One of the first questions the DW and I fielded from the kiddos when we told them we were moving to an acreage caught me off guard. It wasn’t about the house, or switching schools, or a tree house, or dogs and cats, or even how soon we were moving… all of those questions would come later… it was “can we get chickens?” Wait, what?

It caught me off guard because it came out of the blue, or so it seemed. And even if he wasn’t really sure what he was asking for, Potato Boy was sure on one thing – in his mind his “farm” needed chickens. So, that was the first question out of his mouth. “Can we get chickens?” “No” was the first answer out of my mouth and would be repeated numerous times by me and the DW over the next two years.

Until last week…

Potato Boy and his supporting cast are now the proud owners of 5 Rhode Island Red pullets – at least they are supposed to be pullets, we don’t need any roosters. They arrived on the 4th as day old chicks from a hatchery in Ohio. The DW and I keep an eye on things generally and “help” Lulu on the days Potato Boy and Sissy are at their dad’s, but the plan is that the day-to-day care will be the responsibility of the kiddos.

With any luck, the kiddos will be collecting eggs by spring. Between now and then, the fuzz balls will need to feather out and settle into their coop – which technically doesn’t exist yet, but will soon – the plastic bin they’re living in in the tool shed will only hold them for so long.

I’ve manage to trick myself into believing that things in the garden are wrapping up. Maybe it isn’t a complete lie. At least it appears that way with the plants I’ve removed.

More Tomatoes

Between the bugs and the blight, I picked the last tomatoes for the year over the weekend. Even with the early end, we still managed to can pizza sauce and freeze spaghetti sauce and diced tomatoes. The seedless tomatoes saved a lot of time.

Shredded Zucchini

We now have enough shredded zucchini in the freezer for zucchini muffins until next year. The kiddos love zucchini muffins, so I made sure we had at least enough zucchini for 30 two-dozen batches of muffins. Once we hit that magic number, I pulled out the plant. I was only checking the plant every couple days and was tired of finding that a zucchini that needed one more day before picking ended up over two feet long… whoops.

Carrots

About a quarter of the carrots have been dug up. What the kiddos haven’t snacked on fresh, have been sliced, blanched, and frozen – about 8 quarts worth. What Peanut doesn’t eat, will go into soups and casseroles.

We also canned 18 quarts of dill pickles. After giving away/swapping a few jars, we’ll have all the pickles we’ll need until next summer.

And then there’s the stuff we don’t have photos of… The eggplant are just getting started and the green and red peppers are in full swing – I picked 25 of them on Sunday. Also, even though our green beans are done, more fresh green beans keep showing up for Peanut from family members. For the last two months, the blender has been on a continuous circle of going from the counter to the dishwasher and back to the counter, never making it back to it’s spot in the cabinet.

So with all that out of the way, there’s still potatoes, pumpkins, squash, melon, garlic, onions, peppers, eggplant, carrots, raspberries, and possibly a late run of sweet corn to go. See why I’ve decided it was just easier to lie to myself? If only everything didn’t taste so dang good…

After all the heat and humidity last week, a thunderstorm late Friday afternoon was very welcome. It had being raining hard for the last hour by the time I got home from work. I had just walked in the kitchen and was being mobbed by the girls – even Peanut scrambles as quickly as she can to greet me now (its a great age) – when there was a loud sizzle, the lights went out, and a loud crack of thunder. A second later, some of the lights came back on.

From what I’ve been able to figure out after the fact, lightning must have struck the old windmill. There’s an electrical line that runs from the house to the tool shed next to the windmill that uses the windmill as a post. Judging by the damage I’m guessing the voltage carried into the tool shed and feed back into the electrical box in the house.

I spent the next 30 minutes changing blown fuses by flashlight. And asking myself why nobody labeled the fuses on the fuse box when it was installed – something else I should add to my list. (If you’re not familiar with how a normal fuse is supposed to look, the center window is supposed to be clear so you can see the fuse element, not toasty brown.) Once I had the fuses swapped out, it was time for start looking at individual items that still weren’t working – mainly lights. There was enough of a power surge to blow out a half dozen light bulbs – basically all of the CFLs that were on at the time.

Time will tell if any of the appliances will take a hit from the surge. One deep freezer is full of meat and the other is full of garden produce, so now’s not the time for them to go on the fritz. The surge protector on the TV seems to have done it’s job. It’s the first time I’ve ever burned one of them up. As far as the tool shed goes, it looks like I’ll need to do some rewiring. I replaced the fuses and turned the lights on in there over the weekend only to hear the wiring sizzle and pop. I’m guessing the wiring melted and, to put it technically, things are touching that shouldn’t be touching.

At least we got some much needed rain out of it – almost 3 inches. The pasture should stay green well into fall now.

It happened twice the last couple weeks. Late in the afternoon, over a spot in the yard, hundreds of dragonflies have gathered, swarmed, and then disappeared. The second time, I was able to catch a video.

From what I’ve been told, they were most likely congregating to hunt and eat abundant insects that were also swarming. The dragonflies weren’t the only ones hunting. It didn’t take long before the birds noticed what was going on and started dropping from the nearby trees to snatch the dragonflies out of midair. It was quit the show.

What good could come from you taking your iPod outside and risk having the dog eat it, I asked…

The old windmill, shot by Sissy

So, I was wrong. Not too bad, not to bad at all. (Though the dog still has a hankering for a metallic apple.)

I’ve mentioned a few times in previous posts that I decided to try a new tomato variety this year, but that I’d withhold any judgement on it until I had ripe tomatoes. Well, it’s judgement time – but first a little background.

With the vast selection of tomato varieties available every year, the fact that I was trying one new variety really shouldn’t be that big of deal. What made it unique was that it was the first year this hybrid was available to the public – unlike the proven varieties that have been around for years, this plant had no track record.

If you received a Burpee seed catalog this spring, you couldn’t help but notice the huge tomato on the front cover. (And no, I’m not being paid by Burpee). Burpee had the entire cover dedicated to it’s new “SuperSauce” Hybrid. The write up was just as eye catching:

The world’s largest sauce tomato! It’s SuperSauce! The new tomato superhero. A whole lot bigger, a whole lot better, a roma with aroma. Weighing in at 2-lbs., a whopping 5.5” tall x 5” wide, SuperSauce produces gallons of luscious, seedless sauce from a single plant harvest—one tomato fills an entire sauce jar. Very few people in the gardening world consider a paste tomato for anything other than to make paste or sauce. SuperSauce is extraordinarily delicious and versatile as a salad tomato, as well as having a distinctive quality in that its large segments of fruit often make a shape that is perfect for a meaty and tasty hamburger slice, quite different from the horizontal slice commonly used from a large round tomato. Easy-to-grow, indeterminate, disease-free plants yield a summer long supply of the exquisitely-flavored marinara, tomato gravy or meat sauce plus plenty for slicing and salads.

I’ve grown enough tomatoes to dread working with tiny Roma tomatoes or large tomatoes that are all seeds and water. I decided to Google it. The tomato corner of the internet was abuzz with the plant – mostly how it couldn’t be possible. It had to be a GMO (genetically modified organism), Burpee was the devil, and Monsanto was to blame. These ‘mator farmers don’t hold back. In reality, the plant is a hybrid, not a GMO. Burpee doesn’t sell GMO seeds. (It would be nearly impossible to get GMO seeds for a backyard garden.) So, I bit. I purchased a pack of seeds and decided to see how things went before casting Burpee into the fires.

Here’s what I ended up with.

That tomato weighed 1 lb 4 oz. I had a few that were larger – one weighing just over a pound and a half – but this was typical of what I was picking. Just to give you an idea of how big that is…

The smaller tomato is a typical Celebrity variety. Then, there’s where the real difference comes in…

They weren’t seedless, but close enough. And almost completely solid. You can see the difference when compared to the sliced Celebrity on the right.

There were draw backs, too. Most of this could relate to the cool summer we had as they took forever to ripen and were prone to splitting. It might be a characteristic of the hybrid, but even when ripe they never developed a deep red color. The plants also blighted early. With the upcoming heat, these plants will be finished by Labor Day instead of producing until the first frost.

A tomato “superhero” as Burpee claims? I don’t think so. Still, it made a pretty good sauce over the weekend, so I think we’ll give it another shot next year.

We were on the fair grounds for less than an hour last Thursday morning when Lulu first spotted the slide and what she had only imagined from my stories became an actual vision. With the bombardment of new sites and sounds though, she seemed content with just walking by the first day with a promise we’d be back at some point. By Thursday night, it was all she talked about at the hotel. By late Friday morning, there was no containing the excitement.

So, once the calves were clean, fed, and laying in the stalls on Friday morning we were off to the Giant Slide. Lulu was in a hurry to get there. Lulu was in a hurry to get her ticket. Lulu was in a hurry to get in line. Then Lulu started to slow down. Way down. By the time Lulu and the DW (she’s the one in the pink top) where half way up the steps, a line was beginning to back up behind them and Lulu insisted on being carried.

You get a better idea of how things backed up once they were to the top. I’m pretty sure Lulu has asking “are you sure about this?” at about this point. It’s quietly become her favorite question when she’s too brave to admit she’s scared.

Good thing there wasn’t much time for her to think about things. Once they sat down they were were off.

Now, you’ll have to work with how grainy the pictures get, but to get an idea of just how nervous Lulu was about this I zoomed in on the photo above to capture Lulu and the DW in one frame and Lulu’s cousin “B” with his mom in the second. (You can click on each photo for a larger version.)

Even with the poor photo quality you can see Lulu is wearing the textbook picture of horror while “B” is grinning from ear to ear. I would have guessed that would have been the end of the Giant Slide if it hadn’t been for the conversation I had with Lulu immediately after as I helped her back in the stroller.

Me: What’d you think?
Lulu: Daddy, I’m never doing that again.
Me: Was it fun?
Lulu: I’m never doing it again. (giggles) It made my belly go whoosh.
Me: Do you think you’ll take Peanut down the slide when she gets older?
Lulu: Yeah, that’d be fun. I thought I was going up in the air.
Me: I bet.
Lulu: Can I do it again?

I’ll never pretend to understand how her mind works.

After wrapping up Peanut’s check-up last Wednesday, we were off to spend the rest of the week at the Iowa State Fair. I would be helping my family exhibit cattle in one of the beef shows and the DW was excited to introduce Peanut to some of our friends we only see while at the fair. Plus, Lulu was now old enough to enjoy some of the fair’s sites and activities. (Unfortunately, the rest of the kiddos couldn’t join us this year.)

Since we didn’t leave Iowa City until late Wednesday afternoon, we spent the night night before arriving in Des Moines in Pella. (If you’ve every stayed in a hotel in Des Moines during the state fair, you’ll understand why.) We were far enough away from the congestion, that we were able to get a great rate on a suite with a large hot tube – or small swimming pool as Lulu called it. Lulu was able to “swim” while the DW and I lined things up for the rest of the night and the next day. Actually, if it wasn’t for the fact that we were leaving for the state fair, I’m not sure we would have gotten Lulu out of that room. Not only did it have a “swimming pool,” but it also had the Disney Channel…

Tired… But Can’t Stop Watching

I don’t think she blinked for 30 minutes while “Doc McStuffins” was on. It wasn’t all fun for Lulu though, she took it upon herself to make sure Peanut was comfortable in her crib. It was Peanut’s first night ever in a hotel.

Lulu “Helping” Peanut

When we finally made it to the fair it was a three day whirl wind of things to do, food to try, and people to catch up with – and that’s not counting the actual work that needed to be done with the cattle.

What’s the Fair without a Corndog

Plenty of Kids Activities

Lulu and Her Cousin “B” Take Turns Driving

Lulu and “B” Cleaning The Stalls After The Cattle Were Led to Tieouts for the Night

Oh… and then there’s the story of Lulu and the giant slide… but that will have to wait until Friday.

Another month means another check-up for Peanut at the UIHC. In addition to the normal check-up with Peanut’s GI doctor – more on that in a bit – we were also fortunate to run into one of Peanut’s old friends – Nurse Jessica. Jessica was one of two nurses that spent a huge amount of one on one time with Peanut when she was at her sickest last year. That also means she spent a lot of time explaining things and answering questions for the DW and me. Judging by the smile on Peanut’s face, I’d risk saying she might remember her – or at least the sound of her voice.

Peanut Catches Up with Nurse Jessica

After catching up with Nurse Jessica, it was off for the routine blood work and examine with Peanut’s GI doctor. While Peanut’s growth has slowed since her last visit (17 lbs 8 oz – she’s burning a lot of calories just cruising around) her doctor is still very happy with her progression. We’ll make some minor adjustments to Peanut’s supplements (decrease D3 and copper, increase salt, and no change for her iron and liver medication) and start adding new foods at no more than one a week while increasing Peanut’s total volume. If everything stays on course, we’ll met with Peanut’s surgeon mid-September to set a date for her next surgery.

Once we were wrapped up with Peanut’s GI doctor, we took Dr. McElroy up on an offer to visit his research lab. (You may remember Dr. McElroy – Peanut was under his care when she developed NEC and during her extended stay in Bay 1 of the NICU.) Conveniently, Dr. McElroy’s research is on NEC, so this was a great chance for us to see first hand what’s being done so that future infants will never have to go through what Peanut has – or worse.

Inside Dr. McElroy’s Research Lab

While the DW and I found the research interesting, Lulu was fascinated by the lab mice, and Peanut thought it was a great time to pretend to be shy. Even though she flashed smiles at Dr. McElroy and his assistants, she squirmed like mad when she realized who was holding her for a quick picture.

Peanut Is Not Too Sure About This

All in all, Peanut had another great visit at UIHC – but the day wasn’t over yet. We hit the highway and started heading even further from home…

Where To Next?

Here’s a recipe the kiddos had to try simply based on the name alone – but don’t be fooled by this recipe, the site has a lot of unique “grown-up” recipes. Unfortunately, I only found this site after the writer quit updating it with new recipes. It has a great system of rating the healthiness of the recipe by assigning “devils.” According to the site… A One Devil rating – while devilishly delicious, is still healthy. A Two Devil rating – no longer recommended for daily consumption. A Three Devil rating – all caution is thrown to the wind.

In The Devil’s Kitchen – Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Soup