes, and some blocks of top-notch watercolor paper. 

I promised myself that this year (2018) I would start spending very regular time working (creating) in my art studio again, for me, much like I did when I was in my 20’s.  I’ve had the same intentions before, but I never managed to balance my time and other obligations, to really get up there very consistantly. Even though inside, I had badly felt the need to. 

Well, this year I have really been really doing it! I go up and work up there almost every day, even if I only have a little bit of time.
And I’ll tell you what . . . . it fills that ‘thing’ in me, that needs filling.  Almost as much as my faith does for me.  It settles my soul, fills my heart, and sometimes even gets my head straight. Well, the last one is a little trickier, it seems. But, I try to think of nothing else but whatever it is I am working on. Because I’ll tell you what . . . . I have one of those brains that never stops, and it could really use the rest, anytime I can get it.  I have to say that many times I pray while I work, too. If I’m not singing along with Pandora, that is. (Which is usually the case.) But neither of those things are the kind of thinking I can’t shut off, and the kind that I get so darn tired of doing.

So anyway, one medium I have always loved working in, and I have been dying to get back to, is watercolor painting. Thus, new supplies. Because I intend to really develop my skills in watercolor, over the many coming years. (Provided I live many coming years.)  I have much to work on. I do clearly see myself in the future, as an old lady, drawing and painting in her art studio. So hopefully that is a good sign, eh? Anyway, while I am working on my watercolor skills, I decided I will just do small paintings for awhile.  When I am feeling a lot more confident, and I’ve mastered some things, I’ll go bigger.

The blocks of watercolor paper I bought are 9″ x 12″, because I felt that was a good size to start working again with.  No larger than that, anyway.
Arches, 300#, cold-press.

Ok, I’m ready to share with you a couple of my watercolor paintings.
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Our New ‘Old Farmhouse Bedroom’ – A Bedroom Makeover You’ll Want to See!

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After a lot of dreaming, and then months of hard work by our own hands, an old farmhouse bedroom is finally a reality for us. 

You should know that Michael’s and my bedroom is the very last bedroom we have finished in the house. Three of our kids’ rooms were finished from new construction when we had the addition put on, and the fourth’s was a renovation. Finally (after 11 years of finishing the rest of the house ourselves), it was time for our own room to be done.  It’s a renovation and makeover all-in-one, and we are excited to show you all how it came out.

Now, it’s a medium size room, about 11×20’, so I hope we can all squeeze in there together. Let’s try!

COME ON IN!!

A Few Handmade Farmhouse Signs for Our Home

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I really enjoy laying out designs for signs and making them myself. I’ve thought much about starting a small business of custom made farmhouse signs, but just haven’t. Yet. However, sometime early last Fall, I did make a few handmade farmhouse signs I had in mind for our own home.  And today, I am getting around to sharing them with you.  They are super simple and rustic in design, which is pretty much my style, and fitting for our home, where much of everything is made by us, in just that fashion. 

I hope you enjoy checking out these farmhouse signs.

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