Enjoying the Benefits of the Garden ...

I've enjoyed gardening almost as long as I can remember.

I take that back. When I was a girl, I did not enjoy the garden, because my job was to hoe...pull weeds...or shell peas and lima beans.  All. Summer. Long.  Or so it seemed.

However, the tide has turned, and now that it's my garden, it's mostly fun!

I've been growing herbs for the past few summers, but never seem to use them all up.  I haven't been able to find just the right spot to grow them, where they're also easily accessible on short notice.  I planted rosemary in the pig trough on our porch this year, and it did great.  In fact, it's still looking great, even though we've had several frosts, and below freezing temps the past few days.

I really enjoy the flavor of rosemary, so I decided to try "making" rosemary infused olive oil.

The first thing I did was dry some sprigs of rosemary.  I left them lay on the windowsill in the sun for several weeks to make sure they were completely dry.  (I learned quickly, after a first botched attempt, that the herbs must be thoroughly dried before doing this.  Otherwise you risk getting botulism in your oil!)

Then I looked around for just the right bottle to put it in, and finally found small bottles with different colored stoppers.  I put several sprigs of rosemary in the bottle, filled it with olive oil, and sat it on my kitchen window sill for a month or so...

This morning I took off the topper, and the rosemary smell was strong.  Yay...it had worked!  I thought I'd try using the oil to fry up some potatoes (from our garden)...

The potatoes smelled delicious as they fried.  The rosemary scent was just enough to make your mouth water, and the flavor was mild and not overpowering.

I think I found some great gift ideas!  What ideas do you have for using up fresh herbs?

Random 5 Friday...

It's Friday!  Of course, you knew that already!  Especially if you have school aged kids, you know just how exciting Fridays are!  They're looking forward to a couple of days off...to sleeping in tomorrow morning...

But oh...that's right...we're farmers, so Fridays don't matter!   :)

Saturday is just another day, with the same schedule.  We'll get our "time off" for a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon.

I'm joining up with Random 5 Friday today.  Here are five random thoughts from around the farm...

1.  I tried a couple of new things in the garden this year.  I made a raised bed out of some old pallets, and tucked an herb garden in the corner of my perennial bed close to the house.  I planted parsley, oregano, chives, cilantro, and basil.  It's too cold for the basil at night, so I've been covering it.  It was getting way too spindly in the house, so I gave it a shot.  The bed is pretty protected, and I'm hoping it won't get too cold...

I also planted my lettuce, cabbage and kale in these pallets (in the garden) to try to keep the weeds down.  For some reason, the weeds just love to take over these plants when I put them directly in the garden soil...

2.  We're down to our last four round bales of balage.  They will last us perhaps two weeks yet, and then we'll be feeding all dry hay to the cows. They'll be grazing as well, but by the time we're ready to bale first cutting of alfalfa, the hay mow will be getting empty...

3.  A few weeks ago, Jim "retired" our old New Idea manure spreader...

This is one of the few...perhaps the only...piece of brand new equipment that we bought.  Back in September of 1996, we purchased this manure spreader for $4850.  We spread manure every day, so Jim figured out the with the daily manure spreading, and cleaning out heifer pens several times a year for 16 1/2 years, that his trusty old spreader has hauled between 6500 - 7000 loads of manure!  The web has been replaced several times, and routine maintenance has been done, but it's now been replaced by a used, and slightly larger one. This old spreader owed us nothing!  It will be a great spreader for someone who has a few steers, or some horses, but it's daily, heavy work is over.

4.  My chickens are laying eggs like crazy again, now that the days are getting longer.  We lost some customers over the winter to our Amish neighbors, because we didn't have light in our chicken shed.  Now we have to build up a customer base again.  Three dozen eggs per day is a few more than we need...

5. My fern leaf peony's blooms are just about to open!  I got this flower from a lady at Church a bunch of years ago, and it's cheery blooms are one of the first to open...

This was fun...I hope you enjoyed it too!