Go Go Gadget, Kitchen!

Ok, I've done all I can do! My day went like this...

Finally got the rest of my seedling trays and pots washed

Notice I did have a dining room table in there that was useless since nobody could slide their chairs in and out to actually sit at the table!

A gazillion trays and pots take up considerably less space when not strewn about the house!

Then I turned a tiny linen closet into my canning closet. I can't believe it all fit, the shelves are only about 9 inches deep. All my jars, pickling junk, freezer containers, dehydrator and food saver fit and still had the bottom 2 shelves for seed starting paraphenilia, or should I say "growhouse paraphenilia"... it sounds so much more exciting that way, teehee! As for the linens? Who needs linens anyways?

Right across the little hall from the canning closet is my wicked cool poster that has everything you need to know about starting anything from seed and companion planting - bonus is that it's a nice conversation item for anyone standing in the little hallway waiting to use the bathroom during a party! (See how the rule of dual purposes plays out everywhere?!)

Next the kitchen table got the boot back into the living room...

But now all my appliances are actually in the kitchen! Major victory, unless there are those of you who like the college feel with the kegerator in the living room... I am not one those! And getting my deep freeze out of the living room? I might actually look in there now...

What you see above is a stainless prep table (I cannot live without this table during tomato season) with 2 stools brought down from the attic, deep freeze is behind there, cart with appliances, & kegerator - all previously not in the kitchen! I find that when my appliances and tools are hidden in cabinets or away in closets I completely shut down and cease preparing anything that resembles a nice meal. I am one who likes a very unfitted, moveable kitchen with all my tools within reach, and now my breadmaker is out - yippee! Maybe I will start using it now...

Showing the right side of the kitchen, the shelves on the back right hold all our cereals, snacks, baking ingredients, serving dishes, and my sushi barware addiction. When I look at the picture, it looks bigger than it is, that area in the back, the "eat-in" area is only about 4 ft by 9 ft, so not much!

I am completely exhausted now, (I even cleaned the tops of the cabinets- yuck!), but now I can say, bring on this weeks' strawberries and peas, it's time to make jam and freeze garden goods, and now I finally feel that I'm ready! And hubby, good news... I have staged the dehydrator in an easy to get to location and I think I will now be able to make you some jerky and dried strawberries!

First Spring Harvest

And it's......STRAWBERRIES, LOL!  I just went outside to "walk the estate" and assess the damage from last night's severe weather and I found the first 2 ripe strawberries, which will actually be the 2nd harvest of the year since I am going to count the 2 leeks I pulled in March that wintered over.  We promptly took a picture and they went down the hatch.  Finn said "Mommy, they taste like the ones we picked at the farm", to which I explained to him "no, they're better because WE grew them" :)   

    

Also a pic of the peas, which just the past week are going like gangbusters now.  Can't wait, but they never seem to make it to the freezer for stash!  I am going to remember to do fall peas this year so we have some for winter.

On the weather note, our area had the works last night:  severe thunderstorms, wind, downpours, tornado warnings - I was terrified for my seedlings, but amazingly there was no damage.  I hope the same for those of you who went through it.  I thank the raised beds and the fact some other seedlings were planted in my heavily mulched borders.  I think if they had been planted in the unmulched ground they would surely have washed away.  It's amazing how I took the safety of the basement for granted in the Midwest.  When that kind of weather happens here, we have limited options to take cover.  

I now live in the land of sand, swamps, high water tables and NO basements!  That is definitely on my list of future-house needs: a basement for severe weather/canning storage/squirrel attacks, and my own version of a harvest kitchen with a huge walk in pantry and a mudroom!   Hmmm, my mom has all that at the house I couldn't wait to leave to go "see the world"...well, Mom - I've seen it and I want back in...can the kids come, too?!!!

*An update to my fruit leather attempt:

While delicious...this is the amount that resulted from having my countertop oven running for 4 hours!  This will be devoured in one kid-snack sitdown!  Bottom line:  Yummy, but this is definitely not homesteading/being green or cheap!  I think to do this without wasting time and money it needs to be done the old-fashioned way with screens in the sun.  The yield would have been much greater with no energy wasted, but with our humidity here my options are limited.  I did, however, use my 6 jars of too-runny jam to redo the experiment in my food dehydrator.  I lined the trays with parchment paper and it held all 6 jars at once and turned it on at 10 p.m. and it was done this morning at 7.  Greater yield, less energy wasted, so a compromise has been found!

You can tell by my frequent postings that it has been raining all day so I can't get outside, my house is already clean, and I am minus one child today :)  This doesn't happen too often!