County Fair!

This was Clara's first fair.  I of course couldn't resist buying two cow outfits online at zulily.com at least 6 months ago, with the intention of dressing the girls up in them for the Fair.  Anna's was a cute black and white checkered dress with a cow face on the front and two cow-print bows on the shoulders.  Clara's was actually a boy's outfit that came with a green shirt.  I ordered the outfit before she was confirmed to be another girl.  I just swapped out the green shirt for a pink onesie, some pink frilly socks, and a pink headband. 

Not shown anywhere in the pictures are her really cute shoes.  They look like a cow, complete with a little cow tail hanging off of the back.  They say "moo" on the bottom of each foot.  Anna wore them for her first fair.  This is Anna at her first fair in 2010.  We spent all week there because I was still on maternity leave.

I haven't missed the Fair since I started showing dairy cows in 1999.  Now I am just a spectator at the cow shows, but I've spent quite a few years participating.  I expect that the girls will want to show cows when they are old enough. 

Saturday's Black and White Holstein show is always a big deal, so I brought both girls up for the day.  Showing cows is a competitive sport, believe it or not.  Eric's family still shows their registered Holsteins each year, and my youngest sister, Emily, brought a cow in to show for her last year in the youth show (up to age 21).  We were happy that she won Best Bred and Owned of the Holstein Youth Show.  During the show, I took the girls for strolls through the sheep and pig barns.
 

Anna really loves sheep.

She wanted to pet this one so bad!

Clara, 2.5 months old, slept a lot, and was pretty good the whole day.  I had to take her back to the car just once to nurse her and change diapers.  Otherwise she was either asleep or awake and looking around at all of the sights and sounds.

Anna had fun watching the cows in the show ring and being with her family.

But as the day wore on, Anna got really tired.  She was a little grumpy by the end of the show.  By 3pm, she fell asleep in the stroller, and slept the whole way home.

What I like about putting food in jars:

1.  You have to follow a recipe.  This might be tough for some people.  Some daring cooks throw ingredients in a pot and watch the magic happen.  I have never been one of those cooks.  I follow a recipe.  Pretty much every time.  I still pull open the cookbook to see how to make a pie crust, even though I've made pies a hundred times.  I still follow the recipe on the back of the Bisquick box for pancakes, even though I make pancakes at least once a week.  Sure, I experiment sometimes with substituting ingredients if I don't have something on hand.  But my mac and cheese is straight out of the Betty Crocker cookbook.  Somehow I never manage to accurately memorize a recipe and don't even ask me to experiment on a classic!  With canning, you need to follow the recipe to a T, or you risk ruining your hard work or worse, getting sick off of improperly preserved pickles.

2.  Jars of food are pretty on a shelf.  There is nothing better than organizing your little stockpile of jars.  I totally get why people on the coupon shows buy and stockpile.  They have OCD about arranging their treasures on the shelf.  I am not a couponer, but I do enjoy lining up my jars.  The raspberry and strawberry jams are a beautiful red, and the pickles and green beans are amazing shades of green. 

3.  Preserving tradition.  People used to can out of necessity.  Then it became something to do to save money and to put up one's garden.  Now, it is a hobby.  Canned products in the grocery store are so cheap, it is arguable if you really save all that much money canning your own fruits and vegetables.  Plus, frozen products are so handy and taste pretty fresh.  But there is something nostalgic about food in jars that gets me going.  I mean, how neat is it that I am storing my jars where Eric's grandmother (and her grandmother) stored hers for years.

4.  Preserving local.  I am a "local" nut.  I am not a true locavore (someone who eats food only from within a certain mile radius of home).  But I believe in the value of buying local for economic development and to support healthy and vibrant communities.  At work, I am involved in a variety of projects to increase the utlization of local products in our county.  So I guess I'd better walk the walk and talk the talk.

5.  What else am I going to do with all of these cucumbers?  I can't stand to see things go to waste.  And since Eric is REALLY into gardening, I've gotta do something with the stuff!  I used to just freeze everything, but it's not that much less work and the taste of freezer-burnt green beans is absolutely disgusting. 

6.  It lasts for a long time!  Canned products are shelf-stable for 12 months to ? years.  I like feeling that if we had a complete societal meltdown and we all had to live off of the grid and independently, we'd survive a lot longer than most!  I'm not paranoid, and no, we do not have a bomb shelter just in case.

Sweet Pictures

I am reminded of how much occurs in the course of one year when children are small.  Last summer Anna was not quite walking.  She waited until 14 months to really get going, so a good portion of the summer she was immobile outdoors.  She spent time sitting outside but she wasn't a big fan of crawling in the grass.

These pictures were taken by a semi-professional photographer in May, just before Anna's first birthday.  I love them because they were taken on our farm.

Loves kitties!  She is holding onto one of Eric's old horsedrawn implements.

Holding onto the barn for balance.

One of me holding her in the barn.

And one of Eric holding her.

She had the cutest headband on that brought out the yellow flowers on her dress, but that quickly came off.  Here she is sitting near the peonies, which have been growing in our yard for years.  Someday I will post pictures of our gladiolas, which were planted by Eric's grandmother and remind me of her every July when they bloom.

One of our few family portraits.  Now we will need to get another family picture taken with Clara.

Anna Try It? Yumm, Mommy!

My picky eater is still picky.  But there is a bit of light to this dark cloud.  She seems to like raw vegetables and fruits.  Ok, so not all raw vegetables.  She spits out raw peas (even though they taste like candy to me!)  Here is my girl, all sweaty from running around on a hot afternoon, snacking on a raw green bean freshly picked and snapped.  It was her idea to try it, too.  She's also started eating watermelon and canteloupe.  "Juicy!" she exclaims.

Pickles Pickles Pickles, Oh My!

The past few weeks I have been trying to keep up with the abundance of our garden.  I am very tired of cucumbers and zucchini, two vegetables that ANY gardener can grow because they produce like maniacs.  I am not a huge pickle fan, but my dad loves bread and butter pickles and Eric eats sweet gherkins (little whole pickles).  We do not like relish, but I am even making relish just for fun.  I have also canned over a dozen jars of dill pickles.  I have no idea who is going to eat all of these pickles, and I will very likely be giving jars away to anyone who likes them.  Here is how I can bread and butter pickles:

This is my family's recipe for bread and butter pickles.  You can also find a ton of pickle recipes on the internet.  I recommend looking for ones approved by the USDA and Cooperative Extension, as there are some unsafe recipes floating around out there.  Here is a USDA Guide to Pickling, with recipes.

I just learned that powdered alum, a common ingredient in traditional pickle recipes because it helps to make pickles crisp, is actually toxic in amounts over 1 ounce.  I encountered alum in a dill pickle recipe given to me by a relative.  I was tempted to use it anyway, but it just isn't worth the risk.  I used pickling lime (Ball Pickle Crisp) instead.  We have not tasted the dill pickles yet to see if they are crisp, because it takes a little while for them to develop a good flavor.

Anyway, back to the bread and butters!  Cut your cucumbers, onions, and peppers.  I was crying so badly after 6 onions that I stopped there.  Anna came in and was watching me cut vegetables and she was even crying; the whole kitchen was fumigated with onion.  After my first batch I picked up a Progressive onion cutter, like this one.  I am in love!  I had way fewer tears using this handy kitchen tool.

Let the cucumbers sit under ice for 3-4 hours.  Drain.  Simmer your pickles in the vinegar/sugar/spice mixture.  The spices I use are celery seed, tumeric, and ground cloves.

Stir the pickles every now and then while simmering for 15 minutes.  It takes awhile for them to come to a simmer.  I snacked on some freshly picked blueberries while I was waiting.

I also prepared my jars and water bath canner so that everything was ready to go as soon as the 15 minutes was up.

Pack the hot pickles and pickle juice into hot, sterilized, jars.  Place the hot lids on them and screw on the bands.  Process in the hot water bath for five minutes. 

Remove the jars and place them on a wire rack to cool and enjoy the sound of jars sealing!

Red Raspberry Jam

I really enjoy picking fruit.  I mean, what could be better than being out in the sunshine picking fresh beautiful berries and bringing it home to make yummy stuff like pies and jams?  So far this year, I've picked strawberries in June, and blueberries and raspberries in July.  I drag my girls along with me, so I rarely pick for more than an hour. 

A couple of weeks ago, my dad and sister went with us to pick raspberries.  It's been a hot summer, so the berries we picked were some of the few left on the bushes.  Here is step-by-step how I made raspberry jam:

I washed the berries and put them in a pot to mash one cup at a time.  Added pectin (I buy Certo boxes) and followed the directions on the box. 

The recipe is the same on the box as it is in this You Can Can! book.  Yes, I can can, can you?

I stirred the raspberry jam, while heating.  Once it boiled, I added the sugar all at once.  Make sure you have enough sugar on hand!  This recipe took 6 cups!  I often do double batches.  You'll get diabetes just looking at 12 cups of sugar.

While your jam is "cooking," put some lids in hot water to keep warm and start your water bath canner boiling.  Clean your jars.  I often run my jars and rings in the dishwasher on sterilize and try to time it so that they are hot and ready at the right time.  You could also just boil your clean jars in the canner.

Check on the kiddos.  Yup, Clara is still sleeping.

Anna is watching cartoons...

Uh oh, Anna decided to come check out what mommy's doing.  "Mommy doing?"  Here, play with some alphabet fridge magnets.  Later, I resort to throwing canning jar rings on the floor for her to play with.  She likes to put them on her wrists and ankles.

Put your raspberry jam into the hot, sterilized jars.  Fill to the right height on the jar, according to the recipe.  Beautiful!

Get the lids out of the hot water to place on the jars.  I use a magnet stick, which came in a canning kit.  Oops, the end of it melted because it was resting against the hot canner.  Make sure you don't do that! 

Put the lids on and screw the bands tight, but no need to crank it.  Put them in the canner and process 5 minutes, according to your recipe instructions.  Make sure you time it from when the water begins to boil again.

Dishes to wash.  But before you know it, the timer goes off and your jam is processed.

Remove jars and place on a wire rack.  My favorite part is listening to the lids pop as they seal.  It is so satisfying!

Clara is still sleeping.  What a good baby!

With a little bit of work, you can put up plenty of jam for a year's worth of toast, waffles, and bagels.  Eric especially loves homemade jam.  He even gets pretty possessive over it, so I have to make extra for family and friends to give away (and sneak it to them).  Strawberry and raspberry are his favorites, but I've made peach jam, too.  Blueberries I'd rather just freeze and make pies and other desserts from.  Oh what fun!  Next time I'll post about making pickles.  Stay tuned!

Through the farmhouse kitchen window

This is the view from my kitchen.  From here I can watch the barn cats play, the cows go through the barn to the milking parlor, and my husband and father-in-law working.  It is an excellent view to have, and I think this picture is somewhat symbolic of our lives.  I am busy at work in the house with our family, cooking, cleaning, and providing a haven and comforting place to live.  My husband is out working, rain or shine, making milk for our table, and for others.  He doesn't get paid nearly enough for so much work, but we love it anyway.

Fresh From the Garden

Eric loves to plant his vegetable garden every year.  I love to eat it.  Yesterday's dinner was as follows:

Grilled chicken on a fresh-from-the-garden salad (literally picked an hour prior), green beans freshly snapped, and oven-fried zucchini sticks.  If you try the zucchini sticks, try adding some parmesan or some other seasonings/flavors.  They were pretty bland in my opinion.  Eric didn't even try them.  Otherwise, they were a snap to prepare and are pretty good.

I discovered that my picky eater prefers raw green beans to cooked.  I don't know how long I've struggled to get her to take one bite of a cooked grean bean.  She was so excited to bite into a raw green bean, and once she started she ate about 7-8 of them!  Hey, it's even healthier raw than cooked, so snack away dearie!

Coming Home

Our hospital no longer does newborn photos, so we attempted a few of our own.  This is the only one that turned out semi-decent.  This was taken on the day we left the hospital. 

Clara slept the whole way home.  We even stopped to pick up two half chicken dinners from a bbq truck across the street from our drug store (vicodin!!!).  She graciously allowed me to consume said chicken in leisure.  My mom still had Anna so the house was very (oddly) quiet.  Until later that afternoon!

This was taken a week after we came home.  I admit that I didn't take a lot of pictures that first week.  I was too busy changing aforementioned diapers and trying to keep up with Clara's frequent feedings.  I swear, the girl wanted to eat every hour!  Anna enjoys holding her, but for only a second.  "Ok, Ok, Ok," is her sign when she is done.  She also likes to exclaim, "Wiggly!"

We have two beautiful little girls, don't we?!!  :)

Well it seems as though I abondoned my blog.  It's been ages since we've last visited, dear blog, and I've got to admit I didn't start missing you until just now.   I was doing some research for work on blogs and I decided I would really like to start blogging again.  Hmm, but how to pick up a blog that has had no love and no structure for so long?

Let's jump right back in.  I love my family.  I was pregnant the last time I logged in here.  Now I am 30 pounds lighter and 12 pounds of baby more fortunate.  My little love, Clara, was born on May 8, 2012 via c-section.  She was 8 pounds, 0.5 ounce, 20 inches.  Anna was just 1.5 ounces heavier, so my girls both started off at a pretty decent but not alarmingly large weight.  Clara emerged screaming, but quickly calmed. 

I loved my time with her in the hospital.  We had time, just her and I, to bond and cuddle.  Once home, all hell broke loose, as Anna somehow came down with diarhhea and was under the weather.  I had what felt like hundreds of diapers to change and my recovery from the c-section was keeping me sore and helpless.  Eric had to get Anna in and out of her crib, and I ended up sleeping with Clara on my chest most of the night, for several nights, as I was too sore to get in and out of bed everytime she woke. 

Breastfeeding was pretty easy with Clara.  I had the typical nipple soreness, but I never felt too engorged.  I actually worried a bit that I wasn't going to get my milk, but then I could hear her swallowing and see her spit up and I knew everything was ok.  She gained 2 pounds in 2 weeks and was quickly settling into a regular eat and sleep routine.  I'll post lots more about Clara and how she's growing, as well as Anna's adjustment to being a big sister.  But for now, here are some heartwarming newborn pics.