Jacopo, Fall Harvest, Etc.

Jacopo is doing VERY well! She still needs to fatten up on her mom's milk, but she is a bouncy little terror with personality to spare! I love Zatarra (our other 2009 miniature donkey foal), but Zatarra doesn't have anywhere near the personality that "Jaca-poco" (her farm nickname) has! Jacopo has taken a liking to me, and comes running up to me whenever I go into the stall. Yesterday she even tried to follow me out when I was leaving! I love her!! As soon as she gets a little bit bigger, we are moving her in with Cappuchino & Zatarra, and combining two pastures into one large pasture (so that they all have room to play).



I can't believe it's almost September, which means Mabon - The Harvest Celebration! Interesting how you come to understand & celebrate the old pagan holidays when you are so attuned to the seasons as a farmer...I actually really enjoy this fact. My entire family (okay, all four of us) has been helping me to bring the beginnings of the harvest in! My enclosed patio has turned into a hodge podge of seed drying trays...I keep blatantly hinting at Ryan that he needs to get my new harvest/herb room built! He is going to build me tall shelves with pull-out trays for storing and drying seeds, and I am going to ask him to build me a book shelf along one wall and an apothecary-type of cupboard along another (hey, the Apothecary Inn gets an apothecary cupboard! Har de har har...). Our garden harvest (in regards to produce) wasn't as large as I had hoped, but I have come to see this year as more of a focus on saving seeds for next year's (bigger and better!) garden. We have already finished bringing in and drying the quinoa. Now we are separating the tiny grains from the rest of the plant, which is tedious work. Then, we will need to wash the grains repeatedly to get the coating of saponin off of them. My calendula finally went to seed (Calendula is FREAKY the way it goes to seed!), and is drying on dishes.

We finished harvesting all of the dill seeds, and I am on my second seed harvest of epazote...so much epazote...the basil seeds are drying, and I also have shallot seeds! Ryan and I are taking all of the black beans we picked this year and using them as seed beans for next year. Like I said, we are saving enormous numbers of herb and vegetable seed! My watermelons and squash are almost ripe, and I will be harvesting my oca and yacon in another 2 months or so. Next month, Ryan and I are planting 24 bulbs of saffron (roughly a year's supply of saffron for 1 household - though I doubt we'll use it all ourselves!), and I am also trying out some Salsify (the root is supposed to taste like oysters). We planted our fall crops of arugula, fennel, and kohlrabi - to name a few - at the beginning of the month. I am also busy drying medicinal herbs for storage through the winter, and kicking myself for not having my calendula/comfrey salve ready after my latest kitchen knife accident! Ah well...Ryan and I have decided to start selling our excess seeds under our Apothecary Farm name. I keep telling him I want to get a nursery license someday and start selling plants and such on a larger scale. I'm practically there anyway, and at the rate we are going it may be a necessity soon! :P

And of course harvest season means canning season! (As well as beer-making/liqueur-making

season!) I am going to pick another couple of gallons of blackberries tomorrow, and I need to pick a few more flats of peaches for canning/preserves before the season ends. My peach-rosemary jam, and my blackberry-basil-cinnamon jam have been in high demand at the B&B. It's been selling like crazy, and I can barely keep it in stock!

After Many Deep & Profound Brain Things Inside of My Head...

The above title is an example of irony, as it's 6 am and my coffee hasn't kicked in yet.

Even though today is Ryan's day off from work (and we don't have any B&B guests to worry about), we are still up early in the morning. The reason: we promised my Grammy we'd take her yard sale hopping today (or "slumming" as I like to refer to it) to get her out of the house and away from Grandpa. She's hoping to find a dresser, and Ryan and I are hoping to score some more books for our library.

I have started making some "Healing" salve this week. I have been harvesting calendula, comfrey, and chamomile in large amounts out of my garden this month, so yesterday I put 2 parts calendula/comfrey and 1 part chamomile in a jar with olive oil and set it in a sunny window. I will leave it there for three weeks, at which point I will strain out the herbs, mix it with Beeswax and a little Vitamin E, and have a wonderful skin-healing salve! I also need to get started on making my herbal shampoos (rosemary) and facial toners (sage & apple cider vinegar). So much to do during harvest season! Speaking of harvesting, Ryan and I harvested our first crop of asian pears yesterday. So exciting! I love being able to live almost entirely off of our land!!

Well, on another note, Ryan and I made the first step toward expanding our art collection!! Those who have been to our B&B realize that we collect original oil paintings. I inherited an enormous number of original oil paintings from relatives several years ago, and Ryan and I have always said that we want to continue adding paintings to our collection. Because we are generally stretched to the wire money-wise, we really haven't been able to afford more than two paintings in the 3+ years we have been together. There was the oil painting of the old barn that Ryan bought for me for our first Christmas together! There's a sweet story in that painting: on one of our early dates, he took me to an art gallery (because I do so love paintings), and walked around with me and asked me which paintings I liked best and why...well, several days later, he went back to the gallery and bought the only painting that I liked that he could afford (he spent his entire paycheck! Lovestruck, anyone?) - a small oil depicting an old barn. He even got a chance to meet the artist while he was paying for it! So that was the first painting we bought (it now hangs over our bed in our "Innkeepers' Quarters"), and the second was a beautiful painting of a milk can with flowers that I saw & fell in love with at an antique store. Ryan didn't adore it the way that I did, but he let me buy it anyway. That one now hangs over my computer desk. Those were the only two paintings we had purchased thus far...well, last week Ryan and I went browsing at the Antique Mall in Medford, and fell in love with a GORGEOUS 7 foot long oil by YW Leung. I will forever remember the moment: I had been awestruck by the painting from the minute we walked into the booth. Ryan had been so focused on an antique knife on a stand under the painting (just like a man! *laughing*), that he didn't even notice the artwork. He said, "I love this knife!" and I replied, "I love this PAINTING!" At which point Ryan stepped back and looked up and gasped. That is the moment I will always remember. We both decided that we absolutely had to have it! This was the first time in our life that we BOTH loved a painting (it's usually just one or the other). The enormous oil is of a fleet of Chinese ships at sea, and the artist used reds and oranges in such a way (so it's either dawn or dusk) as to make it appear as though the ocean was on fire! And the painting is done in the style that I ADORE (the same as the "Three Ballerinas" in our dining room): big, thick brush strokes that look like chaos when you stand close, but from afar show an enormous amount of detail! The picture is going to look breath-taking on our deep red livingroom wall!! Anywho, the price was more than fair, but even so, we had to put it on layaway and will be making payments on it. I can't wait to bring it home!

Gearing Up for July...

Ryan and I are gearing up for July and our first set of guests for the weekend of the 4th. We had a bunch of last-minute details to finish on the Apothecary Suite (finishing up the base moulding, installing curtain rods, etc.), and we spent most of yesterday accomplishing our to-do list. It turned out to be a bit larger of a list than we expected, as we kept remembering little details that needed tending. Now everything is perfect and ready to go! Today we are going to get our grocery shopping done, as I really don't want to be out and about much later this week with all of the crazies coming out of the woodwork due to the impending holiday.

We finally found a good home for Michele and Pearl (two of our llamas up for adoption). We really liked the family, and I think that our girls will have a good & happy life at their new home. It was very difficult to say goodbye to them, but I managed not to cry, and in any case, I knew that this would happen eventually...we have 10 llamas, and they are eating us out of house and home! We simply can't afford to feed them all. Michele is a pack llama with some experience, and we gave the family a pack set-up (as well as a book on llama care!), and I have a feeling that they will take Michele backpacking soon. That will be a fun experience for all of them! Comet is still up for adoption, but I have not yet been able to find his "forever" home...

We are still attempting to get our advertising scheme figured out. Everything is so expensive, and we can't afford to do much, so we are trying to figure out the best "bang for our buck." As soon as we are able, we are going to get on the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce website, and hopefully the Britt Festival website. In the meantime, we are online, and we also have fliers at almost all of the local wineries.

I have the breakfast menu figured out for our first set of guests. We'll have to buy a bit more at the grocery store than I originally wanted, as we are inbetween berry crops right now (just finished the first strawberry harvest and are waiting on the early raspberries and blueberries), but all of our herbs and other dairy items will be fresh out of the garden! Of course, each breakfast includes our daily snack bar (set out at 7:30 am for those earlier risers), which consists of fresh (strong!) Good Bean coffee ("Midnight") w/choice of goats milk cream or skim goats milk, fresh sourdough rolls, homemade strawberry jam, goats milk cream cheese, butter, orange juice, fresh fruit from the garden/orchard, and more! I have decided that the breakfast for the first set of guests (we generally do two courses, the first one being smaller, and generally sweeter, and the second being more wholesome and filling) will be:
Day 1, Course 1: Healthy Blueberry Breakfast Cake w/lemongrass & a glass of Mango Juice
Day 1, Course 2: Lemony Quinoa w/Maple-Sauteed Apples

Day 2, Course 1: Individually-sized watermelons scooped-out and filled with melon balls, fresh raspberries, and mint
Day 2, Course 2: Apple-cranberry Pancakes w/Lemon Thyme and a side of our homemade applesauce (from last year's apple harvest)

Day 3, Course 1: Ginger-Pear Breakfast Muffins w/Mango Juice
Day 3, Course 2: Granola w/Fennel Seeds, Pecans, & Blueberries topped w/fresh goats milk yogurt

I went over to Pickety Place in Jacksonville (LOVE that little antique store!), and got a set of 4 vintage linen placemats for $5 to set the table with. My original white placemats have been defiled by a number of messy family members (my husband included, in an unfortunate incident involving a beet salad...*sigh*), and needed replacing.

Well, off to run errands now!