Holiday Hiatus.

I'm back! I never intended to be away so long either.  We had a really relaxing, stress-free Christmas holiday, although it was really busy. The weeks leading up to Christmas were busy for us and then Christmas was non-stop with all that good Christmas stuff. We are trying to put our heads down and really tackle our basement renos now as there was no time for that leading up to and surrounding the holidays.  

We are still eating all kinds of good foods we have grown ourselves. Here's the contents of a stir fry I made all from the garden with carrots, bok choy and celery and our own chicken breasts. Sadly, we've come to the end of our own potatoes and garlic and are mourning our loss. 

We ate our last pumpkin and saved the seeds, just scoop out and dry in a single layer. These ones of the plate had already been dried on paper towel and moved to the plate for further drying. 

We bottled all of our cider, pictured to the right of the dog here, and gave lots away as gifts that were gratefully received.

We are still eating lots of squash, like this misshapen butternut, carrots, onions and shallots from storage. As well as scallions, kale, spinach, tatsoi, bok choy and radishes all from the cold frame (when we can get to it, we've had tons of snow!) We were enjoying garlic and potatoes up to last week. I have frozen tomatoes, hot peppers, fiddleheads, tons of wild blueberries, two deer, five turkeys, less than our initial thirty chickens, a couple partridges and grass fed beef, including liver my favorite, from Frank Foster at www.lindenleas.ca. I have a lot of broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and brussel sprouts under the massive amount of snow in my yard that may just be toast. It's untypical for us to have this amount of snow so early in the season. The brassicas have been covered for the entire month of December, when we would normally be enjoying them. I'll keep you posted when I'm able to dig them out of the snow. Thankfully next year we should have our greenhouse in case this weather becomes a trend. We are supplementing with lots of sprouts these days. Mung beans, alfalfa, red clover and broccoli are always on the go for use in soups, stir-fries, sandwiches and wraps or just served on the side, straight up.

I know I'm a bit behind here, however I just love the promise of a new year. It gives us the opportunity to be better and do better. What better time to rejuvenate my blog!