Hearts Full of Joy

endless winter

we have had perpetual snow since december. it has melted twice, i believe, only to snow again the next day. we have had snow falling for 4 days at a time without stopping. not typical weather for these parts. in some ways it has been cozy and peaceful, but what has affected me the most is the complete lack of sunshine. the sun has only come out about 5 times since christmas. i'm very aware of this because i need the sun to take photos for my shop. so things pile up, awaiting photos, and then i scramble, hoping to get as many things photographed as i can before the cloud cover comes again. but i feel so energized whent eh sun does show itself that i fell as if i could accomplish anything! it's almost time to prune our fruit trees, and to be honest, i'm having difficulty believing that our trees, or anything else in our yard, could still be alive after this winter. quite dramatic feelings, but there it is.

going nutty

one of the fun finds i made at the dutchman's general store last month was a 5 lb bag of cracked pecans. to my surprise, no one could resist shelling them, and just by leaving them out on the counter, the shelling job was suddenly done. it's somehow much yummier to bake with and eat pecans that we shelled ourselves.

that was a welcome discovery, because this fall we have planted our own pecan tree,

and two chestnut trees,

and an almond.

 

our trees are still babies. these photos represent what they hope to grow up to be.

in the last year we have planted 14 fruit trees, 4 nut tress, 5 grapes, a raspberry patch, 3 blackberries, 3 blueberries, rhubarb, asparagus, cranberries, and 25 strawberries.

maybe we have gone overboard, that seems to be my tendency.

and maybe we are just completely nutty, but.....

it feels really, really good.

from the bounty of the earth

one of my most delightful experiences this fall was discovering the dutchman general store in cantril, iowa. a friend took me to this mennonite store (where you can watch happy rosy cheeked children playing in their traditional clothing. we drove through scenic, rolling, autumn farmland, and i repeated this magical journey for my in-laws when they visited.

i came home with boxes of apples, pears, and tomatoes, delicious and decorative squash, bulk spices and other goodies that i haven't been able to find here in the midwest, like millet, flax seed, unrefined sugar. oh! and unbelievably yummy dark dutch cocoa. and all at great prices! dreamy!  

i am enjoying a continuing love affair with canning this fall. the apples and pears combined made scrumptious juice, apple/pear sauce, and my favorite sauce that i discovered last year by accident: follow the apple pie filling recipe on the minute tapioca box (using both pears and apples), cut the sugar by 1/3, and cook until very juicy, then can it to put over pancakes, waffles, etc. so yummy!

i used the tomatoes to make surprisingly delicious fresh chunky past sauce and salsa.

we had fun with crabapples again.

and have been canning more chicken and beans with the new pressure canner.

we've picked apples at baxter's vineyards down the street more than once this fall, and on our first visit found 10 old blue glass canning jars waiting for a new owner. here they are with spices and goodies from the dutchman's store.

now they are full of apple/pear juice. somehow so much funner than clear glass jars.

i'm still drying apples from our last apple picking at baxter's last week.

i thrill at the bounties of autumn.

ode to an autumn day

a sunny autumn day brings healing to my soul.

~these 2 photos by tashi~

 

this was the view from my living room window yesterday. perhaps it is because i was born in october, but my heart and soul come alive in autumn in a way that doesn't happen any other time of year. i feel the warmth of god's love in the golden autumn glow, and i am filled with wonder and awe at the beauty of his creations.

we have had precious few sunny days this fall, and today is rainy again. but the sunny days that have come have been perfectly spectacular. the mississippi has been a deep clear blue, and so have the skies. everytime i look out a window, i see leaves swirling by. 

my budding photographer tashi has been taking spectacular photos of the autumn scenery. this is a still life she set up for a digital photography assignment:

 

on a lower note, i have finally sifted through all of our recovered photos and discovered that although we recovered almost as many photos as we lost (over 14,000), they were mostly corrupted copies of just a few photos. and strangely, we recovered the photos from every friends' blog post that we have ever looked at. interesting to see how a computer's memory works. i am saddened to have lost so many. but many are backed up. and it was very interesting to take an abbreviated trip through the last 5 years. it caused me to think about my priorities: what i save and don't save, what i take photos of and what i don't, and most importantly, what i WANT to save and photograph and what i don't from here on out. mostly i am grateful that every experience in life presents me with learning opportunities.

one more from the garden

a favorite flower pic that i had forgotten
 
the bees loved the allium (flowering onions), and so did i!

flower magic

after much patience, coaxing, and some fertilizer, my flower bed is reaching for it's full potential, and we are blessed by their beauty.

my free flowers from the temple gardener, mixed with marigolds i planted earlier.

dahlia

another dahlia

dinner plate hibiscus - so excited that the dahlia's and hibiscus are perennials!

note: i will not be posting photos of the vegetable garden. it was not as successful as the flower garden, and is not photo-worthy.

life on the mississippi

the flora along the river has been so lovely that i stuck my camera in the car last week so that i could stop and snap some photos when i got the chance.

across from davids chamber:

behind the red brick store:

where warsaw st meets highway 96:

free flowers!

more blessings from the overflow of the temple gardens:

this is an extra blessing that i didn't anticipate that living near the temple would bring. tuesday i brought home and planted about $250 worth of free flowers - extras from the temple flower beds! i arrived on the scene of the flower give-away later than most, and i wasn't absolutely in love with what was left for me. but i do hate waste, and as i was the last one left to gather the left-overs, i brought home more than i initially planned on, and even brought home some that i didn't really like. but once i got them all planted, i loved everyone of them! some were a little scraggly and stressed, but i am giving them extra care in hopes that they will make a beautiful comeback. lots of zinnias and floss flowers, and some that i don't know what they are. i planted them among my marigolds, snapdragons, allysum, etc., and hope they are bunny-resistant. all of the beautiful salmon pink and ruby red double petunias i planted a month ago have been nibbled to ground, never to return. and just after getting all 170 new flowers planted and bringing brock to see the results, we found a baby bunny hiding in the zinnias!
i have also planted a japanese maple, two hydrangeas, six "dinner plate" hibiscus, and five dahlias in this front garden, plus shasta daisies and sedum - the last two free from a friend's garden! brock pulled out two shrubs to make room for the maple and hydrangeas. we also planted two more hydrangeas and miscellaneous flowers in the back yard. the hydrangeas are all the new ever-blooming variety in red, pink, and blue. i want to eventually get this front garden filled in with perennials, but for this year, $250 worth of free annuals will do!

usually i feel that my flower photos are lovelier than the real thing, but this time i couldn't take a photos that i felt did these new flowers justice. they are really more pretty than this photo woud lead you to believe.

the mulberry experiment

i abhor waste. i keep ridiculously small scraps of fabric, carefully saved in ziplock bags. i can't bear wasted food, or wasted anything. i suspect it was bred into me by my pioneer ancestors.
whatever the reason, i love to find uses for things that seem less than useful.

we work and work and work to get certain fruits and vegetables to grow, and then some are just given to us without effort. the second type tend to go unappreciated, and fall to the ground unnoticed. i so enjoyed (and am still enjoying the rewards of) my crab apple project last fall.

this spring/summer mulberries have been the unappreciated fruit that i felt determined to make into something yummy and useful.  first i made a batch of mulberry syrup - yummy! next, a batch of mulberry jam - very yummy too! my syrup turned out a little thick, and my jam is a little runny, so they are similar consistencies...but both are delish!

the down side of working with mulberries: removing the stems is somewhat labor intensive, and they have lots of seeds.
upside: they grow abundantly for free, and they taste really good.

i enjoyed my jam making enough that also i made some fresh freezer jam from strawberries that needed to be used - really, really good! my family is enjoying all three efforts, and that is satisfying....and good for the kids who got tired of gathering mulberries, but now feel a sense of accomplishment as they eat the mulberry jam and syrup.

berry good

savoring the handful of strawberries we get each day, and
discovering mulberries. two huge mulberry trees hang onto our property and drop hundreds of berries daily. we're finding that gathering them off the lawn is a nice evening family activity. this photos shows last night's gatherings. even little miss 2 years old can gather, but doesn't understand how to avoid stepping on the ungathered. i've googled and found lots of yummy recipes. should we enjoy them all fresh and raw, or make jams, mousses, muffins, cobblers, and more?
nothing tastes better then freshly home-grow, picked when ripe, pesticide free berries.

we're hoping for raspberries this summer, and blackberries and blueberries next summer.