It was a very domestic Cat weekend! On Friday I played Hostess with the Mostess and had Jen and Ariel over for dinner. We had mojitos, cornbread, four bean salad, teriyaki beef and chicken kabobs, and ice cream from the ice cream truck for dessert.

Saturday Ryan and I went for a drive in the country, in particular, the area of the country that's close to his work and a prime candidate for our next house. More and more I'm thinking that I would like to settle down in this area and will take whatever job is nearby rather than searching far and wide for jobs prior to relocating. Moreover, it seems that we would be able to afford a nice house with 2-5 acres of garden/farm space. Ryan's commute would be the same distance but less trafficky than it is now. The roads would be perfect for Ryan's biking, and I'd probably join him sometimes since the main reason I don't now is the traffic and crazy drivers. Plus it's only a little bit out in the country, so there's still a CVS, Walgreens, Shoprite, and Superfresh within 15 minutes. We are thinking that we want to pay off the mortgage here first, though. I think we could do it in five years without much change in lifestyle, possibly four years if we really put our minds to it.

Where was I? Oh, we went for a drive in the country. The main point of the drive was to go blueberry picking. NJ is the source for most of the east coast's blueberries. They are only $1.60/lb to U-pick, and of course I'm itching for more farming, so it was a perfect way to spend a Caturday morning.
It's me!

It's Ryan! This picture really shows off how loaded with berries the bushes were. Hopefully my future blueberry bushes will be just as successful. I asked the lady working the place if she knew how old the bushes were...she said from the 1950's! Ideally mine would live as long but still produce plenty of berries in their younger years.

5.5 lbs of blueberries.

Blueberry cobbler, using Ryan's grandma's recipe. NOM! That used 8 cups of berries.

Sunday, with another 8 cups of berries, I performed my first canning ever! Canning is fairly particular since you have to follow instructions precisely in order to not get botulism. It was quite stressful, with me not used to the routine and all the boiling liquids, so Ryan helped a lot. My jars formed a an airtight seal, though, so I think we're good. These are blueberry syrup. I got the idea because we had waffles the other morning and I used the liquid from the bottom of the cobbler as syrup. Very tasty. So I looked up an actual recipe for canned blueberry syrup and followed that. Now we can enjoy New Jersey farm goodness in the middle of winter.

There's still one cup of berries left, so tonight I'll be making blueberry muffins. Then tomorrow morning I go back to Maine :( But Ryan will be coming up after about a week for his vacation.

There are a few noticeable changes in the garden since last week:

First honeydew melon of the year! It's kind of flat on one side. Sometimes that means that only part of the flower was pollinated, so not all the seeds were fertilized and the unfertilized part of the fruit doesn't develop as large as the rest. We'll see...well, Ryan will, because I'll be away :(


Potatoes have sprouted en masse. These are the "Yellow Finn" variety, which are supposed to be similar to Yukon Gold. In the back you can see I ordered more seed potatoes than we had room for, so I'm growing some in old Tidy Cat buckets. You plant them with the bucket half full, let them sprout a bit, then fill the bucket to the top. That elongates the underground stem from which they put out the new potatoes, increasing the yield dramatically.

On the left, a Yellow Finn sprout. On the right, a Mountain Rose potato sprout. They have pink skin and flesh, and apparently pink tinges on the leaves, too! Hmm, come to think of it the inner parts of the Yellow Finn leaves DO look kinda yellow...

I also planted "Purple Majesty" blue potatoes for fun. Apparently they have blue-purple-tinged leaves. I'm detecting a pattern!

The kitchen is being overrun with squash and pumpkins!

The squash factory, with four more in production!

I have not been this happy in a loooooong time. It feels so good to be at home. Home is where I belong!

Grem with the first homegrown carrots of the year. The carrots, like Grem, are not that long but are plump and juicy.

Watering the carrots (you can see the new grass around the shed, and a little of the trellis peeking about from behind my head):


It's hard to tell from the picture, but the squash plants on the left are waist high. The pumpkin plants on the right are about 10 feet long.

The crookneck squash and mini pumpkins are crazy fast growing (crooknecks in place of zucchini this year). This is after we had two squash with dinner and gave one to our neighbor.

This was supposed to be a full-size pumpkin plant...I think it cross-pollinated with a honeydew melon and yielded this 10-inch-long yellow/green speckled weirdo:

The other garden stuff isn't as interesting to look at right now. 3/4 of one big bed looks empty but there should be carrot seedlings and potato plants emerging any day now. Note to self: planted spinach today in back square bed (Ferry Morse "Teton Hybrid"). Planted a billion containers today, too: pickling cukes, nasturtiums, catnip, and pole beans.

Three days until I go home for a week!

I'm still voraciously planning my farm. I decided that I want to raise chickens and pigs for meat, in addition to the turkeys. The chickens I would process myself, but the pigs would go to the professionals and come back in neatly wrapped packages. Pigs only take 6 months to grow from piglet size to 250+ pounds! Hence the expressions, "pigging out," "eats like a pig," etc.

You know where this is going, right? My "yearly food challenge" ten years or so from now will be to grow all of our fruit, veggies, poultry, and pork for a year. For the two of us, a year's supply of the meat would be roughly one pig, ten turkeys, and eighty chickens. Yes, I said eighty chickens, but don't freak out yet. Chickens only take three months to reach eating size, so we could maintain a flock of 20ish birds, with the itty bitties replacing the ones sent to freezer camp.

I don't see us ever raising beef or dairy cows, though. Even though filet mignon is tasty, 1000+ pounds of beef would take us years to get through. We don't use all that much dairy, so it would be a waste to have a milk cow. Plus both are more long-term animals (as opposed to 6 months or less), so veterinary care would be an added cost.

Ryan thinks I'm nuts. He was fine with the idea of 3 chickens for eggs, but he is greatly overestimating the amount of work and expense that the other animals will require. After all, people have been raising livestock for centuries. I've done my research. Maybe he's forgetting how tasty bacon is...I'll have to buy some while I'm down and persuade him that way.

So, as you might know, I tend to get FIXATED on things. OBSESSED, you might say. In May I was totally enthralled with American Idol (yeah, yeah, I know). In June I got sucked into Lost and watched all 5 seasons online. But now I'm at the end and have to wait until 2010 for the last season to come out. My July obsession has turned out to be...

Our next house.

I seriously cannot stop thinking about it and planning the garden/grounds. Let's see, I thought of even more stuff I'd like to grow: an olive tree (indoor/greenhouse), mushrooms (in the basement using a kit), and Christmas greenery/trees (which I sort of am now, but they're small and in pots).

Now a greenhouse like this would be nice (and affordable, about $800):

But why settle for a "nice" greenhouse when such a MAGNIFICENT CONSERVATORY exists? Drool...
Couldn't find a price, but I'm guessing $10-25K range. At least it would add significant value to the house since it's additional living space.

I also decided that I want to raise turkeys (and potentially chickens later on, depending on the turkey success) for meat. I think I could handle "processing" them, and it would make our homegrown meals all the more home grown. Turkeys are way more meat per slaughter, which sounds appealing to me, since I'm sure hell would freeze over before Ryan would help me out with the killing and plucking and whatnot. Plus turkey is Jib's favorite meat. Ryan says, "Uh, let's just start with the egg-laying chickens and see how it goes."

"Gobble, gobble."

With all the agriculture and poultry and whatnot, it seems like my Mazda is not going to cut it as the cargo-carrying vehicle. We may need *gasp* a truck. Maybe a small used pickup. Nothing fancy or expensive, just something to haul big stuff in.

I draw the line at a tractor. Maybe a riding lawnmower with a cart behind it, but no tractors! I do not think tractors are sexy.

So, who's up for Thanksgiving dinner 2015 or so? Homegrown turkey, mashed potatoes, yams, green beans, carrots, corn, apple pie, and pumpkin pie. The cranberry sauce will have to be store-bought...I don't think a cranberry bog would be too practical for the number of cranberries we eat.