Onions!!! Onions Everywhere!!!

This week we had an amazing garden harvest. We brought in a ton of sqaush and even a bit of potatoes, but our biggest harvest this week was onions. Now we grew quite a bit of onions, we always do because normally we don't get very big ones but this year HOLY COW!!

We had one of these weigh in at just about 2lbs, thats alot of onion!!!

With us getting our monsoon rains its time for the onion tops to start falling over so when my dear husband went down to the field to harvest for market having picked 20 of each variety, SuperStar, Yellow Candy and Red Candy Apple and then went back down with his sister that was visiting to get more, they came back with a couple of our black crates full of onions I was a bit shocked. Then he said there were still quite a bit more and decided that we would do that before breakfast on Sunday (today).

Well 30 mins of picking this morning and the back of our truck was like this.....

Not too bad right?? Well after we unloaded 13.5 crates full and layed them in my mother in laws camper trailer (the only place big enough that would keep them from getting wet in the rain) we are now swimming in onions, and there are still more down in the field. I love it!!!

So here is what we have now,

 the dinning table was folded down to its twin bed surface and filled,

the tile floor for the kitchen was covered,

and finally two of the four bunkbeds were covered.

They will be cured and ready for cutting stocks and roots off in just a few weeks and then they can go into crates to finish up drying but wow do we have onions. Its are first time with really good ones so I cant wait to try some onion blossoms and to make my own onion powder. I am also dehydrating rings and wedges to use in soups and breads. I really need to get more ideas for how to use them.

To think 5 years ago when I lived it the city I barely ever used onions, they never tasted good and made me cry. Well I still cry but love the taste, must be because they are MINE.

Come back soon and see what some of my experiments with the onions are.

Its Been Awhile...

Since I blogged last.

For many reasons but the biggest was my dear husband left for work the 5th of July and was gone for about 3 weeks. Prime time for leaving, as that's when the gardens are just starting to need weeded and harvested. Then when he did finally came back home we had tons of jobs waiting to be finished with the extra adult. I lived thru it thanks to having my father and my mother in law here.

In the 3 weeks he was gone we started getting our monsoons so the gardens are doing amazing. We have been battling amaranth, squash bugs and a couple cottontail rabbits. Other then those lovely annoyances we are doing well. I will be much better once my dogs dine on those cottontails!!! Those stinkers decided to chew thru not one line but 10-12 of our drip lines and all on the same side of the garden. It wasn't like it one day and then two days later when walking the garden looking for fresh tunnels I sunk in mud. They went thru and started going up each line all just before the end of the row. I am really hoping that it didn't damage my cucumbers or melons to bad and that they recover very quick.

Other then that life here at Serenity is moving along. We are back to the normal schedule of things, with the exception of my mother in law going back home for the fall. We loved having her here to visit with and I don't know what my kids are going to do having to stay home with me and the other siblings instead of getting their sleepover nights with Grandma.

We are now half way thru our market year and that means not too much longer for winter (scary thought since last winter was bad). We are starting to amend the rows we are done harvesting from before winter gets here so that spring is easier next year.We still have the plan of getting a greenhouse up and going but it may not be until a bit later then planned since we still have alot to do, for our personal fall/winter garden. Not to mention the processing to do with the produce from the garden that's coming now. I am looking forward to canning some of our own relish for the winter and tons of stewed tomatoes as that was amazing last year. We have already dehydrated over 2 gallons of summer squash for casseroles this winter with more still to go. I think after this morning I am going to be trying to dehydrate some onions this week. My next blog will explain why so check back soon.

Soap and More Soap

Thursday morning we gathered up our supplies and went to my mother in laws so we could make soap.

The day started off pretty bad, our scale seemed to be really off and once sorting the supplies we discovered we had only half the lye we thought we did.

I pulled out our other scale and we played with them for a bit and then got to work.

One of my many lovely oil stirring assitants

We did FOUR 5lb batches and a 2.5lb batch---72 bars total!! Hoping to go to town and get more lye to knock out another 20-30lbs.

Most of the stuff I made was very common to us (Sandalwood, Jasmine, Relaxing and Dragons Blood) but one (the 2.5lb batch) was an experiment. I had bought some shreaded loofah from Bramble Berry early this spring and after sorting out the supplies I decided I wanted to make an Energy with loofah bar. It looks and smelles amazing. I am anxiously waiting to cut into it and see the loofah pieces. From the top it looks like grated peels of lemon or orange. I will post back how it turns out when we use a bar in 4-6 weeks.

A presoak of the loofah in melted oils

See the flecks of Loofah it looks beautiful!!

On Saturday after Farmers Market we went back over there to cut and stack them all the bars and since we had time we made 15lbs more.

 We did the a Mocha blend using coffee as the base with some cocoa powder blended in (hense the Mocha name), some Chai Tea, and Cucumber Melon.

That will make a total of 120 bars ready for testing on July 23.

I plan on trying some new soap for my vegan customers that will use no milk or creams and all animal free oils. I am troubled as to what scent to make it though. If you want to help decide check out our website and see all the types I can make.

Here is the first 72 bars. Notice the top right one is gelling already :)

Solar Oven Pizza

This past week we had some of the most amazing weather of the year, sun was shinning and the wind was gone. Monday I did odds and end work and mid day I realized it would have been a great time to use the Sun Oven we have if I had planned it in the morning. With the excessive winds this year I haven't had the chance. So I planned it on Tuesday.

I had some frozen dough in the freezer so I set it out to thaw, about 4hrs later it was ready.

 I did discover that my pizza stone didn't fit inside the oven so I had to use a pizza tray and a normal tray. I also decided I wanted to try and bake them together, stacked like in the real oven.

 It took 30 mins to prebake the crust, then on went the toppings---tomato sauce, pepperoni, mozzerella and on 1 pizza some spinach. I then put them back in and restacked them and set a timer for 40mins.

Perfect timing since my oven was losing sun. The one on the pizza tray was perfect, crust crisp and everything. The one on the flat tray needed to go in my oven for 10mins at 350 to crisp up.

All in all it was great!! I am going to borrow some smaller pizza stones to see how they work and if they do great we will be purchasing 2-3 and then try to build a little shelf to hold them on in the oven.

I am looking forward to trying more foods in the solar oven this summer.

If you have solar cooking experience please share some of your tips and tricks??

Garden Fresh Salad!!

It's about time!!!

Fresh from the garden, washed and spun.

Here is a veiw from the field-- ignore the weeds.



Mixed greens--
Red and Green Salad Bowl and Lolla Rossa.



We have had a really odd spring/start of summer so my salad greens are a bit behind schedule but I decided tonight I wanted one. This is the first salad of the season and my kids were a bit annoyed I didn't share with them until they saw I wasn't doing a "loaded" salad.

I really wanted to enjoy the fresh lettuce so I just picked a variety of the greens and thru some shreaded carrots on top and some homemade italian dressing and ta da my dinner.

It tasted great!!



Skills or Hobbies-- you gather new ones while on a farm

As we live here on Serenity we are slowly learning new skills that we either saw people do or heard of but never realized we would need to or want to do. One is canning or dehydrating which as the gardening season goes on I am sure I will share my adventures there. Today I want to share one of the fun hobbies I like doing and would honestly do more often if I didn't have little ones running underfoot 24/7.

Hand Crafted Soap-

Making soap is a science, you can make yours from scratch using different fats/oils you prefer or you can buy **premade bases. Either way your getting a real natural soap in its truest form. Soap is made from fats/oils (either animal or vegetable) and a lye solution. Here at Serenity we make a majority of our soap with a Goats Milk Lye Solution meaning we use goats milk as our base liquid. All fats need to be of food grade quality. We have played with many different fats here and I highly recommend either MMS Calc or SoapCalc to get you started with since you will want to make sure you have a good mix of fats and the correct amount of lye. I never make a batch of soap without running it thru a calc first. Both calcs can also help you get the properties of each fat/oil.

If your asking yourself why:

1. Generally all commercial soaps have additives that can dry out or irritate your skin, with handcrafted soaps its all 100% natural oils with no additives.
2. Most commercial soap companies also pull out all the glycerin (a byproduct from the chemical reaction) and sell it for using in other things including lotions or even your food. Doing this causes those bars to become more of a detergent then a body soap.
3. By using or making handcrafted soaps you can have a soap designed to your skin and scent preference.

One thing people are weary of is the Lye. When I first met a friend out here on her soap she had a sticker saying No Lye No Soap. You have to use lye to make your soap and while it is dangerous if misused its not if you learn and are careful. If you read any soap makers website they will tell you that "Yes we use lye, but once the lye hits the oils and the saponification happens the lye is no more." After Saponification (the chemical reactions of the fats and lye solution) you then have soap and glycerin-- soap to clean you and glycerin to moisturise.

**Be aware that some ready made soap bases can be a detergent soap also.

Reading all ingredients or talking to your soap maker is always a good idea. Go visit your local farmers market and see if you have a soap maker that is close by, they are normally more then willing to talk about the benefits and process of their soap.

Some of my favorite websites: Bramble Berry , Teach Soap, SoapQueen or MMS

Happy Soaping!!

"For the unclean person, put some ashes from the burned purification offering into a jar and pour fresh water over them." Numbers 19:17 NIV

Summer Planting and Spring Harvest Begins

Well with our last frost finally behind us we have started our summer planting in the gardens. We have just about 3 complete rows of tomatoes in the ground and will be doing a bunch of peppers in the next few days. This year I didn't start all the squash inside as last year they didn't transplant well, so this year we are just going to direct seed. We are tilling up some rows for the last time this week and soon everything will be planted. The next week promises to be a fun but busy one planting everything outside.

With it coming to that time it meant it was time to check the garlic and sure enough we have scapes growing, we chopped some up and included them in a meal with family that was visiting last weekend. With the scapes coming it means garlic will be harvested shortly. We have mustard greens just begging for me to cut them and make some eggs, since its a small harvest I think I will wait till my dear hubby is home this week-- with all his extra work away he deserves the first spring harvest. With in a few more weeks we will be getting some salads and maybe even some beets and turnips, they are coming along nicely.

Our potatoes are looking very nice also. We are experimenting this year with them. We kept some of the tiny potatoes from our last harvest last year and put them away in our pantry which is a fairly cool room all year long. Sure enough the potatoes sprouted eyes and even started vines while in there. They are now planted and look just as good as the seeds we bought. We are going to wait till after the harvest to say whether or not it is a successful experiment since we want to see if they produce good potatoes but we may be able to cut out seed potatoes soon if this works.

Next week my mother in law will be vacationing at her house close by so it will be the start of a fun summer for my kids with Grandma and a weeding partner in the garden :)

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."

Galatians 6:9 NIV

Another Day Another Lesson

Today for school we tried something a bit different for the little ones sake. She has been feeling really left out when I do school with the other three so today we focused on reading with her. Not that she can read or even knows her letters yet but she loved it. Then each kid took turns picking a book and I have to say Lucas' book of choice was the best. I am assuming it was a book we got from the thrift store but it is perfect for my "Detectives" as they are now calling themselves.

It a book called "Super Sleuth" by Jackie Vivelo it has 12 chapeters all a new mystery to solve. The kids are loving it. They are even understanding how to make thier own chart and mark of suspects based on clues. This book is amazing!!

If you have little "Detectives" budding in your house this is a great book.

Hope everyone else is having a great Monday!!

Whats on your dinner menu??

In the last two weeks I started to really watch/log what I eat, for a few years now I have been trying to loose weight and will loose alot in the summer but gain it and more back every winter. I hate the idea of diets and I will not jump onto random diets as I believe they do more harm then good. As I started my food journal last week I discovered the reason why I am not loosing weight---my body thinks its starving. I eat with my kids and we eat healthy but I am not consuming enough calories for my body to start burning the fat. I did an few differnet online calorie calculators and found an awesome program for my cell and they all tell me in order to loose weight I need to consume 2400 calories in a day. I was only barely hitting 1500 and that wasn't being picky. Summer time brings less meat for us (we grow a ton of fresh veggies) so I am trying to learn how to add more protien to my diet with out meat. Obviously I do beans (going to try black bean burgers soon), but I don't like meat substitutes so this is harder then I thought. I am thinking our fish consumption is going to increase a bit too

Tonight for dinner the kids and I are having hamburgers and baked potatoes (their request) and I will probably steam the rest of my fresh brocoli. Wednesday night is going to be Salmon Patties per my husbands request, however if it rains I may change it to a soup of some sort.

I really need to start gathering more recipies for me to try, with the garden producing soon I want to experiment in the kitchen.

Welcome to Serenity

Here you are going to get random ramblings, rants, and recipies. I am a 30yr old mom of four and I have always love to write. My writings will never make complete sense to you but they do to me. I started this blog last year and kinda failed to keep it updated but I have decided to try again.

A little about me and Serenity~

Serenity is my farm in Northern Arizona. My four kids and I work the farm daily and my dear husband works in Phoenix 3 days a week and is here on the farm for extended weekends. We are hoping one day that the farm will be able to support us so that he doesn't have to drive down to the valley anymore. We have only been here on the farm for 4 years.

We moved here for many different reasons the most important was my children. My husband and I had always wanted to live rural and raise animals and a garden, to learn to can and put away food. To learn live a self sufficient life and I wanted to teach those values to my children. We had been praying and looking for property since we had gotten married in 2001 and realized land prices were rising fast. In 2006 we started going to see different properties, I was pregnant with #3 at the time. In Nov we came and saw this property, it was by no means what I had pictured in my dreams, there was no pine trees or green medows but the veiw I had was amazing. In March of 2007 we sold our house in the valley and started the process of moving to/setting up Serenity.

We live off grid with solar, hoping to add wind one day. We have raised goats since Feb 2008 and we also had laying hens and ducks. Unfortunately for the poultry they are no longer with us, we will be doing the hens again but not just yet. I make my own soap from goats milk and I will never use another bar of store soap if I can help it. We homeschool our children, each one has their own learning style so this is a challenge for me. Our life here is so much more busy then our city life but its also so much more fufilling. We were surprised by baby #4 which came in 2009, she is now 2 and such a farm baby. I miss my city life in some ways, mostly because of the family and friends we left down there but I wouldn't change my life in any way. I hope that my experiments here teach you or help you in your life .

God Bless.

Here is a veiw of my sunset, Gods beauty!!