Ruby Radish

Like a watched pot, the winter crops in our garden never seem to "boil." Twice a day, as we pass by on the way to the chicken coop, we check the progress of our plants. Most successful seems to be the garlic, the swiss chard, and our beautiful french breakfast radishes, which we sampled for the first time as a delightful addition to a salad.

Green Flush

We are excited that the wildflower seeds we spread in November have been enjoying the winter rains and moderate temperatures to begin establishing themselves. We eagerly watched them grow from tiny seedlings to finally provide reasonable coverage over the dirt. Yesterday, we spotted the first blooms!

A Lovely Pair

A cardinal male and female pause outside our window on a lovely day

Today's Inspiration

Stopping to admire the texture of a squash leaf

Today's Inspiration

Purple carrots from the local farm display a rainbow of color inside

Kale Like No Other

We just have to share this delicious recipe that we adapted recently to make use of a bunch of great seasonal veggies from the local farm. Freeing ourselves from all the kale blanching and in and out of oven steps, we decided to try a "Throw it all in the crock pot version." It turned out so creamy and delicious and had a very different flavor from traditional sauteed kale dishes which we really appreciated. The leftovers kept well in the fridge for several days and tasted just as good reheated.

Ingredients:
1 bunch kale, rinsed and chopped
1 medium onion, quartered and cut into thin slices
1 carrot, chopped
1 rib celery, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
3 1/2 cups of prepared beans, try a variety!
6 ounces of tomato paste, reconstituted in 1 cup of water
chopped parsley (about 4 springs worth), thyme (about 2 sprigs), and a bay leaf
1 teaspoon Herbes de Provence
salt and freshly ground pepper

Seriously, just throw it all in the crock pot. Stir it up a bit and then turn on low for 2-3 hours. We used black beans that we had sitting in the fridge looking for a use that had already soaked and cooked to tender. They were yummy. Next time we are going to try white lima beans for a different flavor and to stand out against the dark kale - we used a combination of half a bunch of purple with half a bunch of green winterbor kale for variety.

Brown Eggs are Here!

Our Welsummers chickens are now laying!  We have been waiting for them to start and all our other chickens have started laying.  We had been wondering if some of our slightly darker light brown eggs could be considered the "dark terra cotta" color that has been used to describe the Welsummer chicken egg.  Now we know that there is nothing subtle about them.  They are a beautiful dark brown egg with even darker brown speckles.  They have started laying at 6 months and 3 weeks old.

a beautiful addition to any carton

Chicken Salad

What a treat for our chickens - The original CHICKEN SALAD! A freshly prepared bowl of the finest weeds our yard has to offer, including chickweed, chives, dandelion greens, stickyweed, henbit, and wild carrot. Probably not what you were originally thinking, right?