Come and sit awhile...

FFF Photo a Day - Day 38

Got some snow today - much needed moisture and ground cover for the fields. The upcoming season will be too dry if we don't get more. 

This bench sits at the front of our house in the middle of our herb garden. Its a beautiful place to sit awhile - even better with a cup of coffee and your favourite person (or animal) to keep you company. 

The bench faces south and looks down our driveway and onto fields upon fields of various crops - as far as the eye can see. (well at least in the summer it does...) 

Dreaming of summer....

Seedy sweet-talk

FFF Photo a Day - Day 37 

Today was spent doing inventory of saved and leftover seeds and pouring over seed catalogues. After much debate surrounding what we will grow this year, we managed to come up with a complete list of varieties and quantities and finished our seed orders! Whew! 

Looking forward to trying a few new things such as collards, Armenian cucumber and Honeynut Squash. Of course we have way too many varieties of tomatoes (if that's possible) and are also trying a few some yellow and red carrot varieties. 

Chicken Run!

FFF Photo of the Day - Day 36

Our hens miss summer, being outside and scratching in the dirt so on warmer days they scoot out when we open the door to the coop and wander around the yard. 

It means we spend the evening searching the various outbuildings for rogue chickens. 

Parsley post

FFF Photo a Day - Day 35

The other day we ran out of dried parsley in the jar in our spice cupboard! It reminded me that I have yet to process all the drying herbs that are hanging in my basement! 

In the fall, we put all our perennial herbs in pots to grow inside and harvest all the annuals to dry. 

This extends the harvest, saves on the grocery bill and gives us a hint of summer in the midst of the snow. 

My jar is full once again! 

Look around....

FFF Photo a Day - Day 34

Beautiful shot to end the day, reminds us all to stop and look up, look around and drink in the beauty that all of us are privileged to be surrounded by. 

Regardless of your beliefs about how it came to be created, I'm certainly we can all agree that we live in a world of great beauty and complexity and we can honour that by pausing once in a while to notice what it has to offer. 

A peek inside our cupboard...

FFF Photo a Day - Day 33

As part of extending our harvest we spend a lot of time freezing, drying and canning in the fall. This picture was what my canning cupboard used to look like... its less full right now (and not as neat)!

We make tomato sauce, paste, pasta sauce and salsa with what is typically an over-abundance of fall tomatoes. Jalapeno jelly, ground cherry jam, salsa verde from our tomatillos, and various other assortments of preserves, pickles and sauces. 

For most of our canning we use the water bath canning process. I covet my neighbours pressure canner and hope one day to own and master that processing method. 

Triple Double Day!

FFF Photo a Day - Day 32

Got love a day that starts with three double yolker eggs! 

My math is not strong so I'm not sure if you would express this as 2³ or something else. 

Either way its delicious and a great way to start a day!