We scaled the garden way back this year— the family is shrinking— but we still processed a good amount of food, mostly from produce that we sourced via local farmers and orchards.

My younger daughter worked a partial season at the produce farm so once again we had plenty of fresh produce — lettuce, cucumbers, radishes, onions, heirloom tomatoes, garlic, spinach, kale, etc — over the spring and summer. (She refused to bring home the extra eggplants, though, the stinker.)

Much of our freezer space has been used for beef. At the end of last year, we sent our three steers to slaughter. My husband hauled the beef home from the processors — an entire ton of it — in the van. A bunch of it went to friends and family, and the rest got stashed in our freezers (we have five, though all of them aren’t always in operation). Having all this grass-fed beef— steaks! burgers! ground beef! roasts! ribs!— is a luxury that still boggles my mind.

By far, this year’s biggest food project has been our family milk cow. It’s been a raging success (says I), and I hope that our non-farmery family can work out a way to keep a family milk cow because I love, love, love cheesemaking.

he only hand milked in the beginning; now he uses an electric milker

Stats:

• Rhubarb, frozen: not recorded but I know I put some in the freezer
• Strawberries: 1 quart, sliced and sugared; 5 pints of freezer jam, 2 half-pints 
• Applesauce, Lodi (3 bushels): 55 quarts
• Apricots (1 bushel): 8 quarts, canned; 9 pints and 2 half pints cook jam
• Wineberries, frozen: 5 quarts
• Blackberries, from our neighbors’ farm, frozen: 11 quarts
• Green Beans, frozen: 11 quarts
• Corn, frozen: 8 quarts
• Tomatoes, canned: 37 quarts and 1 pint
• Tomato Juice, canned: 9 quarts
• Roasted Tomato Pizza Sauce, canned: 13 pints
• Roasted Tomato Sauce, canned: 6 pints, 1 half pint
• Peaches, Glohaven (2 bushels): 26 quarts and 1 pint canned
• Nectarines, canned (4 bushels?): 44 quarts
• Grape Jelly: 23 pints, 4 half pints
• Grape Syrup: 10 pints, 1 half pint
• Grape Cordial: 3 quarts, 1 pint
• Sweet Cherry Grape Juice: 12 quarts
• Red Raspberries, frozen: 11 quarts 
• Beef, 3 steers: over 1 ton of beef
• Cheeses: 44 aged cheeses (and counting), plus many, many soft cheeses, yogurts, etc. 

Notes:
*I’m pretty sure there was a lot more frozen strawberries (and jam), almost all from the strawberries that my parents gave to us— I think I forgot to record it. Strawberry jam is a family favorite, so I must remember to make lots more of it next year.

*We got lots of “old” food from Magpie — grilled chicken, soups, breads, etc — that we’ve squirreled away in the freezer.

*My younger son has taken over the chickens. I buy eggs from him, three dollars a dozen. Right now, production is low. I keep encouraging him to put a light in the coop, but he hasn’t done it yet.

*Our corn crop didn’t produce much, so we ordered from local farmers and had a corn processing day with my family. Next year, I want to make sure to freeze some of the corn in pint bags, not quarts, since a quart of corn is generally too much for us. 

*We also bought several 25-pound bags of potatoes from those same farmers, as well as a smaller bag of sweet potatoes. 

*The beans were terrible, once again. Either do a fall crop, or skip them all together. It’s early December and we only have 1 bag left.

*The nectarines were already going bad when we picked them up from the orchard (this has happened other years), so too much of the fruit went to waste.

*I thought we weren’t going to find Lodi apples, but last minute I sourced them at a different orchard. We’ve been plowing through the sauce. My younger son eats a crazy-huge amount.

*Tomatoes were decent, but not great, so I bought a couple boxes from a farm stand. Next summer we’ll need to do salsa.

*We still had plenty of pesto torte, pesto, zucchini relish, and frozen peppers. Next year I’ll need to do more.

*We got our fall baking and eating apples — Fuji’s the family fave — from a local orchard, and from an orchard in PA. 

*We’ve ordered 100 pounds of popcorn from a farm in PA — it’s still drying, but should be ready for pickup soon.  

This same time, years previous: of mice and men and other matters, when the dress-up ballgown finally fits, welcoming the stranger, the quotidian (12.8.14), zippy me, baked corn.

I scheduled my Moderna booster shot (and flu vaccine) for Friday afternoon. I’d been hearing that lots of people have been getting sick with the booster, and, with the wedding barreling down on us, I knew that taking 24 hours off to be sick was maybe not the best idea, but I really wanted to get this over with before the wedding.  

So for two days prior, I busted my butt getting all the stuff done. I cooked ahead, ran errands, did chores, made the kids’ to-do lists for the following day and lectured the whole family about expectations. To my husband, I was very clear: even though I might be sick all day, you have GOT to keep things moving, I said. And then, hoping to get in a few hours of good sleep prior to the vaccine kicking in, I went to bed early. 

At around four o’clock in the morning, I grew restless and achy, but when I got up in the morning, I actually felt pretty good, all things considered. I had energy to walk to the bathroom, and I was hungry for breakfast. I popped some Tylenol and went downstairs to make coffee. 

My husband had just come in from milking. He felt terrible, he said. He’d slept horribly and had a wicked headache. 

You’ll feel better after your coffee, I said.

And that’s when he confessed: he’d gotten his booster the day before, too, just a couple hours before me. He wasn’t going to tell me, he said. His plan was to be all cool and unaffected, and then later, he’d tell me all nonchalant-like.  

HA. His little I’m-so-cool plan backfired.

BIGTIME.

For the whole day: chills, rattling teeth, splitting headache, nausea, the works. I wasn’t too hot, either, mind you, but I wasn’t that bad.

It was sort of funny, but I was pissed, too. He’d sabotaged my day! Instead of resting and babying myself, I was making him tea, covering him with blankets, and overseeing the kids’ chores while he shivered and moaned on his bed of pain. 

my mom sent over a little care package for the sickies

That night, my simmering temper finally erupted. I didn’t care that he got the vaccine — that was FINE, that was GOOD — but he couldn’t just sabotage my carefully-laid plans and squander a precious wedding-prep day and then act like everything was all peachy cute. 

To make the restitution I demanded, he spent the next day working double-hard and now marital peace has been restored. 

Plus, we’re boostered.

Yay.

***

P.S. Sunday night, he had chills and achiness again (and another horrible night of sleep), and he discovered that his lymph nodes under his arms were wildly swollen. Monday was much better, though he was still draggy. And me? I’m totally fine, go figure.

P.P.S. About the Omicron variant: “For now, vaccinated people can reasonably continue to behave as they were — but many should feel urgency about getting booster shots.” (New York Times) GET YOUR BOOSTERS, PEOPLE.

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (12.7.20), “take out the trash”, the quotidian (12.7.15), all sorts of bolstered, my kids are weird, raisin-filled cookies.

Quotidian: daily, usual or customary;
everyday; ordinary; commonplace

Fruit on the bottom: cool idea.

In reality, not so hot: the jelly liquified and curdled the yogurt. (It still tasted fine.)

First thing I pressure cooked.

Latest food crush: homemade ramen.

I heart yogurt cheese.

So I made a bulk batch.

Twenty-four hours later.

Done!

By the quart: how he takes his tortilla chips.

When one is a size 14 (15?), running to the store for shoes isn’t an option; duct tape is.

Dress shopping via Facetime.

Sorry, bud. If you want long hair, you gotta deal.

I’ve always said the kids are my minions.

Christmas is coming! Hurry!

This same time, years previous: how we homeschool: Rebecca, Clymer and Kurtz, my sweet beast, the quotidian (12.4.17), the quotidian (12.5.16), oatmeal sandwich bread, in my kitchen: 6:44 p.m., cinnamon raisin bread, holding.