Pumpkin over load!

Raw pumpkin

Pumpkin seeds ready for dehydrator

Pureed pumpkin

Cooked pumpkin

Well I am pretty sure I have enough pumpkin for the next 2 years, and all I got was two pumpkins. Sheesh...I can see how pumpkins would be the same problem as zucchini's, you always have waaaaaaaaay to much and can never get rid of it, and you pretty much bake and cook and freeze all you can. Well I can see why I will never GROW my own pumpkins, cause I seriously would have no idea what to do with them all.
Today I made three pumpkin pies, pumpkin cinnamon buns ( by the way, WOW, they were freakin good ). I have three large freezer bags filled with the pumpkin goop, and tomorrow I am going to make some pumpkin walnut loaf. THEN, I think I will be all pumpkin'd out!
I have to say though, making pumpkin pie from scratch for the first time was very rewarding and TOTALLY does no taste like store bought.
Here is one of the links I used: http://www.pickyourown.org/pumpkinpie.php and then for the ridiculously yummy buns, try this blog: 
http://ahandmadelife.blogspot.com/2009/05/pumpkin-cinnamon-buns.html
So that was my Nov pumpkin experience, wonder what other new things I shall try this month :-)

Hoarding....LEAVES...HUH!

My leaf hoarding pile!

My greenhouse, half done :-)

The garden is put to bed for winter!

My horse manure hoard pile!

Well, as you can see from the pics I have posted from today, my garden is ready for winter, and greenhouse is ALMOST done. Most important part is done, sides can get done anytime really, even if I had to wait til spring for that. I received my last pile of horse poop before the snow flies, which makes me really happy, cause it can rot all winter long under the tarp and snow.
I was at the dump today and was sooooooooooooo happy to find a bunch of bags of leaves!!! Sick I know, like who gets excited about finding bags of leaves at the dump lol...ummmm ME! I was blog surfing the other day, and came across a garden blog that showed pics of how she grew her potato plants. BRILLIANT was all I could think. This lady took some chicken coop fencing, made like a barrel shape out of it, put some leaves in it, put a potato in the bottom, and once the potato plant sprouted, she would just keep adding leaves on top, and because it's all chicken wire, it keeps it all neat and tidy. Once she was ready to harvest, she just lifted the round fence barrel thing up and there were all the potato's! Clean and all! Oh man, that got me so excited for next years growing experiments! I have heard of people doing this with straw, never even thought of leaves!
My garden has all of it's lasagna layers in it and finally covered with about 8 bags of leaves that I had raked from a friends place. That makes me laugh....I have 12 acres, yet I have to GO SOMEWHERE else to get leaves....I however don't have tree's with leaves! So that might explain why I get so ridiculously happy with leaves. I have a few tree's in the yard that give us leaves, but not nearly enough for my gardening ideas and plans and desire for great compost!
So hopefully the snow stays away a while and I can still get some things done outside.
Happy Nov 1st to you all!

What a moment!

I had just started work yesterday, and everyone in the store was buzzing about the local lottery called Lotto Max, and how someone won $500,000. Now because we are in such a small town, non of us knew if it was just someone driving thru the town or if it was a local. Never in a million years did any of us think we would experience the discovery THAT day.
Well let me tell you....it was freakin amazing!!!!! I get goose bumps every time I tell the story.
So this lady ( who remain unnamed) comes in with her two kids to do some Saturday grocery shopping. Her husband had won a "free play" and he bought the extra on it. So she had the ticket and just thought she'd check it before starting her shopping. So she scanned it in the self scanner. She is STUNNED...on the screen it clearly reads 500,000 winner. So she asks the girl at the front for a pen to sign the ticket....right then and there, from the look on her face and how she was acting we all knew. So we confirmed it on the lotto machine, and she started her melt down lol. She just started screaming to her son...."mamma's gonna buy you a new motor bike finally" She could not stop shaking like a lunatic! She couldn't find her cell phone, she couldn't remember any numbers to call people....oh man...it was just so funny and yet so awesome to see.
So this lady is local, she is married with two smaller kids, they don't have much, her husband is on the road working, and I heard later, that he didn't find out till later that day....4:30 to be exact...can you imagine waiting THAT long to tell your spouse you won big!
Anyways...all of us around here are soooooooooooo happy for this family, as they totally deserve it, and yet we feel all so lucky to have witnessed this amazing discovery....there is just something so special about watching it all unfold right in front of your eyes! So go forth....and BUY AT TICKET.!

Started a new FB page

I have started a page called Trade Off. It all came about from an experience I had with another lady from another FB page.
I have joined this other fb page called BBB (Beg, Barrow, Barter), and on there one day, a lady was asked for large jars...like really really large jars. It so happened that I had 4 of them. She was willing to trade for some fresh organic veggies from her garden. Well...I was all over that! So she came to my work one day, and we made a trade...I got three bags of awesomeness from her garden. HUGE beets, and swiss chard. So we ate and froze the chard, and I canned the beets.
So it got me to thinking, I wonder if there are others out there that would like to trade stuff too, without having to worry about the money part. Just like the good ol days! Trade what you have, get something new and different!
So began the new Facebook page Trade Off. So far I have made two trades. A bread maker which I don't use because I have TWO of them, and a smaller canning pot that I don't use. In return, I am getting an awesome egg poacher and a new coffee pot (thank goodness, as mine smashed a few weeks back lol)
So I am looking forward to being part of something new..yet old!

Some pics of my garden

.

The Lasagna Garden

Here is what my garden looks like this fall.  In the process of lasagna gardening. As you can see, the pile of horse manure that was just dropped off yesterday. Today I was able to put on one layer on half of the garden that is getting the royal lasagna treatment.You can see that the one half already looked so much darker and healthier already compared to the light clay soil where I still have one row of potato's to dig up.

 

 

Smokin Horse Crap

Lasagna gardening

You would have thought I had heard about this already...but no. I was told about this from a co worker who has been doing it for years.
It's all about layering. HUH..who would have thunk it was that easy. I read this book she gave me which was loaded with info and now I am going crazy with it.
I have this one area that used to be a small mountain/hill, and we had an excavator here and he took it down with three scoops of his bucket...and whalla! My new gardening space...however....the soil was crap. Like horrible clay, very hard to even till it. I was able to plant 28 potato plants and a row of carrots in it this year, but that is all that was able to grow in such yucky conditions.
So now that everything is dug up for the winter, I have put my fist layer down, which is newspaper soaked in water, then I added a layer of peat moss, and then I even put some wood ashes and kitchen scraps down. The BEST part, is that I just got a big trailer load of horse manure from  the same co worker who borrowed me this book. Both of our husbands looked as us like we were nuts over how excited we both were!
So today this will be the next layer I spread all over my garden, and then I am going to rake leaves like there is no tomorrow to put on top of that yet too, and then hopefully I can still find some peat moss at the local feed store to go on top of that yet too.
Anyways, the whole point is to build up the soil, and there are so many things that you can put on the garden to build it up, I just never thought of layering the heck out of my garden. The lady that wrote the book, claims that after one year of this discovery herself, she sold her rototiller as she didn't need it anymore. Once the soil is so built up and rich, there is no need to till it, it's just so soft and workable. I don't think I will be selling mine just yet, but I will let you all know in the spring just how workable my soil is :-)

Am I dieing? lol

This was the question I posed to myself this morning. Why you ask, because I have had the most awesome summer and fall of unexpected visitor's. It's been amazing. You know your life is so full and blessed when you have people come out of their way to stop in and visit with you.
In the last four months, I have had my Mom and Dad ( from Abbotsford), my Sister and her husband ( from Calgary) my best friend Carla and Dave ( from Yarrow) another best friend Shannon and her daughter Jodi ( from Edmonton) and old neighbor Colleen and her whole family (from Abbotsford) and just last night, a long lost cousin Tracey ( originally from New Westminster who just moved back from New Zealand ), AND my one and only Uncle Nick (from Vancouver). AND on top of that, I had a few wonderful surprises drop by my work at Save on Foods, like an old school friend Angela and her family who happened to be driving thru and I have not seen them in YEARS.
WOW...is all I can say....what a GREAT life to be so blessed with so many great visits. HOWEVER...as my cousin pointed out to me when she was leaving.....this now means we have a LOT of traveling to do ourselves not to visit ALL of the people that came to see US!!!!! OHHHHHHH BOY! I can hardly wait for winter to be over lol. (sheesh, to bad it's only just started) lol