Valerie on May 26th, 2010

One of the first local farmers’ markets opened last Saturday, and the faithful few vendors were there: my bread maker, Loraine, an Amish family selling doughnuts and cakes, and a sweet old man sitting with a dozen brown eggs and a pile of rhubarb. Slim pickin’s, to be sure. I didn’t need a single thing [...]

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Valerie on March 9th, 2010

I really was going to blog this week, Angela. Really. I was all ready to talk about something this past weekend that I had been thinking about, but after reading some other blogs, I lost steam. I discovered that Crystal (Biblical Womanhood, Money Saving Mom) doesn’t have a personal blog anymore, and noticed how Shannon [...]

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Valerie on December 28th, 2009

“Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these [...]

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Valerie on August 24th, 2009

Through trial and error I have worked to make it so that the tomatoes can cook down in the crockpot instead of on the stovetop. Two batches so far have had that cooked-too-long taste, because I still haven’t reached that delicate balance of cooking off the water but not burning the sauce. Last night’s tomatoes [...]

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Valerie on August 19th, 2009

Once upon a time, I planted some Aldi pinto beans in quart jars for the children to watch grow. I said to the children, “They might not come up.” A few days went by, and though there was some sprouting of the beans, I still maintained that they might not come up, just because of [...]

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Valerie on August 5th, 2009

Green Beans- We had fun snapping these and putting most up in the freezer. Green Peppers- I tried one of my pepper varieties and was disappointed with the thin walls and bitter taste. I decided I would let most all of the rest proceed to sweet, colored status and hope for bigger and better taste [...]

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Valerie on July 16th, 2009

Where do I start listing the many things I did wrong with my melon/ squash patch this year… At least there is something growing. Last year I picked a totally wrong location, for many reasons, and yielded only one gourd, about the size and edibility of a VeggieTale character. Back in this spring’s golden days [...]

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Valerie on July 9th, 2009

I’m not getting to a computer very often, so this is a bit late. I harvested peas last week and wanted to get my notes in on that… I planted 4 rows of seeds, and probably had them spaced a little too close together, because as they matured, they looked more and more like the [...]

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Valerie on June 6th, 2009

Our dear aunt Barb moved to Indiana, and said I could have her asparagus plant. The old me wouldn’t get half as excited about this as the new, green stuff lovin’ me, and I couldn’t wait until I could go dig it up and transplant it to our land. You would have thought it was [...]

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Valerie on June 2nd, 2009

On the way home from Mt. Gilead the other day, I stopped at a farm market to see what they had, and came away with our first quart of local strawberries. I don’t know how local, though, since I have it on good authority that Crum’s (our berry patch in this county) won’t be having [...]

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