This blog has moved

This blog is now located at http://www.sugarcreekfarm.net/blog.
You will be automatically redirected in 15 seconds, or you may click here.

Please update your bookmarks!

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
http://www.sugarcreekfarm.net/blog/?feed=rss2.

Prepare to swoon

because I'm about to show you this:



The first calf of 2010...a sweet little red heifer!


1 year ago:

Portrait

Beak to the grindstone

Is there anything sexier

Spring is...

Seedlings in the basement under lights...


Merry spring breezes blowing the windmill...


Laundry on the line...


Phlox...


Track meets...



1 year ago:

Photogenic

Happy Easter

Trusting my instincts (or not)

That had to hurt

Garden, April

Numero dos

Sprung

Spring has sprung! And Madeline's 4-H pigs have been sprung as well. It's so much fun to watch them running, jumping, digging...just being pigs :)



My garage brooder won't be empty for long...tomorrow morning I get to go down to Hoovers and pick up the first batch of broiler chicks! Calves should be dropping any day now, piglets later this month. April is a month of anticipation, that's for sure!

Tonight was the spring vendor meeting for our Friday farmers market...I'm getting excited to see all of our market customers again & catch up with customers and vendors alike after this long winter.


1 year ago:

Filling up

New gilts

Some days are like that

1 down

Sunrise

New digs

Easter hams & a cookbook review

If you need ham for your Easter dinner this weekend, we have half a dozen for sale here at the farm! Real hams, not pressed processed ham product. So tasty!


Ham with roasted cabbage - yum!


Have you seen Jamie Oliver's new show? It's on Friday nights on ABC. So far we've watched the first hour of the premiere and have the second hour taped.

Over the weekend I picked up his Food Revolution cookbook. The picture above is my preparation of Jamie's (yes, we're on a first name basis) recipe for roasted vegetables from the book. They were so simple to prepare and tasted amazing! Madeline was literally snatching parsnips right off Matt's plate :) There's a wide range of meat, fish, vegetable, pasta, breakfast and dessert recipes. All of them look delicious and totally doable. Plus the photography and design are beautiful. 5 stars!

Things making me happy this week...

A new craft project...


Garden drying out...


Green... (Chives are always eager to get started in spring)


Flocks of red-winged blackbirds in the trees outside my office window

What's making you happy this week?


1 year ago:

Spring cleaning

Interested

Spring is...

Worry

Gratuitous cuteness

How to Cook : Creamed Chipped Beef

Seeing as how it's St. Patrick's Day (for one more hour), it seems a fitting time to tell you about a new product we have: dried beef! To be honest, I almost decided to just stash all of it in our own freezer and not sell a single package of it. It's that good.

I had intended to make reubens with it. But I kept forgetting to buy the right kind of cheese, and finally I was tired of looking at waiting patiently in the refrigerator. So I made creamed chipped beef instead...simple, fast, easy. Poured over homemade biscuits it was divine! Served with a side of fried eggs - now that the hens are laying a bit again - a perfect weeknight supper.

Creamed Chipped Beef

1/4 c. butter
1/4 c. flour
3 c. milk
16 oz. dried beef, chopped

Melt butter in pan, then whisk in flour until smooth. Slowly whisk in milk. Cook, whisking constantly, until thickened. Stir in beef & heat through. Serve over biscuits, toast, or mashed potatoes.

Eight

Eight things about Rafe Henry, age 8

1. This has been said before, but still... you love football. To the point of obesession. Other sports are fun, too, but really they're just a way to pass the time until it's football season again. My powers of "tuning out" have become finely honed. You start at the far end of the dining room, run through both the dining room & living room, tossing the football into the air as you near the far end of the living room, then catching it and diving into the loveseat endzone.

Over, and over, and over again.

I've made you promise to buy me new furniture with your first NFL paycheck.

2. You think that the phrase "man cannot live by bread alone" does not apply to you. You'd happily live solely on carbohydrates.



3. For your birthday you asked for cross country skis. We discussed with you many times the fact that by the time your birthday got here, the snow would be about gone. You didn't care, so you did indeed get skis & poles & boots today. And you went out & found a bit of snow to try them out.

4. For your birthday your dad decided it was time for your first real gun. A Red Ryder BB-gun, to be exact. That, combined with the bow & arrow Santa brought you for Christmas, means that small birds & mammals had now better watch out.

Please take care of whatever creature has been wreaking havoc on the garden the last couple of years.

And hey! With the skis and the gun...you can train for the biathalon :)



5. You continue to do well at school. Your reading level continues to climb. You like math. You have a ton of friends. In short, you love going to school. Parent-teacher conferences are fun :)

6. You still like your mama to tuck you in at night. I don't mind. Not at all.

7. As energetic as you are, it's often surprising how cautious you are. The first thing you said when you opened your new gun was, "Is this a real gun? I didn't want a real gun." But once you found out that it isn't loud when it fires, you were all over it.


Birthday cinnamon roll with a tealight birthday candle. Yep, that's how we roll around here.

8. You bring laughter, and noise, and strange sounds, and hugs, and imagination, and more noise to our home every day. And for that I am forever grateful.

Happy Birthday, Rafe Henry!

Love,

Yo Mama


1 year ago:

Adventures in cow buying

Seven