Rub-dub-dub Potatoes in the Tub

Me - washing potatoes before storing

Tortuga Thursday

In 2012, on the plains of Northern Arizona, two families joined forces and began the trials and tribulations of building a small family farm with nothing in the bank but love.

This will be the last blog with updates on harvesting. There are still some carrots to pull but that will be the end of it. I did a taste test on the carrots because we have some of the fattest carrots I've ever seen. The results are the fatter the carrot, the less sweet. If they're too big, they're bitter when eaten raw. They lose the bitterness when cooked but aren't very tasty. So we're freezing them for the doggies.

Potatoes are all out of the ground and it wasn't a bad  haul considering very little effort was put into them. Lance used ground that hadn't been

Baby pool makes a great wash tub

planted in before. He put some compost on it, tilled once and planted. Fire ants got some of the plants and frost others but as you can see in the picture, we have enough. We planted small goldens and reds.

Potato must dry before storing

My sister moved into a house that had a pots and pans rack in the ceiling. She didn't want it so I snagged it with an entirely different idea in mind. This will come in so handy next summer when we have garlic to dry. I hung a few peppers and the last harvested onions. I like it!

So...we'll be clearing the fields in the weeks to come and starting all over

New Drying Rack

again. Stay tuned for some recipes in the coming months. Christie is a great cook and I'd like to share some of her recipes for the food we harvest.

What farmers do for exercise!

Our cute little farmer girl.

Writing Isn't Always About Writing by Barbara Edwards

Please welcome my very first guest, Barbara Edwards, to Discover Yourself, Her book sounds like a beautiful story and I hope you head right over to Amazon and download your free copy! Tell us about it, Barbara.

With my holiday romance “Journey of the Magi” #free on #kindle today I realized how much of my time as an author is spent on other things besides writing books. Journey of the Magi is available here: http://amzn.com/B00ES5DZEQ

Believe me when I say I love to create my stories. They circle around in my head until I get them on paper. The story doesn’t stop there. I need to rewrite and polish and edit and...well, you know. Then an editor goes through it and says to rewrite, polish and edit some more. That all takes time. In spite of the hard work involved, I love writing until the book is ready to publish.

Publish means get it out there for people to read. This is the hard part. I want everyone to read my stories, hopefully love them and come back for more.

I told an old friend that Journey of the Magi is Free and she gave me a puzzled look.” Isn’t that bad for you” I had to explain that the more people who download Journey of the Magi, the better for my ranking on Amazon. A good rank means more publicity.

Over the last few weeks friends like Brenda have hosted me on their blogs, tweeted and posted on FaceBook and Google+. Meanwhile I’ve looked for internet sites to post the info about Journey. I haven’t had much time to work on my next book, while my editor is giving Ancient Curse her usual thorough going over.

So thanks to Brenda’s invite, you can download Journey of the Magi to your ereader, phone or computer. Journey of the Magi: http://amzn.com/B00ES5DZEQ

Journey of the Magi blurb:

Widow Noel Martin never breaks promises, and she promised her kids they’d have Christmas at her childhood home in Connecticut. But driving across country takes money. Noel is broke when a snowstorm blows them into a tiny Minnesota café owned by a man who can change her mind. She accepts his offer of a job. Despite her attraction to him, she makes it clear she is only temporary help.

Dan Longstreet isn’t adopting any more strays, but he needs a waitress. Dan works so hard to make his café a success, he doesn't have time for love. Though Noel’s slender blonde beauty stuns him and her two adorable children tug at his heart, he denies how they threaten to change his life.

When tragedy strikes, their new-found love is the first victim. Noel can't stay and Dan can't leave. Will their journey be the gift that reunites them? 

Excerpt from Journey of the Magi

Even with her knit hat pulled down over her ears, her high cheekbones and the up­-tilted tip of her nose flamed as bright red as a cheap statue of a Christmas elf. She blinked in the bright light.

 Dan’s pulse leaped like a startled deer. He knew everyone who frequented the Deer Run Lounge and Cafe. She was no local wife searching for an overdue husband or one of the three women who made a living, if you could call it that, picking up the lumberjacks and mill workers for an hour or two.

His blood heated but he managed to control his urges by slowly polishing a clean glass and setting it in the rack for the next day’s trade. Dan nodded hello.

Her over-sized man’s winter coat trailed to her ankles, but she visibly shook. He wanted to tell her to take off her coat and get warm. She removed her gloves, pulling the fingers off one by one until her white hands shone in the dim light. A pale circle around her ring finger marked the recent removal of a band.

She returned Dan’s stare. “Is that sign in the window still good? Do you need an experienced waitress?” Her flat, emotionless voice didn’t match the way her fingers twisted round and round her gloves. His palms itched to cover hers until she calmed.

 “Yeah.” He nodded slowly, his mouth dry. Something in him yearned for her to be more than a passing stranger.

Get your free copy of Journey of the Magi here: http://amzn.com/B00ES5DZEQ

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What's In Your...Garage?

Tortuga Thursday

In 2012, on the plains of Northern Arizona, two families joined forces and began the trials and tribulations of building a small family farm with nothing in the bank but love.

The last days of harvest linger. Lance got all of the sweet potatoes out of the ground. It was an unbelievably hard job. I won't say difficult because digging is digging, but wow was it hard. None of us could help. Sweet potatoes are more delicate than I knew. And they really hold on to the earth, some twisting and turning straight down. The only way to get them out without damage was by clawing and digging by hand. Need to do some research on what contraptions are available to small farmers to make this easier. We're tossing around the idea

of growing more next year for profit.

I can announce - pickling is officially over!

Christie has been making hot sauce, salsa and enchilada sauce with the last of the peppers and tomatoes. Some tomatoes have been left on the vine. We've had a couple of freezes and the temps have been overall colder so any green ones that the frost hasn't killed will probably not go red. May as well leave them until we clear out the fields.

The floor of the garage is covered with onions and sweet potatoes curing. The hanging basket still has peppers drying.

Now maybe, soon, some of the winter projects can start - painting, build another green house, redo the main lines in the watering system, reorganize the storage

shed and garage, and of course marketing research for our hopeful cash crops. A nice relaxing winter - LOL

How To Bypass Your Fingers When Writing A Book

MUSE MONDAY
The biggest problem I have with writing is speed. No matter how fast I write it isn't fast enough for the amount of time I have to devote to my novels. Someone needs to invent a think machine. It could look like a laptop but all you'd have to do is look at it and that book in your head would appear. The only time consuming part of it would be editing. Editing would require actually reading the words and polishing the manuscript.

Most of my writing goes on in my head. How great it would be to go straight from head to computer. I could go about my daily chores and obligations, creating the book in my head and at the end of the day look at my computer and bam! Three hundred pages would appear.

Until that happens, frustration reigns. At present, I'm working on edits for The Art of Love and Murder that The Wild Rose Press contracted me for last week. There are blogs to write and promo points to mind for Amanda in the Summer which is partway into a three month Amazon run until the worldwide release in December. Southwest of Love and Murder is 2/3 done and I really need to pick up the pace so that this sequel is not to far behind book one. I need to begin the re-editing process for Honey On White Bread that Melange Books might reissue (my proposal they are considering) when I get the sequel written - which is only a glimmer in my head right now but needs to become black on white in my computer. Oh and did I mention I'd really like to tackle a book in the Viet Nam era? But I can't do that until I get book three done of my love and murder series.

I know I'm not alone in this. I'll bet there are plenty of authors out there would pay the price for a think computer. Are you listening Bill Gates?

The Last Days of Harvest

 Tortuga Thursday

In 2012, on the plains of Northern Arizona, two families joined forces and began the trials and tribulations of building a small family farm with nothing in the bank but love.

 

Right when it seems summer and harvesting will last forever, the nighttime temps turn cold and yellow leaves signal the end. The more tender plants such as zucchini and golden squash died off a few weeks ago. But there were still so many cucumbers, tomatoes and butternut that they weren't missed in the daily harvest.

Today will see the last cucumbers taken from the vines and the last pickles and relish put up in jars. This has been a real learning season for pickling. Although we had the recipe for taste, the method wasn't perfected until near the end. We won't have as many jars to sell as we anticipated, so we're still debating on just how, where and to whom we'll market. When the labels are done, the licensing secured and the plan hatched, I'll let you know.

The rather massive butternut harvesting started and will wind up by next week. Butternut squash is a favorite on Tortuga. It's also a food we don't have to freeze or can right away. If handled properly, it should last for about six months. Once the vine is dead, it's cut off leaving about two inches of vine on the squash. After washing in a solution of water and Clorox (very weak), it's left in the sun to dry then stored in a cool place out of sun. The same process is applied to the spaghetti squash.

There are a few more onions, tomatoes and peppers to harvest. I think Lance will dig up potatoes and sweet potatoes next week.

Our good neighbor, Dave, came a few days ago with his tractor. He has a mowing attachment which we do

not have. He mowed down the weeds all around the outside of our property fence then asked if we'd like him to come inside the fence. The man loves his tractor. We welcomed him! Frank is going to bake him a pie with the end of last years apples. Dave loves Frank's pies.

Give Me Greenhouse Skin - New Ageless Breakthrough?

Tortuga Thursday

In 2012, on the plains of Northern Arizona, two families joined forces and began the trials and tribulations of building a small family farm with nothing in the bank but love.

Peppers drying

Drying and canning consume much of the day. This neat hanging rack holds three kinds of peppers and is half full. Last year we threaded thread through them and hung in bunches which was much more

Freezing peppers

difficult than tossing them in our hanging dryer. Yea, progress.

Some peppers will be made into hot sauce, salsa and sauce that could be used for any number of dishes such as enchiladas. In fact, Christie has a few jars of

Sauces and tomatoes

sauce already put up.

This year, we're using a short cut for canning the tomatoes. Instead of making sauce, soup or whatever and canning a finished product, we're canning tomatoes to be turned into other foods later. We aren't seeding or peeling them which is so time consuming you can't even imagine. I made some spaghetti sauce with a jar of our tomatoes and it turned out fine. You do run into a bit of noticeable skin but it really isn't a problem. And I think the nutrition is probably higher.

Black tomatoes, field and greenhouse

We have both greenhouse tomatoes and field tomatoes. They taste equally good but because of the outrageous amount of rain we've had, the field tomatoes are not as pretty. Too much rain or erratic amounts of water damage the skin of tomatoes. Looking at the difference in the

Processed tomatoes

skin makes me wonder if I shouldn't be sleeping in the greenhouse.

Xena (our dog that ate Frank's $5000 earring aids) is still being Xena. She ate the insides of a squeak toy and was a sick doggie. The squeaker didn't agree with her. She no sooner got over that when she zeroed in on a bag of trash we hadn't got put into the can. I think she tore into it and ate as much as she could as fast as she could before we caught her. She upchucked a whole, in tact paper towel. As much trouble as she is, the sweet quotient is huge. When Sadi sits in the floor, Xena moves to lay beside her and is fine with Sadi pounding on her back.

Paulden shopping mall

Paulden is really coming up in the world. As you can see, we now have a shopping mall.

One last note - I signed a contract with The Wild Rose Press for the first book in my Love and Murder series. This one is The Art of Love and Murder and is set in Flagstaff, Arizona. Yea!

Losing the Battle But Only a Few Casualties

Tortuga Thursday

In 2012, on the plains of Northern Arizona, two families joined forces and began the trials and tribulations of building a small family farm with nothing in the bank but love.

Squash plants living with weeds

We learned a lesson this time last year. Weeds can win. Flooding rows and not weeding everyday makes for horrendous weeds. Last year, we were involved in the wedding and a couple of other things that took us out of the fields often. Weeds took over and got so out of hand we gave up the battle.

We learned the lesson all over again this year. Only with a slightly different slant. We changed to a drip system, as I told you about in an earlier post. It worked beautifully and the weeds were under control for a while anyway. Then the rains came. Our prairie community normally does not get much rain. This year has been over the top. Results - same as last year. The

weeds have gotten so out of hand, we gave up the battle.

Some plants are greatly affected by weeds like the root veggies (onions, carrots, potatoes). They become stunted and won't grow to full maturity. We planted so many carrots that we don't really care if they're smaller or funky shaped. It did cut down on the size of the onions. I have managed to keep the potato rows fairly weed free. In fact, they are about the only ones I weed now. Other plants were affected by bugs which find housing in the weeds and grass. One row of green beans died before its time because of giant grasshoppers.

Fruit trees, green but barren

Yes, it's been an unusual year for rain but we're still going to do some more planning for next year. We're contemplating row covers and ground cover before planting.

Some of us relax better than others!

One good result from all this rain is the replenishment of the Big Chino Aquifer. We sit atop the Big Chino. It feeds our well and a good portion of Arizona. It was long over due for a splash.

New this year: Lance has taken up hunting. We have dove in the freezer along side the veggies!