What's up doc?

Nothing is yummier (is that a word?)than fresh carrots right out of the ground.  

The purple ones are a variety called purple haze.

  

The chickens enjoyed the greens after we ate up the carrots.

More meals from the garden

This salad received a 10/10 score from Tim.  I have to admit, it was pretty darn good.

Yellow and red tomatoes (some from the farmer's market, some from our green house), greenhouse cucumbers, greenhouse basil (lots), and feta cheese served over a bed of fresh Merlot lettuce.  Some ingredients picked < 10 minutes before serving.

The dressing recipe was so kindly shared with me by my"out-law" (that would be Tim's in-law) Selby Turner. Selby and Maureen Turner served us fresh tomatoes marrinated in this dressing along with fresh corn on the cob and poached salmon in a creamy dill sauce when we vistied them in Vermont last summer.  I couldn't get enough of the tomatoes and Selby shared the secret dressing with me then.

Selby is the father of our brother in law Grady Turner (married to Tim's sister Pamela) This recipe was Grady's grandmother Anne's vinaigrette.  I have never had a more wonderful vinaigrette to serve with fresh tomatoes and I have started keeping a bottle of it made up in the fridge to accompany the fresh tomatoes as they become ripe.  Here is great aunt Anne's recipe:

1 tsp salt (I have found that sea salt makes a big difference in the taste)
1 tsp dry mustard
1 tbsp tarragon (less if using fresh tarragon)
1/2 tsp paprika (we have used both smoked and regular paprika, I prefer regular)
1/2 tsp dried basil (I have been using quite a bit more chopped fresh basil)
1 clove garlic
Juice of 1 lemon
1/3 cup vinegar (white or white wine work well)
Oil to make 1 cup (less is fine)
Dash of pepper

And for dessert....

Homemade Blueberry Basil Sorbet and a really yummy yet inexpensive dessert wine.

I made this sorbet a couple of times before I got it right.  The original recipe was too sweet for my taste and I cut back on the sugar by 1/3 cup for the perfect sorbet.

Decadent Meals from the Garden

I came home the other night from a long and busy 12 hour shift helping babies enter the world to an amazing meal prepared by my awesome husband!

Sauteed greens and steamed yellow beets (from our garden) served with a neighbor's fresh eggs, walnuts, and heirloom tomato (from farmers market), with  warmed bacon dressing.  Bacon is only ingredient that was not local.

And for dessert...
We have loads and loads of basil and I've been looking for any and all recipes that call for basil to use it up.  Here we have basil ice cream served over grilled peaches.   Click the link for the recipe.  The peaches are obviously not from our 8300 ft garden, but they are semi-local Palisade peaches.

Do you have any Basil recipes to share?  Please do share...

Tim is also making dill pickles with all ingredients coming from the garden.   If you have  a pickle recipe that you just love, please share it!

And here is the somewhat less beautiful dinner I prepared a few nights before Tim's much better version of the meal.

Mustard Greens, Bok Choy, and Spinach freshly picked from the garden.

Not much there after wilting them down with some olive oil and garlic.

Just enough for two servings.
Wilted greens drizzled in White Truffle Oil and served with steamed yellow beats and goat cheese.

Luxury Living for the Ladies

A few questions came up about the chickens.  Here are some answers.

We have eleven chickens, a mixture of Buff Orphingtons and Rhode Island Reds.  Tim ordered sixteen baby chicks who arrived by overnight mail about 4 months ago.  We gave a few away and currently have eleven.  They are all supposed to be hens, but we suspect we have one rooster on our hands.  It is pretty difficult to tell for sure when they are still so young and small.  Time will tell.

The winter location for the chicken coop.  The accessory roof off the garage will serve as protection from the massive amounts of snow in the winter.  You can see the orange snow blower (essential to living in the Clarktic Circle) which we will use to keep an area free of snow for them to come outside should they choose.

A very young Buff Orphington is checking out the scene before deciding to venture out of the house.  These guys will get huge.  Notice the plug in the upper right corner of the photo.  In the winter this provides power to heat the house with light bulbs.

Inside the house.
In the summer months the floor is an open mesh wire that allows the poop to fall through, as well as provides for ventilation.  There are also two vents near the ridge.  In the winter Tim will install an insulated floor and plug up the vents to keep the heat in.  The insulated walls and roof of the house keep it both cool in the summer, and hopefully warm enough in the winter.

Bella loves hanging out under the chicken house when I'm not watching and eating the poop that falls through the  mesh wire floor.  This is what happens to dogs who hang out under chicken coops.  Gross.

This photo shows the hinged roofs in their open position.  We (or should I say Tim) refills the water and food by opening the large roof on the right.  The nesting box on the left also has a hinged roof so we can easily get at the eggs when the ladies start laying.  We expect that will be sometime in September or October.

Tim did a lovely job of making the hen house look like a small version of our house.

Quality time with the chickens

I have to admit, I was bit apprehensive about the prospect of raising chickens in a climate that only has 3 months without any possibility of snow.  But Tim built this awesome chicken house, and mail ordered the little creatures before I could protest.

The chicken house is raised off the ground and can be moved from place to place, fertilizing the soil (thank you Micheal Pollan for the inspiration) in the "summer" of our near arctic climate. Ok I'm exaggerating about the climate, but only a little bit!  The chicken house really is quite awesome.  Tim designed and built it to match our house which you can see in the background.  Because the HOA covenants restrict us from having fences in our neighborhood, we "free range" the chickens in the evening while enjoying a glass of wine on the back deck.   

Two of the roof pitches are on hinges and lift up to either get into the nesting box to collect eggs (left side of photo) or into the main house to refill the food and water.

Tim and Twin Niece B checking out the chickens.

Alethea and Twin Niece A peering into the chicken house from the window.  The chickens even have a window that they can admire the view out of. 

Twin B and GG.

No eggs yet,but they are due to start laying in October.  For the time being, we have arranged to trade fresh Basil (which we have plenty of!!) for fresh eggs with another North Routt Family.  I love that the barter system is still alive and well!!!

A sneak peek ahead

I thought I would intersperse a few images of what the garden is looking like these days, with the images of how we got here.  This first image was taken June 11, 2011.  We used tomato and cucumber starters, but everything else we planted from seed.

 These were taken on August 12th, 2011 inside the green house.  I'm so amazed at the growth in only 2 months!  Good thing since our growing season is only about 3 months!

Spring 2011- Really still the grips of winter

Winter lasted a very very long time this year. The first image is of the raised beds beginning to thaw out of the snow. This photo was taken in late May 2011. Tim's first design for the raised beds was to have these cold frames on at night, but we quickly realized that this solutions would not last very long once the plants started growing. I'll post the new solution at a later date. The cold frames did come in handy for expediting the spring melt off.

I think the photo below was taken in April or early May 2011. Tim built the greenhouse and raised garden beds (beds are still under the snow in the below photo) in the Fall of 2010 after the fire. We experimented with growing spinach through the winter and had a very yummy if not very expensive spinach salad for those efforts. In the winter we don't have water out in the green house, so we hand carried buckets of water out there. We wont be doing that again this winter!

Jumping on the Blog Wagon

With both of my sisters managing at least one blog, and with family and friends so very far away, I decided to jump on the blog wagon.

Growing Stones in the Clarktic Circle will follow our (Tim's and my) efforts at growing a prosperous garden at 8300ft in the rocky mountains, raising chickens and the meals we create from our bountiful garden.

To begin with, I will show you the transformation of our backyard from an aspen grove that perished to a grub, into a garden with raised beds and a green house.

It all began in the fall of 2010. This first image is all I can find of what used to be a beautiful aspen grove. We lost about 80% of the aspens to a grub, so we cut them all down and had a fire. The result was a big open area that has wonderful solar access for a garden.