Garden Tour/Corn Roasting.

We had a little get together for our CSA members. They were invited out to the farm to tour the gardens and eat dinner with us. So, since you missed it, I will take you with us via pictures. 

We loaded up on hay wagons for the trip up to the garden. 

We started the tour by visiting the onions. We have sooooo many onions. These are laying out to dry. 

We visited the high tunnel to see all the tomatoes.

While waiting to take our guests to the next location we talked about hay, building houses, and ate cucumbers.

Summer garden. Lots of squash, Okra, Green Beans, and Cukes.

I didn't take a picture of the asparagus or field tomatoes but those were on the tour too.

After the tour we were ready to eat. :)

We decorated the tables with my favorite flower. 

Everything on the menu was from the garden.

Yummy tomatoes.

Potato Salad and Coleslaw.

Bruschetta with Focaccia bread.

Roasted Sweet Corn. The best corn you will ever eat.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake. (Amazing! You can't taste the Zucchini at all.) Carrot Cake (Not pictured)

 Digging in! 

 We sat on straw bales and quilts. :) I love quilts! 

We ended the evening with a dip in the pond. 

We had a great time and hope that our guests did too! :)

Busy, Busy, Busy.

I'm a planner. I start everyday by planning out what I'm going to do and in what order. Let me tell you, it never goes the way I plan. Usually everything happens but a bunch of other things get thrown in the mix too and I have to change everything around and I get frustrated. I'm learning to be more flexible. I'm really trying. Not one day this summer has happened the way it is supposed to (according to me) and I'm really learning to just go with the flow. Most of the time. ha

Corn has pretty much taken over my life this week. This has been the ultimate crazy week. I mean crazy! I thought about it and I worked approximately 13 hours everyday. Between helping Luke in the garden, mowing, and helping my dad with everything, I stay busy! The sweet corn has really been growing and so some mornings we start picking at 6 am. I don't always start that early but I always start by 8. Today my family froze a little over 6 bushels (60 ears in a bushel) of corn. I literally fell asleep on lunch break. This afternoon was a little more relaxed because I just decided I would do some of the stuff I need to do next week. 

Now you know what has taken over my life but hopefully I will have a little more time to share stories this weekend. I have some good ones. :) For now I will leave you with a few corny pictures. hehe

All before 8 am.

Getting ready for co op! 

Lookin' rough. Rained on and to early for me. 

Protection.

 This weekend was uneventful, and for that I am very thankful. The weathermen were predicting really bad storms. Some of Oklahoma did get hit pretty bad but we were spared the worst and it was truly an answer to prayer. 

Now, you are probably saying, "well everyone is thankful when they don't get hit by a tornado!" Well, duh! But you have to understand that we are farmers and our livelihood depends on the weather. Therefore, we have to have a lot of faith that God is going to provide for us. And let me tell you, my faith has been put to the test in the past year or so. Last summer was so incredibly hot and dry! Not conducive conditions for things to grow.

This year on the other hand has been a great year for wheat. We have gotten rain when we need it and the wheat is looking really good. If we would have gotten bad weather this weekend it would have been pretty devastating. If the wheat gets hailed on, it knocks kernels onto the ground (can't be harvested) and knocks the whole plant over which makes it harder to harvest. (I'm sure my dad could add to this, but that's the gist)

When we heard there was bad weather we all started praying and hoping for the best. Friday night we got a little rain but the storms went just north of us. Saturday night there was a storm that I was sure was going to hit us, but we just got rain. I watched the weather all Saturday evening while I studied (I know, what an exciting Saturday night. ha) and watched the storm pop up and go around us. God takes care of us! 

Friday afternoon, after picking asparagus in the rain, I ran around and took some pictures of everything in case it stormed. Luke has some really pretty veggies in the garden right now, the wheat is gorgeous, and there are flowers everywhere. There is something about this spring that the flowers are really loving! I think God is showing us that He is still around after such a hard summer last year. 

Wheat is heading out.

Lots of lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, and other veggies! All with weird names that I'm not even going to try to remember. ha

Tomatoes already! 

Radishes sprouting. 

A lot of tornadoes touched down in Oklahoma and Kansas that destroyed a lot of homes and took lives but we are so thankful for God's protective hand! 

P.S. I have about a bazillion tests in the next two and a half weeks! So happy to be finishing things up though! 

Asparagus.

Hopefully after this post you will understand my absence. This past weekend was packed with asparagus. My cousin Luke does organic gardening and that is where you will find me most of the time during the summer. Spring came pretty early this year and so things are really growing. Asparagus usually starts the season off and boy did it start with a bang! 

We had, and still have, sooooo much asparagus! Friday afternoon we picked for 4 and a half hours and got the most asparagus we have ever gotten. I'm not even going to guess how many pounds it was. Saturday night we picked for 5 hours. We got finished at a little after 1 am Sunday. And yes, my positive attitude had left by then. I was cold, tired, every part of my body ached and it had been so long since I ate supper that I was hungry. ha But it needed to be picked! Sunday was another day full of asparagus. There were lots of helpers around though so I mowed the yard and studied most of the day. I only helped for a few hours. 

To give you a little idea of what we do...

On the left is where the asparagus is.

There is about 5 acres of it I believe.

It grows like this... 

We have purple and green.

This machine was pretty much handmade and it is how we pick. 

 This way we can pick three rows at a time. Luke, or whoever is in the middle, drives with there feet so that they can pick at the same time. We just bend over and pick between our legs. This is the biggest problem for me. I can never quite decide where to put my legs. We just snap the asparagus off as close to the ground as possible. So, pretty much, you are digging your knuckles into the ground the whole time.

Picking in the dark... with headlamps... and a face covered in bugs attracted to your headlamp...

It really isn't that bad, and I don't actually mind picking most of the time. Unless it is waayyy past my bedtime, then I will be cranky no matter what I'm doin'! There was just so much this weekend it was really hard to keep up. It was like a wall of asparagus coming at you and my hands only go so fast. I would just be throwing it into the crate sometimes. It did not always look like this... 

Nice and neat and easy to sort later on.

 After it is picked, it's sorted and sold! 

This weekend was full of other farming as well. We transplanted some sweet corn...

Sorry it's so far away... the corn is to the left. You can kind of see the rows and tiny plants.

 My dad finished spreading manure and started planting field corn like a madman. He planted pretty late into the night on Monday. It was supposed to rain Tuesday and he wanted to get as much seed in the ground before that happened as he could. It didn't actually end up raining very much but every little bit helps. 

I have spent the last few days just catching up on school and eating asparagus! 

As you can tell it has been busy around here! But busy is good!! :)