Foraging

Weekly Update

I continue to read my chicken book.  I haven’t had much time to do my “business” planning.  The book is due back to the library soon so I just want to finish it and I continue to keep notes and I will have time in June that I can get back to working on my business plan.
My youngest, Joshua, had a 4-H meeting on Thursday.  We had signed up to be “hosts” for the meeting.  I thought this meant that we just brought treats.  On Monday, I got an email from our 4-H Club Leader asking what my “educational” presentation would be…
Well, I wasn’t aware that I had to present an educational program.  She mentioned that we had kind of gotten away from doing this but that she would find something to present.  I didn’t want to come up short on my duties so I made a presentation about foraging.  On Mother’s Day, our family went out to search for morels.  It was such a wonderful day and we ended up gathering a half pound of morels (they sell for $40/pound at the Farmer’s Market).  Pictures of the morels are in the previous post.
Here is my brief presentation. 

I made Dandelion cookies for our treat to share with everyone.  Click on this image for the recipe:

 I think I have mentioned before that I made dandelion jelly last month and I also have some dandelions  fermenting…

Finding a Local Farm Update

We had ordered half a pastured pig from Omache Farm and got to pick it up at the Farmer’s Market yesterday!  Made some pork chops for dinner last night, sausage with our breakfast and ham tonight…delicious!
Pork in our freezer!

Garden Update

The garden is growing and we have WAY more lettuce than we need!  My lovely hubby has made me a new garden bed.  It will have mostly tomatoes and peppers since my other 2 garden beds are full of garlic, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and lettuce, spinach, radishes, carrots, and kale…
Garlic with broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage planted among it.
Potatoes are starting to grow in the potato bag
New garden bed my hubby made for me…a late Mother’s Day gift!

Here is a look at my 3 garden beds with the garlic in front, then the potato bag, lettuce bed and new tomato/pepper bed…

We have so many lettuces to pick from that I am going to harvest a good amount of the spinach and freeze it.  I am going to use the information on this website to do it:  Simply Canning

I brought these iris from our old house in Coeur d’Alene almost 4 years ago.  They have never bloomed since I moved them down to Moscow but this year we are finally seeing some blooms!   I had brought these from my mom’s house in Kansas.