Frenchman's Pancakes

 At work, I've been meeting people from all over the world. I've met folks from Tasmania, Australia, England, Scotland, India, Pakistan, China, South Korea, France, Germany, etc, etc, etc... You get the point. ;) If they're visiting the states, you introduce them to the wonderful local specialties (aka - berries) If they're immigrants, it's always fun to hear what they do with the fresh produce to recreate the cuisine from their country. 

One Frenchman picked a bucketful of berries to make special pancakes. As he described them, I began to feel hungry even though I had just eaten lunch. Lemon peel, blueberries, and lavender honey. Apparently we don't have real lavender honey in the states though. In France, there are hills upon hills of lavender with bee hives in the fields. Over here, the closest thing we have it lavender infused honey. Oh well. After practically drooling over the thought of these pancakes, I knew that I had to try to make my own. Thankfully it was lavender season still, so I was able to get some of our lavender infused honey from the lavender farm down the road before they closed for the season. But life happened and I wasn't able to get around to making these special pancakes until today. 

All you have to do is make a basic pancake recipe (I used Elana Amderstam's with minor alterations), add the zest of one lemon, some lemon extract to taste, and voila! You have lemon pancakes. When you start cooking them up, you toss on a few blueberries before flipping them over. It's not my sort of cooking until the smoke detector goes off in the laundry room. Guess what started blaring in the middle of my cooking session. 

Top it all off with a pat of butter and a drizzle of lavender honey. At least, the American equivalent of it. ;) 

One thing I learned in all of this... I'm not a very good food photographer. :P 

But it tasted :really: good, and that is all that matters. 

Until next time!

SG

It's a Kombucha Mushroom.

A long, long while ago, we watched this cute Kid Snippets about health food. Maybe we thought it was funny because there were so many points that rung true. :shrugs: One of the lines that we constantly quote is, "It's dreen. Why is it dreen?" The other blip that gets tossed around frequently is the kombucha blip, and for good reason. We have the mushrooms sitting on the counter. I'd like to introduce you to Phil and Baby Phil.

Bonus points to whoever can catch the reference(s) in the names of our SCOBYs

And what does SCOBY stand for? Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast

Mmmm! Want some?

We originally had several mason jars of the SCOBYs, and they were all numbered (in our heads anyway). The only issue with that rotational system of kombucha consumption and fermentation is that, for a really odd reason, we couldn't keep the numbers straight, so the SCOBY colonies each got a name. And they all tasted weird. Except for Phil. Phil is our favorite. ;) Then Phil had a baby! Phil is a girl? :shrugs: Okay. Once Phil's baby had grown independent enough to live on its own, that SCOBY also got it's own jar. Eventually, we got to the point where we only drank kombucha from these two colonies. All the others stayed on their place up on the refrigerator, culturing away. 

The other day, Mom found GIANT jars for Phil and his family. It's now time to start this cranking through this kombucha making process. The ultimate goal is to not need to buy anymore from the store; you can buy an entire box of tea (kombucha fodder is essentially sweet tea) for the price of a small-ish bottle of the fermented tea. 

Grass-Fed Butter

When you're reading through healthy recipes and cookbooks, you can usually find the little phrase 'grass fed butter' on many of the ingredient lists. I always chuckle when I see it because my imagination likes to take it a step farther. Hence this quick sketch. 

Baby Butter: Will I become a trans-fat when I grow up?
Mommy Butter: Of course not, Sweetie! You're saturated through and through. 

Farm Girl Got Geek: Lembas Bread

If you're a regular human being, September 22nd is the first day of fall. If you're a Lord of the Rings junkie, it's Bilbo's and Frodo's birthday, and it's Hobbit day to the fandom. Since it was a gully gusher of a day, I can't think of a better way to celebrate than with a Lord of the Rings role playing game and eating tons of food a-la-hobbit style. 

But, as good as regular food is, something about making your regular food go with the theme of the day. So I set out to make Elven lembas bread, the traveling food of the Elves of Middle Earth. Batch of cookies? Check. Mallorn leaves? Uh... That's something that needs doing. You can't have lembas without the mallorn. I found a leaf pattern, but they used foam to make the leaves. I didn't have foam handy, and I didn't feel that the foam would work very well for a method of aesthetic food delivery. I did have felt. A lot of felt. And in green too. How convenient! ;) Cut out the pattern and sew all the veins of the leaf. Voila'! Mallorn leaves. 

Just had to pass it by the critics - the brothers. One thought that it was the coolest thing ever. The other thought that all that all the extra leaf and string action was just hindering his cookie consumption.

Berry Season

Source

Berry cobbler with fresh goat milk ice cream.

A fresh glass of strawberry lemonade.

A handful tossed into a smoothie in the morning.

Yogurt mixed with maple syrup and more berries.

A bowl of berries here, a bucket of berries there.

Berries for fresh eating.

And bags upon bags of berries stashed away in the freezer.

Blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries.

When it's berry season, you pick. 

That's all you ever do. Pick and pick and pick.

Because if you don't, you'll regret it come those dark winter days when you crave the taste of summer.

So you sit there with your buckets with a plink and a plunk until it's all full. Then you start again. 

Source

Di Uve Da Vino

I heard it from the grape vine...

Fine, I'll stop it with the puns.

Dad's grapes have ripened. 

And no, these aren't the wine grapes that are going in the South field - those are still the stuff of dreams. 

Until then though, we shall be enjoying fresh table grapes day in and day out! :D Yummy!

Dozens...

Bird brains. You never really can understand what goes on behind those eyes. Sometimes they appear to be very dim bulbs indeed. Other times, they must think that we're the stupid ones.

We've been getting this certain brand of chicken feed that was completely organic, corn free, soy free, etc, etc, etc... and it was based on raw split peas and legumes. Sounds pretty good huh? These chickens were living the dream; at least I thought. For years the spring chicks would get to about 12-15 months and stop laying eggs altogether. Why? Why do the girls always go on strike when they get that old? Do they reach some know-it-all, rebellious teenager stage at this point? I didn't think so.

What do you know about raw legumes and digestion for humans? Raw legumes are an anti-nutrient; they pull nutrients out of the body as you digest them. And I knew that. But the thought hadn't exactly translated over to chickens. Poor girls. A friend of mine brought that to my attention. She brought it on herself as a personal task to figure out why the chickens weren't laying.

So we sought out a different feed for the poultry products. And we found one that will work for now. It's not organic, but it will do for now.

The chicken are laying more than 2 dozen eggs a day. Even though we've been trying to be creative with egg uses (lots of hard boiled eggs, egg salad sandwiches, mayonnaise, etc), we have quite the surplus of eggs right now. I think that the chickens are happy now.

Peanut sauce w/o the peanuts

I"m on a diet. The 'Primal Diet' to be exact. Meat, veggies, more meat, a little fruit, even more veggies, seeds/nuts, and then some more meat with a salad on the side. You eat like ancient man. Do I agree with the philosophy and basis of the diet? No. The constant references to evolution are bugging me. Do I think that it's a healthier way to eat? Yes. Grains, starches, legumes, and sugars have always been in my life, and I've paid the price. At least that's what the lab results are saying.

But if one is to only eat certain foods, won't it get boring? Oh yes. That's where the cookbooks come in handy. They are the spice of life, quite literally. Take broccoli for example. How long could you eat steamed broccoli and it stay interesting? Well, search no farther. Your green florets will take a little trip to SE Asia with this little (altered) recipe from Mark Sisson's book Quick and Easy Meals on page 67.

You will need:
- Broccoli (enough for the whole clan to have a hefty serving or two)
- 1 T rice wine vinegar
- 5 T almond butter
- 1/2 T honey
- 1 T toasted sesame oil
- 2 T tamari (soy sauce w/o the grain)
- 1/4 tsp chili oil (the original recipe calls for double that; my tongue would not forgive me if I used that much)
- water

Cut the broccoli into florets. Steam the greenies until it reaches desired tenderness.

Mix remaining ingredients execpt the water together in food processor until they form a smooth, albeit thick, dressing. Slowly add the water, tablespoon by tablespoon, until it reaches desired consistency. You will only need about 3-4 T of water.

Double the recipe. You'll want more.

Enjoy! You can use this as a veggie dip for carrots, drizzle it over your meat (it is most excellent with grilled chicken), or whatever you want to put it on! Hmm... wonder how it tastes on chocolate.

Chocolate Chips

It seemed to be a normal trip. Go to the food, pick up the food, haul the food home, unload the food, put all the food away. Done deal, right? Nope. Well, actually, yes, except for the last little bit.

I had just poured in an entire 1 lb. bag into the chocolate chip container in the pantry but the chips looked ever so slightly different. Only one way to investigate: taste test. Lo-and-behold, what I thought were chocolate chips were not chocolate chips at all. They were carob chips.

Now, before I proceed, you must understand my relationship with chocolate. I love it. The darker the better. I get antioxidants and endorphin releasing powers running through my system. Carob on the other hand is a chocolate impostor. You take a handful of the bits only to be thoroughly disappointed when your taste buds react to the not-so-chocolate-y-ness. Bleh.

Back to the story. We needed to return the bag since it obviously wasn't what we thought it was. There was only one problem - the carobs had mingled with the chocolates. I had just unintentionally created much more work than I had anticipated. I handpicked every piece of carob and put it into its rightful bag to return. An entire pound of the things. Oy. This was a job that required chocolate and patience. But I survived with the help of chocolate which was conveniently at hand if I picked out the carob.

Goodnight!

Pumpkin Milkshake

Note: When it comes to the spices, you will want to do it to taste. Since the pumpkin mixture is going to be very diluted once it is in the milkshake, be sure to put a little more than tastes good at the moment. You can always add some in the blender, but you can't take it away. 

You will need:
1 ½ cups of pureed pumpkin
Pinch of ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, allspice to taste
Sugar
Vanilla ice cream and some milk

First, put your pureed pumpkin into a small mixing bowl. Then add just a slight dash of sugar, and the various spices to taste. Be careful with the ginger and cloves though! They are quite potent. Then you will mix the pumpkin mixture so that there aren’t any clumps of spices or sugar left in the mixture – those don’t make good eats. Now put the ice cream in the blender along with the pumpkin mixture and some milk. Blend until completely mixed. Enjoy with a dollop of whipped cream and a dash of nutmeg or cinnamon on top.

This recipe is by Sarah G; it was inspired by Burgerville’s seasonal shake that she can never get enough of. 

The Pumpkin

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)

. . . Ah! On Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West,

From North and from South come the pilgrim and guest,

When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board

The old broken links of affection restored,

When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more.

And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before,

What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye?

What calls back the past, like the rich pumpkin pie?

Oh, fruit loved of boyhood! The days recalling,

When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!

When wild, ugly faces were carved into its skin,

Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!

When we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts all in tune,

Our chair a broad pumpkin, our lantern the moon,

Telling tales of the fairy who travelled like steam,

In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team!

The thanks for they present! None sweeter or better

E're smoked from the oven or circles in platter!

Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine,

Brighter eyes never watched o're its baking, than thine!

And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express,

Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less,

That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below,

And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow,

And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky

Golden-tinted and fair as thy own pumpkin pie!

The Open Milk Machine

I don't know what is prompting me to post this. Actually... I do. I was talking with a friend, and she is looking for reasons to NOT get a milk cow. A couple years ago, I had written a lovely little piece that I lovingly call "The Open Milk Machine" parodying Stephen Crane's "Open Boat." Having some experience in the area of milking bovine, and having recently jumped into the whole milking thing (at the time) - many of these blunders were rather fresh in my mind. Yes, they have all happened - just not in one milking session - they have been super condensed for entertainment purposes.

So without further ado, I give you, "The Open Milk Machine"

:cue melodramatic music:

It was a bleak morning, yet the milk maid was up hours before the sun and bundled in layers of coats. She had no hope of seeing the sunrise this morning; it was the dead of December. As she tramped out to the milking parlor, she had to make another trail through the snow, for during the silent night, the clouds brought several feet of new snow- erasing all traces of previous paths. When she finally got to the milking parlor, she realized that the power had gone out yet again, while she was tramping through the snow. So she hooked up the generator and prayed that there would be enough gas, since it was almost empty from the previous night.

She went out to fetch the cows. To her horror, the calf got out of his enclosure, found his mom, and nursed her until she was almost completely dry.
“My goodness, cow! My goodness, cow! My goodness, cow! That is the last time I trust my brother to take care of the calf!” the milk maid cried. The heifer looked back with an unfeeling glance and continued chewing her cud; she knew that her baby was meant to stay with her even if the humans believed otherwise. The milk maid finally shooed the calf back into his stall, and she resumed to the next step of her routine: getting the two heifers into the milking parlor. The girls refused to exit the pasture until the milk maid enticed them with some grain, then they slipped on some frozen mud but saved themselves. Cows have a natural sense of balance that enables them to do such things.

With the cows finally in their stanchions, the milk maid continued her chore. She washed down the cows’ udders with a rag, applied a cleaner, and cleaned it off with a special wipe. Next the mastitis test. The big cow tested negative, but the mother cow came positive.

“What am I to do? What am I to do? What am I to do? We cannot drink this milk, but I hate wasting it! I will just have to milk her completely dry and look up remedies in the books. . . A vet would not even be able to come out because we are snowed in! Oh, what am I to do about this?”

The first cow to be milked was the mother cow who was almost dry anyway. With the air so cold, the milk machine refused to behave or work properly. There was no suction on the lid to keep it from falling to the depths of the concrete parlor floor; the attachment for the pulsating motion barely worked. When the milking of the first cow was almost complete – ten minutes longer than normal because of the malfunctioning machine – the cow started kicking and snagged the vacuum tube between her hooves and pulled the hose apart from the machine. Scrambling to save the precious milk from the ravages of the foot, the milk maid finally yanked the tube from the hooves, but it was covered in poop, mud and soggy straw.

Once she had the pipe back on the machine and was finishing the first cow, the machine stopped working all together. No amount of bumping, tweaking, or manipulating could help the engine – it was simply too cold. She just heaved a heavy sigh, continued her work, and began pouring the milk from the machine into the milk jars. As she was tipping the canister over to put the milk into its final resting place, her cold fingers slipped and dumped half of the white gold all over the work table and floor. The cow only gave two pints. To the point of tears, she bit her lip and trudged on, just as the generator gasped for fuel.

The next cow would have to be hand milked, so the milk maid found an empty pail and began. Slowly, slowly, slowly the bucket began to fill up – even though the cow thought that it would be entertaining to swish her tail into the milk maid’s face after every five to eight squirts. After the bucket had about three cups in it, the cow lifted her tail and deposited a meadow muffin* right next to the milk maid’s head. The poop splattered everywhere, and the milk maid was covered in it. She pulled the bucket out from underneath the cow, cleaned it and herself off as best she could, scooped up the mess with a shovel, and poured what milk she did get through a strainer into the jars.

As she continued milking, the heifer was constantly kicking and jerking – nearly kicking the bucket over – but one of the kicks, the milk maid missed, and the foot landed right in the bucket. Just as the milk maid was about to faint in utter shock and disdain, one of her brothers came and was going to ask if she needed any help, but, upon seeing the state that she was in, skulked away to give her some space seeing that she needed to let off some of the vexation that had built up all morning.

“A whole bucket ruined! My father was right when he said that I would have to survive through January before I could call myself a real milk maid!” When she finally did finish milking, she only had about a gallon to show for her work - when the cows normally gave about three gallons – because of all of the accidents this particular morning.

Her brother came back and offered to put the cows into the pasture again, and she was grateful, never wanting to see those two again for the rest of the day. As she was sterilizing the machine with scalding hot water (she now had electricity again because her father found some more gasoline for the generator), she overshot the spout and hit her hand with the blistering water. Writhing in pain and agony she gasped to continue her work which seemed futile and pathetic at this point. With the machine put back together and the cows in the pasture, she dragged herself back to the house where her cold breakfast was waiting for her. She would have to come back out that evening to repeat the whole process again.

Here's a toast!

...Without the alcohol. I had a sudden hankering for home-made eggnog, but lo-and-behold I lost my recipe. I searched everywhere, and every recipe I found, had a lot of bourbon, brandy, congac, liquer... I mentioned my predicament to a friend, and she graciously shared the recipe that she successfully uses (much to her sibling's delight). Being myself, I couldn't leave the recipe as it was. First time through and already changed things. ;) So without any further ado, here's what I've come up with for a family friendly eggnog!

7 farm fresh eggs - seperated (you need both the white and yolk)
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
big pinch of allspice
1 quart fresh milk

Take the egg yolk and sugar. Beat them up. Add the spices and stir to combine. I love the KitchenAid. Pour the milk in as you're beating the egg mixture. Put the mixture into a seperate bowl. Wash the mixing bowl and whip the egg whites to a peak somewhere between soft and stiff. Slowly pour the yolk mixture into the whites and thoroughly mix. Pour a big glass and drink it straight or fill a coffee cup half full of the black ju-ju and fill the rest with the eggnog. You'll beat Starbucks any day. ;) Enjoy!

Getting ready!

Last Octocer, my family graciously hosted what was the result of some long car rides and giddy girls with lofty thoughts. Dancing, pies, pumpkins, friends, full moon, crisp autumn chill, more pies, more dancing, and some bonfire singing made the evening absolutely perfect. My family and I were completely whooped by the end of the party, but it was oh so worth it! Now every time it comes up in a conversation, people ask me if we'll do it again. And all I could answer then was maybe, I hope so. Well, the parents have given the go-ahead and it's on it's way! The harvest party that people compared to something that was stuck in the movies or old books is coming again this year!

Now it's time to make the final plans, make lists, and get the final emails out!

The dance floor

I can't wait!!!

I'm surrounded!

By roosters, that is. ;) We have over 50 chickens running around right now, and several of them are roosters. No, we are not raising fighting cocks (most of these will be 'taken care of' in less than a week), the hens fight more than the roosters. That shouldn't surprise you. ;) But every morning when I open up the barn doors, dozens of poultry come running our and all of the roosters start giving it their all. From the tiniest 8" bantie to the 7 1/2 lb. lunker start crowing with all their might. Every rooster has his individual crow, almost to the point where we can tell the difference between them. Come butchering next week, things will get very quiet. Now, don't take it the wrong way when I say that I'm looking forward to butchering. I'm not morbid. But I am looking forward to actually getting things cleaned up around here.

Having so many chickens can be quite destructive. They sneak into the garden, tear up the flower beds, peck dents and dings into the pumpkins (I promise you, they'll taste better AFTER they've turned orange. :roll:), they make messes everywhere they go, ect.

So yes, I am looking forward to butchering, just not the actual deed.

I hear angels singing

Okay, so maybe not... but for those of you who have gone on any outing with me that involves food will know of my many, limiting food allergies/intolerances. Those of you who haven't, let me get you caught up. ;)

All my life I've struggles with just feeling healthy and good. Whenever I had a cold or allergies, I would get a secondary infection. When I was little, I was always on some form of antibiotic for my ear infections. I then realized how prone I was to whatever decided to hit me when my lymph nodes became infected... My energy levels were never where they should've been - if you asked me how I was doing, my normal response was 'tired.' When I entered the teens years, I had many skin problems (acne and ecxema (sp?)), and I started getting frequent, random stomach aches and severe migranes. These eventually culminated into a constant, migrane-intensity headache and stomach aches in my Junior year in highschool. 'Conventional' doctors didn't prescribe anything that helped, and I was becoming doomed to live a sick life.

Then some friends of ours directed us to a natropath about and hour away (really depends on the traffic), and we scheduled an appointment. The natropath did a simple blood test to find out what my food intolerance was - fruit/sugar and potato. These food intolerances were 'the root' of my health problems - everything stemmed from them.

It took about 3-4 months befre I felt well enough to do anything (my summer was spent on the couch watching decorating shows and cooking shows. My brother says that my cooking greatly improved after that summer). Even then, I would have to frequent to the natropath's for lingering problems...

I finally felt well enough to live again, although it was nothing like how I lived before. Because of my food intolerance (mainly potato - it's in everything, believe me), every outing and trip had to be well thought out to account for very limited food options. As time went on though, new problems started to arise even though we were keeping to the strict diet. Believe me, that is very frustrating to put so much work into keeping something out of your diet and have new problems pop up.

Then another friend pointed us to a natropath (much closer too!). She doesn't treat things as an intolerance (a sort of genetic issue - you don't create the enzymes needed to digest the food), but as a treatable allergy. o_O She found that I had more food limitations that previously thought. On top of the potato - no wheat, chocolate (what?!?!?!?!), lectins, etc. The list is still growing, but it is also shrinking at the same time. Through a strange process of pressure points, molecules, and accupressure called NAET, you can correct the nervous/immune system to accept these sustains once again.

You may be asking, then how do you develop allergies in the first place if you can treat them too? The natropath says that many things are part of it - the (way too many) vaccines that are given (they even contain mercury - if it's such a deadly element then why is it in there?!), GMO foods (they have been genetically altered so much that the body does not recognize it as an edible food-therefore it is a toxin that the body just wants to get rid of and builds an 'immunity' to it), and the stress, chaos, and worry-ness that our culture has created. Apparently the body doesn't neccessarily register emotion, it just nows about the chemical reactions that are going on and reacts accordingly. If your body is under stress, anger, any bad feeling, it will take whatever you happen to be eating as the source of its 'not feeling good' and build an immunity to that. This is probably why so many people are coming up positive for being allergic to the so called 'comfort foods'. Do you ever wonder why so many people are finding gluten problems and celiacs? Breads are one of the first foods that we reach for when we feel under the weather.

Anyway back to the story (we have to get to the climax, don't we?)-
I had my first potato last night in two years. And with lunch today, I had a couple of potato chips. Now the steamed potato wasn't exactly what I remember (you know when someone dies or something is taken away from you - it becomes glorified?), but the potato chip - that was an experience. The satifying CRUNCH + the wonderful saltiness = BLISS! I'm pretty sure that I heard angels singing when I took that bite.

Your time is up, my pretty!

9 1/2 weeks after we brought home 20 cute little chickies, it was time to fulfill their destiny! :bwahaha!: As we loaded them up into the truck to take over to a friend's house (she had all the equipment for the job and many more birds to deal with than us), my uncle gave the poultry a final salute as he hummed "Taps."

We caught the chickens, one by one, and flipped them upside down into the 'killer cones'

Once the slitting deed was done, we had to wait a couple minutes before we could defeather the goobers. We would throw them into the plucker, turn on the water, and let her spin! This strange contraption saved up :so: much time.

Oh yes. You wouldn't want to mess with us. ;)

Odd how it worked...

Emily was kind enough to show us how it's done. You chop off the head and the legs (at the knee joint), dislodge the trachea, esopogus, and something that is attached, and then make a slit to pull out the lovely inards. Just make sure to get all the lung out... they're sort of stuck inside the rib cage.

Even Emily's little sisters watched in apprehensive enthrallment.

All in all, it was quite a fun day - considering what we were doing.

Who's to say?

Maybe I'm catching spring fever early this year, maybe it's the unusually warm weather that we're having for this time of year - but for some odd reason, I want to get a fruit tree. This has never happened before, but something just blew across my face when I was going through the Raintree Nursery catalog and saw a Weeping Santa Rosa plum. Now, I've always loved ornamental trees, drapey trees, trees with something unique and special about them, but this tree is different - it bears fruit. So it's a useful decorative tree! :D It has the classic pink plum blossoms in the spring all across it wispy draping branches, and later in the year, there are lovely plums that you can go out and pick. Oh, another plus - it only gets to about 8 feet tall! So, yeah, I'm considering getting a tree now.

When all is said and done... You look back!

Yes, I'm having flashbacks of last week's party-putting-together... Here are some pics from the trip we made to pick up the pumpkins for the pumpkin toss. ^_^
Count them: 21. That's right! A local farm DONATED twenty-one #2 pumpkins to our party for the pumpkin toss. =D Yet another reason to go to the small farm stores in your area. You can usually work some sort of a deal (the original deal that I worked was $2 a pumpkin, but when I went to pick them up, they said that they were going to give them to us!). And small farms are run by humans. Not some freakishly controlling, money monger, greedy CEO. So, lesson of this paragraph - support your local farmers. =)

The back seat of the car. More pumpkins! And cider too! =D (and gym bag and booster seat...)

Hoe Down!

Hoe Down/Harvest Party!

Setting up!

Must move towards the light!

My little brother. =)

O_o

*reverent silence

Bonfire!

We even had live music! =D

Dancing!

Ooh! Pretty lights!

This isn't what it looks like... ;)

More dancing!

In the barn

Some of our musicians

The Virginia Reel

Laura, our dance caller and music supplier, was running late, but, thank goodness, some people had brought their instruments, so we impromtued the first couple dances. =)

We even had a full moon!

There was so much food!

Playing in the loft!

At the end of the party... =(

Fire!!!

Wow! What an evening! This whole party was the brainchild of a drive home from ECD one evening at the beginning of the summer. We were thinking that a harvest party would be fun, and we just ran with it! =D My parents were excited to host the party at our house, so we even had a great farm location (complete with farm atmosphere)!

Unfortunately, the week leading up to the event, the forecast started out as showers on Saturday, Oct. 3 (the day of the party) then changed to thunder showers. We were all praying really hard that we could not have any rain on the event... Saturday morning was cloudy and overcast but in the afternoon, it cleared up, we had sunshine and blue skies! That night we even had a full moon to complete the whole experience! =D

Another unfortunately... I was getting migranes almost every other day leading up to the Harvest Party... To give you some backround, I had fallen off a horse the week before and made my neck, head and back go out of alignment which leads to migranes. >_<>

So, all things summed up, I want to do this again next year! =D

PS- Most pictures made possible by Daniel S. and Nathan B. Thank you!