Laraba's Homeschool Blog

Oct. 4, 2009 - Fall Harvest

Isaac and I just finished reading "Farmer Boy" by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I think it is my favorite of her books, and that is saying a lot. The book is a fictionalized account of a year in the life of her husband, Almanzo Wilder, when he was about 9 years old. He grew up on a large farm in New York State, complete with horses, cows, chicken, sheep, grains, and vegetables galore.

One thing that strikes me about that book is that everyone worked very hard. During spring and summer, everyone was extremely busy with planting. In late summer and fall, they had potatotes and carrots and pumpkins and grains to bring in for the long winter months. I'm guessing that winter was a pleasant time for them because while the work never ceased, it diminished.

So, we are facing our own "fall harvest" though admittedly on a tiny scale compared to the Wilder family. Kevin is, as I've said before, is our gardener.

IMG_6180 by you.

Here are some of the last green beans of the year, along with some very attractive carrots. The carrots have been a work in progress for several years. Our experience is that they are persnickity. In particular, they don't grow well in heavy soil. We've had many a carrot that was very short, very skinny, or both. Also, the seeds are very small and it is extremely easy to get too many in a small space. This year, Kevin thinned them carefully. We don't have a large patch of carrots, but the ones we have look and taste wonderfully.

IMG_6223 by you.

And here is Joseph, proudly holding a sweet potato. Kevin planted more than 50 sweet potato plants, and dug up about 12 plants last week. Sweet potatoes are also sensitive to heavy soil that has not been plowed well. Last summer, we got a host of strange, skinny sweet potatoes because the soil hadn't been plowed well. This year, we got 60 lbs of large and beautiful sweet potatoes, and obviously we still have many more to dig up!

We haven't eaten any of them yet, as sweet potatoes store well and some other garden produce is deteriorating on our kitchen counter. Kevin planted 4 varieties of sweet potato, and it'll be interesting to determine which variety tastes best. I probably need to get a little inventive with sweet potatoes. That's a LOT of sweet potatoes. They do store well in a cool, dry place, though. Hopefully they'll last well into the winter.

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Oct. 5, 2009 - Raw Milk

Yes and yes to your questions. It is good to get raw milk from a clean, safe, trusted source, but the good bacteria in the kefir does kill the bad bacteria and proliferates the good bacterial growth. Some people who cannot digest cow's milk even find that they CAN digest cow's milk kefir b/c the lacto-fermentation process does a lot of the digestion beforehand! Kefir can also be made with goat's milk, rice milk or water, I have read (but not tried). My friend tried goat's milk kefiring and really did not care for the flavor.

About your sweet little ones that you have lost.... *sigh* I am so sorry. I know just what you mean!

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