windy windy day

No market today!  This is my first saturday all season to miss market!!  (except our vacation) due to weather.  It is so incredibly windy there is no way my things are going to survive so I will set up times to deliver the csa orders and then I think I am goin to work on some snowmen things I have been wanting to make!!  YEAH!! WOO HOO!! craftin time!  LOL  and maybe a nap with my boys today too. 
Yesterday was a full day at the kitchen too.  These cinnamon swirl buns were rising and boy did they rise!!

As u can see the rose nice above the top of the muffin pan.  Nice n light n fluffy too.

They are a bit plain so had to do the "farmgirl bling" thing!  A healthy drizzeling of a cinnamon vanilla glaze.

I had more orders of my tomato mushroom quiche so those got finished up.

I also made some cheese ravioli and a nice tomato basil sauce on top.  

Another view of the finished buns.    I talked with a friend of mine who owns Evergreen Lane Creamery, they make artisan goats milk cheeses along with other dairy products, and will be brining and offering that to my customers at markets and in my CSA this winter to see how it goes.  They make amazing goat cheese and I thought it would be fun to make some homemade crackers to go along with it or maybe some nice french bread baguettes.  YUMMY!!  She is taking a cheese cource in Vermont so will start that as soon as she gets back.  How exciting!!

Things are goin great with my csa program so I am just thrilled.  If you are near Fennville, Allegan or South Haven MI leave me a comment if you would like info on joining and recieving my newsletter emails.  My program is weekly, no committment no minimum orders.  I will be delivering this weekly thru the winter and also have some avaialble at my winter markets too.  I want it to be affordable for everyone.  I sure am havin a ball going thru all my old cookbooks digging thru my grandmothers books to find ideas.  And I am also offering at least one vegetarian option too. 

Hope yall have a wonderful weekend!   I am hoping to get a few things accomplished so will let yall know how that goes!! LOL

HUGS

Darlene

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

Fun friday cookie day and a giveaway here!

Hey yall!! Happy friday!!
Gosh it has been a really long time since I did a giveaway huh!!???

I did manage to make some cute little decorated sugar cookies for market tomorrow. just a quickie decorating job and they are cute!   A ghost, a witch hat and a punkin will be bagged up together.  I love decorating and sugar cookies are just fun and fun to eat!  LOL  The girls are back up to laying eggs again after a brief molting period plus our young uns will be layin more regular and regularly shaped eggs too!@!  I always laugh as they start the layin in their lives as you will get the little pullet eggs then as they mature they get the hang of it and slowly they start laying more of what looks like an egg! 

Nekked ghosts!

I like the punkins!

These are my maple apple pecan pies.  Flemings homemade pure maple syrup and some fresh crunchy pecans top a deep dish apple pie.  I used some of our farm's apples and some I bought at market last week.  Each apple pie has some MacIntosh, jonamac, empire, and gala apples for a nice flavorful explosion!  To me that is the only way to have anything apple, use a variety of them in everything.  My mom and I are gonna make some apple pie in a jar this weekend and it is so yummy to just put ontop of some vanilla ice cream or I like to just heat it up and eat right out of the jar!!

More nekked cookies!

(sorry this pic keeps flippin back on it's side!) These are my Grandmother Rose's pumpkin pie muffins topped with cinnamon sugar and pecans.  So yummy out of the oven with some melted butter.  I did cut back on the sugar and used a touch of maple syrup in them. If you like pumpkin then the recipe is perfect it is punkiny!! 

Well it sure did cool off round here compared to last week!  only in the 50s now but more like october weather. 

I will have eggs at market tomorrow in South Haven in wolverine's parking lot along with some breads, cookies, muffins and other goodies.  And I did make some homemade turtles for tomorrow and also I will have some of my jellies with  and we still have a few butternut squash I can bring too. . 
On sunday I want to experiment with some fresh cranberries I bought at a nearby farm, making some cranberry bread pudding and some cranberry orange pound cake.  I will post all about it next week!! 
I hope yall have an awesome HALLOWEEN WEEKEND!~    I kind of miss those days of dressing up and being wild n crazy just for the fun of it! (lol that was only just a couple of years ago ya know) HEE HEE!!  I think if I did dress up for a party I might be......................hmmmmmmmmmm............gosh I am not sure what or who I would be??  The best costume I did was my beau and I at the time went as Rhet and Scarlet Ohara!  I had rented a full burgandy gown with a big ol hoop under and a dark wig. We were in a parade and everyone had a blast.  That was alot of fun!!  What would you dress as if you were goin out on the town? So to the giveaway info!!  All you have to do is  leave your ideas and one lucky person will recieve a prize from me!!  I will draw a name from comments posted after november 8th!!  GOOD LUCK!!  
HUGS everyone!!
Darlene  ~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

Apples, turtles and kolachky oh my!!

Hey yall!! happy monday mornin!! 

What another beautiful michigan fall weeekend we had! Hope yall enjoyed yours and it was just as nice out as ours!!

We cut and stacked lots of wood, hubby tilled the gardens, and we spent lots of time with our boys!! yeah!~! great weekend~

So I made my grandma Rose's apple walnut bread pudding for market sat and it was gone quickly.  A creamy cinnnamon sauce was also included in a cup when you buy the pudding. 

Chopped up french bread and some of our egg bread too.

Ready for baking complete with egg custard and chopped walnuts.  Love the taste of walnuts with apples.

These pretty red MacIntosh apples were used for the pudding and the dumplings and I did caramel apples with some others drizzeling melted white and milk chocolate on top and added some cute halloween sprinlkes!!  Sorry I didnt take pics of them but will surely make more this week for Allegan Market on thurs!!

Apple dumplings just out of the oven!  Oh if you have ever baked with apples and cinnmaon yall just know that wonderful aroma in the kitchen!! OH love it!!

Each one came with a cinnamon syrup to drizzle ontop of them and maybe then serve with some wonderful vanilla bean ice cream~  YUMMO!~

I also made some of my mothers sloveninan Kolachky cookies!!   The dough is very simple to make and easy to work with.  Just being sure to chill dough overnight, or at least a few hours.   The ones I made for market this past week were filled with homemade orange marmalade and red raspberry preserves.

After they cool they got a treatment of my "farmgirl bling" some pretty sifted confectionary sugar. 

And to the turtle part of the day! Chocolate pecan turtles filled with my homemade caramel.   These are so yummy I have to package them as soon as they cool so I wont be tempted to eat too many!!  They are really good!~!  I will put some on my etsy site for sale soon!  and my caramel candies too!  Those are just melt in your mouth creamy yummyness!! 

Well that was about all of the things I got done friday and I also made some decorated sugar cookies for halloween, I have a set left and will have to take some pics they were just too stinkin cute!! A ghost, a witches hat and a pumpkin were packaged up in a clear bag tied with some raffia!

I will be doin them for xmas too maybe a snowman head, a mitten and a gingerbread man would be cute and they are just too fun to decorate!!

So have a beautiful fall day!! I will be back soon to share more with yall~~

BLESSINGS

Darlene

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

Storms and more storms coming!

This is Charlie!! one cool rooster we have, he hangs out by the house with his own harem!  He has 8 or so girls that are always round him. 

Wow last night was really bad outside!!  I usually have to find him and carry him into the coop at night as he is the VERY LAST one to go in, we have a couple other roosters that he doesnt like so he waits til they are all setteled in and dont notice him! LOL

WOW  the thunder and lightning was LOUD!!  poor little Bubba was really upset until we all went to bed together then he settled down.  I am very thankful we didnt loose power as there are several thousand people without it around us.  Hope the kitchen didnt loose it!!  that would be horrible I have lots of things to get down for market tomorrow and they are callin for more possible severe storms in morning!! well wont hurt to get a bit wet!! And in the 80's friday but then dropping into the 50s next week.  HAPPY FIRST DAY OF FALL!!   We are known to have a beautiful fall and when hubby and I got hitched in late october it was 80 degrees that day!! yeah sinceI had to have an outdoor weddin on the farm at my parents house.    So  here are a few pics from tractor show.This is our golden jubilee and below is my hubbys grandparents with the H.  This tractor was bought new in 1951 by hubbys great grandfather and we still have the original sales reciept for her!!  It is just waiting for me to have enough time to scan it and make art with it!! LOL

I am in withdrawl from doin altered items since we have been way busy with the markets this summer!! Cant wait to alter something!!  SOON!! I promise!

This is hubbo and Grandpa Bill!  Proud of ya Gramps!! He had a new knee done a few weeks ago and is at home doin great!!  And I am super proud of hubby for all he does!! Everyday he surprises me with something! 

Little Bubba sittin in the truck!~ He sits on the seat so good!! Barney is layin under a blankie on the couch here sorry it is so blurry!  He on the other hand beebopps around the truck jumpin from the front to back and back to front the whole time we are gone!!  Buster just sprawls out on the back seat and "chills"  they all love goin bye bye!~!

LOL this was our golfcart comin home as it rained all day sat and we went mudrunnin at the campground!!  It was fun but dang we had mud everywhere as you can see!  even on the seat and hubby's back had been splattered up with it too!    Well I hope yall have a beautiful wed I am gonna get ready to do chores then head over to the kitchen.  My grandma Rose's pumpkin pie spice bread, banana bread, cheese bread, upside down peach cake, apple crisp muffins, pumpkin cranberry muffins and some apple cake are on the agenda for todays baking!! so I got my work cut out today!! 

Oh and I did get an ok yesterday from Wolverine hardware in South Haven to do our winter market csa drop in their parkin lot this winter!!!  YIPPEE!~! Dave and I will be settin up a schedule of when we are gonna do this in ALLEGAN again and now in South Haven~  you can order something or just buy from what I make that week.  It will be from november thur april!  We did it last year in the Allegan parkin lot and had lots of customers come out and actually we only had 1 yepper 1 day of really cold and windy weather!!  So will give yall the details soon!!

HUGS

Talk soon!!

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

WERE BACK HOME~~

YIPPEE HOME~~
There is just no place like home!~ It was a great vacation and we had lots of fun but I am so so so very happy to be back home!! We loaded up 4 of our tractors and the "boys" our 5th wheel and went to a big tractor show for vacation. My inlaws camp in their 5th wheel behind us and lots of friends around us. The weather was gorgeous, only one day of rain and we actually had the furnace kicked on to chase that morning chill out but still it was fun!! and alot of work, work before leaving, while there, and then now that we are back home everything needs unloading!! oh well my boys sure love it!! they were little angels!!

Here's one now~ My Buster Brown chillin on his new bed I bought for him. 

There is just sooooooooooo much to do there that we usually spend the day running around the flea market, or riding around on one of the tractors or watchin the demos goin on. We are members of this club the flywheelers and also volunteer throughout the week on various tasks, my hubby and father in law worked a morning inside a heated farm history museum, on the day it rained (at least it was warm for them) they had fun and learned new things there, while my mother in law and I sat under a canopy selling raffle tickets, *(WHICH WAS FUN) thanks mom!! Had a ball and we sold out of tickets in an hour!! And I like to work on the peoplemover, which is a big trailer that folks sit on while a tractor pulls it all around the grounds. That was fun!!

And I am so so excited!! I found an old 1930s maybe 40's typewriter all there!! and the exciting part you might ask is????????? NOT only one but I bought 2 of them!!! Gee what is an altered country chick to do??? get all those letters cut off and make some altered jewelry with them!! LOL  These things weigh a ton too!~ WOW

This is a sulkey my hubby made last summer, I painted the back of it for the farm.  We got lots of comments about it while riding around on it.

Here is the pretty little case tractor that the club raffled off.  Isnt she a cutie, and she would sure would have looked nice in our lineup of tractors!~LOL oh well next years giveaway is a John Deere!!  hubby would love that one! Our H by our campsite.

My mother inlaw patiently waiting for us to get goin on the tractor cruise to town.  There were around 155 tractors this year, we had all 8 seats full on our trailer. This was on the way to town.  I am standing on the back of the H while hubby drives.  Our flags even stayed on the whole way there and back, It was so windy I thought one would break off.

Our gang arriving in town, the pavillion you see in the backround is where the market is each sat.  We have an awesome market spot! Just a couple of the tractors in the parkin lot in town.

This is hubbys work tractor he fixed up, a Ford 8N with the forklift on it it came in handy to load things on our trailers.  Not that we bought that much!! LOL  We didnt come home with another tractor this year.  He still has to finish our waukeshaw he bought at last years auction.  He did find an old motor for it for parts and also we got a go cart~ yepper a go cart!~ It's in pieces but there is quite a story behind this baby~~ I will share that and pics another day. It is a good story~Here's our gang on the trailer front row is my inlaws, next row is my sister and brother in law and their baby, then my friends daughter and last row my dear friend and her hubby.  Mary and I bake together, everyone had a great time!~! we could have used more seating, as we were loading up a couple came up to hubby and asked if they could ride with us! I felt bad but we didnt have enough room for anymore.  Hopefully they got to bumm a ride with someone else.  It is tradition for us to go to town then go into Dairy Queen for ice cream~  and let me just give yall an fyi!!! their chocolate silk pie blizzard is the BOMB~~ oh my goodness it is rich and chocolatey and so so yummyo~~ gotta get another of those before they close for season~~ it has vanilla ice cream, chocolate fudge, and actual pieces of chocolate whip cream pie in it~~ OH I gotta stop talkin bout it or I will be drivin to dairy queen now!~!LOL

We also bought some great old wood pulleys, I found a couple of old enamelware pans a bit rusty but that is a ok by me!! my hubby got lots of old tools and some new ones and of cource a few gadgets we just HAD to have ya know!! But it sure is great to be home (in case I havent mentioned that yet) the gardens are winding down and all that is left pretty much is squash, some pumpkins and gournds and some indian corn, the dang punkins are already orange!!way too early for them but they will look cool around the farmstand which I need to start decorating for fall soon!! like now!! LOL I am goin to the kitchen to work on a few things, not sure if I will go to market tomorrow as they are calling for heavy rain 90% chance and windy and cool so my products will not stand up to the dampness and I dont care to be out in the cool rain either! If it was warm and rainy that is ok but it is really coolin off here in michigan lately. The leaves are just starting to show their colors!! YEAH YIPPEE fall is my favo time of year!! the smells, the colors, all the fall produce and of cource the cooler sweater days!

Well I better git er done and git off here !! gottta run to our other farm and pick some apples and squash!

And oh my gosh dont forget all you survivor fans TONIGHT TONIGHT TONIGHT is the season premier~!~ YEE HAW!! got the dvr all set just in case!!  Love LOVE LOVE JEFF PROBST!~~

 

Talk to ya soon ! yall have a super day!

HUGS

Darlene

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

Peaches-n-blueberries

Happy Friday!! Susan and I made some white bread kind of like french bread with a baguette look.  These are goin to go to  dinner that Lakeshore Harvest Country is hosting this weekend. I also made some squash n cheese filled homemade ravioli for them too.  I was honored to beable to contribute to their dinner.

I love love LOVE this bread it is a bit of work but so worth it.  We baked it on stones in the big convection oven and it is nice and crusty and super soft and flavorful in the middle!!

They are gonna serve it sliced and grilled toppped with some homemade local goat cheese and pesto.  Sounds super yummo!!  I love pesto and need to make some soon!!

I did up something new a pecan streusle filled peach bread and boy that was very good too.  Since we are in the heart of blueberries and peaches it was time to whip up some peachy blueberry goodies.  Here are my cobblers and I also made up some muffins with a buttercrumb topping, and peach blueberry pie.

 Peach struesel filled muffins. They baked a bit over the pan but tasted so good it dont matter.  I topped each one with a bit of struesle with toasted pecans.

Well I better get myself finished loading up for market tomorrow.

South Haven Farmers Market tomorrow 8-2 I will have lots of goodies.  Tater-n-cheese pierogi, squash ravioli, lots of cookies and breads oh and muffins.

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~