Introducing...our new Squash Blossom Farm logo!
My patience waiting for the little walk-in greenhouse at Menard's to go on sale paid off--last week it was on sale for $109 ($30 off.)
Rog is reading Barbara Kingsolver's book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" and was was inspired to make mozzarella cheese today, following her instructions ( it's a recipe from Ricki Carroll).
He purchased organic whole milk (not ultra-pastuerized), citric acid and rennet at the co-op and heated on the stove
until the curds separated from the whey and the temperature reached 100 Degrees F.
She piled the banana with chicken breast, pork , potatoes, corn paste and tomatoes cooked with scallions, garlic and cilantro.
Then she folded up the banana leaf and tied with twine or wrapped in foil.
The tamales are steamed until the chicken is cooked. I can't wait to eat these for breakfast tomorrow!
The gourds have begun sprouting and are emerging all exuberant and crazy. They are so big! 
Last weekend the ground thawed enough that Cadence began tackling the buckthorn in our woods. Buckthorn is supposedly the most invasive plant in Minnesota. It produces gazillions of black berries that birds love to eat, and then excrete the seeds all over tarnation to start new stands which choke out native species. 
The Weed Wrench (here's a better illustration from their website)has a jaw at the bottom that clamps onto the base of the trunk, then you just pull the handle down, and, like a cork coming out of a wine bottle, the tree releases easily out of the soft ground, roots intact. It is a very satisfying feeling. 
It's only 36 degrees, it's drizzly gray, and earlier this afternoon there was even a spattering of snow. Spring sure comes in fits and starts. I just went out with my camera to look for some clear signs of spring. The most obvious one can't be seen in a photograph: It is the melodious chorus of at least a hundred red winged blackbirds trilling in the tall trees surrounding our yard. I don't know why they choose to flock in this yard - maybe because it is set upon the highest hill for miles? 
I saved the best news for last--here's one of my wintersowing ziplock bags, with a hollyhock sprouted in it! The hollyhocks are the only ones large enough yet to show up in a photo, but the icelandic poppies and blue flax have also sprouted! How cool is that?!
Cadence made a very locally-grown breakfast this morning - a fried egg from one of our hen's first productions. The verdict was "tasty!"
When I was giving the chickens fresh water this morning, I discovered two eggs nestled between the haybale and the wall! I have been looking for eggs in the nesting boxes every morning, but apparently the boxes are not inviting enough.
We think Hawk may be responsible. I checked her vent, and, based on my inexpertise, it looked like she could be laying. Hawk is the largest, most mature-acting hen.
Louise Nevelson, the Blue Wyandotte, could also be the mom. (Louise is on the left, next to Picasso the rooster.) Yesterday Sara noticed Louise sitting between the hay-bale and the wall, where I found the eggs, unwilling to budge. Perhaps Louise and Hawk each laid one.
We have made over 2 quarts of golden, scrumptious, homemade maple syrup so far!
It worked fabulously. Much less work and much less smoky than feeding a fire, and much more efficient boiling. When you first pour the sap into the pan it is clear like water, then turns cloudy and gradually becomes deep amber. We filtered out any particles (bark) before boiling and skimmed off the foam. We finished off the boiling in the house, bringing the syrup to 220 degrees F.
For breakfast this morning we feasted on waffles with our homemade syrup. It is very delicate, intensely sweet, with a slight vanilla essence. 
This afternon I went nuts planting six varieties of decorative gourds in flats: Dipper, Martin House, Banana, Bushel, Snake and Swan gourds.
Last week, I spent one morning exploring the Arts District of Phoenix, AZ, and happened upon an artist abode with delightful concrete sculptures in the front yard. The artist, Gary Parsel, was watering the plants in his sculpture garden so I stopped. It turned out he is also a painter AND creates whimsical animals from gourds - bison, fish, birds, dogs. I was totally smitten by a large gourd fish he had created, but it was out of my price range and too fragile to take on the plane. Instead, I bought this smaller quail.
In honor of St. Patrick's Day, I headed outside with my camera this morning to look for green. First stop was my future vegetable garden, as viewed from the little hill across the driveway. If I squint my eyes tightly, I think I see a hint of green. It is definitely greener than last week, when it was under a layer of snow. 
Today it was sunny and warmed up to 50 degrees F -quite an improvement from two days ago when it was 5 below zero! The weather was perfect for tapping the trees to make maple syrup. We hung ten buckets on our biggest maple trees to collect the sap.
After drilling a small hole into the trunk, a spout called a "spile," is pushed into the hole. The plastic spiles we are using have a hook for hanging the bucket. Sap began to drip into the buckets immediately. It tastes like faintly sweet water.
We have collected about 4 gallons of sap so far. We are boiling the sap in a large metal roasting pan set on a rack over a wood fire. I fed the fire and simmered the syrup all day to evaporate the water and concentrate the flavor. For sugar maples, it takes 30 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. We only have silver maples and box elders, which also can be used to make maple syrup but the sap has only half as much sugar, so we will have to boil down 60 gallons to get one gallon of syrup. We'll be boiling for days. When it is almost done, we will strain it and finish cooking it in the house over the stove so it doesn't scorch.
A little kitty kept me company while I tended the fire. Yesterday, Cadence and I visited the dairy farm across the road to inquire about the possibility of getting a couple of boy calves to raise as steers. (More about that in a future post.) The dairy farm has innumerable farm cats and kittens, and when we walked home a fluffy gold cat with pumpkin-colored eyes insisted on following us. This morning he was still here, waiting for us in the barn.
While I boiled syrup, Cadence worked on insulating the granary, which she is transforming into a cabin to live in this summer and Rog spread gravel in the mucky parts of the driveway.
We may have escaped the last clutches of Minnesota winter by flying to Arizona last weekend. Rog was speaking at a conference in Phoenix, so we took the opportunity to also visit my sister and her family in Tucson for a couple of days. It was quite an adventure getting there, complete with our car breaking down as we entered the Minneapolis airport parking ramp, with scarcely a moment to spare, running to catch our plane. 
When we left home it was a balmy 5o degrees, but the next day a snowstorm hit Minnesota, so we were happy to be in the sunny desert -- with our capable daughters home taking care of the dogs and chickens and any shoveling. 
We had fun with Bunny and Dave and their kids, dined at some amazing restaurants, and managed to fit in a couple of hikes- in Sabino Canyon in Tucson and up Camelback mountain in Phoenix. 
We've been planning to sell our produce at the Rochester Famer's Market, which opens in May. Since we won't have a crop ready yet, we came up with a brainstorm idea: to grow sprouts to sell. Sprouts are fast-growing, extremely nutritious, tasty and nobody else has been selling them there. 
For the final rinse, I soak the spouts in water in my salad spinner and scoop out the hulls. Then the salad spinner is fantastic for getting the water out of the mix -very important.
For growing containers, I have experimented with deli buckets with holes drilled in the bottom, heavy-duty office in-boxes with a layer of plastic neede-craft mesh for drainage(my own ingenious but imperfect invention), and was finally overjoyed to find some large, plastic colanders which work the best so far. Here are the French Garden mix and the Italian Blend sprouts after their final rinse, set on the counter to green up a bit.
Starting with 6 ounces of seeds resulted in 3o ounces of finished sprouts. The chickens happily devoured the hulls and the stray sprouts that sneaked out of the colander during the rinses.
It seems absurd to purchase flowers when you live on a farm with intentions of growing fields of flowers. But I have spring fever SO BAD I could not resist splurging on a few sunflowers at the grocery store this morning. 
