PJ Jonas

Category: Farm Life

  • Sunflowers

    Sunflowers

    Remember my sunflowers in the garden? Well, Hurricane Ike finished them off. But that’s ok, they were mostly ready to be harvested anyway. So the children cut them all down. The good news? The children love them. I find them eating them all the time. The bad news? The children love them. They eat them all the…

  • Pawpaws

    Pawpaws

    Somebody gave us some pawpaws the other day. Never heard of a pawpaw? Remember Disney’s Jungle Book movie? Where Baloo is trying to teach Mowgli how to be a bear? Here I copied some of the lyrics for you: Look for the bare necessitiesThe simple bare necessitiesForget about your worries and your strifeI mean the bare…

  • Sunflower Skyscrapers

    Sunflower Skyscrapers

    We grew some mammoth sunflowers in the garden this year. The goats really love sunflowers and the fat and fiber are very good for them. I had no idea they would be so huge!!! Now granted, my children aren’t the tallest in the world – but still! Those are some tall sunflowers. They are just starting…

  • Pickles Everywhere

    Pickles Everywhere

    I love spending time working in my garden planting and even weeding.  But time spent harvesting food from the garden is the best.  Although it can be time consuming, the time invested in my garden is definitely worth it. Here’s where part of my July went… Nothing like canning organic produce from the garden for…

  • Bread from Heaven

    Bread from Heaven

    It’s getting hot. Since I’m always trying to keep things cool (and save money) I’ve been minimizing the use of the oven. So, when the family needs bread, what’s a Mom to do? Break out the sun oven, of course! I can just hear many of you thinking, “What’s a sun oven*?” Well – I…

  • A New Accomplishment

    A New Accomplishment

    Colter has learned a new skill – weed wacking. It started out with him helping me start the weed wacker. Then he started it all by himself. I finally let him spread his wings and fly… And now he weed wacks everything in sight. Yesterday the mail man yelled at us that we needed to…

  • Little, Baby Egg

    Little, Baby Egg

    Emery and Indigo came in the other day from collecting eggs. Indigo was cradling something in her arms. When I asked her what it was, she carefully showed me her “little, baby egg.”   It was very difficult getting her to surrender her “little, baby egg.” But I finally did by promising her I would…

  • Processing Onions

    Processing Onions

    Despite giving away onions to lots of people (which is so much fun), we still have over 100 pounds of onions to process. The children started the job today, and completely filled the dehydrator. Here are some photos of the process for you to enjoy:     The only problem we ran into, was that…

  • Kale Time

    Kale Time

    Our main winter fresh vegetable is kale that we grow in our greenhouse. About this time every year, the greenhouse is full of kale plants that are at least 5 feet tall. Because it is getting so warm in the greenhouse, most of it has bolted and gone to flower. Which means it is time…

  • Cabbage

    Cabbage

    Guess what Jim brought home from his route today – four crates (maybe 100 pounds?) of cabbage! One of Jim’s customers runs a food ministry and often sets out food for us. He also knows we have animals, so will set out any produce that he doesn’t have an immediate need for. This photo was…

  • My Backyard

    My Backyard

    This is a partial view of my backyard. In the foreground is one of my gardens. We call it our trellis garden. This photo was taken on October 19th, so the garden is winding down. Remaining in this garden are turnips, peas, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, lettuce, basil and parsley. It was our first…

  • Mmmmmmmm, Peppers!

    Mmmmmmmm, Peppers!

    Moving to Indiana, I had to learn how to garden all over again. My first two gardening seasons here were pretty pathetic by my standards. This is the first year I’ve been somewhat pleased, which isn’t bad considering we’ve been in a pretty bad drought and Jade was born in July. Side note – there…