Free Time?

Post date: Jan 1, 2013 6:14:20 PM

We are sure you're wondering, "Now that the snow has begun to fall and we are no

longer digging in the garden, just what are we doing with all that free time?" Well, we are under pressure to constantly think up new ways to use our root vegetables before they rot! In previous posts we quickly passed over the fact that we did not pick varieties of root vegetables, like potatoes, that store well. What does one do with 30lbs of potatoes? Since this is the perfect time of year for hearty soup, well, you see where this is going... In the Unity Orchard Test Kitchen, we have also tested various Stuart's Spices. Stuart's Spices compliment our normal weekend hash browns, fries, twice baked, beef hash and, well, most everything. Notice the potato theme? In addition to potatoes, we still have pumpkins. Lots and lots of pumkins. We've done run out of freezer space, canning jars and now only roast them as needed. They clashed with our Christmas decor and had to be removed from the living room; kind of "Thanksgivingey". Since one can only eat so much pumpkin in a week, we realized that we need to figure out better storage solutions for next year. Ohhh, that's a good resolution. Write that one down. A pretty common theme for us lately is, "Where do we put all these veggies?" Our basement is a little too warm for cold storage, our garage is to cold for cold storage - yeah, we just read that too - and our secondary freezer, secondary fridge, primary freezer and fridge are packed. Don't even get us started on our mice. No, we don't have pet mice, but these 'housebroken' mice have found a way into both the garage and the basement. We're hopeful the problem goes away on its own. Stop laughing, for all you know it can and it will. Mice are text book ADD. They might find something else shinny and leave our home.

Mike has been hard at work in his woodshop catching up on all the projects he couldn't find time for over the Summer. He completed a beautiful end table for Megan's housewarming gift and is avidly working to complete more tables in the same style for our living room. He made beautiful knife holders for our Mothers for the holidays and is designing a custom desk for our new office and a custom kitchen table for Charles. What's Michelle doing you ask? Learning Spanish, baking up pumpkins and potatoes (see above) and most importantly, catching up on reading! Her book club started up again and they are trying to tackle Anna Karenina.