A Midsummer’s Cool Spell

We have been fortunate to experience a significant cooling of the weather these past few days.  It has been so refreshing.  I am thankful to the Lord for His sweet kindness.  We have also had more rain this summer than in the past few summers, and that is another thing I thank the Lord for.  This evening as I was walking around our property, I realized anew how wonderful it is to live in the country.  It is sheer bliss to be able to walk around surrounded by trees and hills and meadows and the sound of birds chirping, crickets and frogs singing, and little fish jumping in the pond.  When I got back to the house, I found Mary had caught a tiny baby lizard.  I have never seen one so small.  She made a little habitat for it and put it in there.  She is quite the lizard expert around here.  She has caught several this summer, and takes excellent care of them until she decides to let them go back into the wild.

As you may have realized, the Fair Hills Farm website has undergone quite a change.  We were having considerable problems with our yahoo site, and so we changed over a few weeks ago.  In the process, we have super simplified everything, and at this point, this particular page is mostly a blog.  We have plans to expand gradually, but it will take a bit of time because my web person (daughter Amanda) has a lot going on.    A lot of information we had on the other site is no longer here, including some earlier blogposts.  I will try to retrieve them or re-write some of them, such as the one with the horseradish recipe.  I am currently working on my e-book, Nurturing The Generations, and making it into a study guide with recipes, and worksheets, etc.   This is going on while I am tending the garden, cleaning out and organizing the house (which is really a perpetual job, isn’t it?) and carrying our 9th baby, which is due around December 5th, the Lord willing!  We are all excited and delighted, and I keep thinking of things to add to the e-book.  I hope to add a section on the joys of being an older mom (since I am 46).  I really am enjoying being pregnant, which I have not always done in the past.  I think as you get older, the surge in hormones is such a delight to your body that you really feel better than when you did as a younger person.  It seems that way for me, at least.  I marvel at how the Lord God in His awesome plans can do the most wonderful things in allowing women the privilege of bringing forth life, by His hand and with His help.  He is so worthy of praise!

We have been enjoying some wonderful dishes from our garden.  Last night we had a meal that consisted of a grass-fed beef roast, mashed potatoes and cauliflower,  fresh zucchini and onion gently simmered on the stove and seasoned with butter and sea salt,  fresh tomato relish, and homemade bread.  I think the tomato relish is my favorite way to eat tomatoes, and it goes so wonderfully with practically everything.  If you have never heard of this dish, I will share with you how we make it.   I was telling my husband that I never had any such thing until I ate it at his grandparent’s house, perhaps 24-25 years ago.  He told me he thought it was just a family recipe, but I am certainly going to include it in Nurturing The Generations.  Very simply, you cut up 4-5 fresh tomatoes, 1 onion, 1-2 cayenne peppers (sliced open, with seeds removed, then chopped).  Add to this some sea salt to taste and a dash of raw apple cider vinegar (or plain white vinegar if that is all you have on hand).  Mix well and let sit for a few minutes so the flavors blend.  This is a spicy recipe, but not too hot.  Even my four year old daughter likes this!  I will have Abigail down load some pictures (she is my photo person!) so you can see what it looks like.

Another simple recipe for a delicious raw, fresh garden food, is cucumbers in sour cream with dill.  We just wash our cucumbers and then slice them up (3 or 4 of them), add a little raw onion chopped as well, and then toss with a few tablespoons of sour cream.  To this add some dill weed and sea salt, and voila, another dish that I think my children could eat forever.  One interesting thing to note is that cucumbers, watermelons and cantalope contain a wonderful amino acid, citrulline,  which is a precursor to human growth hormone that the body makes naturally.   These have anti-aging and rejuvinating properties.  Citrulline is also found in walnut seedlings, flaxseed, and in the milk protein casein.  Flaxseed is another thing we consume in our house – I put it freshly ground in our bread dough, and sometimes we eat it freshly ground mixed into some fruit juice.  It is very nourishing.

If anyone has questions for me, please e-mail me at info@fairhillsfarm.com  ~ I hope everyone is having a good summer and may the Lord bless and keep each one of you!

Christine