• Still picking typical green zucchini and less typical golden zucchini. They’re lookin’ pretty good.
• Pepper in the taco garden.
• Herb Barrel going strong.
• Using up the many eggs we are getting: Breakfast Burrito’s, Egg Muffins, Egg Wraps
• Wee little black copper marans
• Gettin’ the stink eye
• Apples on our tree! Still so excited to see this!

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We’ve had a number of spring like days this week. Brisk in the morning and slightly warm in the afternoon. Woo hoo! I’ve been loving it. Thanks to this glorious weather I went outside and tended to the flowerbeds this week.

• I even put Farm Kid2 to work trimming last year’s flower stems.

• While he did that, I cleaned duck poop off the creeping phlox. I would have rather have been the one cutting the stems.

• Kale is growing in the greenhouse.

• A few of the herbs I planted last week have germinated! I’m waiting impatiently for the others.

• Awhile ago Oliver, the pot bellied pig, busted through the door of his home… twice. Since then there has been a trough full of water keeping the door shut. This weekend Farmer John fixed the door.

• Heather, hellebore and crocus are blooming. I was shocked to see the crocus. It seems a tad early. But, it was a welcome surprise.

• I haven’t been doing much bird watching these days, but I did spot a Northern Flicker in a tree.

• When I make pizza dough, I make a double or triple batch. I put the extra’s in the freezer. This weekend I pulled one out for dinner. As it turned out our friends brought over pizza that night, so I turned my dough into cheesy bread.

I’m sure this is just a tease. But, this spring weather sure has been nice.

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• Farmer John made me a couple hundred soil blocks to start herb seeds. I have a project coming up in April I’m hoping to use the herbs in. We got a little later start on them than I was wanting, so my fingers are crossed that they germinate efficiently and grow to my desired size by then.

• There is a camellia blooming! Just one. But, that’s a good enough sign that spring is on its way.

• A couple weeks ago our car got stuck in the mud while trying to move Oliver and Lois. Unfortunately, that left two long horrible ruts. Fixing them is now on our to do list. Until then, though, the ducks get to enjoy the water that fills the ruts. They love it.

• After Olaf passed I knew we would need a new companion for Sven. An odd circumstance came about and brought us Vern, a 2 year old Nigerian Dwarf wether. Perfect! Sven is also a 2 year old wether. And, funny enough, Vern and Sven have the same coloring. Their markings are different, of course. But, they look very similar. In a week or two we should also be getting Vern’s mom, Pearl.

• We picked up our pork from the butcher. The bacon is amazing! The ham is good, too – probably would have been even better had I not slightly over cooked it.

• In April, I’m running a half marathon. I’m hoping to knock over 8 minutes off my best half time. I don’t know if it’s actually doable, but I’m going to go for it. I’ve upped my training schedule. I would also like to lose 12 pounds by then. Maybe if there isn’t quite so much of me to haul around, I will move quicker. I tend to lose weight very slowly, so 12 pounds may be a little optimistic. Even a 7 or 8 pound loss would be great. To lose the weight I’m trying to eat better. No crazy diet scheme. Just eat better. Less chips & salsa. Less fast food. Less soda. But… I want to eat food that is more exciting than a salad. I like salads, but I need a change. I tried two new recipes this week. They were both flops. I made California rolls. The first ones had crab, cucumber and cream cheese wrapped in nori and rice. Blech. I thought maybe it was the crab I didn’t like, so the next day I made the roll with tuna. Still, blech. Now, I think it is the nori. This was the first time I had bought it. I think I need to try a different brand. I also made hummus. I’ve been on a carrot and hummus kick. I get a garlic and oil flavor from the store that I love. I was hoping to recreate it. Nope. Mine was horrible. So horrible there’s no way I would eat it. I don’t even think Farmer John’s been eating it and he’s not too picky. My adventures in cooking this week didn’t work out. Darn it.

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I’m trying something new this year – an update each week about what’s going on around our farm and garden. I’m aiming for just a quick rundown of the week’s happenings. Hopefully the coming weeks are not as eventful as this last week has been. It’s been a rough start to 2016 – which means it can only get better.

• It has snowed off and on since before Christmas. We don’t get many snow days around here, so it’s been fun. The kids have gone sledding many, many times.

• A couple days the cold temperatures and wet ground resulted in slippery driving conditions. That’s always exciting coming and going on our hill.

• Despite having moved Olaf to the garage to keep him warmer, he passed away New Years Day. Olaf was our pet and will be missed. I think I took it especially hard because I just watched my grandpa pass away the night before.

• The power went out New Years Day. No problems with it. It just added another jab in an already crummy day.

• We still have Oliver and Lois, so Sven is living in a chicken run for now. It’s absolutely not ideal. But, I watched Oliver attack Olaf and I don’t want the same thing to happen to Sven. Also, Sven is frightened of both Oliver and Lois – for good reason, they aren’t nice to him.

• We purchased quarter of a beef from a friend and is now put away nicely in our freezer just waiting for dinnertime.

• It took two trips due to a stubborn hog, but the pigs went to the butcher. Soon we will have pork in the freezer again.

• For some strange reason our dog, Remi, followed Farmer John when he left to take the pigs to the butcher. John noticed he was following him down the driveway and told Remi to go home. John assumed he did. Apparently, he did not. A couple hours later, at bed time, the dog was nowhere to be found. Because it snowed that day, John was able to track him. He tracked his steps 4 miles down the road. Then, they just stopped. We put up a sign & posted about it on Facebook. The next morning we got 2 leads and thankfully we got Remi back. He’s been a bit sluggish since then, though. I’m hoping he’s just wore out from the evening’s adventures.

• I ordered herb seeds. Woo hoo! And, a few flower seeds. I’m going to give sunflowers a whirl once again. I don’t know why. I certainly can’t get them to grow.

• I snapped a few photos of a Varied Thrush, which was exciting. They are so skittish and fly off the moment they get sight of me. I was/am quite thrilled this guy stuck around long enough (twice) for me to take his pic.

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2015 has officially ended. Let’s look back at how our farm and gardening endeavors played out this past year. We had a fairly steady year with good food being grown and plenty of animals to keep us busy.

CHICKENS

We dabble in a variety of things related to farming and gardening, but chickens will always be a main stay for us. That being said, this year we did take a slight step back. We didn’t incubate eggs, we didn’t attend any shows or swaps, and Farm Kid2 decided not to continue with poultry in 4H. But, that doesn’t mean we’re short on chickens.

We chose not to incubate eggs this year. We did, though, have 3 broody hens hatch small clutches. Click here to read about the first hatch and click here to read about the second.

The majority of our birds are Rhode Island Reds and Easter Eggers. But, we still have two golden polish hens that are nearly 4 years old. They lay a fairly small egg and are such a great looking bird.

Mo, our Easter Egger rooster, has been demoted. For a number of years he was our top rooster. However, some young, cocky boys have moved up and taken his spot in the pecking order.

Three of our handsome fellas.

We were given this Old English Game bantam. I think he’s beautiful. He’s meant to be a show bird, but at the moment nobody in our family is showing poultry.

This wasn’t an outstanding egg year. One day, though, Farm Girl decided to count how many eggs we had.

We raised 10 birds for meat. Usually we roast the whole chicken, but one night Farmer John made chicken strips. They were delicious!

Four white leghorns, one buff orpington, one barred rock and one black australorp were added to our laying flock this year.

DUCKS

The ducks have given us a bit of excitement by each hen hatching eggs this year. That’s a first for us.

Our two Welsh Harlequin ducks.

Sally, our male Muscovy. The left photos are from January and February of this year. The right was taken in September. His looks changed significantly.

Both ladies sat on eggs this year, which was a fun experience for us. To read about the first hatch click here. And click here to read about the second hatch.

I’ve enjoyed watching how the Welsh Harlequin/Muscovy cross ducklings change as they mature.

Unfortunately, we lost Sally and one of the Welsh Harlequins to predators in the fall.

GOATS

The goats are cute as can be doing goat type things. You can read more about them here.

PIGS

We’ve had two sets of hogs this year. The first round Farm Kid1 raised 2 and sold them to earn money for a computer.

The second round was to fill our freezer, as well as to sell. The pigs were a Hampshire/Berkshire cross.

OLIVER & LOIS

A couple weeks ago we acquired a pot bellied pig named Oliver, and his friend Lois, a pygmy goat. My hope was we could be their forever home and they would live happily ever after with Sven and Olaf. Unfortunately, things aren’t working out as well as I had hoped. So, we are in the process of finding them a new home.

FLOWER BEDS

There wasn’t a lot of action this year in our flower beds. But, the same ol’ trusty trees, shrubs and perennials put on a pretty show mainly in the spring and summer months.

The ducks, unfortunately, are not great for the plants. They step on them. They sleep on them. They poop on them.

The deer also make flower gardening a challenge. Apparently some of our plants are quite tasty.

The only new additions to our flower beds were 10 lavender ‘grosso’ plants. They’re in an area that I’ve struggled with for years. I finally decided lavender was the thing to spruce it up.

PONDS

We have two small ponds that I love. Our farm critters as well as wild critters love them, too.

GARDENING FOR FOOD

Another thing we didn’t spend as much time on as in years past, was the garden. It is incredibly time consuming keeping up with the weeds and by the end of summer it had gotten a bit out of hand. We did harvest some produce, though. We got onions, potatoes, a few eggplant and squash, cherry tomatoes & herbs.

We tried the three sisters method in one area of the garden. Corn, beans and squash all growing together. It worked kind of . Everything grew. But, we tend to have trouble with corn and it didn’t grow fast enough before the beans grew tall. The squash (pumpkins & gourds) grew well, though.

Many of our seeds didn’t germinate this year. I think the birds got to them. Darn it. I should have had a fabulous showing of tall sunflowers mixed with viney cucumbers growing underneath. What I got was one sunflower. One.

This was not a great year for tomatoes. We only picked a handful of big, juicy red ones. It was so hot this summer, I actually think we didn’t water them enough. We did, however, get renegade yellow cherry tomatoes. They reseeded from last year and were a pleasant surprise.

Fruit. My favorite items to pick from the garden is the fruit. Our grape vines are finally producing well, we got a couple apples, lots of plums and lots of raspberries.

NEW PATIO

Our only big project of the year was pouring a much needed back patio. We decided to do stamped concrete, which was a lot of work. But, I’m so happy to finally have a patio. The ducks, too, are quite happy with the patio. It is one of their favorite places to hang out and poop.

AQUAPONICS

This was our first full year experimenting with aquaponics. We have three grow beds, one fish tank and a sump tank.

A good sized pump cycles the water and aquarium heaters keep it warm. Depending on the time of year we keep the water between 70 and 80 degrees.

We have a fan for circulation in the greenhouse.

Grown in the garden beds were/are peppers, Mexican sour gherkins, tomatoes, eggplant, mixed greens and okra. This growing method works very well.

I also started nasturtiums right in the garden bed and overwintered geraniums that loved the greenhouse.

We grow tilapia in the fish tank part of the aquaponics system. The fish aren’t growing as quickly as we thought they would. But, at the beginning of December we did finally catch a couple fish and have them for dinner. I was hoping they’d be good, and they were.

Whew! There were no major plant or animal changes this year. But, just keeping up kept us plenty busy. It’s so much work living this way, but so rewarding. I can’t wait to see what 2016 will bring.

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The big news this month is that we finally harvested a couple tilapia!
We’ve been waiting a year and a half for this day.
It’s been a fun learning experience growing produce in our aquaponics system. But, the thing I’ve been most looking forward to is getting to eat a fish.

As exciting (and yummy) as it was to eat this fella. He’s really not all that big for being in the tank for a year and a half. He only weighed about half a pound. Statistically he should have been 2 – 3 pounds by now.

I have two theories on why our fish aren’t growing as quickly as we expected. One – We aren’t feeding them enough. Or two – Their water is slightly too cold for optimal growth. This breed tends to grow larger in year round warm water.

Farmer John fried one fish for lunch. We fried the other for dinner. One small fish for a family of five wasn’t exactly an over abundance, but we made it stretch and enjoyed every bite.

We shredded up the fish fillets for tacos. Because we needed more protein for our tacos, I also diced and sauteed homegrown chicken.

One of my favorite meals just got better.
I could eat street style tacos for weeks and not get tired of them. I always make them with chicken. Now I can enjoy them with tilapia, too.

These tacos are so simple to make and so delicious. I always eat too many.

Ridgetop’s Chicken or Fish Street Style Tacos

• corn tortillas (fried in vegetable oil for about 30 seconds on each side)
• chicken (sauteed in vegetable oil and taco seasoning)
• fish (we used tilapia fillets, fried in butter)
• lettuce (chopped)
• shredded cheese (we like cheddar or jack)
• black olives (sliced)
• salsa (we use homemade, but whatever you like will work)

I can’t express enough how thrilled I am to harvest these fish. It is very rewarding to feed my family in this way.

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Just outside of Hillsboro is the community of Helvetia. If you’re in the area, Helvetia Tavern is the place to eat.

You go there for a burger, fries & onion rings. It’s simple. It’s greasy. It’s good.

When my Aunt & her family visit Oregon, we always eat here with them.

I have never heard one bad comment about the food or service.

I can’t speak about the tavern side. But, a place doesn’t stay open more than 90 years if things are crummy. So, I’m assuming the beer, spirits & company are also good. My dad celebrated his 21st birthday here many, many years ago.

The restaurant side of the building.

Left: Caps on the ceiling

Right: The menu
The prices are reasonable. However, bring your cash. They don’t accept plastic.

Bacon Cheeseburger & Onion Rings

On a side note, Helvetia Tavern is located near the Rice Rock Museum. It is also right next to Roloff Farms from TLC’s Little People Big World. So, if you’re checking out rocks or picking the perfect pumpkin, this would be a good place to grab a bite to eat.

It has also been in an episode of Grimm, which is filmed in and around Portland.

To see what others are sharing for the month of October check out write31days.com

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Keep Portland Weird has become the city’s slogan. Why we need to be weird, I don’t know. I appreciate weirdness when people step outside of the box to better themselves or community. But, weird, just to be weird, I don’t really get.

And wouldn’t ya know, near the Keep Portland Weird sign is Voodoo Doughnut. They are definitely a “weird”, but extremely popular doughnut shop.

Whoever thought of advertising underneath the slogan is a marketing genius.

Across SW 3rd from the Weird sign is Voodoo Doughnut.

The doughnut shop is located in the Skidmore/Old Town District of Portland. I think there is always a line to get your doughnuts.

The shop is small and there is always a wait. But, once you make it in the door there are many interesting decor items to hold your attention.

The menu includes many original doughnut flavors with names like Captain my Captain, Dirty Snowballs & Portland Cream.

The shop is cash only, so make sure to bring your paper money.

There is seating outside.
Notice the pink box on the first table. That’s the very recognizable pretty pink Voodoo Doughnut box.

Left: The Loop & The Dubble Bubble Doughnuts. Oh man, that bubble gum one is delicious. Way too sweet, but so good

Right: The front doughnut is what Voodoo is known for, the Bacon Maple Bar. I’ll be honest, I didn’t love it. The cold bacon just didn’t do anything for me and my taste buds. Although, I thought it would be good if I brought it home and heated it up just a tad. One day I will try that.

Well, there it is, a peek at our wildly popular doughnut shop.

To see what others are sharing for the month of October check out write31days.com

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We can’t drive through Tillamook without stopping at the Cheese Factory. We’ve been there a thousand times & I’m sure we’ll go a thousand more times.

The factory makes cheese. Fabulous Tillamook Cheese! From a viewing area upstairs, cheese lovers can watch how it is made. I have peeked through those windows many, many times.

Cheese Samples

Cheese curds, aka squeaky cheese
We always have to buy a bag or two (or three). They’re wonderfully cheesy, salty, and squeaky!

Upstairs

Making Cheese

Curds are pressed into a 40ish pound block.
The blocks are vacuum sealed.
The sealed blocks head up to be aged 60 days to 3 years.

Packaging the Cheese

If a block weighs too much a bit gets sliced off. Those extra pieces are in the 2 bins at the bottom right.

Packaged cheese

Heading out to be shipped

The kids watching the cheese packaging process.

Ice Cream

Yay for Tillamook Cheese! Good ol’ Tillamook cheddar is my favorite. When we’re out of cheese, I say we’re out of food because most things I eat include cheese. My love for cheese I’m sure is a big part of why I {heart} the Tillamook Cheese Factory.

To see what others are sharing for the month of October check out write31days.com

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The garden has gone crazy, so we spent much of August picking & preserving our garden bounty.

THE MAIN GARDEN

Everything is growing like crazy, weeds and vegetables both.

Many recently hatched birds have been hanging out in the garden.

LEFT TOP & BOTTOM: A variety of squash and pumpkins are growing in the garden.
RIGHT: A first for us: Grapes! The same couple grape plants have been struggling to grow. Deer, elk, and our own dog have stunted their growth year after year. But this year they are growing safely inside the garden fence and they are thriving.

LEFT: Eggplant and its fabulous purple flowers.
RIGHT: I love the marigolds in my herb row! Must plant them again next year.

LEFT: Green Peppers.
RIGHT: Farmer John used the green peppers, as well as other garden goodies to make salsa. Yum!

LEFT: So much mint!
RIGHT: I turned a lot of the mint into simple syrup.

LEFT: Cabbage growing in the garden.
TOP RIGHT: Once picked, some of the cabbage was turned into coleslaw.
BOTTOM RIGHT: I baked rolls and put the coleslaw on a pulled pork sandwich. So good!

OUTSIDE THE GARDEN FENCE

LEFT: Corn. The shortest corn I’ve ever seen. It’s not even as tall as I am.
RIGHT: Short or not, they’re still producing ears of corn. They are just growing very close to the ground and they are quite tasty.

LEFT: Speckled Swan Gourd.
RIGHT: Birdhouse Gourd.

LEFT: Sunlight Pumpkins.
TOP & BOTTOM RIGHT: The chickens love the Sunlight Pumpkins. Boo!

LEFT: I know the chickens like to pick their own tomatoes right off the plant, but this was a first. She came and snagged one right from my bowl.
RIGHT: What was left of my garden harvest after the chicken thief stopped by.

FRUIT TREES

The plums ripened and were delish. However, the deer ate as many as we did.

HARVESTING & PRESERVING

Farmer John canned beets and dilly green beans.

LEFT: I chopped herbs like sage and cilantro in a food processor, drizzling in a little olive oil. I then took the herb/oil mix and froze them to use over the winter.
RIGHT: Most of the basil, though, has been turned into pesto. Then used in dishes such as this.

I tried taking zucchini chunks and transforming them to fruit snacks. They were just so-so, really not that good. They were weird and chewy. We ate them, but I certainly haven’t made them again.

LEFT: I also used the zucchini chunks to make faux pineapple. This turned out far better than the fruit snacks. So far we’ve only used it on pizza, but I can’t wait to try it in a stir fry.
RIGHT: Instead of the same ol’ zucchini bread, I made Pineapple Zucchini Bread. It was a nice change.

August certainly was a productive month in the garden.

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