Saving Summer
Often even our small garden gives us more than we can eat fresh.  Today for example, as I surveyed my kitchen I realized I had a few tomatoes that need to be used up, some zukes, some green onions, and several bell peppers.  One of my super simple solutions to a glut of such vegetables is to prepare and freeze a vegetable sauce. 
You will need about half a dozen tomatoes to make this worth doing. More is fine. Wash, core, cut into chunks.  No need to seed or peel--the seeds and peels are good for you.  Put them in a blender and puree smooth then transfer to a saucepan. You could just use tomatoes, but I always throw in whatever else I have that needs to get used up.  Today I had a zuchini, a couple of bell peppers and some green onions. Eggplant is also a good addition.
 For the peppers I did remove the stem end, seed, cut out the pith and cut into chunks.  The zuke was young and not too seedy.  I just cut off the stem end and cut into chunks.  All those green veggies went into the blender to puree and then got added to the tomato puree.  I added a little salt, pepper and italian herbs.  Go light on your seasoning.  They will become stronger as you cook the water out of the mixture.  You can add more seasnoning later when you serve it if needed.
Bring the mixture to a boil and then turn it down to a simmer.  Reduce it (simmer the water out of it) by about half.  This way it takes up less room in your freezer and you can add water later. Stir frequently as you reduce and the sauce thickens.
Once it is reduced, cool it by placing the pan in cold water, being careful not to let water get over the rim of your sauce pan into the sauce.  Stirring will help it cool faster.
Once cooled, pack into freezer containers, label with contents and date.
You now have a taste of summer to add to your winter soups and stews or just to serve over pasta.  The sauce has a garden fresh taste that is unequaled by anything you can buy at the store. 

Garden Reboot
Time to make some tough decisions in my little garden this week.  In such a tiny space everything has to pull its weight...

So out come the zuchinnis. One because I think I have enough shredded and stashed in the freezer to make a winter's worth and of zuke muffins.  And two, because though the plants are still pretty healthy, their production has slowed way, way down.  So out they come to make way for fall crops.

And here's a trick for tired tomatoes:
My tomatoes are still producing well, but blight has killed the lower leaves and the vine is outgrowing its support.

First I removed the lower leaves from the tomato vine.  They were not in good shape and the fruit from the lower portion of the plant had already been harvested so nothing is lost.

Next I dug a trench across the bed and laid the vine in it.  This is just the bare vine part, not all the way to the

top.

Then I covered up the vine and watered it in.  Because of the design of my beds, I was able to just move the support pole to the other side and reattach the now much-shorter vine. Roots should form along the buried portion of vine which will give the vine a boost that should take it up to frost.

Pullet Surprise

The new hens, the five lovely barred rocks I have left after the "whatever" got so many of them, have started laying.  There is a marked difference in the size of pullet eggs compared to regular hen eggs.  The eggs will get bigger as the girls mature.  It seems a little early for them to start.  I wasn't expecting them to lay for another month at least, but every breed is different and I have not had barred rocks for years.  The eggs are coming in abundance from the older hens as well.  Sometimes when it is this hot they really slow down, but for some inscrutable chicken reason that has not happened this time.

Above: a cooperative rooster puts himself in the fire ring. BBQ chicken?















Midsummer

And now comes that pause all gardeners know. The early crops long ago succumbed to the heat and the cukes sit pickling in jars.  We ate the last of the first planting of the sweet corn last night and the third planting of green beans is just above ground.  The tomatoes, which are wonderful this year, and the relentless zukes still bless us, but everything else waits.  Every day I thump the "not quite" watermelons, but they are holding out for August.

In the flower garden rudbeckias are wilting in the heat while crepe mytrle and zinnias seem to eat it and thrive.  I have a few blooms on an intrepid old rose by the porch and the tropicals on the porch are happy as long as I daily give them gallons of water. 

This morning on the shaded front porch there is a coolish breeze.  Hummers visit the feeder.  The flower border and trees move with finches, shy buntings, titmice and wrens.  A head-down nuthatch hangs comically from the overhang, determined, it seems to do things the hard way.  It is supposed to be in the upper nineties today and the humidity has been saturating.  Water vapor hangs in the air hiding some mountains I can usually see and muting the others.  The rooster crows down below in the barnyard, not because it is early, but just because he feels like it. Another at a neighbor's answers. Katydids clack, clack, clack.  Such a hot sound.

One of today's tasks is to wash and groom Pico, our mountain of a dog.  He will hate this and it will take two of us and we will need a third which we don't have.  Most likely  the goats have gotten out of their pen on the hillside where I am trying to get them to stay and eat brush.  They don't leave the pasture, but I really need them to eat the hill where we can't mow.  But then goats almost never do what you need them to do. Picasso, the cat, got a respiratory infection and had to be taken to the vet.  He is recovering.

The breeze on the porch has now died.  The day is bracing for the heat. I feel it.

Soon we will need to think hard about a fall garden.  I have already started some seed.  We will need to order more.  Soon the sumac will start to turn and the school busses will start to roll.  But soon is not yet.  Now is pause.  Most everything about gardening and farming is flux, so I stop and observe and enjoy these brief  static moments.

Live Deep
"Live deep instead of fast" --Henry Seidel Canby

This week with the fourth behind us, I am keenly aware that we are now deep into summer.  The days evaporate like the droplets of an afternoon shower, and I tell myself to stop and breathe, to savor, not fret.  I vow to make time to sit on the porch and read, to take walks, to stay up way too late, to sit in the sun and enjoy the sensation of being warm all the way through. I vow to eat juicy, ripe fruit and enough corn on the cob with real butter to satisfy me until next summer. I promise myself to take at least one more road trip somewhere, to stick my feet in an ice cold mountain creek and to spend at least a few evenings around a campfire with friends contemplating life and watching fireflies dance .  Summer, like each season in its turn, is a gift.  We offer God our best thanks by living each moment fully.

 

My nephew wades in to the swimming hole near our farm

Happy Fourth of July!

Must be summer...I just picked the first tomato. The four "patio" cucumbers I planted were staging a garden coup, but I showed them...

Taking full advantage of all the great, local food that abounds this time of year.  So far, besides the pickles, we have put up peaches, blueberries, blackberries, a few green beans, not to mention loading up the freezer with local beef.  But the thing that gives me the most sense of accomplishment is when I can put together a whole meal completely from our land, like the chevon pot roast with carrots, potatoes and chard which we enjoyed  earlier this week.

Filet Beans and Aspargus intermingle in the garden

The Season Progresses

Over a month since I last posted.  I am spending every spare minute after my "day job"   either in the garden, working on pasture maintenance, or rounding up some misplaced chicken. I hope to have my chicken issues resolved this weekend as we are planning to build a chicken tractor for the barred rocks who are currently living with the ducks.  The pen was designed for the flightless ducks, and even though it is covered with bird net, the chickens find ways out.  Almost every morning I have to go on a chicken round-up before school. 

It has been breathlessly hot, as I know it is everywhere in the east, and we have had little rain.  I am watering the garden already--ominously early.  But the garden is growing.  We have already had green beans, new potatoes and cukes.  Seems early for all that to me.  Of course the lettuce and spinach have bolted. I still have a few pumpkins and winter squash I want to plant, and I will keep making plantings of summer veggies.

Tri-Color "Green" Beans and Yukon Gold new potatoes

The roses were so gorgeous this year, but now they have given way to the daylilies and rudbeckia, things that can really take the heat.



climbing rose from a cutting collected from old homestead adjacent to our property

While I was writing this post a thunderstorm blew up from the west.  I sat on the porch and watched it roll in across the mountains.  It's been raining for almost 3 hours now.  We needed it and I do appreciate it, but it now appears that lightning has struck our pump (sigh).

An afternoon t-storm rolls in across the mountains

Of Stinger Goats, Chicken Thieves and Blacberry Winter

Poor Pico hasn't had a very good week.  I think I wrote last time that he has been hanging around the goats' stall, "guarding" them, touching noses with the kids through the stall door, and trying to go in to socialize every time the door is open. I finally felt like the goats were settled enough to be put out on pasture in their moveable electric fence which I set up near the barn for starters.  Pico was excited that the little goats were getting to come out to "play", but he stayed back nicely and let them go in their pen.  Once they were in the fence, he took up his post next to fence--but not too close because Pico does hate to get a shock from the fence.  All was well until one of the little goats came up to the fence trying to touch noses with him.  Pico moved forward.  I could see what happened next coming a mile off, but I was too far away to stop it. Simultaneously, as they reached out to touch noses they both touched the fence.  The goat went hopping and "maaing" back to it's mother. Pico went yelping all the way to his pen and went inside, looking back at me reproachfully like I was at fault.  Maybe I was, as I had brought those awful "stinger goats" to Pleasant Places to begin with.  Since then I have noticed that Pico is not so keen on being around the goats.  In fact, now that I think of it, he's been avoiding the barn completely.
And as if it wasn't enough to be "stung" by a goat kid, Pico has let something make off  with most of the young pullets that I just put down in the hen house a few days ago.  I don't know what it is, but it leaves almost no trace and it has quite the appetite for young chicken.  I am sure they are quite succulent.  Unlike last time we had the predator problem, this time it's not leaving any chicken bodies behind at all. Fortunately it has left the hens alone, but it has been disappointing to lose so many of the little ones I just got started.  I had a talk with Pico about the importance of staying near the hen house and guarding the chickens, but he much prefers to hang out with the horses, especially since the great goat fiasco.  He reminded me that he never said he was a working dog, and that I did, after all, get him from a subdivision.  Well, so be it.

Meanwhile, I hear there is a slight chance of frost tonight.  I doubt that it will, but I have covered the garden beds just to be safe.  It would be terrible to lose beans and potatoes at this stage.
The irises are in bloom and the clematis is just finishing up.  Both have been simply stunning this year.  I didn't realize I had so many colors of iris, but I find myself wishing I had even more.  They are quite possibly my favorite flower of all.

How Many Shades of Green Are There?

Catching Up

It seems I can either write or I can "do", but I have trouble balancing the two.  This past week was spring break, and I spent my week off from work, well, uh, working.  But a week out of the kitchen and on the farm was a welcome change of pace anyway, if not exactly restful.  I accomplished quite a bit.  Here's my week off...in pictures.

My main project this week was to build a yard for my three remaining khaki campbell ducks.  Theys seem to like their new digs.  They have a place to swim a bit (though not strictly necessary for this breed) and the top of the yard is netted to keep out hawks.

The barred rock pullets are growing fast.  We lost one this week when the lid blew off the brooder in a bad storm one night, and they all got wet.  I have decided that I probably still have too many and will be selling some in a few weeks.

The garden is growing well and most everything except the really warm  weather crops are in the ground.  The lettuce is ready for us to start harvesting (above). In the foreground of the second photo, potatoes have poked up above ground.  Several weeks ago, my husband outfitted all the beds with hoops, making it easier to put on frost protection or bird netting.

Goats have returned to Pleasant Places!  These three girls, acquired this weekend,  will be kept for brush control...and because I like goats.  They are unregistered, but they seem to be mostly Nigerian Dwarf, which is what we used to have several years ago.  We are calling the dam "Bea"  because my mom asked if I was going to milk her, and I said that if milk went any higher she was "Plan B"...Bea.  It seems to fit.  The daughters are Hermione and Luna. 

Pico is becoming an outstanding farm guardian.  Here he is on patrol around the barn.  The goats don't know what to make of him, and are unnerved that he hangs out near them, but he's just doing his job.

Cultivating Faithfulness

I was recently challenged to think of a time that I felt God had spoken some specific word to me.  I instantly recalled that as we were getting ready to move to the property here, He graciously "gave" me Psalm 37:3-6:

"Trust in the Lord and do good; Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart.  Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him and He will do it.  And He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your judgment as the noonday."
NAS

As I looked back over these verses, it occurred to me that though I can tell you off the top of my head how to cultivate carrots or cucumbers, I had to think a bit on how exactly one should go about cultivating faithfulness.   Further reflection showed me that the answer is in the rest of the passage.

"Delight yourself in the Lord"

 First, we delight in the Lord.   Think for a minute about what delights you?  For me it is my family, growing things, beautiful places in the great outdoors, to name a few.   When I am delighted with someone or something, I want to stay nearby, soaking it in, learning more.  To delight in the Lord , then would mean to spend time soaking up His presence: time in the word, time in worship, time just sitting silently in His presence so He can talk to me.  Continuing with the "cultivation" metaphor, I think of delight as the feeling I get on those first few warm spring days when I can finally dig in the garden and plant seeds, or when I bring home a new plant from the garden center and  nestle into just the right spot in the garden.  Delight is the "fun" part, and it is crucial because it is that delight that motivates us to cultivate in the first place, but there is more.

"Commit your way to the Lord"

If all I ever did in my vegetable or flower garden was to scratch a few seeds into the ground on a pretty April afternoon and forget about them, not much would grow.  To really grow a good crop of anything requires a commitment to weed, water, feed and protect. The word "vigilance" comes to my mind, and I think about how what was so fun and easy to plant can sometimes be so hard to actually grow.  It takes commitment to get out there in the heat of July and hoe corn or hill potatoes, or weed the flower beds.  It is easy to just give up and sit inside in AC.  Look around at most everyone's vegetable garden in August and you'll see that this a very common temptation.

 Recently I have been tempted to just "give up" in some areas of my life.   The growing season has been long and hot, and I feel as if the harvest is never going to come for these particular "crops".   I've been tempted to quit cultivating and let the weeds take it!  Thankfully, the Lord is faithful even when I am not, and He has sent others and His word to encourage me to hang in there and keep cultivating.  He assures me the harvest is coming, in His time, if I commit my way to Him. 

"Trust also in Him"

Ultimately though, whether we are talking about silver queen corn (my favorite) or spiritual blessings, it is God that gives the increase.  Having done all,  I need to trust Him with outcome.  I have been recently reminded of the truth that the harvest comes in His time, not mine.  Some things I have been praying over and "cultivating" for a long time may not bear fruit for years, maybe not in this lifetime.  Can I trust Him anyway, even when I don't see anything growing above ground?   The passage assures me that I can because "He will do it". 

And He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your judgment as the noonday."




Ok, I am not completely sure what that means, but it sounds good.  It sounds like someday all our delighting and digging, our commitment and cultivation, they're going to pay off.   There are a few gardens around here that always make me slow down and stare--they are so beautiful or so bountiful or so well-tended that I am blessed just to see them.  I want my life to be like that: beautiful, bountiful, well- tended, a blessing.  Not for my own glory, but for God's and for the blessing of others. 

And so to that end, I will continue to "dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness."

One of the raised beds in our vegetable garden, early March.  In this photo, the first lettuce plants are just coming up.

Spring Babies

We have this thrifty custom here in my neck of the woods.  If we have something that we want to get rid of but that might be useful to someone else, we take it and sit it beside the dumpsters. I don't know what the local sanitation department thinks of our redneck recycling, probably not much, but it's a system that works.

 Now, just to be clear, I am not really into dumpster diving per se, but on a couple of occasions, I have happened along at the right time and scored something I could put to good use.  Today was such a day. Someone had put a bassinet by the dumpster, and I happen to have some babies on the farm that could use it. 

It's getting a little crowded in there: 20 barred rock chicks and 4 khaki campbell ducks.  They will be moving out to brooder as soon as it warms up again a little.

And many thanks to the neighbor who left the bassinet.





Good Fences
Saturday dawned bright and sunny just as predicted, and I did indeed put in a full day on the fences.  I removed and replaced old strands and broken clips and hacked blackberry briars off the line for the better part of the day.  The last thing I did was to reconfigure the pony pen, lowering the wires and attaching it to Pico's stall.  Now he has a a large area for exercise which also serves as training area that will better acquaint him with the electric fence.  I think he already gets the point though.
 I have read, and it makes sense, that animals should be trained to avoid the electric fence in a small area before assuming they will avoid the the perimeter fence.  So far, so good. The fence now has a good charge again and Pico is staying where he is supposed to.
Folks who don't understand electric fences may think them cruel, but fences are necessary and electric done correctly is among the most humane.  Our chargers put out a pulse, not a steady shock, at a level that trains the animal to stay away but not so strong it does any damage.  I have touched them myself many times accidentally, and I would describe it as more of a "surprise" than anything else.  There is definitely something about the zap that makes you want to avoid it, though.  Animals are very sensitive to electromagnetic fields anyway, so it doesn't take them long to learn to stay away from the fence.
So Saturday was a full day of hard work (and I am still paying for it even today with sore muscles and lingering tiredness).  I rewarded myself by piddling in my garden on Sunday, planting chard, beets, carrots, more lettuce, and scallions.  I also set up my brooder because the chicks and ducks are due to arrive at the end of the week.

 

Must Be March
It was in the sixties earlier this week and the weatherman says it will be again by Saturday, but you'd never convince me of that right now.  As I sit here writing and looking out my window, the wind is whipping snow and sleet a dozen directions at once and the wind chimes on the porch are sounding off wildly.  But this is March, the month of contrasts, the month of hope and delayed gratification, of  new seedlings and killing frosts, of sunshine and snow.  We can be thankful that there are no extreme temperatures associated with this cold front and that it will be exiting soon.
Today, though, as I sank into the muck at the barn and slid down the hill trying to walk Pico, I thought to myself that this might be one of those days that make folks like the "idea  of  farm" so much better than the actual thing.  It's easy to romanticize farm life on sunny spring days when the forsythia blooms, the grass greens and new life pops out all over.  It's easy to forget that there are an awful lot of days, and sometimes nights too, not nearly so nice, but which still require the tending of animals and plants.  I say all this as a way of adding balance to this blog, which probably does tend toward optimism concerning all things "farm".  I guess I should write more about slogging out in the cold after an already long day at work to feed or pen up some animal.  Or maybe I should tell you how they get sick and have to be vetted at great expense and inconvenience.  Or perhaps I should recount midnight trips to the barn waiting for a doe to kid or a mare to foal, or stories of losing all the peaches to a late frost, or of scorching August days in the kitchen trying to keep ahead of a sudden glut of tomatoes and cucumbers.  That's all part of it. The good with the not so good.  It's a total package deal. Kind of like March. Kind of like life. You don't get sunshine and daffodils without cold winds and mud. 
Meanwhile, Pico's training continues.  We walk the perimeter of the pasture every day.  I think Pico has accepted me as his new master, and he seems to like me.  He is learning (or maybe re-learning. I don't know) to sit on command.  He is adjusting to the horses and chickens by pretty much ignoring them which is what he is supposed to do.  Every day he seems glad to see me and eager for our permimeter check...but today he was a little less so, and I quickly figured out why.  When I looked in on him, I saw that he had an absolutely huge piece of greenbriar stuck in his coat all along his body and dragging behind him.  Greenbriar.  How in the world?  It wasn't there when I left him yesterday of course. My first thought was that maybe somehow the horses had thrown it in there on him.  I could sort of picture that.  Sort of.  On further inspection, though,  I saw that he had managed to loosen the wire grid which I had tacked over his access door to keep him in.  He'd loosened it, slipped out, did who knows what, gotten tangled in the briar and let himself back into his stall.  Hmm. Maybe we should call him Houdini.  Or Rascal.  He was trying to act all innocent but with the tell tale six foot long briar attached, he was not pulling it off.  I re-tacked the wire grid, but I don't have much confidence it will stay.  My plan is to really check and reinforce the electric fence on Saturday so he can be let out of the stall to do his job.  Hope this works.

Meet Pico
Pico is a 4- year -old, 130 lb.,  Great Pyrenees.  He was the pet of a dear lady whose circumstances dictate that she find him a new home.  So she spoke to a friend, who spoke to my friend, who called me, and so today we brought Pico to Pleasant Places for a trial period, to see how this former sub-division dog takes to farm life.
The 45 minute drive was a little unnerving for him, but once back on the ground he seemed to calm down.  We walked the pasture perimeter and then I put Pico in a stall where he...

Had a snack...

Howdied with the nosy neighbors...

and lay down for a well-deserved rest.

We hope Pico, whose name means 'peak' or 'mountain', adjusts well and becomes our new farm guardian. In the next few days, I will walk the perimeter with him daily, showing him what he is to guard.   Hopefully his instincts will kick in and he will be able to make the transition from household pet to a working dog-- or at least one who stays in the fence and deters predators by his massive presence.











No Dig Garden Beds

I am going to try gardening again in the bottom land.  It is so flat and fertile I just can't leave it alone despite my misadventures with trying to garden so far from the house.  This time though, I am taking another approach.  First of all, I am not going to have it plowed again.  The more I read, the more no-till methods make sense to me.  And secondly, I am going to plant something that most wildlife will leave alone: pumpkins. 
Pumpkin planting time is months away, but the time to prepare no- dig beds for them is now.  The method is simple.  Lay down a thick but biodegradable first layer and pile up 6-8 inches of available organic matter on top.  I am using what is readily available to me which happens to be a layer of cardboard topped by old hay and horse manure.  Some of the beds will probably have chicken bedding and manure instead once I get around to cleaning out the hen house again.
I did two beds in two hours today and that included having to scoop up the manure and hay from various places around the barnyard. The organic matter will have 3 months to break down and then I should be able to dig down, cut a hole in the softened cardboard, perhaps add some potting soil or  compost to the hole and plant my pumpkins seeds.  The rest of the bed will continue to decompose over summer and help feed the plants.  I will post updates as this project progresses.



I Guess It Really Is Spring



Purple, yellow and saffron colored crocus are all blooming in my garden now, and the other night on the way home I  heard spring peepers as I passed a low area in a neighbor's field.  I love the sound of the peepers.  One of my favorite memories is of lying in bed on a rainy early spring night years ago with my window open, reading a Gertrude Jekyll gardening book and listening to those tiny little frogs sing their little froggy hearts out.  The crocus are beautiful, but it is always the peepers that really convince me it is spring. 

I know this is not a good picture--my little camera does have its limitations--but this is a picture of an actual leaf bud on a poplar (I think) tree that has wisely chosen to grow by the compost pile.  One of the limbs got bent down and covered up with compost.  Apparently the heat of the decomposition forced out this leaf bud.

What a Difference A Week Can Make

These first photos were taken on the 10th, just five days ago, when an inch or so of snow caused yet another delayed school day.  Five days ago...remember when we were all cold and complaining that the winter would never, ever end.

...And these next photos were taken this weekend and following.



My sweet hubby mulching between the raised beds in the garden

These yellow crocus are always the first flowers of spring here at Pleasant Places.  They usually do bloom in February.

I planted this spinach in the fall, ate a little of it and then kind of forgot about it.  It has survived snow and bitter cold without any protection at all and has now started to grow again.  In fact Saturday night, we ate a spinach salad from it. Amazing.

We topped off the garden beds with compost this weekend and mulched between them.  All ready for spring.

I noticed on the way home today that many of my neighbors were actually plowing up their gardens.  In fact, there were new gardens plowed where none existed before.  I wonder if this sudden urge to plant food is more than just spring fever.  I suspect it has something to do with ever-rising food prices. Whatever their reasons for planting,  I am glad to live in a place where folks still know how to feed themselves from the land.







Day Length

The effects of day length on animals fascinates me, almost qualifying as miraculous in my mind. As we put the winter solstice further behind us and move toward the spring equinox, the days are ever so gradually lengthening. The change might be nearly imperceptible to us, but my hens have noticed and are celebrating the change by beginning to lay eggs. I am now getting 3-4 a day, which is encouraging. I have also noticed that on sunny mornings, even when the temperatures remain cold, there is more birdsong. Apparently the longer days encourage male birds to start singing in hopes of attracting a mate. So yes, it is still winter, but "if winter comes can spring be far behind?

Cheese, Cows and Wows @ Sweetwater Valley Farm

My husband said it was "udderly"  unique and yet  "udderly" predictable that I would want to visit a nearby dairy and producer of farmstead cheeses for my birthday.  Good sport that he is, though, this Saturday found us at Sweetwater Valley Farm,  located about 75 miles away in tiny Philadelphia, TN.  The farm is unique in that the owners control their product from cow to cheese, running the 900 cow dairy and the small on-farm cheesmaking operation.  On some days, usually early in the week we were told, visitors can actually watch them make cheese through a glass wall in the cheese shop.   Inside the shop the many cheeses are available for sampling, and the day we were there they were also serving samples of fried cheese curds, which were delicious.  The curds, just lumps of the unpresssed, unaged cheese, were simply browned on a non-stick pan and served.  Yummy.  There is also an educational exhibit and farm tours are available in the summer months.  We stocked up on several types of Tennessee cheddar and headed home through Cleveland, Tennessee stopping at The Spot for lunch.  The Spot is a tiny, downtown diner that has been serving Cleveland since 1939.  The menu is limited to burgers, sandwiches and chili, but it was tasty and reasonably priced, and the retro ambience was fun.  After a brief stop at the Abundant Living health food store, we were on our way home.
And that was my perfect, foodie birthday.

The Cheese Shop

Educational Building

Inside the shop looking into the cheesmaking room

Part of the dairy operation viewed from the parking lot