The Mountain State Fair: Project Round Up

 It's that time of year again. For the past 3 years my kids have enjoyed entering projects in the fair. Drop off day is Tuesday. Which means Monday will be spent in the kitchen- since Lakin is finally old enough for the competition we have a total of 11 baked goods to be entered. I capped them at 4 each and one didn't go through. It'll be a long day with lots of dish washing! I will apologize in advance that most of the pictures are from my phone and instagram!

This year the boys are entering more from the garden. Rylan is going for the largest watermelon.  I don't have a picture of it since it's still out in the garden. He had plans for other squashes- winter and summer, but with all the rain and other odd weather, the plants had a hard time. Cale and Cohen are both entering winter squashes seen below, and Lakin is entering his butternut squash (not pictured)

Cale, Cohen and Lakin have also been working on some of the craft categories, here are a few of their projects. Cohen's santa ornament made from a recycled coke can, felt and alpaca fiber. Cale's basket made from a hose and zip ties. 

This one has been hanging in the living room for months now. It's Cale's recycled decoration- a skeleton made out of  milk jugs.

Lakin's jewelry. Beaded earrings and a bracelet for the recycled jewelry category.  Do you remember Cale's peacock sculpture from last year? This year he's entering this Big Head as his sculpture. It's still a work in progress- which must be finished tomorrow! Cohen is also making a sculpture- of a beetle. And we have a couple more Christmas ornaments not shown as well as some art- oil pastels, watercolors, etc.

Of course, I have mentioned Cale's big pumpkins. The stems were getting soft- some sort of fungus I think- so we picked them since the bugs were starting to pick at the soft spots. We crossed our fingers that they would last until the drop off date.

But today this happened. The smaller of the 2 giants...rotted from the stem and bottom. It was great fun considering this occurred in the living room! It smelled TERRIBLE and took about 20 or more towels to clean up and Rylan, Cale and me to drag it out of the house- gagging all the way. We are still hoping the biggest will last. Like I said- not a good squash year. 

 

 This year Rylan didn't enter many arts and crafts- 2 pieces of art work was it. He did enter 3 model kits, a lot from the garden, baked goods and 6 photographs. My dad let him use his camera, and I thought he got some great shots!

So there are just a few of their projects. I'll post pictures of their baked goods on Tuesday once they are all done!

Fancy Dresses....and Dirt

 Earlier this summer my mom gave Annika a dress. She called it her "fancy dress" and she loved it. Then Paul's grandmother found a dress on sale and gave her another "fancy dress".  Then a couple weeks ago we found a third at the Goodwill Outlet.

 She wears them any chance she gets. And with three of them, one always seems to be clean, which means these dresses are pretty much in constant wear.

But she lives on a farm. And has 4 big brothers to keep up with. And, although she loves fancy dresses, she also loves dirt.

 And no matter what, at the end of the day. Those fancy dresses aren't quite so fancy anymore.

But they are covered in mud and dirt and are usually sopping wet too. 

Peach Pickin'

Last week we went peach picking at a local U-pick orchard. 

Rylan was absolutely in love with the orchard and came home with a perfect vision of how he wants his future orchard to look.  And I will say it was nice- the trees were all pruned and kept to a accessible height. Even Annika could reach a lot of the fruits.

 We picked a ton. In about 15 min. A total of 5 bushels- with one half bushel being nectarines.

 See that nectarine Cale is holding? They were huge! We had 3 carts full of fruit  to bring home with us.

Aren't the beautiful. I love the color! And the kids had a blast, and would have picked more if we had let them.

We also picked a gallon of blackberries while we were there. They had apples too, but those weren't quite ready.

Then I spent just over 2 days in the kitchen. Peeling and cutting and boiling and canning. In total I got 84 quarts of peaches. And the knife only slipped once! Which in my book is a success! We still have a fair amount of nectarines left for eating and a few peaches to make some preserves. 

If you've never canned peaches and are planning on it, I've written up the how-to over on The Free Range Life!