Halloween

Our celebration of All Hallows Eve this year was a little subdued as we were hit with flu this week. Riley was home with a fever all week, then Todd developed a fever and lastly Lucy a few days ago. So far I feel fine, but this is likely because I was the only one in the house vaccinated. We still managed to carve our pumpkins and despite illness the kids were very much looking forward to trick-or-treating.

Costumes had long been decided. Last year Riley pretty much told a not yet 2 year old Lucy what to be. It went something like this. Riley- "I'm going to be Batman, do you want to Superman or Spider man?" Lucy- "Superman." They were the cutest pair of superheroes you ever did see. I've included a picture for your enjoyment.

Halloween 2008

This year things went a little different as Lucy is nearly 3 and as fiercely independent as they come. Riley decided early on that he wanted to be a witch and though he put a fair bit of effort into trying to convince Lucy to be his black cat, she was very clear that she would rather be a monkey.

Still pretty cute.

So the trick-or-treating happens for us in downtown Hood River. They close down main street and the kids go from business to business. Its really quite fun and perfect for little ones. So we start at one end of town and grab a couple of slices of pizza then slowly make our way to the other end.

Downtown Hood River on Halloween....

Getting ready to do some trickin......

.....and then getting the treats!

then onto the next store...

At the end of town we find Hood River's sweet little ice cream shop Mike's Ice Cream whose Halloween tradition is to give away ice cream cones until all their ice cream is gone and then they close up shop for the winter (opening again in late April). It seems funny to be sitting there eating ice cream on a typically cold Halloween evening, but we (and I mean the whole town when I say we) all look forward to it every year.

Like his father, Riley loves chocolate ice cream!

In the end we didn't have the heart to tell Lucy she couldn't go trick-or-treating because she was sick. So we just went early and were home by 6pm and in bed by 7pm. We are too far out of town to get any trick-or-treaters at our house, which was just fine. We limped our way through this Halloween but still managed to come home with buckets of candy, smiles and good memories of our favorite costume sitings.

Hope your Halloween was happy too!

Fall

I love love love the fall. It is by far my favorite season. I love the crisp morning air, the clear blue skies (for the most part, it is still Oregon), the colors (amazing!), the crunch of leaves, the apples, the pears, the pumpkins!! The weekend mornings when the kids crawl into our bed and snuggle under the covers reading books, singing songs, talking....no longer up with summers' early light and before the ski slopes are calling us out of our warm beds (don't worry we are definately THINKING SNOW).

This weekend was spent in celebration of fall. First we went to Kiyokawa Orchard to buy our winter supply of apples and pears. This is a multi-generational family operated orchard established in 1911 (how cool is that!). They boast 80 varieties of apples, pears and asian pears. Did you even know there were so many kinds of apples?? This weekend there was an apple tasting which was super fun and we all walked away with new favorites.

Then Riley helped me make MONSTER COOKIES which we always make before Halloween. Yummy! This is a Campbell family tradition... my grandmother used to make them when I was a kid (all the grandkids got a batch). She even used to send them to me when I was in college (to the delight of my roommate Lisa). I stopped getting them when I went into the Peace Corps (reasonable as it is difficult to ship fresh cookies to Africa), then she gave me the recipe when I got married and its been on me ever since. Big fat cookies full of peanut butter, oatmeal, M&Ms, chocolate chip, and nuts. We look forward to them every year!

To top off our weekend we also went to the PUNKIN PATCH!! I have actually long dreamed of having a punkin patch. There is just something about all those bumps of orange covering a muddy field which just makes me happy. I'm pretty psyched to have kids because I used to go by myself every year, and now its way more fun. We all picked out our punkins of choice and ran through the corn maze. A great fall weekend of family fun!

Market is Closed

So October 1st marked the end of the Farmers Market for Gorge Grown Food Network. Most of you know that Todd has been very involved (dare I say integral) to the organization since we moved here in early 2007. He literally went to a meeting one of our first weeks in town, and I like to joke with him that he is the only person I know who goes to a meeting and leaves with a career. For those who don't know, Gorge Grown Food Network is a non-profit organization whose mission is to create a sustainable regional food system (basically keeping local foods local). He may blog later about his thoughts on what this means, but in the meantime you can check it out at http://www.gorgegrown.com/.

In addition to the general operations of the organization Todd stepped up and began managing the weekly Farmer's Market on Thursday evenings last year. Let me just say (since he'll never say it, but I can) that he is glorious in this position. It is such a great use of his skill set. He has made the market into the social event of the summer. He has a childrens activity (usually one of the local pre-schools) and music booked every week. There is food available at the market and blankets provided for picnics. I come down with the kids, grab a blanket, feed them (usually homemade tamales...yum!) and sit and enjoy hours of hanging out with the other families who show up. I end up seeing many many friends and the kids are entertained with the childrens' activity of the night and playing with their friends. Oh and did I mention I get my shopping for the week done as well, directly from our local farmers...truely it is fabulous!! And the farmers absolutely love Todd and how he is shaping the market.

As wonderful as the market is, it takes an enormous amount of time. It is open from mid-June through the beginning of October, and it means that we as a family have to give up some of our time with him so he can do this. We are certainly willing to share Todd because we believe in Gorge Grown and mostly because he has alot of fun doing it and we like to see him happy, but come October I am ready for the market to come to a close.

So when that closing bell rings I will miss the market no doubt but I rejoice in having my husband back for the "off season".

The kids ringing the closing bell with Todd.....see ya next June!!

Harvest

We are getting to the end of harvest season (though I am constantly surprised at how many tomatoes continue to be coming out of the garden), and it is sad for sure but as a person who loves the anticipation of what is around the next corner I look forward to what fall and then winter bring.


We have long been advocates of living locally and we certainly try to buy or grow as much local and seasonal foods as possible (though make no pretense at perfection). This year we made our first attempts at preserving as much of that bounty as possible. For the most part this has been a fun process but in the context of life with two little kids it was challenging to find the time and there were certainly a few late nights this summer trying to put the food by.
The first step in our path of preserving was to purchase a chest freezer. It is amazing how much this has allowed us to put away in a fairly low labor intensive way. We have pounds and pounds of blueberries, strawberries, cherries, raspberries and blackberries (undeniably my favorite!). We also blanched and froze zucchini, green beans, tomato puree and several batches of pesto. And for the first time we bought beef, an 1/8 of a cow to be exact. Now some of you may find that odd as many identify Todd as a vegetarian. It is true that the majority of our diet at home is plant-based, but Todd likes meat. So when he thought about the reasons he was a vegetarian it was in response to the treatment of the animal and a revulsion of the meat from a Confined Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO). So we found a really really nice local guy named Tim Jefferies who has a small ranch of free-range grass fed happy cows. We still don't eat much meat (that 1/8 cow will last us all year long likely), but we can feel good about the meat we do eat.

40lbs of gorgeous beef in the freezer....




....just the top layer of our bags of berries!





So in addition to freezing we also canned a lot this year. We canned tomato sauce, whole tomatoes, salsa, pickles, dilly beans, peaches, and jams. We have canned jams in the past but these were our first attempts at other stuff, and it went relatively smoothly. I figure every
year we will try new canning recipes and repeat our favorites (maybe by the time we are 60 we'll have it down to a science). We have an unfinished basement which is probably not cold enough to be a root cellar, but I think for our purposes it will be fine. It is unbelievably satisfying to see the shelves lined with jars of canned goods. Seriously, I take everyone who comes to our house down there to show them, like its a new toy or something. I never thought the ides of having homemade tomato sauce on our pizzas this winter would get me so pumped!













Please take note if you would of the upper left corner. That my friends is 16 glorious quarts of blackberry, raspberry and cherry infused vodka!! (The winters will be warm in our house) Now I am all for putting food by, but really a girl has got to have a little fun!!!

In the end our favorite thing to grow is our kids, so a blog entry wouldn't be complete without mention of them. Both kids were in the garden with us, picking cherries, raspberries and blueberries. They have an uncanny ability to find that unnoticed zucchini (allowed to grow ginormously huge) and the red tomatoes hidden under branches. It gives me unparalleled joy to see Lucy pluck a ripe tomato off the vine and bite into it like an apple, or Riley up in a tree snacking on cherries. It is our hope that they have a understanding and relationship with the food on their plate that is unusual in today's culture....but hopefully making a comeback.

First Day of School

This being the beginning of September we have just passed the important hallmark of the first day of school. Lucy started preschool (Tue and Thurs mornings for 3hrs) and Riley started Kindergarten (8am-2:30pm everyday!). I must add a little 'whoa' to that sentence, I mean Kindergarten?? Really?? that sweet boy I love so fiercely is already 5 yrs old and off to school all... day... long!!! Really?? (It may take me awhile to get used to that)

Lucy started preschool at Little Feet Co-op Preschool (Riley's alma mater) on Tue Sept 8th. We packed her snack in her new snack "purse" and all of us (including Riley as his school did a staggered start so he didn't start until Wed) escorted her to school. This being a place she spent a lot of time as a toddler when Riley was in preschool there, it was a very familiar environment and she proudly took ownership of Little Feet as "her school". We all gave her a hug, she lined up to go inside and then without looking back she was gone...just like that, off to school!

Riley's turn was the next morning on Wed. He helped make his lunch (PB&J of course... comfort food for the first day) and packed it in his Dino lunch box with his new blue Kleen Kanteen water bottle. He put on his back-pack with his new folders and binder (really they actually had 3-ring binders on the supply list for kindergarten) tucked inside. We all walked him to his classroom, gave hugs and as we watched from the doorway he started to make his name tag and there he was in KINDERGARTEN!! (Riley is actually enrolled in a Spanish immersion class which is even extra cool and he was excited to try out some of the phrases we had been practicing at home) Now I had been getting choked up all week just thinking about this moment, and was counseled by Todd that I was not allowed to cry in front of Riley. In the reality of parenthood we ended up carrying our screaming preschooler out the door as quickly as possible (she wanted to stay and "play" at Riley's school), so there was no time to cry. Todd and I shared a smile and my chin quivered just for a moment as we employed "active ignoring" of our second child's tantrum. He had a great first day and by the end of the week was taking the bus home with the big kids.

So the next day was our first day with both children in school. And you may ask what we did with our first kid-free hours. What every backyard homesteader does....we worked on building our new chicken coop!! We gotta get it done before the rains so our ladies have a cozy roost for the winter!

Welcome

Well, we have decided to enter the world of blogs. I have been wanting and intending to do this for a long time, but never got around to the doing part of my intention until now. Generally speaking I like blogs, they are like little peeks into someone's thoughts, home, vacation, etc. On a more practical level for us it is a way to share with you our current selves. Long gone are the days when we sent out mass mailings of photos, which we haven't manged to do since Lucy was born (she's nearly 3!!). Our hope is that for those who we don't get to see often this will provide a way to check in with us. So if you are so inclined, put this address in your Google reader, and "follow" the blog. Or just pop in from time to time and see what we are up to!

So the whole naming the blog thing was really hard!! I have several friends who have started blogs and many of them write about naming it in the first post, now I get it! It it very daunting to try to capture the essence of a blog much less a life in a few words or a phrase. After a long process (I won't bore you), I came up with (or really borrowed a title from a book I have by my bedside) The Backyard Homestead. Todd in typical fashion put a personal twist on it as we live in Hood River, OR. This title seemed to speak to our lives. We live in a 1910 farmhouse which may or may not have been a homestead of sorts 100yrs ago but presumably involved acres of land. Over the years the land has been parceled off and the house now sits on 1/3 acre (plenty). We have 5 cherries trees, a raspberry patch, strawberry patch, large vegetable garden and 13 chickens (which came with the house). Inside the house are two small beautiful children and two cats. We have neighbors and a neighborhood, but the road in front of our house is the county line so we are technically in the country not the city. The title seemed to fit our city/country lives. Thus we welcome you to Homestead in the Hood.