Tomatoes anyone?



And cucumbers also.

Well,the milking job is coming along nicely. Not many problems to speak of, and not anything we can't deal with. The know-it-all hired guy from last year is no longer in the picture. His brother has taken his place.........not the brightest bulb in the pack but I would rather work with him than the other one. He's only a couple watts off..............LOL

I'm expecting another fresh cow before the gig is up, who knows. One day we will go out there and I suppose there will be a bouncing baby calf.

The SU and I took off today for a couple of hours and went to a big Amish/Mennonite bulk food store. Mostly just to look around and see if they had anything I didn't think I could live without. And they did have the lard I was wanting for more baking here for Patty. Well, not baking per se, I'm just making a whole bunch of different cookie doughs and putting them in the freezer for her. I have 8 batches so far, plus 2 loaves of bread (baked) 2 pound cakes that I cut in half and wrapped up. Sometimes a whole cake is just too much for 2 people. A dozen cinnamon rolls I formed and wrapped individually so she can thaw, rise, and bake as she wants. That way they will be REALLY fresh. Have more rolls to make, and more cookie dough, and have a pack of cream cheese for another cream cheese pound cake. I'm here for a whole 'nother week yet! Glad I told the SU he could bring my KitchenAid mixer out. All she has is a little Sunbeam. Jeez, like using a wheelbarrow when you need a dump truck.

Your life is never dull, Anna!

Anna, we used to have a store like that near us when we lived on MD Eastern Shore, close to Dover. Loved it. Bulk foods you rarely see anymore. They also had a side that sold kitchen stuff and wood stoves, but they had a stove (Heartland) that looked like the old kitchen wood stoves. Gas six burner range and electric convection oven. We were restoring an old Victorian house and had an Amish carpenter build our cabinets and I wanted that stove so badly! I was working then so I saved up my pennies and I got it! Black with nickle trim. Warming oven on the bottom. And I convinced the Amish cabinet maker to do wood countertops for the island and he made one set of cabinets next to the fridge look like a set back cabinet. He didn't want to because he said it would crack, and it did, but that was the charm.

http://www.heartlandapp.com/pr...

Eveytime I read your posts it almost makes me want to bake again. ALMOST....

What a cool stove! I worked on a little farm in Rhode Island as a teenager on summer, and they had almost that exact stove but it ran on kerosene.

I've never seen one that ran on kerosene, only wood.

I wish I had a picture of my old wood cookstove. It's currently in pieces in the barn, not sure what we will end up doing with it. I cooked on wood for 25 years, until 2004 when we remodeled our kitchen. I loved it, and my boys quickly learned that to get a meal they had to be sure the wood box was full!

My mother actually had the old wood cookstove from my grandparents house and we considered using it. We ended up selling it at a garage sale for practically nothing just so we didn't have to haul it away. In hindsight, it probably would have brought a few $$ for scrap metal.

I have fond memories of both my grandmothers cooking with them.

They certainly are heavy, we took it all apart to move it and it is still in pieces covered by an old army blanket. There is a fellow in a neighboring town who refurbishes these old warriors and I am considering approaching him to see if he'd be interested in it. Mine is a bit unusual in that it has 3 side burners fitted for propane. One of the warming ovens also had a funky propane burner along the top, I guess for broiling. I never used that, it just got the whole top piece of metal screaming hot. Instead, I used that warmer as my hidey hole for my grease can and a few spices I use regularly. The porcelain on the main stove is a pretty robin's egg blue, but on the warming ovens it's white, which makes me think it is a mish-mash of two different stoves. No matter, it served me well.

Ooh, it sounds lovely, robin's egg blue and white. I remember reading a thread somewhere else where you mentioned it as lovingly too. If you ever get it back together maybe you can share a picture with us. I'll bet Anna's bread would taste extra yummy baked in it!

Anna, I never had any cookie made with lard, only pie crusts. How does it affect the texture of cookies?

Makes nice, crisp cookies.

Oh, sounds good!

Lard makes the flakiest pie crusts.

The stoves all do sound really pretty.

Waiting on flowers to set on my Crimson clover and hairy vetch cover crops. These are the fall plants. First planting in spring long gone.






I like to plant these to attract bees but also just because I think the flowers on them are so pretty. They don't last long, both being annuals. They grow fast, they flowers and set seed and then they done. So I plant them twice. Once first in the spring and then for second showing in the fall.

Rita, our crimson clover doesn't blossom until spring. We plant in the fall andit stays green all winter. Don't know about vetch, we don't grow it.

I don't think it likes overly hot weather. But I have to plant mine twice like this if I want it to be around most of the gardening season. Fortunately the seeds pops up really quickly and it grows fast. I just love the flowers, so very pretty.

I did it again! Again I have a huge okra pod I managed not to notice until today. And I look every day.

I wish store bought type Cantaloupes smelled as great as this one I just picked today. It must be ripe and I can't wait to eat it. It is my biggest one so far this year too.

I am not growing any this summer, but in the past I found it very easy to overlook okra pods until they turned to wood. I also often grow zucchini the size of baseball bats. Rita, I am impressed by all that you are able to grow!

Oh yes, I am sure those bigger okra pods are hard as wood. My own fault. I really do look, they are just so hard to notice. At I don't let my zucchini get too big.

Thanks for the compliment. I do grow a nice variety of veggies. Most I don't grow that much of, just a smaller amount. Just the tomatoes I grow so much of.