County Fair Confusion

I re-read the fair entry form yesterday, when I was preparing my salsa and jam for entry, and I noticed the entry form said, "mail or turn in to the county office on or before July 31st".

Oh no!

But when I dropped off my scarecrow today I saw a huge line of people waiting to register their entries.

And an empty window for pre-entries.

Ah ha!

I rushed home, but I only had time to grab my photography entries and rush back to the fairgrounds.

Then I stood in line for 1 1/2 hours.

This is what I entered.

Category - Nature

Special events



Flowers

Birds

Water scene

Buildings

Kids

Animals

Country scene

I'll try to enter my canned items next year.

When I'm more prepared.

County Fair Scarecrow

I turned in my scarecrow today for the master gardener sponsered contest at the county fair. The theme was "butterfly garden".

This is The Flower Family.

There are some very, very nice scarecrows, so nice I didn't even want to vote for mine!

Spicy Cabbage Relish

This is hot and tasty! Perfect for using up extra cabbage.

Spicy Cabbage Relish

Chopped veg. to equal 11 cups - cabbage, cauliflower, onions, green tomatoes, green peppers, red peppers.

5 Tablespoons salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tsp celery seeds
2 tsp. dry mustard
1 tsp mustard seed
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp ginger

2 1/2 cups vinegar

small hot chiles - your choice

Combine chopped vegetables; sprinkle with salt ; mix well. Let stand 4 to 6 hours in a cool place or 48 hours in the refrigerator.
Drain well. Rinse and drain.
Combine sugar, spices and vinegar in a large saucepot. Simmer 10 min.
Add vegetables; simmer 10 minutes.
Bring to a boil.
Prick each hot chile with a sharp knife. Add one hot chile to each jar.
Pack hot relish into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Adjust two-piece caps.

You don't have to use the chiles, if you want a cooler relish.
Process 10 min. in a boiling water canner.

Or skip the canning and eat!

Can Mania!

This last week, I have been canning like crazy in preparation for the county fair (and just 'cause I like to can - the fair's a good excuse).

I had one failure: my black raspberry/guava jelly didn't set up, so now it's raspberry/guava juice. It still tastes good!

So far this last week I have made: the jelly/juice mistake, gooseberry jam, raspberry jam, raspberry/current jam, squash pickles, banana butter and peach salsa.

(Banana butter recipe below)

My canning from last night: 6 pints/4 half pints banana butter

11 pints/8 half pints peach salsa

The bananas were 99 cents for a huge bag. I bought both bags AND they were organic! Score!

Walmart had peaches on sale for 78 cents a pound, so that will be my next adventure.

Because I have a LOT of peaches in my kitchen.

I couldn't resist! Yummy peaches.......

Banana Butter

For every pound of bananas add 1 cup of sugar and 1/4 cup bottled lemon juice.

Put bananas and sugar in a large pot; mash with a potato masher.

Cook over low heat until paste rounds up on a spoon.

Optional: add cinnamon and cloves to taste.

Ladle into hot jars leaving 1/4 inch head space.

Remove air bubbles.

Adjust 2 piece caps.

Process in a boiling water canner for 10 mins.

This is soooooo good! It is like banana bread in a jar.

Watch out - Very addictive - I warned you!

Happy Hatch Day!

I am such a bad chicken mommy!

August 1st was the 2 year anniversary of my hens hatching.

It's hard to believe it all started 2 short years ago.....

In this last year there have been many changes: Pippa found a new home, Lavender hatched out 4 chicks and Honey died.

What started out as the flock of five has expanded to a flock of eight and then to a tiny flock of four.

With any other chicks that I add to the flock, I will never feel the same trepidation and excitement that I felt that first night when I went to pick up their tiny cardboard box at the post office.

It was petrifying! It was so easy to order them online, but then to have 5 little lives that depend on you for everything!?!

That was terrifying.

I thought I was prepared, but I had no idea what it would be like to have chickens.

I thought they would be pets, but I didn't know I would love them.

Who loves a chicken?

I do!!

~

~

~

P.S. Miss you still Pippa and Honey.

And The Winner Is........

The winner of the chicken basket giveaway is.....................................................................................



..............................(Just remember if it's not you - there will be a great prize for August too!

So come back

and enter for that one!)

..............................

The winner is: FisherMOM!!!!!

Congrats!

I will try to contact you OR you can send me your addy at catalinagrey@hotmail.com OR if you are a BYCer just PM me!

OK I found you on BYC and sent you a PM!

Cuddle Chickens

Butter and Zela's daily cuddle.

Garden Gorgeous Green

Tour my garden with me!

I think these cabbage leaves are beautiful.

Snapdragons

Stocks - mmmmm, they smell so sweet.

Like cloves.

Snapdragons.

Snapdragons.

Triplet eggplant.

Ancho/Poblano peppers.

Future chile rellenos!

Delphinium.

Gooseneck.

Berry Picking Vacation

I went on a berry picking vacation, to Bayfield, WI, with my mom this last week-end.

Cottage that we rented.

We went to the farmer's market to pick up ingredients for dinner.

While there we had to stop and take a few pictures in the community garden.

Bayfield harbor and Lake Superior.

View of lake again.

We picked gooseberries and currants at the Good Earth Farm.

The currants were hard work! They are so tiny.

Picking gooseberries.

Then we picked blueberries at Rocky Acres Farm.

Yum! It is the start of the blueberry season, so we got to pick the giant king berries.

Lots of blueberries to pick!

They were HUGE!

View of Lake Superior.

After picking blueberries we went to the Bayfield Art Fair.
I found a prize for next month's giveaway!

While we were at the Art Fair we found a mushroom.

We took it home to cook it for dinner with our farmer's market finds.

Yummy! Our dinner - Eggs from my girls, summer squash, tomato, onion, garlic scapes, mushroom (we found), smoked Lake Superior white fish and vegan bread from the farmer's market.

Too soon it was time to go home, but we had a couple more stops to make before we left.

Us with our blueberries.

We stopped at few local shops.

We had to pick up our almond wine bread from The Candy Shop before we left town.

And a few coconut clusters.

We ordered the wine bread the night before, because they sell as soon as they are baked.

They go from oven to someone's home!

Then we stopped at the Bayfield Apple Company to pick raspberries.

We also bought a jar of currant jelly.

They are hard to pick and it is worth every penny!

Garlic - It's Outta Here!

I harvested all the garlic from the garden today.

This is the first year I've ever tried growing garlic.

It was interesting.

I planted 3 beds full of it last October.

Somewhere in between then and now I remembered that I hate garlic.

Yeah........

So, guess what all my friends are getting for gifts this next year!

It looked nice growing in the garden and it was fun to plant it when everything else was dead.

Maybe I can learn to like garlic.

Well, I like the taste of garlic.

I just hate smelling like it the next day.

I think I might try pickling some of it.

Garlic in the garden - The big ones are elephant garlic.


My fancy garlic drier - that I made out of junk.