...Like crazy, with all the rain we have had! We've been harvesting lettuce and onions for a while now. The broccoli plants are huge and bushy, but no broccoli yet.


The squash is doing well, in spite of the frost damage we had a couple of weeks ago. Its vines creep along the ground under the corn, and Daniel trained it up one wall of the enclosure.


The tomatoes look promising. These are the plants that Jessica and I started from seeds. They did NOT like the transplant process, and I worried that we might lose them altogether. But they are surviving, and we were so excited when they finally bloomed!


...I'm already dreaming about salsa...

Rainy season has finally come to our side of the mountains, and everything is greening up.


The neighbors have done their planting, and the thirsty earth is grateful for the soft rains the Lord has sent.


The promise of a corn harvest...


Pumpkin sprouts in our back yard...


This cutie is in my back yard, too. :o)


A pretty something-or-other nearby. I do not know what these are!


The clouds start to gather around 2 o'clock each afternoon. They don't look like much at first but when we see them, we know it will be raining within the hour.

I love the comfortable, predictable rhythm of rainy season.

We get fresh cream from the dairy farm down the road, and our favorite thing to make with it is fresh butter. Recently, they gave us a really good price on a big bucket of cream, so we whipped up several pounds of butter and stocked our freezer! This is how we make it:



A good old-fashioned butter churn would be more picturesque, but since we don't have one we use my stand mixer. We put the cream into the bowl and beat at high speed for a few minutes. How much time it takes depends on how heavy the cream is. This time, it only took a minute or two, but with "milkier" cream, it can take up to fifteen minutes.


Once the butter fat has separated from the buttermilk (it will sound sloshy in the mixer or churn), we stop the mixer and pour off the liquid, patting the butter to squeeze out drops of buttermilk. (We save all the buttermilk for making pancakes or biscuits.) At this point, Caroline Ingalls would rinse the butter in cold water. This makes it keep longer. But we have a freezer, so we skip that part...

Add 1/4 to 1/2 tsp. salt to the butter (depending on how much you have) and mix again. Then press the butter into a mould of some sort. We line the mould with plastic wrap with which to wrap the butter up for storage.


Since this was not for immediate consumption, it went into a paper bag and then to the freezer.

What's great about making our own butter:

** Our children know how butter is made.

** We know what's in it, that the cream was fresh and hormone-free.

** It is as salted (or un-salted) as we want it.

** It's fun to make our own!

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ Addendum ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Making Butter From Your Cream

You may have never come across such a good deal on cream as we did. However, I'm sure you have seen great deals on certain grocery items, especially produce and perishables, that were hard to pass up. Well, don't pass them up! If it is something that you can use, then buy it and "make butter".

Those bananas that are half-black and sacked up for quick sale at a fraction of the regular price? Buy them, take them home and peel them. Freeze them in plastic containers or Ziploc bags in portions that are just right for your favorite Banana Nut Bread recipe. "Make butter"!

Found marked-down yogurt a little past its freshness date? It's likely still good, but needs to be consumed quickly, or frozen... Hmmm, frozen yogurt pops, anyone? "Make butter"!

Onions and peppers can be chopped and stored in the freezer, ready for your recipes. Broccoli and other veggies a little past their prime may not be good for eating raw, but are still fine for steaming and putting into soups. "Make butter"!

They don't just put items on sale for the freshness date, but also for other reasons, such as overstocking the item. If it is something that your family will use, then stock up! Change up your weekly menu a bit to accommodate the goodies you found, and freeze what you do not use.

..."Make butter"!

Friday is almost gone, and I am just now remembering to do my Food on Fridays post!

Today I am featuring the steak that Daniel brought home recently.

Meet T-Bone:


If you think it looks a little fresh, you're right.


T-Bone still has some growing to do, so these city-slickers-turned-ranchers are learning how to fatten him up. If you have any pointers, I am all ears!


He has just learned to eat grass, and we also give him feed. We have told the children that T-bone is not a pet, and named him carefully to remind us of that.

Just have to be careful not to look at those big, sweet, brown eyes with the long lashes...