The gardens are starting to wind down. I am glad in a way,  but sad in others. It will give me a chance to get some other projects done. It gives me time to get all my canning done before we have to start getting the yard and gardens ready for winter.
Today, I will be making and canning tomato sauce. I think tomorrow, we will work on gathering apples from the neighbors and cidering them for juice for the winter. We froze the juice last year, but this year, I am going to can in quart jars. It will save room in the freezer for other things we need to stock up on. We plan on stocking up and hunkering down for the winter. Since the grocery store is about 40 minutes away, we want to make sure we have all that we need to get us through most of the cold winter months.
Stacking wood will be next!

I found out today that I will have to do the kitchen all over again. It would be the best way to stop the paint from chipping off now, and in the future. I won’t have to do the wainscotting I uncovered which I am thankful for. I will have to strip and sand the trim and anything else that had been painted blue. I am not looking forward to that.
I am looking forward to doing the Celebrate Effinhgam Chili Cook Off again. I can’t believe it is next weekend. It came up on me so quickly. I have ordered my special spices, and I will have to shop for the meat next week.  We have put up the signs at various locations, and we hope to get atleast a couple more participants before the deadline.

On Saturday,  September 20 Celebrate Effingham will be holding their 2nd Annual Chili Cook Off. I am the chair of the committee again this year, and have been busy getting everything ready. There is much to do to make the event a success again this year. We have several participants who are defending their titles from last year, and we have a few new people on board. This year we have a few vendors as well.

I finally finished the kitchen. It is all painted and it is beautiful. It came out just like we wanted. Then I found out that it was oil paint underneath the latex I had just painted. I had sanded most surfaces, but when it gets wet, the paint just peels right off. It is very disappointing. I fear that most of it will have to be stripped or scraped off and then primed, and then repainted. After hours and hours of painting, I will have to start all over again. Sigh…

While in the big city of Conway today, we decided to look into getting a new, and smaller fridge. The one we had was a bit too big for us. Also, it did not fit in with the back dating of our 1940’s kitchen. We bought a small one that would fit under the counter. The old one went out on the porch with a free sign, and we were happy to see it go. It opened up the kitchen so much more.
Our next task is to find an old icebox or old fridge with the compressor on top. As long as it is in presentable condition, we can use it for storage. Just a few more tweaks, and we will  have our 1940’s kitchen. The 1920’s hoosier is now all fixed up.
The microwave is gone, along with the dishwasher and washer and dryer. Gone are the modern appliances. Gone are the teflon pans, replaced with pots from the late 30’s. If you walk into our kitchen, you would be hardpressed to know what year it is.
I see many pictures online where they say they have a “1950 kitchen”. They have all these “gadgets” hanging about to make it look like the 1950’s. Then I see a microwave on the counter and I have to laugh.

The unofficial end of summer is of course today Labor Day. The kids will go back to school and most vacations have ended.
Around here, summer will not end until September 21, which according to history is the Autumn Solstice.
From then forward we will prepare the gardens, animals, and house for the coming winter months. Not an easy task. It the spring tasks in reverse. Putting the hoses aways, tilling in the compost and other such chores. This year, we will build a chicken coop for the new chickens as well. We will too get ready for the goats that will arrive in the spring.
While summer vacation is over for most, life here on the farm is as busy as ever.

While Michael was busy doing the farmers market, I was a bit bored. The shop was slow, and the gardens were all set for the day. So, I decided to see what was behind the plywood walls in the kitchen. I took the crowbar , and gently lifted it from the wall. When I pulled it back, there it was…gold. Read the rest of this entry »

As the season here on the farm winds down, it gives us time to start projects that we were too busy for during the summer season. We decided to continue work on back dating the kitchen to the 1940’s. We had started in the spring by ripping out some unwanted cabinets, but we never got around to tearing out the rest of them. We ordered the wallpaper and paint. We will begin painting and papering tomorrow.

As the 1965 hit song, Turn, Turn, Turn, by The Byrds played in the background, we killed out first chicken. Wes, our “chicken expert”, helped us out with each step of the whole process of dressing a bird properly.
After getting it all processed, in the oven it went. A couple hours later, we ate the most delicious chicken we had ever eaten. It was nice to know that the food we were eating was totally organic, had not been fed antibiotics and other chemicals. It had a good life, free ranging on our farm, and was now giving back to us.

Today I will start working on the pantry. The ceiling has been fixed, and it is time to start the painting. The ceiling is original to the building. The plasterer we had fix the ceiling dates the ceiling to the late 1700’s or early 1800’s. Since we are trying to keep the house as “original” as we can, we have had a tough job in choosing colors for the pantry. The ceiling now is a dirty gray color. After all it is 200 years old.
Three of the walls have the original reddish milk paint. We have been trying to match the red, but have found it almost impossible to attain the right color. We will keep the two end walls original, and paint one wall a mustardy yellow, and then age it. The last wall will be taken up by an 1800’s pantry cupboard. The wall around the cupboard is still being debated. Many of the historical houses we have visited at Strawbery Banke have a similar mustary color in the kitchens of that era.