Harvest time and canning, and a trailer buying opportunity

There are few things more satisfying and mouth watering than wandering into my garden in the evening and collecting food for our dinner. We've been eating like royalty around here. My garden is going nuts, and that's a good thing, since I have to feed five people.

The boys especially... their appetites have always been huge, and they are growing. When their friends come over for play dates or sleep overs, I can't stop marveling at how little their friends eat compared to my boys.

I make them earn their food! They help plant it, weed it, water it, and the most amazing task of all, harvest it. This week, the whole family dug potatoes. Oh, what a fun job this is! The bigger people dig, and the little people collect the freshly unearthed treasures and put them into boxes. The kids squeal with delight and excitement and forget how hard they have to work to dig potatoes out of the earth. Steve and I found a heart shaped potato and made Kai take a picture of us. The garlic was harvested yesterday, and it's gorgeous.

The onions are unreal this year. Big and juicy and voluptuous, they push their bulbs through the soil while cheerfully waving their green tops. And the carrots are beyond words, really. Sweet and sugary, they are a favorite treat for the kids, I kid you not. I love watching the watermelons, cucumbers and squash set fruit. I don't know if we actually will have ripe watermelons by the end of the growing season, but the black plastic should help. Keep your fingers crossed for us! The figs are shaping up nicely. In a couple more weeks, we will feast on figs.

Right now, our orchard is cranking out plums. We eat them as fast as they ripen. The deer love them, too.

Steve inspects cucumbers growing up a trellis

These small yellow flowers will hopefully be watermelons some day

Yesterday, I canned 33 quarts of peaches, nectarines and apricots (with the help of my three guys, cutting up - and eating - the fruit). We buy boxes of organic fruit from Smallwood Farms on the East side. On the way to various farmer's markets, they drop off our boxes in Marblemount on their way down valley.

Can you imagine the fruit-gorging and juicy nectar-dripping that has gone on in our house in the past week? Well. It's been heaven, is all I can say.

Gallons of canned fruit, with Cheddar cheese drying in the background.  That's my house these days...

In the meantime, the ducks are still patrolling the yard for slugs, and the new chickens have started laying their small eggs.  Eva helps me harvest calendula for my goatmilk soaps. I infuse organic olive oil with calendula, which is well known for its skin healing properties, and then make it into luscious soap.

Last but not least, I want to tell you about the trailer that our good friends Brandie and Bradley are trying to sell.  They bought it last year when they moved onto our property, but since they moved to Arizona and are trying to raise funds for massage school, they want to sell it.  It's a beautiful trailer - they refinished it splendidly.  It's currently parked at Sauk Mountain Pottery in Rockport.  Here is the craigslist ad for it, and you can see pictures there.  Here is what it says: 

"Up for sale is a 1973 Streamline Imperial travel trailer. 27 feet. This trailer has been stripped down to the metal, reinsulated with rot resistant insulation and rebuilt. The trailer is not completed, but is currently livable. The floors are lightweight bamboo. The interior siding is handmade, thin, tongue and groove alder. Beautiful handmade, live-edge old growth Doug fir shelving. No toilet or shower but plumbing is still there. Kitchen is incomplete. Comes with fridge. Exterior has some damage but is in good shape considering age. It is located outside of Concrete at Sauk Mountain Pottery. The trailer has been stored under cover since the rebuilding began a year ago. A wonderful project! $3200 obo."