Family and Farm

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  We were blessed to host this year and had grandparents, aunts, and cousins over for a wonderful dinner.  Post-dinner all the adults want to nap, but the kiddos seem to keep right on going.  How does the tryptophan in turkey not affect them?  On Friday following Thanksgiving we were surrounded by family and friends while we said good-bye to Brad's grandfather.  He passed just four days before turning 98.  It was a beautiful memorial with humorous stories about Harvey and his love of electric fences. Harvey was a proud father to three daughters, nine grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.

Lindsey at 18 months sitting with great-grandpa

Friday evening Brad and I were able to escape being mom and dad for a few hours and went out to dinner and a movie.  It was lovely having a nice meal that someone else prepared, and no need to remind anyone about their table manners.  After the movie I thought we were headed home for the evening, but Brad had a little surprise for me.  He and my mom had been in cahoots!  Brad surprised me with an overnight stay at a local bed and breakfast in Wichita!  I was speechless!  He is so good at planning surprises for me.  When I try to plan a surprise he either figures it out or I get so excited about the surprise I tell him too soon.  We had a lovely evening and breakfast was wonderful the next morning.  I had the opportunity to sleep in a bit, but my internal clock woke up right on schedule waiting to hear the pitter patter of little feet running into our room in the morning.  Luckily, I rolled over and went back to sleep for a bit!  If you are interested in a night away also or guests coming to town who don't want to stay in a hotel, you may want to check out the Delano Bed And Breakfast.  Tell them Brad and Tiffany Dilts from Serenity Farm sent you.

We celebrated Lindsey's 5th birthday on Saturday. Everyone was pretty worn out from all of the other busyness of the week that we kept it pretty low key.  She was quite pleased with her owl cake and all of her gifts.

Some of our close friends purchased one of our mulefoot hogs and this past weekend we did the kill and butcher here on the farm.  When Brad and I did our first hog, we really had no clue what we were doing.  We had read a book or two, searched the internet, but for the most part we just winged it.  Our friends took a different approach and as the pieced out each section they would watch a video on how to do it.  Our pork tasted great, but their presentation of cuts may have been slightly more professional looking. 

On Monday the temperatures were in the 60's and it was a beautiful day for us to be outside and finish cleaning off our garden.  When the first freeze occurred we pulled all the green tomatoes off, but hadn't had a chance yet to pull the plants and stack the tomato cages.  We got those taken care of and weeds pulled around the fence surrounding our garden.  We pulled up some t-posts with wire hoops that we used for growing peas.  It never worked really well and we struggled to keep weeds at bay.  We will add more compost and cover with hay and this will be our potato patch next year.

This weekend we will be at the Farmer's Market at 21st. and Ridge from 8am-1pm.  We will have fresh salad greens, kale, raw apple cider, apple butter, and fresh ground flour.  Our oldest son Ray will have a few craft items he handmade for sale to continue to raise funds to grow his flock of sheep.  We will be working on moving hogs and starting to mark off where growing beds for next spring will be placed this weekend also.  It will be cloudy and gloomy the rest of the week and weekend, but our chances of rain look good on Sunday and next week.  We welcome the moisture.   The last rain brought 0.70 inches to Serenity Farm and we were quite pleased!  Since outdoor work won't be possible with rain, I'll sit inside and browse the seed catalogs that are beginning to arrive and start dreaming up the plans for all of the fruits and vegetables to fill your boxes.

Until next time,

Tiff