Fried Squash Blossoms

To me, fried squash blossoms are what homesteaders would have if they held carnivals or fairs featuring homestead "junk food." They are basically blossoms stuffed with a few different types of cheeses (feta, cream and parmesean in this case), plus a few herbs (thyme, parsley, sage) mixed in, prepped and fried in olive oil and served with the dipping sauce of your choice (I do a half yogurt/half sour cream sauce with sumac, lemon and garlic). 

Despite having all natural ingredients, they are still not quite the healthiest food you could have, I'm certain. Like anything that's cheesy and fried, enough of them could probably clog up the old arteries quite nicely. Luckily they are the very essence of seasonal food, so your window of temptation is relatively brief.

And they are beyond delicious. Picking the blossoms for this even has the unintended consequence of slowing down your zucchini harvest, which, if you're like me, may be a good thing since with even just one plant we are overrun with zukes. 

So pick on and fry on, friends. Summer only comes but once a year, after all, and before you know it the season will be over, these blossoms will be gone, and you will have to wait another year before you can indulge again.

Stuffed and ready.

I use a coating of egg followed by a whole wheat flour/breadcrumb mix.

Mmm. Almost there...

Perfection on a summer afternoon. 

Days of Bounty -- Summer Pictorial

It's high summer here in the Willamette Valley, and on our little homestead it's officially The Summer of Let's Just Buy It Now Since The House/Land Needs It. This will, inevitably, be followed by The Winter of Regret and Frugality. 

I'm not sure why we tend to hemorrhage money after, literally, making one of the biggest purchases of our lives, but it always seems to happen when we buy a home, and not just to us -- to everyone I know. (If it doesn't happen to you please just keep your smug mouth shut at this point so as not to humiliate the rest of us with your wise ways.)

Read on to see some of what we've been up to!

I'm so excited that we have wild chamomile growing on the property. I'm harvesting and storing seeds (dessicant is a great way to keep seeds dry when storing) to encourage them to grow in some more planned places next year!

A bounty of cucumbers, but I miss my Paso Robles apron farm sink. What's the saying, "you don't know what you got 'till it's gone?" Yup.

What girls don't love a nice salad for lunch?

Pumpkin plants are massive, actual pumpkins not so much (yet).

I have more than enough cucumber to keep us in dill relish for the next year.

Big Ag built this pretty garden gate between the vegetables and the henhouse. I'm still figuring out what I want to hang on it.

Soon this little, un-waterproof chicken house will become a storage shed and a larger, sturdier coop will go in its place. The wood on the ground is the form for the concrete of the big henhouse. Chickens do need lots of indoor space in places where it rains a lot, so this is really needed.

This is the old property owner's dog house, which was sitting on the small slab of concrete the little coop is currently sitting on. I'm going to re-purpose it by adding doors and turning it into some kind of storage...chicken food, cedar shavings, skulls of my enemies, etc.  (kidding on that last one, honest.)

Sunny days mean solar cooking! This is a mushroom bread pudding I made this afternoon.

All the little things

It's been a year of big things but a summer of little things. Little things are, after all, what ultimately makes the world go 'round, whether for good or bad. A magical day is usually comprised of a bunch of good little things. The Roman Empire fell because of a series of bad ones.

Around the homestead we are finally in the swing of growing, picking, and prettying up outside, and touching up, refining, and replacing inside. I'm in the process of painting all the trim upstairs white, which means a little bit of painting, every day. And I've also been refinishing the oak trim downstairs, removing old water damage on the sills, and re-sealing with stain and polyurethane clear coat. Every day there is some little thing inside this house that's improved upon. Or outside. And that feels good. Because even if it takes 1,000 little improvements, once they're all done it will add up to the house looking great -- one big win for us. 

I don't know about you, but I actually enjoy a series of little tasks so much more than one large one. If I can spend my days doing 11 completely different things -- outside for this, inside for that, I'm generally pretty happy. In high school, I was a sprinter, never having been any good at distances. Perhaps it's the same principle. Put forth a little burst of energy for one thing, rest, then move on to the next thing. 

Here's a little of what we've been up to around here:

There's always laundry, but no rain means drying outside.

pumpkin dog biscuits

 

Cukes, zukes and tomatoes coming along nicely. Big Ag did a fantastic job on these raised beds, and the hay bales in the back will be planted soon, too!

Goodbye oak trim. Hello crisp white paint. Wall painting next!

Speaking of painting....exterior house painting coming in September!

A country bouquet to brighten up the house.