Maple Heights Farm

This week, Meghan (age 13) I spent a few hours canning cherries.We have about 18 jars and hope to do more this week.We have done brandied cherries (for ice cream) and cherry preserves (for our yogurt).I think next on the agenda is jam and more preserves.This project is easier than you would think especially when you have a cherry pitter that is as good as Meghan.She'll spend an hour at a time and do these by the gallon!Then I just have to make the syrup, cook it and pour it into jars.The kids want to open the jars and try them as soon as they are done.I wonder how much luck I'll have in keeping them until fruit season is over late in January (apples in the fall, oranges in December and into January -- not local but too good to pass up).After our cherry project (I'm hoping to get our next batch from our farmers' market) my plan is that we only can what is in the garden or at the farmers' market.

This week, my nephew Timmy is coming for the week.He wants the farm experience and boy is he going to get it.Max is going to have him stacking wood, there is vegetable gardening to be done and a goat to milk and pickles and relish to be made and pastured pigs to be moved and chickens to feed and farmers' market preparation then the poor kid will be hiking pine hill trail 3 times and hitting the bike trail!I think we'll send him home tired!

In our house, we are eating mostly local now.Our garden is more productive than it has ever been, providing us with peas, broccoli, limited corn, multi colored carrots, multi colored beets, winged (asparagus peas), three types of zucchini, summer squash, gherkin cucumbers, lemon cucumbers, pickling cukes, onions, shallots, herbs, cabbage, kohlrabi and raspberries!Of course we have our own beef and pork (though as you know from the farmers' market report) we are almost out until Tuesday.We also have our own milk (in very limited supply) from Meghan's goat, Echo.Meghan gets about a cup a day -- not quite enough as we go through 4 gallons per week.In addition to meat and milk we are baking bread, making granola and yogurt and purchasing cheese and a few additional items from the farmers' market.Our grocery bill was only about $50.00 last week and that is mostly for dairy and baking products and oatmeal and pasta.This week I don�t need any groceries (except the cherries).It feels pretty good to have such a limited grocery list each week now!

We are planting now for the fall too.We are starting carrots, broccoli, kale, peas, beans, Brussels sprout, winter squash, kohlrabi, turnip -- I know we are a bit late on some of these longer season vegetables, but I don't expect a frost until the middle of October -- and I'll see if Max will adapt my nice new chicken tractor into a cold frame to keep some of these veges going when the weather gets cold.