Random Items

We live in the country.  Not far, only about five miles from town, but country nonetheless.  With this living arrangement comes many interesting things.  Lots and lots of mowing, a fair amount of dirt in the house, wildlife, and lots and lots of mowing.  Right after we moved in last year, we had so many deer moseying through our yard, I figured we had the best tasting grass around.

Pheasant, wild turkeys, neighborhood dogs and a variety of birds have also been known to call our place comfortable for a while as well.

Wascally, Wabbit!

This year, we seem to have an invasion of the rabbit kind.  I think I only had two sightings last year.  This year I have two a day.  When you have luscious lettuce in your garden, this does not make you comfortable.

Did I mention the mowing?

A little something fun.

I have this same picture when she was 8 months old in a tool bag.  This time she climbed in by herself and then cried when she couldn't get herself out.

Honeyberries or Haskaps?

One of our honeyberry plants

One of our goals at Roving Donkey Farm is to offer small fruits for sale.  We have raspberries and strawberries stretching their legs this year and hope to end up with six fruit trees by the end of the next growing season.  The other fruit that we are most excited about growing and offering are called Honeyberries or Haskaps (the name difference is just a continental thing it appears).  Just what are these crazy things?  Well, according to Honeyberry USA, the company we bought our plants from, they are:

"The flavor of honeyberries is very hard to describe, so it may be best to just say it's a "mystery berry" flavor, reminding some people of blackberry, cherry and even grape or kiwi. With a very thin skin, the zesty berries melt in your mouth! These healthy berries can be eaten fresh off the bush, or used fresh or frozen in your favorite blueberry recipe."

Fruit

The reason we want to grown them is they are the Upper Midwest's answer to blueberries.  Blueberries do not grow here.  They may limp along for a year or two, in a man made sandbox or the like, spiking your confidence, and then they die.  Our soil is not acidic enough, it is too cold here and blueberries just don't like us.  We love blueberries in this house, Rochambeau for them even to see who gets the last one, so to say there is excitement in the air over what is to come is an understatement people!

Mature bush

The plant is a bush and gets anywhere from 4-6 feet tall depending on the variety and the fruit looks like an oblong blueberry.  They are hardy to 55 below and bear fruit before pretty much everything else.  A healthy plant will give you anywhere from ten to fifteen pounds of fruit a year after reaching maturity which takes about five years.

This year, we planted five of these lovely beings.  We are planning to turn them in to a living hedge so will end up with a 100 foot row of them.  That will be about 20-25 plants when we are all said and done.  Hopefully we will have some to sell, but you just never know around here.

There's A Tractor In The Garden

This...

Exciting things are happening around here!  As you may recall from this previous post, we cut up a bunch of sod in preparation for next year.  All of the sod was rolled up and carted to the compost pile in the back and our dirt was waiting for a little tillage.  I say was, because last night....

met this, and became...

this!!!

This will add another 40 x 50 feet to our vegetable garden next year.











This is the future site of our high tunnel, another 32 x 72 feet of growing goodness.

Munchkin's sandbox and jungle gym.  We had it tilled so we could move the dirt around easier.  There is about a six inch drop from one end to the other that we don't think the swings will like much.








This will be the perennial bed.  As you can see, not square.  I like square for veggies.  Since we won't have to move this stuff, I won't have to figure out how to plant it every year.





Another view of the high tunnel space.

This is a prime example of neighborliness.  The tractor belongs to a farmer around the corner and he came over and tilled all of this up in half an hour for two loaves of fresh baked bread.  Everyone left happy.  Our backs are eternally grateful to Al for saving us the 10 hours this would have taken us (at least) to till ourselves with a rental that wouldn't have done as good of a job.

 Now to plant our cover crop to start making the soil super healthy for veggies!

Posing

No idea where she gets it....

Earrings!

Shhhhhh, I'm on the phone!

 But someone wanted to show off her new toys from her birthday.

Cheese!

Do we know that our sunglasses are on upside down?  Why yes, yes we do.  What of it?

Visitors

Last week we had the pleasure of hosting some friends from Fargo.  They have two sons, one is one week younger than munchkin and the other is just over a year old.  Mom and Dad were here for a track meet and I offered to take the boys for the day.  There was much running and giggling from the older two and the younger one reminded me of what I had forgotten about having a baby around!

There wasn't time for too many pictures, but here is the older, tall drink of water enjoying some beanbag time.

Somebody Is Two!

It was birthday time again for munchkin last week so we celebrated her with a small gathering this past weekend.

This looks like just the right size for me!

Showing the cousins her new garden tools

                  

Shark!!

Ella have some cake?

Dentist

The last few visits to the dentist have not been particularly pleasant for munchkin or mommy.  This one was completely different.  She got to sit in the big chair all by herself and wear some fancy glasses.  That may have helped.  Or it could have been the TV right above her chair playing Cars 2.

Getting comfortable

How to Eat Your Way Across Washington DC

We were in Washington DC to see the sites...

Supreme Court

Department of Justice

The Capital

One of my favorite experiences of the trip

Pretty good views

But how could we go anywhere and not attempt to eat well?

We arrived at the airport hungry since we had to get up pretty early and didn't have too great of a breakfast in the airport.  This pizza place, close to our hotel, did not disappoint.  The name was a draw, for sure.

First of three dogs on that plate!

Our first dinner was at a place called Founding Farmers.  Their focus is on sourcing their ingredients from family farms and preparing as much as possible in house.  There were canning jars everywhere filled with pickled veggies, compotes and the like.  We discovered that the restaurant has significant North Dakota roots.  The menu even talked about how they get their flours and honey from North Dakota family farms!

Bloody Mary

Our dinner was so good at Founding Farmers, we returned for breakfast the next morning.  It was so hard to decide what to order, so we ruminated over breakfast cocktails.

Croquettes in a shoe

To celebrate finishing our walk, our last night in DC was spent at Jaleo, a tapas joint run by a famous chef.  We did not know the famous part going in, we just wanted the tapas.  They had wrinkled Canarian potatoes with traditional dipping sauces on the menu along with much cured pork so we were in heaven.  We had a lot of the wrinkled potatoes when we went to Tenerife in the Canary Islands several years ago and they did not disappoint.  Best presentation went to the food in a shoe.

When Mom and Dad Are Away.....

Munchkin will play and...

pray and ....

garden!

I heard a rumor that she has a boyfriend at grandma's too, but we have no photographic proof.  To be continued.....

Avon Walk 2012

I have been absent a little too long, this I know.  My plan had been to write a quick post last week before we left for Washington DC, but time was not on my side.  So here I am and here is the story of our last couple of weeks.

A little bit of background for you, I participate in and fund raise for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer every two years.  There is a large fundraising commitment and an equally large walk involved so every two years has been plenty for me.  I have walked in San Francisco three times and you may remember from this post that I walked in Colorado last year.  Somehow my husband talked me in to walking again this year.  His rationale that I was a year off due to the birth of our daughter made sense to my delirious mind at the end of last years walk so we signed up.  There are nine walks throughout the year and we selected Washington DC.  Our reasons were: neither of us had been there, it was early enough in garden season to not end up too far behind the weeds and grandma was available.

Kevin at the finish line on Day 1 - 26.2 miles

Another fabulous part of this walk was the addition of two people to our group of walkers.  My friend Deb, who has walked with me twice before, and her ten year survivor mom decided to walk with us too.  Being able to walk with the woman I have walked for in all of my previous walks was an inspiration and Colleen's Crew completed the challenge in fine form!

Colleen's Crew

I would like to thank all of my sponsors and supporters in helping make our fundraising efforts so successful and to grandma for letting munchkin take over for a week.

Home stretch on Day 2 - 13.1 miles

At the finish line