Thanksgiving 2017: about 9 months in the making

It's no secret that our favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. No presents or even decorating, just lots and lots of food and friends.

This year was day after Thanksgiving Thanksgiving for us since Keith was (and currently is) working this whole weekend. Which just meant that most of our friends got 2 big dinners this year-no one was complaining!

I was nog sure if we were going to raise turkeys this year. I needed to raise something that I could feed all the gallons of protein rich whey that is a by product of making cheese all summer and the options are pigs or turkeys. While I really want pigs, we are already set up for turkeys. Also I happened to be at Grain Growers when they only had a few turkeys chicks left and were looking to get rid of them-perfect timing!

So at the end of March I brought home 5 turkey chicks and popped them straight in the greenhouse with the ducklings I raised this year.




And while the turkeys grew bigger everyday, I worked in the garden to get the rest of Thanksgiving going. Potatoes and squash was planted, root vegetables seeded, onion starts planted.

As I said in the previous post, this was an amazing tater year. With my goal being 100 lbs of potatoes and actually producing 150 lbs, we clearly had enough to makes loads of mashed potatoes! One of the varieties I grew this year is called Mountain Rose and it produces bright pink potatoes, so this year we had pink mashed potatoes this year for dinner!


I have no idea how many pounds of winter squash or beets/carrots/turnips we grew this year, but again, more than enough. Squash was roasted up to make puree for the (not) pumpkin pie and also went in to the sweet potato casserole. Beets, carrots, turnips along with loads of onions and garlic were roasted up for the corn bread with roasted fall vegetable stuffing.



Since I got the turkey chicks to early, by September they were ready to be slaughtered. Thankfully I didn't have to do it! I drove the turkeys, along with some chickens and ducks, to Wallowa to be slaughtered and processed there. I brought them alive and barely contained in boxes and picked them up the same afternoon all packaged up and ready to go!

We ended up with 2 toms and 2 hens. The toms weighed 36 lbs each and the hen 22 lb.




It took 9 days to thaw out a 36 pound turkey, then we brined it for a few more days.

Keith helped get the giant bird in the oven before heading out to the hospital yesterday morning. A quick rub down of (homemade) butter and lemon zest under the skin before it was loaded with stuffing and stuffed inside the oven and of course the obligatory photo of the turkey being bigger than our cocker spaniel!




As usual, I have almost no pictures of actual Thanksgiving. We had about 25 friends over and they all also made delicious food! Chatting, drinking, eating- there really isn't any time to take pictures! Amazingly everything turned out great and I was only frustrated with Keith a couple of times! We all made an insane amount of food and I think (hope) everyone got to take a fair bit of their favorites home.



And instead of cleaning up after a giant party today, I get to mostly just hang out since everyone helped do all the dishes and get everything put away last night-amazing!

And I am so thankful!

Thankful to have a husband who supports all the crazy things I want to do, thankful for being able to be physically able to do all the crazy things I want to do, thankful for all our animals-we have most of them their whole lives and no matter how short or long that is they all bring so much joy and silliness to our lives, besides being delicious and producing eggs and milk we enjoy every day, thankful for all the friends in my life and for all the happiness and richness they bring to my life, and thankful to our families who still feel close even though we are so far away.

Love you all and hope you had a great Thanksgiving!

Garden 2017: The Aftermath

It's the first day of fall and here it is cold and blustery with fresh snow on the mountains. And while a lot of the garden and greenhouse are finished for the season, there is still so much work to do!



And a lot of the work is so tedious! This year I decided to try to grow dry beans. I seeded 3 different kinds of beans in the greenhouse and only one of them produced anything, the flageolet vert dry bean. I couldn't believe how many pods I harvested! I thought I'd have a gallon of dry beans-at least! Yeah, no. I just finished shelling all these damn beans and I didn't even get a half gallon! They better be the best tasting beans in the history of the planet! And at least the goats like helping me clean up!





Another mostly successful new adventure in the greenhouse this year was corn. Yes, I've grown sweet corn before with limited success, this year I didn't want to just grow sweet corn, but corn for flour. I planted Painted Mountain corn-described as a nutritious rugged beauty-and it seems it has lived up to it's name! I've only harvested it and by the time this amazing piece of equipment comes in the mail (Yay! What a great birthday present-I can't wait to put this to work!), the corn should be dry and ready to go.

I am also getting a grain mill-another amazing birthday present- and even though it's not the biggest harvest this year, the first thing I want to make are tamales, then fresh tortillas...if all this works, I'm planting so much more of this next year!




The breakaway success story of the summer was taters. I never plant enough potatoes and we use about 20 lbs for Thanksgiving alone and that usually uses up all that had grown. This year I tried a number of different varieties and was hoping to grow 100 lbs of potatoes.

Harvesting 150 lbs of potatoes is exhausting, but it's also a really dirty treasure hunt, so it's still lots of fun! The only variety I won't be growing again is Huckelberry Gold-I only got about 10 lbs from these sad plants. Mountain Rose (pink inside and out!), All Blue (guess what color those are inside and out??), French fingerling, Rose Finn fingerling and tried and true Yukon Golds all did amazing this year. The taters this year have been massive and delicious! I've only had multicolored oven fries once so far, but I'm really looking forward to blue mashed potatoes!




Over half the greenhouse is still thriving and I'm battling nights like tonight when the low is supposed to be 25 degrees. All the peppers, eggplants, most of the tomatoes and the remaining winter squash are all covered in frost cloth on top of the greenhouse being shut tight. Hopefully they all make it through these next few days since it's supposed to be in the 70s this time next week!

Today was also a sad day since we had to say goodbye to our buck goat Randy. Randy has been with us since he was about 8 months old and for the longest time was the only other animal that Cupid would not only tolerate but actually seemed to enjoy being around. He is the sire of all our adorable goat kids and that is why he has to leave. We will start breeding his baby girls this year-Gilda will be spending some time with our new buck Rowdy very soon. But Randy will be missed so much. He was such a sweet and handsome fella and now he's going to a new home to no doubt live up to his name there. Love you, Randy!

Garden 2017: Dear Lord what was I thinking!?

We are in the height of summer. It has been in the 90s almost everyday since mid-June (not normal) and even though it's been dry (normal) with the magical power of a drip watering system, the gardens are a bit out of control.

I didn't really mean for every single seed to sprout or for every plant to thrive, but that's what it I have, so I better get to work!

There is really no good way to try to get into the greenhouse. One way you are met with towering corn stalks that were only supposed to be 4-5 feet tall, instead they are over 8 feet tall and constantly drop pollen all over my head and neck. We've only had a few ears of sweet corn on the cob, but it was delicious!



Try to go in the other door and you are greeted by a mass of sunflowers. I like to use sunflowers as support for sprawling tomato plants, and yes, they are helping me do that, but they also make me feel like I need a machete to to hack my way through this hoard of towering sunflowers. They are constantly covered in every kind of pollinator possible: honey bees, bumble bees, butterflies, and something that I hadn't seen until this year, a hummingbird moth. One of these days I'll get a shot of one, they're amazing! Even though I have to crawl in the dirt to move through the greenhouse, it's worth it to make the pollinators happy!



The only place you can actually stand straight up in the greenhouse is in the center of it, surrounded by plants loaded with sweet peppers, hot peppers and eggplants. We've been enjoying a few peppers and tomatoes so far, but it's getting very close to full on canning season and the pantry looks so bare I'm ready for it!





Oh, the joys of having a 16 x 45 foot greenhouse! One of the main reasons I wanted to expand the greenhouse was to have more winter squash, now I'm thinking I was just growing the wrong kind! I have a few Delicata squash plants and they are loaded and growing so fast! The squash that was tiny just 3 weeks ago is now almost full size! I'm hungry just thinking about harvesting them!



I do think I know what I was thinking when planing and putting in this seasons gardens, even if it doesn't make any sense. I was thinking that my brother and his family might come out to visit this summer and it would be so fun to harvest and make food together. Apparently I planned not to feed a family of 3 for a few days, but a small army for a few months! At least Keith and I won't starve this winter!

Speaking of not starving, don't the turkeys look great! They only have about a month left before they end up in our freezer.




After a very long and intense lambing and kidding season (February-May with only 1 stillborn but a lot of other complications), all the lambs are fat and happy and mostly sold! We have 14 lambs and 2 goat kids for sale this summer and as of this moment we only have 5 lambs left to sell! They are all so cute and chubby and I think they are the most snuggly group of lambs and kids we've ever had.

Sheep and goats 2017 from Ellen De Young on Vimeo.

While that isn't close to everything going on here, it's as much as I have time to talk about! There is also lots of cheese, goofy dairy goats, trouble with the new dairy sheep, canning, evil goats getting out and eating a years worth of beets, honey bees, and on, and on!

Hopefully it cools of a little soon and the smoke from fires near and far lessens soon so it's actually nice to work outside again!

sloths, Sloths, SLOTHS!

Or Costa Rica Part 3. And now that I have your attention, it will be a while till we get to sloths!

So now we are in the final week of vacation-going up to the mountains in the center of the country. After having such a great time the past two weeks, we couldn't help but wonder why we were leaving the Osa. Yes, Keith had a white water kayaking adventure planned, but that was only a day and half out of a week and we really didn't have anything else planned. And after 2 weeks of guides and tours and tourists (like we're not!), I just wanted some time to myself.

It took a little more time than we expected, but eventually, and in the dark we finally found the Airbnb that we booked in Aquiares, a little outside of Turriabla. Aquiares is an interesting place; this small town is essentially a big coffee farm with almost everyone in town connected to the coffee farm somehow.

We woke up to a beautiful view of the farm and Keith enjoyed sipping Aquiares coffee. Eventually I did have a cup of this coffee, but it wasted on me! As far as I'm concerned it smelled terrible and tasted even worse-just like all coffee.

We briefly said hello to our Airbnb hosts Bob and Helen, gingos from California. We told them we were just going to take a walk, but they called their friends who run the corner store and found out their family was going on a hike to the waterfall. We were going with them and they were waiting for us-OK!

So Keith and I met Arianni, a lovely 16 yearly girl, and her mom, Fernanda at the shop. Fernanda was staying to mind the shop and we took of with Arianni and her adorable dog Angus. She spoke a fair amount of English-that is, more English than I speak Spanish, and while I understood most of what was said, thankfully Keith can actually speak Spanish. We met up with her nieces, aunts and cousins on the walk down to the waterfall. The whole time I'm thinking, I REALLY need to learn Spanish!




The waterfall is beautiful and on this beautiful Sunday morning, it is full of families playing in the river. For me this was such a refreshing change from the preplanned, preset tours with guides, it was just a fun Sunday morning. While everyone else played in the pools at the base of the waterfall, Keith, Ari, Angus, and I climbed up to the top of the waterfall. This is clearly where the cool kids hang out, since it was just a bunch of boys smoking and drinking and playing in the natural waterslide above the cliff of the waterfall.




Keith did a day and half white water kayak trip on the Sarapiqui river, about 2 hours from where we were staying and while it turns out I could have gone and boated some of what he did in an inflatable kayak, I'm still glad I stayed in Aquiares. And hopefully we get pictures or video of the kayaking-while Keith had the waterproof camera, he did not take a single picture! But his guide had a GoPro, so hopefully!

I wasn't sure how I was going to fill up my time, but I did very easily. The Turrialba area is know for their cheese, so of course I found a dairy and cheese making tour! I booked the tour and Bob, one of our Airbnb hosts came with me, to both give me a ride and it was a tour they hadn't heard about in the area. It was a great tour-it's been years since I've milked a cow, but after years of milking goats and sheep, it was pretty easy. We also go to see how their cheese is made and make a little cheese to take home to!




I also spent part of the time hanging out with Fernanda and Arianni. I stopped by the shop just to say hi and ended up spending a lot of the day in the kitchen, making bread and chatting (I really need to learn Spanish!) with Fernanda, with Ari singing along to Adele and her other kids playing video games-it was such a fun day!



When Keith got back, Volcan Turrialba was smoking! We had to get up there! Since it is technically actively erupting, quite a bit is closed near the top of the volcano, but we got as close as we could. And it's not really smoking-the white coming from the volcano is steam and the grey is ash and no lava, just in case you were wondering!




After a couple more days in the mountains, it was time to drive back to San Jose and fly back home. But not before we stopped at the Toucan Rescue Ranch and met a bunch of sloths...and toucans!



The Toucan Rescue Ranch is in the suburbs of San Jose. They receive sloths, toucans, monkeys and loads of other animals that have been orphaned or injured, and they work to try to rehab them and return them to the wild.

This is a pile of baby two-toed sloths. They all hang out in these rocking chairs because it simulates the unsteadiness but relative safety of tree branches.



At the end of the tour, we met Bella, a little three-toed sloth. She is seriously the cutest animal I have ever seen! I couldn't believe how close they let us get!





By the end of the tour I was almost in tears, thinking about these animals with their mama's get killed by dogs or electrocuted by power lines. It was such an overwhelming last day of vacation, but I'm so glad we got to spend some time there!

Now we're home and I'm staring out at a grey day with some snow still on the ground and am so ready to go back! I guess I feel like this after just about every vacation, but this time it feels different. Like we should go back and seriously buy some property in the mountains different.

Leave me in Costa Rica! Part dos

After a week of kayaking, monkey watching, and sea turtle releasing in Drake Bay we were off to the eco lodge Lapa Rios . We were still on the Osa Peninsula, but on the Gulfo Dulce side, where we had been on the Pacific side in Drake Bay.

Lapa Rios is unlike anywhere we had ever stayed. It is a private nature reserve of over 1000 acres, 80% of it as primary forest, the other 20% of the jungle is secondary forest. It was previously a cattle ranch that was replanted with native trees almost 25 years ago.

Even the drive to Lapa Rios was impressive, besides that during the drive was the only air conditioning we had the whole trip! We chatted with Frank our driver, who spoke excellent English, and found out that before working for the resort, he worked on his father's palm oil plantation. There are palm oil plantations all over the place and we had driven past so many that it was interesting to learn a little about it. It is very dangerous work as both the palm pods and palm fronds are covered with large spikes and are dropping about 40 feet to the ground once their cut. On the way were stopped at Frank's father's plantation and it was pretty impressive. I'm guessing driving a couple of gringos around is a lot easier!



Once we arrived to Lapa Rios, and were greeted with a delicious passionfruit lemonade and cool towel, we jumped right in the explore every this place had to offer. Every day there are different tours and hikes available and that first day we did both the Matapalo tour and the Night Tour. The Matapalo tour was great to get a sense of where we were and the kinds of animals around. On that short walk we saw a sloth, loads of spider monkeys, macaws and tons of other birds-this place is amazing!



Before dinner and with the same guide, Danilo, it was just Keith and I on yet another night walk looking for snakes, spiders and all. And we found them. I almost stepped on a scorpion and spotted a giant wolf spider. Of course there were also snakes and poisonous frogs...I'm never peeing in the jungle at night, ever!



My favorite hike was the Rainforest Ridge Walk. I lucked out and was the only person on the hike! Keith was taking a surfing lesson that morning, so it was just me and the guide, Edwin, in the jungle. The howler monkeys were going crazy that morning and their screams were roaring through the jungle, so we did a little off trail hiking to try to find what were probably only 2 or 3 male howler monkeys making all that noise. And while we did find them, I didn't get any great pictures-the jungle was so thick at the point all we could really see were tails and and trees swaying.

Oh well! One thing I hadn't seen yet was a poison dart frog and I really wanted to. There are 2 in the Osa Peninsula, the not very cleverly named black and green poison dart frog and the Gulfo Dulce poison dart frog and we saw them both! Actually we saw a few green and black ones and the only Golfo Dulce one jumped up the guides arm! Apparently you have to lick them for the frogs to be poisonous, so no worries!



After his surfing lesson, Keith just wanted to surf more, so he did. I had a loungey beach day while Keith surfed surprisingly well! Just look how crowded this beach is!



One of the last tours we did focused on the sustainability that Lapa Rios strives for. They have a few pigs that most of the food scrapes are feed too. They also collect the pig poo and it is used to create biogas that is used in the staff kitchens. We have loads of animal poo at home-I wonder if we can do something like this!


While we were on this tour, we hear a rustling the brush and found a very hungry anteater! We actually ended up seeing 3 anteaters while we were in Costa Rica. I don't know why, but anteaters don't really care if people are around and we got surprising close to this one! It was on a mission to chow, and chow he did!

Hungry anteater! from Ellen De Young on Vimeo.


I don't feel like I've done a very good job describing how amazing this place is! Taking an outside shower, looking out at the ocean and having spider monkeys playing in the tree above you or seeing a sloth at the top of a tree just off your balcony is just not something that happens everyday! The hikes were great because the guides we so knowledgeable. And of course the food was great-banana cashew pancakes were my favorite! This was a much more posh place than we usually go and while we'll probably never go to this eco lodge again, it was a great experience and I hope we do go to the Osa Peninsula again!


Fair warning, the next post is almost all sloths!!

Leave me in Costa Rica! part 1

Oh, Costa Rica! How I love you! The wildlife, the beaches, the rivers, the mountains, the volcanos....ok, maybe there are a few too many poisonous snakes, though.

Since Keith and I were there 12 years ago, we have always talked about moving to Costa Rica. Now, that we've finally been back, I vividly remember why. This place is amazing.

After a few delays, we finally made it to San Jose, CR but we still had a bit of traveling to do. To get to Drake Bay for the first week of our vacation, we still had a flight, taxi, and hour long boat ride to get there. The flight had maybe 8 seats, 4 of which were occupied. We had amazing views of the mountains and coast of Costa Rica, including whale tail beach-we had been there 12 years ago!


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Once in Drake Bay, we settled in to Casa Hoizontes, a small family run guest house that was our home base for a few days of kayaking around Drake Bay. Galiano Kayaks is based in British Columbia but in the winter they guide tours in Costa Rica. Genius! Our guide was Zach and for the rest of the week it was pretty much just the three of us kayaking around the rivers, coast, and beaches of Drake Bay.




If you've heard anything about Costa Rica, it might have been about crocodiles. Rivers full of them...why are we kayaking and swimming in rivers? According to Zach, yes, most rivers probably do have crocodiles, especially where they flow into the ocean, but they are small and won't bother anyone. The rivers with the big crocs, people know about them and avoid them. So we took his word for it and still have all our fingers and toes!

We had a lot of amazing experiences in Drake Bay, but there was one day that was my favorite: We get up early and kayak to a beautiful beach. From there, all Keith and I know that we are going to do a bit of a hike and maybe do a canoe ride up another river-Ok, sounds good.



So we hike through the jungle to another beautiful beach, this one with the ocean on one side and a river on the other. The ocean side has pretty big waves and is one of the prime surfing spots in Drake, so we jump into the river to cool off and swim a little.



There is a little hut by the river that Zach said was where we could maybe get a canoe ride up Rio Claro (one of about 100 Rio Claro's in CR). There was a two hour tour just taking off in a few minutes and we were just in time-great! Richardo, the owner, was very clear about what we all should be wearing and what we should bring: No hats or sunglasses. Only wear swimsuits....um why? What are we doing? I'll tell you what we're doing-jumping off a cliff into the river before we ever get in the boats, that's what!



The canoe ride is beautiful and short. Finally I realize the point isn't the canoe ride, but playing in the river. We get to a point in the river where we all get out, jump off boulders, and float down the river.





Eventually we float down to a spot where we start climbing up a waterfall and the whole place is pretty magical!



Wow, Ellen! That sounds like such a fun day! I know, right! But it gets even better!

After the boat ride, we have a little lunch and coffee, then go for a short hike to, yup, another beautiful beach. BUT on the way there we are surrounded by a troupe of capuchin monkeys! They are hilarious and they are everywhere!

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Capuchin Monkeys! from Ellen De Young on Vimeo.



So we go to the beautiful beach and I promptly fall asleep for a bit. I'm woken up right in time for us rush back to the beach where we took off for the canoe trip. We had to get there in time to release the tiny sea turtles that had just hatched that day into the ocean. I couldn't believe that we actually got to hold tiny, incredibly strong sea turtles! Go, baby sea turtles! I hope you survive!
Releasing sea turtles from Ellen De Young on Vimeo.





From there it's a kayak back to Casa Hoizontes for some beers on the patio and a delicious dinner, but we couldn't stay up too late! We had to be on a boat at 6am the next morning to get to Corcovado National Park. Finally time to see some sloths!

The day at Corcovoda was amazing and we didn't only see sloths! We are all four species of monkey that are native to Costa Rica: squirrel monkeys, capuchin monkeys, spider monkeys and howler monkeys. Here is one of the spider monkeys we saw...or me getting busted by Keith for eating the whole bag of chips!


Hanging out with monkeys in Corcovado National Park from Ellen De Young on Vimeo.


Squirrel monkeys are pretty much impossible to take a picture of since they never stop moving, this video is pretty crappy too! Oh, well! They're still adorable!
squirrel monkeys! from Ellen De Young on Vimeo.

We also saw tapirs. One sleeping and and mom and baby drinking in a creek. The tapirs are so much bigger than I expected and such odd creatures. They look kind of like pigs but are somehow related to both the horse and rhinoceros.




And yes, we saw sloths! This one was a mama and her baby. Only her baby moved. For barely a second I could see the cutest little baby sloth face, then it was time to nap again! Not the greatest picture, but there will be so many more sloth pics to come!



This doesn't even come close to everything we did in Drake Bay. One other interesting experience we had was the Night Tour with Tracy. It was creepy and scary and full of spiders and snakes (spiders I'm fine with-but snakes-NO!). And the tour was amazing. We meet Trap Door Spiders and scorpions and poisonous frogs and yes, snakes (not poisonous!) and I would absolutely hight recommend it to anyone, even if you're sacred of spiders.




Well, I can't believe 2 things. One, how long this is already and two, that I actually thought I could write about 3 weeks in Costa Rica in one post! I barely made it through just one week! So sorry! There will be more!

There are a ton more pics and video in Flickr, and I'm just now noticing that the link to Flickr on the blog is broken-I'll fix that!

Time to go feed the very pregnant sheep and goats and meet Keith for a beer after a hard week of not being on vacation. More to come!