Birds in flight

Today I was playing outside with the chickens. Dolly (in white) decided the snow was too cold for her little feet, so she decided to fly to the coop.  It was so funny.  She is now my little Super Bird! I am thinking about making her a little sweater with SUPER BIRD on it :) 

Dolly takes flight

Stuffed Acorn Squash

In case you weren't already sure of this fact, I have the best husband! He has been such a great partner, and each and every day I thank God for putting him in my life. Today I am especially amazed by his cooking skills. 

All the ingredients for tonight's meal are from our Garden, except for the venison that was harvested by a friend of ours. 

I am disappointed that you cannot smell how wonderful my house smells. As I am thinking about how wonderful dinner smells, and I am realizing how hungry I am, my husband appears with the meal. The star of the dish is the Acorn Squash that was picked just hours prior. 

He stuffed the squash with a barbecued pulled venison and veggies and a panko crumble on top for crunch. It is searched on a bed of garden veggies. Oh my, I certainly do not deserve this...but I'm sure going to enjoy it!!

Fall Drive

I am such a fan of the seasons. Each season offers such a variety of activities, sights, as well as the different temperatures. Although I do love each season. Fall may be my favorite. The changing colors of the trees, the sound as the leaves fall from the trees, the crispness in the air. I love it all. Today we went for a drive to see some of the fall colors and nature did not disappoint. It was spectacular. The colors, are beyond words. So instead of even trying, I will shut up and show you (but even photos do not do it justice)

Fall Harvest

Fall is officially here. The trees are changing color, there is a crispness to the air, and the garden is nearing its end. Tomatoes have slowed, still getting a few tomatoes a day, but I can see the end is near. The corn is still on the plant, this week will be its last and we will pick all the corn next week. This week we were blessed with quite a few acorn squash, green beans and a few small summer squash. It has been such a wonderful "first" year of our garden. We learned a bunch, and I'm already starting to plan for next springs garden :) but for now, off to dinner.

Organic Peas 

Organic Green Beans

Corn

We picked a bunch of corn today. It would have been better to leave in the field a little longer but with the pending frost warning, we opted to err on the side of too early.   

Popcorn versus Sweet Corn: Although the popcorn has more starches (and tastes nasty raw) I was more surprised to learn that there is a big difference in the kernel itself. You can see in the photo, the popcorn has smaller, almost pointy kernels. They even feel pokey to the skin when caring the cob. I was amazed.  

Popcorn (left) Sweet Corn (right)

Did you know? Did you know that the hair on each cob of corn, attach to a different kernel. Each kernel has one strand of hair.  So weird. I had no clue. 

Each kernel has a hair attached

Living in the north we should have planted a quicker growing, shorter growing time, for our corn. It was hard to drive past all the fields of corn that was producing such huge amounts of corn. Of course most of it is GMO corn, which I have no interest in. However, there are hybrid versions that will offer a shorter timeline. We will look into that on the off season. 

So, the whole corn experience has taught us a lot. We will take what we learned and hopefully have better results next year.