Experimenting With Pickles

Since we have been fortunate enough to be having a bumper crop of pickling cucumbers it has given Lisa and I a chance to experiment with some different kind of pickles.  We already know that our bread & butter pickles are delicious and have turned out well and so have our dill spears.  Yesterday we decided to try making whole dill pickles and dill pickle slices or sometimes referred to as Hamburger dills.  It will be a few weeks before we will know how the whole pickles turned out but we will be trying our slices later today.  We will be doing some more experiments by making zesty bread & butter pickles soon but not today because today Lisa and I are headed to Pigeon Forge to visit a very good friend, Jean, who will be in Pigeon Forge for a family reunion.  While we are in the Pigeon Forge area we are going to check it out since we have not really had a chance to yet.  Tim and George will be golfing so it will give Lisa and I a chance to check out things that the guys would not care about doing.  Should be a fun day!

A Visitor To The Farm

We started the morning off down in the orchard harvesting and while Lisa and I were busy picking cucumbers  Lisa began taking her basket of cucumbers to the gator and she looked up and saw a visitor to the garden.  She called to me and I looked up and saw our visitor, a deer.  The deer was in the bed of leaf lettuce having breakfast.  Of course we were both surprised to see that a deer was only about 10 yards from us eating away and not really caring that we were both standing there watching it.  It was a very cute sight and we took pictures with our phones and a video that we both posted on Facebook and then realized that the deer was eating our lettuce and Lisa shooed her off.  So, now we know who has been eating our lettuce and sweet potato greens.  We thought it might be rabbits and the cow that once again went between the fence and got into the corn and then left us a few cow patties as a thank you but now we really know.  Thank you to all who gave advice on how to distract deer from the garden.  We will give it a try and seeing the deer was  still a cute sight.  Oh well, on another topic I picked another 54 pickling cucumbers so guess what is in our future...more pickles!

Working On The 4th

Lisa and I worked on the 4th because being farmers now, okay maybe a bit of an exaggeration, we have to do things even on holidays.  Actually, we had picked so many pickling cucumbers, 54, we had to get them pickled before they went soft.  After making terrible pickles, we thought they were good, last year we have finally figured out how to make pickles that stay crisp and taste good.  We even have the dills down.  So, last year, if you were nice enough to eat our mushy pickles I promise if you get some this year they will be so much better. Just return the jars so we can use them next year.  Lisa and I make 20 quarts of bread & butter pickles and cut up 30 green peppers for freezing.  After all of our pickling work we did enjoy a fun happy hour with our hubbies and neighbor, Cheryl and some delicious burgers too.  We had a nice evening talking and I even agreed to join a bowling league; it should be fun.  Thanks Tim, Lisa, George and Cheryl for a fun evening.  When we got back to the RV we did watch a few fireworks from the deck and all the fireworks in Washington DC, New York City and Boston on TV.  It was a nice 4th of July.

Happy 4th Of July

Happy 4th of July!  I hope you all have a wonderful holiday and a safe one too!  We are going to be relaxing at the farm, grilling burgers for dinner and catching the fireworks from our deck.  Last year we saw 6 different firework shows.  Before we start celebrating Lisa and I have a small task of making some more pickles, squash muffins, and figuring out what to do with a huge crop of slicing cucumbers.  My 4th of July picture this year is the best one yet.  Rory is so cute in her 4th of July outfit and so I just had to post it.  Happy 4th of July!

The Greeneville Astros

The Greeneville Astros are a minor league baseball team of the Appalachian League and a Rookie-level affiliate of the Houston Astros.  They are located in Tusculum, TN and play their home games at Pioneer Park on the campus of Tusculum College.  The Astros have lead the Appalachian League in average attendance every year since their move to Pioneer Park.  In 2007, the first former Greeneville Astros made it to the major leagues.  Four players from the 2004 Greeneville team were called up to Houston late in the 2007 season.  They were Juan Gutienrrez, Felipe Paulino, Troy Patton and J.R. Towles. All together their have been 36 players, 1 manager and 3 coaches that started their major league baseball career with the Greeneville Astros.
Pioneer Park is a very nice ball field to play at.  The stadium is well maintained and has comfortable seating and I don't think there is a bad seat in the house.  We sat along the third base side just in front of 3rd base about 5 rows from the field.  It was close enough to the field to follow the action but far enough not to worry about getting hit with too many foul balls.  We really enjoyed the game and the best part is the Greeneville Astros won; the score 6-2.  It was a great way to spend a night out during the 4th of July weekend participating in America's pastime.  Way to go Astros!

Baby Bird Update

It is time for our baby bird update!  We ended up with five baby birds in the next in our grill.  The mother has been very gracious about us looking in on them.  We simply open up the hood of the grill and there are the baby birds with their heads up and their mouths wide open saying, " Feed Me!".
We do see mother bird fly in and out of the grill and we are eagerly awaiting the day the birds "fly the coop"or two reasons. 1. There is a lot of snow and blowing winds here in the winter and that grill will not be very warm and 2.  So we can get our grill going again.  We do appreciate George and Lisa allowing the use of their gall to cook on for the time being.  It really works out well since when we grill we all eat together anyway.  Keep growing baby birds!

What To Do With Summer Squash

As the Summer Squash started to pile up Lisa and I had to do something with it.  So yesterday was devoted to processing summer squash.  We sliced up quite a few of the squash and then blanched them, laid them out to dry and then packaged them up, sealed them up and placed them in the freezer for future use.  We also shredded a few squash and made squash muffins.  I have never had squash muffins before but they were good. Lisa found a great recipe and within about 30 minutes we went from shredding squash to eating muffins. 
We did taste our processed dill pickles and they were delicious and the best part they were not mushy.  Yay, we finally made crisper pickles.  We did have a few jars that did not seal correctly so now they become refrigerator pickles and have to be eaten within four weeks.  That should not be a problem since we all love pickles; except Tim.