Well, it’s official! We opened our farm stand yesterday. I know, you didn’t see it in the paper or anything, right? Let me explain how the farm stand started. Several years ago we put in a MASSIVE garden, I’m not exaggerating – it was huge. We had such a bountiful harvest that we just couldn’t keep up, we were handing out bags and bags of stuff, freezing, eating until we couldn’t stand the sight of all the veggies. So the kids set up a table at the top of our property and started selling the fruits of our efforts to strangers.

It was so successful that the kids each paid for their own water-park membership. The next year we borrowed an amazing farm-stand from our neighbors that was self-serve. I use the word borrowed loosely- we’ve now kept their farm-stand for the last four years, so really we stole it. So back to our awesome new business. People would drive up, pick out the veggies they wanted, and drop the money into the money can. It was always so exciting to go up and empty the money can and count up the dough. We then write it on a piece of paper to tally up how much we make. It’s all very exciting. So we opened our stand with much fanfare and made $5.25 yesterday! Sometimes we sell our eggs or even bake bread to sell. It’s really fun and people start coming by to see what else we have available. Sometimes we get notes stuck in our money can telling us how much they love our veggies. So fun!

When walking around the garden the other day I noticed a lot of insect activity. Since we don’t use pesticides – we share with the bugs. Such a drag. We also share with the peacocks at times, that’s how it is in the country. Here you can see where the snails have started eating the beautiful purple beans that I have been waiting anxiously for. Errrrrrg!

So back to the garden, our grapes are going crazy and look beautiful.

Also the cucumbers, tomatoes and onions are coming along great. We also have some hot peppers that are looking like they will be great for salsa along with the cilantro that is thriving.

Yesterday I made an amazing vegetable lasagna using zucchini and yellow squash. Watch for a post about that soon. So yummy!

^^just a teaser- more to come!

I’m off to the garden.

So today I decided to spend some quality time in the garden. After hanging a load of laundry and collecting eggs I first investigated what was coming up.

Wow-was I surprised, so many veggies and we just picked yesterday. It is always so exciting at first and then it gets to be a bit of a chore and then near the end of summer you dread even having to go out to garden. I’m still in the honeymoon phase of this year’s garden.

I decided I better get down to business – I started picking veggies and pulling weeds for the chickens, multitasking at its finest. I realized after just a few minutes that I was not prepared. Where was my basket? How am I going to get this haul into the house? Then the phone rang and then the other phone rang, so before I knew it – I had been distracted from my task. So back to the garden with baskets in hand.

^^My little garden helper taking a break from the hard work.

I mentioned that when I come back from a good harvest I feel a bit like Grizzly Adams – yes, I Googled his name. Remember him? I thought that was such a great comparison but clearly I am not remembering the TV program from my Jr. High days as well as I thought. I am nothing like him. I am not currently running from the law, I am not raising a grizzly bear cub, I don’t have a beard – but I have avoided shaving my legs for the last few days. Apparently there was a hungry spider in my bed the other night and now I have these bites all over my legs- nice! So I don’t want to shave – really nice! So hairy legs with little blister/bites all over them- ugh. So back to my pal Grizzly Adams – I am nothing like him. So now who am I going to compare myself to when I am feeling all proud of myself for being somewhat self-sufficient?

Just wanted to post a little update about what we have been up to lately. Last week, we spent two nights at our timeshare in Indio, near Palm Springs. We basically spent the entire weekend floating on innertubes, laying in the sun, swimming and eating delicious food. Oh, and watching girly movies. It was amazing. We had such a relaxing, fun couple of days. We didn’t leave the resort the entire time (they had a lazy river, three Jacuzzis, and a huge pool- we just didn’t see the need ;)), but on the drive home, we stopped by Shields Date Gardens.

I mean, how could we not stop with a sign like that?

Yeah, okay, maybe we could have missed it. But the date milkshakes were actually pretty good, and Danae and I had a fun time imitating the 25 foot tall knight. We just couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

After getting home from Indio, we had 12 hours to unpack, repack, sleep and then leave the next morning to visit Alex in Prescott, Arizonia. And 8 of those 12 hours were spent sleeping- nice jolt back to reality, huh?

Anyway, we made it to Alex’s school on Saturday and then looked at some condos for him. That night, Alex and Travis went to the movies, and had a boy’s sleepover in the dorms, while we had a girl’s sleepover at the hotel and swam in their indoor pool. Hmmm…I wonder who had a better night sleep? We went to Alex’s church, which we love, on Sunday morning and then in the afternoon we went for a hike.

And I mean a hike. Between the 10 pounds of cheesy California burrito we had for lunch (in Arizona heehee) and the 6,300 foot elevation, we were dying. Alex was mortified. I’m serious, he was so embarrassed- in his words, “Geez mom, I thought you’ve been working out- it must be foofee workouts or something.”

Despite all this, the hike was gorgeous, and really fun.

Here’s my mom before she realized I was taking a picture…

and after.

We made it home Monday night, after fighting Memorial Day traffic all the way home, and now we’re back to baking 🙂

Jordan 

A couple weeks ago we met with a photographer, Amanda, for Travis’ senior pictures. Jordan and I decided to horn in on it, and asked Amanda if she would take a couple of pictures of the two of us for the about section of the blog. She did such a great job (for more of her photos, check out her website: amandachristinephotography.com)– here are a couple of our favorites: