Still Growing

I am happy to report that the plants that the chickens ate off,  appear to be making a full recovery.

You can see the stems that were nibbled down to nothing, and all the beautiful new growth!

We are so relieved! 

We planted our asparagus patch three years ago, so we are finally able to start eating it this year. We've already had a couple stalks, and it is so delicious. So much for flavor than what I picked up at the store.

We had hoped to finish planting the garden in the next couple of days, but we are going to wait at least until the weekend. We are heading into a cold spell, so until we warm up again, we'll keep the plants near the house.

This is what we have planted so far:

Sweet Corn

Popcorn (SO excited for this)

Garlic

Onions (3 kinds)

Green Beans

Carrots (3 kinds)

Peas

Lettuce (3 kinds)

Spinach

Broccoli

Cauliflower

Green Cabbage

Cilantro

How is your garden growing?

Road Trip

A couple months ago, we decided it was time to get away, and we were making plans to have a great road trip, see some new sights, and visit our family on Hilton Head. Since we hope to purchase land or property in a warmer area, we had pretty detailed plans of where we wanted to drive through, and start investigating.

Since Truckin' Man needed to be back in time for his job to be starting up, we had all our dates set, and things looked good. But then we started running into problems getting things covered on the home front, and you realize how hard it is to be gone for more than a couple days. Hilton Head trip was sadly cancelled. We started looking at shorter trips that you could fit into a long weekend. I came up with three options. 1.) Road tour through Kentucky. 2.)Nashville to visit Cheekwood Botanical Gardens 3.) South Dakota to visit the Badlands, and Black Hills. Weather in all three locations made the decision for us, and we headed for South Dakota.

On a beautiful sunny Thursday, we headed west. On the recommendation of a friend, we stopped in Sioux Falls to stretch our legs at Falls Park. The weather was not perfect at this point, a little misty, but we are so glad we stopped. Very pretty park, and if you are ever in Sioux Falls I highly recommend stopping. 

Back in the late 1800's this was the site of the Queen Bee Mill. 

Just behind the small building is where the old mill sat. Apparently unusually large, and the most advanced equipment was used. They produced 4x more flour than the typically midwest mill.

Today it is a pretty park......

 With geese and ducks wandering about. 

I am sure there are many more birds there in warmer weather.

Stay tuned to see where we went next!

Oh No They Didn't.....

Remember these glorious plants I showed you last week? 

Well, last Thursday we transplanted them into the garden! Exciting, right?

Remember these beautiful free ranging chickens I shared a couple weeks ago?

Well, this is what those beautiful chickens did to our transplanted veggies, on Friday.

If you look close you can see the little bit they left behind.

So, until further notice these bad chickens will not be free ranging! 

 The free ranging party is over until we decide what to do since the 8 open acres of grass and bugs aren't sufficient. 

Until the next garden update....

Creamy Corn Dip

If you take this Creamy Corn Dip to your next party or potluck, 

take recipe cards with you because you will be asked for the recipe!

Today is the big reveal day for Freaky Friday Spring Addition! If you aren't familiar with Freaky Friday, it's a group of great bloggers and everyone is secretly assigned to another blog, and we then pick a recipe from that blog that we want to make and share! Talk about a fun way to get to know another blog! Please take a minute to check out this great group and see what they made today!

For the Spring Edition, I was so lucky to get Candi from The Devilish Dish.  Candi has been blogging since 2011 when she retired and wanted to share "Wicked good recipes". Believe me, she has LOTS of them!  The hard part of Freaky Friday is deciding which recipes to try. I had narrowed my choices down to about 5, and when we had a family dinner to go to, I decided to try the Creamy Corn Dip for an appetizer. Oh my gosh.... It was such a hit! Everyone loved it!  

 I knew then that this was the recipe I had to share for Freaky Friday, so I made it again for Easter so we could share it as an appetizer. A huge hit again!  The only change I made to Candi's recipe was adding a little salt and pepper. If you wanted, I think adding some bacon would be so over the top. Or twist it with a Mexican flair, and add some chili powder and cumin.  You absolutely can not go wrong with this dip. 

I have several other recipes on The Devilish Dish that I am looking forward to trying.  Her Chimayo Salsa sounds so good, I can't believe I haven't made it yet. And her Parmesan Wings... You have to check out her secret ingredient!  And, don't forget the sweets! Some Baked Cherry Vanilla Bean Donuts would be so delicious!

Check out all the great blogs participating in Freaky Friday Spring Addition!

~ An Affair from the Heart ~ Aunt Bee’s Recipes ~ Belle of the Kitchen ~ Cooking on a Budget ~ 

~ A Dish of Daily Life ~ The Devilish Dish ~ The Flavor Blender ~ Full Belly Sisters ~ 

~ The Foodie Affair ~ A Kitchen Hoor’s Adventures ~ LeMoine Family Kitchen ~ Life Currents ~  

~ Pic Nic ~ Take Two Tapas ~ Who Needs a Cape? ~ Wildflours Cottage Kitchen ~

Creamy Corn Dip

1 cup sour cream 1 cup mayonnaise 2 - 11 ounce cans Mexican-style corn, drained
1 - 4 ounce can diced green chiles, drained 3 jalapeno peppers, seeded and minced
4 green onions, chopped 1 1/4 cups shredded Cheddar cheese 1/2 tsp salt 1/8 tsp black pepper

Once corn and chiles are well drained, combine all ingredients in medium bowl. Mix until completely combined.
Cover and refrigerate overnight. Garnish with additional green onions, if desired.

Enjoy :)

Source: Devilish Dish

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Seedlings to Plants

I am not sure when the name officially changes from seedlings to plants, but I think we have made it!

Truckin' Man has done an outstanding job at getting us ready for the garden this year.

Broccoli is finally catching up. These are one of the plants we had pinched off because they had gotten to leggy or spindly.  The Goliath variety is doing much better, and the Italiana is not far behind.  

   

Cauliflower is big and healthy.

Just look at this cabbage! The green cabbage is getting huge! Red cabbage isn't far behind. Some of the red cabbage are further behind because we had to pinch them back as well.

The peppers are Truckin' Mans pride and joy right now. 

Jalapeno and  Bell peppers are so happy.

Carolina Reaper and Devil's Tongue peppers are also coming along. These are NOT for us to eat. 

Just growing them for fun!

 And, finally the Amish Paste Tomatoes. The least impressive of the plants, but still doing well!

As a note to our progress, and steps taken, 

this past week we did start using Miracle-gro to give them some added vitamins.

Have you started any plants yet?

Gobble Gobble

A couple weeks ago we went back up north, to meet MORE of Truckin' Mans family. There were cousin's, and second cousin's. And cousins from Colorado... So much family, and such a fun time! 

When we arrived at Cousin L's home, I was shocked to see turkeys just wandering around the yard. Not chicken's, but turkeys! 

At first, I was a little bit afraid as I thought turkeys were mean birds. But that is so not the case.

These boys just followed you EVERYWHERE you went! It really was fun. 

They are such pretty birds.

 You can even hold and pet them!

 Now. Debating if we want to get some turkey's. Or not.