Pumpkins

Now that Halloween is over and Alexa has acquiesced to allow me to cook a pumpkin instead of just carve it, I am looking forward to pumpkin baking.  We still have a few weeks left in November so it must at least be acceptable until the month is over right?  One of my dear friend generously gave me her pumpkins when she was done with them, as the carved pumpkins at our house were long gone due to mold.  Pinterest had some great idea for keeping mold away, but they also meant ruining them for cooking so I opted out on those as well.

We began the roasting process last night...it is going to take a good while as I mentioned, they are large pumpkins and my oven will only hold about 1/2 pumpkin per session.  I know my hubby, who loves all things pumpkin, will be more than thrilled to taste all the dishes I come up with.

Stay tuned...

Cows & Pumpkins

Between our budget and eating better I have made a discovery.  Eating clean, whole, organic food can get rather expensive.  Especially if you make the leap to the high end products like meat and cheese.  I don't have too much trouble finding produce at a decent price, but paying $6.50 a pound for ground beef is a little more than our budget and my stomach can handle.  As a result I've started looking for other options for buying such items.  I am sad to admit I haven't found a fabulous source yet, but in my search this week we did find some other neat things!

Tuesday I got off work early after an all day staff retreat, so we drove to a farm a few miles from our house. When we got to the store we found out they were in the middle of milking.  Alexa was so excited to see the cows in action!  Granted, she did think it was pretty smelly.  Interestingly enough, I remember going to the dairy when I was little, so it is rather comforting to me.  We grabbed some raw milk and some cheese when milking was over and headed home.

The cow pictured was not fond of the experience...she kicked the suction cups off of her and busted out of the milking parlor...according to the farmer, she doesn't like people.  Oops!

Today we visited 2 other farms on the East side of the city.  Tuttles is an apple orchard and pumpkin patch, and as you can see there were plenty to choose from!  I was a bit sad this year that we didn't get to go to Nivens, we've been every year since 2007, but it is a bit of a drive these days.  I was more than excited when Deborah mentioned Tuttles.  We also went to the Apple Family Farm, but we didn't get any pictures there.  I'm toying with the idea of buying a cow share from them...we'll see how that goes.

Alexa trying to decide on the perfect pumpkin for her

The whole fam

Alexa and Annabeth seeing how they measure up.  

All in all our week made me realize how much more I want to live on a farm.  I love the idea of our kids growing up in a more natural environment & learning to live off the land.  I'm not sure how long it will be before we get there, but someday it will happen!  Goodness, never thought I'd say something like that!