Strawberry Picking Time!!

Yeah, yeah, yeah!!  I think I was the most excited person in Charleston to hear that the strawberries were ready for picking at the farm!!  It has been several months- too many to count- since we have had any berries in our house!  So, Saturday morning, bright and early, we were up and dressed and out the door by 9am to get in the strawberry fields!  Those of you who know our family, know this is a huge accomplishment for us.  We do not get too many places early in the morning, except for our backyard!  But, I could literally taste the sweet strawberry juice in my mouth, so out the door we went!  This is really one of my favorite things to do with my kids and myself.  You really cannot get much better than walking into a field of fresh strawberries warm from the sunshine just waiting to pop in your mouth!  Magical!  Plus, Farmer Pete practices sustainable/organic farming, so no sprays for the beautiful berries.  This means you can literally eat them right in the field, of course a little dirt is on them.  But, really we all could benefit from a little dirt now and then.  Don't you remember the saying your mother/grandmother would say "God made dirt, and dirt don't hurt"!!  I just love seeing the red juice dribbling down my boy's chins, and hearing them in awe over the biggest strawberries!  Of course, being true to boys, they always have to have a contest on who can pick the biggest berry!  I think in a matter of 20 minutes we had picked over 5lbs of berries!  Strawberry shortcake was on the menu that night at our house, so I had to make sure enough berries would make the car ride home for that!  I used an old fashion recipe for homemade short cake and real whipped cream made from real cream.  Oh my goodness, there will never be another container of cool whip or angel food cake in my house!!  There is no comparison- real whipped cream is amazing!!  And so easy to make- just get some real cream and put it in a bowl with 2-4tbls sugar and get to whipping- it takes a few minutes to get thick, but it is oh so worth the wait!!   Update on eggs in incubator- we candled on day 14 and saw a lot of baby embryos inside this time- very excited!!  Hatch Day- day 21- is this Saturday!!  Lots of planting going on, too- Tomatoes in the ground, cukes, squash, corn- just need this cooler weather to take a hike!! 

Baby chicks!!

Well, from our first try at incubation, we were able to successfully hatch 2 baby chicks!!  We had 3 more that pipped but never fully made it out of shells.  My book said not to help the chicks out of shell b/c this is part of natural selection, and it can make your stock weaker.  Ok, I can understand the logic here, but I will tell you, with this next batch of eggs, if any need help- they will be getting help from us!!  Very hard to watch the little guys make it all the way to the finish line and then not make it fully out.  As it turns out, those were the very large eggs, and the chicks were too big inside to be able to fully turn themselves around in the shell.  Yes, if we were going on to use these as a breeding stock, I could understand not wanting carry on a line that produces eggs too big to hatch on their own.  However, our main purpose with this first batch was to see if we could actually hatch eggs.  And, also to have meat birds for the freezer in a few months.  But, since just two hatched this time- these two will be pets- as our boys have already named them.!!  They said with the next batch of eggs that hatch that they will name them, too.  However, they said that the names would be "lunch" and "dinner"- got to love kid's logic!!  On the day the first two pipped was day 21 right on schedule- however, they took about 12 hours to fully emerge from the shell which of course occurred at 1am and 3am.  I swear it was like waiting for a baby to be born- I could not sleep at all, and I had to watch the whole process.  It was really amazing!!  I tried to wake the rest of the house up to see the chicks coming out of the shell, but all of my boys are hard sleepers including Dad, so it was only me up with them hatching.  When the boys woke-up at 6am that morning, I was back in the bed finally, but I was quickly awakened by their screams of "oh my gosh, there are live baby chicks in the incubator!"  It sounded like Christmas morning around here!  The two chicks are doing very well- very well loved and cared for.  We have them in a brooder next to the incubator right now.  But, during the warm days, they like to stay in the greenhouse.  It is so cute watching them chase after bugs being so little.  They already try and take mini-dust baths- it is very amusing to watch.  Yes, that is my entertainment- some might say, geez don't you have something better to do- my response is "I am doing something better right now".   The simple things in life really do offer the most pleasure.  You just have to slow down and enjoy them!! 

Easy white gravy recipe with turnips!

Here is our homemade recipe for white gravy- it is easy and very adaptable to different recipes.  Start with a couple of tablespoons of butter melted in a pan, then add finely chopped up turnips (yes, turnips- they are delicious- trust me!), sautee for a couple of minutes, then add 2 tablespoons of flour and whisk it all together- it will be very thick and a bit hard to whisk.  Then you slowly add milk- about 1 cup give or take some depending on how thick you like your gravy.  Whisk this often until desired thickness- that's it!  Very simple yet, delicious and not so unhealthy!  You can add salt and pepper to taste when sauteeing turnips.  We use this recipe to put over chicken, pork, mashed potatoes, rice, broccoli- whatever you want- biscuits- yummy!  Our boys love it!  If you are cooking meat- just cook the meat in the pan first, then take meat out and you can start your gravy with pan drippings- sometimes you need to add a little more butter and/or wine to get drippings off of the pan.  Last night- we used this recipe to make an alfredo sauce.  I followed this same recipe, then added some chopped carrots, broccoli, and then at very end added our homemade ricotta cheese.  It turned out wonderful!  
Incubator update- we are on day 17- tomm. will be the last day of turning- then it is a wait and see game through day 21- hopefully we get some baby chicks!!  Our eggs are so dark brown, we have not had much luck candling them to see if any growth was happening.  So for us, it will be a big surprise!!
More to come on this!