Fig Pickin' Good

                                           Our baby fig tree
One of the first items on my agenda for our homestead was to plant a fig tree.  The fig has such a rich biblical history and is one of the most nutritious fruits God created.  And they are delicious little jewels.  So we planted a Brown Turkey Fig tree at the earliest appropriate time here on our 'stead.  An unusual characteristic of the fig tree as I understand it is that they bear fruit before they bear leaves.  If this occurs it is a sign of a healthy tree.  Well our little tree has been through several stages - at first it had several big leaves, then brown dying leaves, then big green leaves with some baby green figs, then most recently (not pictured) no leaves and several baby green figs!  At first we thought the grasshoppers had eaten all of our leaves and left the fruit until I did some research!  God's creation continues to amaze me!  Of course I was not expecting to have a harvest of figs this year from our little tree but was certainly and hopefully looking forward to next year.  Well last week I was talking to a dear friend and she asked if I liked figs.  I said I love figs!  She said that she had three trees in her backyard that were full of ripe figs.  I told her that Little Ricky and I would be over to harvest!  She met us there and we visited and picked.  I actually was up on a ladder in the fig tree-tops just a pickin' away!  Surprised myself - yes - climbing a ladder!  We picked and picked and picked.  We got hot, sweaty, sticky and itchy.  But we brought home over thirteen pounds of figs - beautiful sweet juicy little jewels!  Now figs won't last very long after being picked so I washed them, bagged, and refrigerated them and began looking up recipes on the internet for fig preserves.  The next morning, after not having slept well at all due to hormonal imbalance - but that's another post - I was tired and sore from being on a ladder and fig pickin'!  My dear sweet husband, Ricky, and of course Little Ricky, offered to help me knowing that I was not quite myself physically or mentally, being sleep deprived.  We did it!  We created and put up sixteen pints of fig preserves!  What a blessing from our Lord Jesus and our dear friend!  And what an accomplishment we feel we have made - canning and putting up food for the future for the family.  And our precious little jars will make great gifts too!  God knows our desires and from out of nowhere he has provided our family with my favorite fruit.  And an abundance at that.  God is good!  Then after the preserves production Ricky created some gluten-free bread in the breadmaker to enjoy with our preserves!  What a delightful next morning we had eating homemade gluten-free bread toasted with butter, spread with fig preserves, and of course topped with crispy bacon.  Praise God from whom all blessings flow! 

"Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart."  Psalms 37:4

                                            Clean, de-stemmed, sliced figs

                                               Figs, sugar, lemon slices

                                                        Stir and begin the simmering

                 Mashed and after an hour or two of simmering to your desired thickness

                      Put up in sterilized jars with lids and rings - hot water bath to seal

Ricky Picks Up Chicks and The Incredible Egg

A couple of weeks ago I sent Ricky into town to pick up chicks.  Well that's what he is going around telling folks!  Yes, he did go into to town to the post office to pick up a box of baby (day old) chicks!  Twenty-five little cheepers!  Golden Buffs/Red Star.  Guaranteed layers.  And they made it safely all the way from Connecticut!  If you'll recall that is where the Ricardos of the iconic "I Love Lucy" show lived in the country and enjoyed their chicks and eggs experience!  Anyway, back to our chicks.  They are still thriving and growing and eating, drinking, and pooping alot!  We're still monitoring their environmental temperature and keeping them indoors.  Who knew babies were so much work?  Guess I did.  They are adorable and we are looking forward to introducing them to the rest of the flock once their feathers are all out and they can regulate their own temperature.  And since we've cleared out the flock of the extra roosters it will be a much more pleasant experience for them.  Speaking of the rest of the flock, which we got back in February of this year, one of them decided to lay an egg!!!  Yes!  It was last Saturday when Ricky was butchering the remaining unwanted roosters and there was one that was named Shadow which was questionable in its sex.  Well, she showed us!  She laid an egg!  Incredible! Thought she had better show herself for what she was pronto!  She has faithfully laid one egg a day since.  We are very excited for the egg-laying to begin.  So we now have our one Dominicker rooster named Hannah - well, you see when Hannah was a baby Little Ricky chose her as his favorite and named her Hannah, but it turned out she wasn't a she, she is a he, so we are keeping him.  Leave it to us to have a rooster named Hannah!  And I might say he is a very quite the gentleman rooster.  So we have eleven hens, all layers we hope, and our additional twenty-five little chick-a-dees.  Gotta start thinking of all the ways to enjoy the Incredible Edible Egg!

                                                   The box containing our 25 chicks!

                                                  Their temporary home.

                                                    Our incredible first egg!

                                              Little Ricky and his pet Rooster, Hannah

Country Fried Garden Fare and Aunt Bea's Pickles?

We have so enjoyed the bounty from our garden thus far!  And from what we can tell it's only just begun producing.  We did not plant too much of a variety of veggies and fruits simpley because this being our first time ever to garden we wanted to "go slow".  But we've just recently harvested our 3rd watermelon and it was 37.2 pounds!  And red, sweet, juicy, and delicious! And I also pickled MORE pickles last weekend - and added to my regime pickled yellow squash!  Now, since you can't really test the pickles until they are done "pickling", at least six weeks and on, I understand, I made the remark to Ricky "what if, with all of my pickling efforts, we open a jar later and find we are stuck with jars and jars of "Aunt Bea's pickles"?  Remember the episode of "The Andy Griffith Show" where Aunt Bea enters her pickles at the county fair and they are inedibley horrible?  How can I/we know?  Guess you'll have to stay tuned! And I must admit that we have really enjoyed country fried garden fare including a mixture of green tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, yellow squash, zucchini, okra, cucumber, onion, and green pepper!  The more variety the merrier the fry!  Dip in a little homemade ranch dressing and yummo!

Just Call Me "Pickles"

Do you recall one of the best ever comedies in the history of TV?  Next to "I Love Lucy", of course, was "The Dick Van Dyke Show".  Well on that show, which we continue to enjoy in re-runs, was Buddy's wife, Pickles.  After this weekend Ricky says he will be calling me "Pickles".  I went into the kitchen to try my hand at making dill pickles from our cucumbers we are harvesting from our first garden.  Enjoying the creativity of it - adding whatever spices (garlic, onion, black peppercorns, red pepper flakes, dill, and so much more) you please - I decided also to pickle okra, then jalapeno peppers, then a jalapeno-banana-cherry pepper combination, and then - and why not - green tomatoes.  I couldn't stop.  I was getting addicted to the act of creating pickles!  What's next?  Pickled squash?  Pickled watermelon rind?  Pickled eggs?  Hummmmmm....