November

Today we changed our website over to the new format and hopefully things will go smoothly.  We have added quite a few new items this year and many items have pictures that we took during the growing season.  I try to add historical information for each items if I have it.

The seed swap at Bill Best's on October 5th was a huge success.  There were around 300 people that attended from at least 6 states.  A huge amount of seed was traded, bought and sold.  I came home with 9 new bean varieties.  We were all so busy that most of us really didn't get to visit with old friends.  Mary and I did get to have dinner with Rodger and Karen Winn along with Karen's brother and sister-in-law, Dean and Louanne.  The evening went so fast, it's hard to catch up a years worth in such a short time.  All of us need to take more time to get together and visit with friends more often.

We finally finished harvesting the Cherokee White Flour corn a couple weeks ago and have been busy getting this shelled off and run thru the seed cleaner.  At this point, we probably still have 1,500 ears to finish.  We have also started to shell out the dry bean seed.  I shelled out about 50 pounds of seed last Saturday with our new Taylor Manufacturing Little Pea Sheller.  This little machine does wonders on dry beans even though the company doesn't sell it for that purpose.  We should have the beans done in the next week or so but the corn will take much longer as it is all shelled by hand.  I find that a corn sheller is just too hard on the seed and chips and nicks too much of the seed.  Hand shelling is much, much slower but the resulting seed is much better quality.  I have already delivered 135 pounds of the Cherokee White Flour corn seed to Southern Exposure Seed Exchange for their catalog.  S.E.S.E. also received 15 pounds of Cherokee Greasy Bean seed as well.

I am slowly cutting up winter squash for the seed but don't worry, the fruit does not go to waist.  I cook down the squash, blend it smooth, measure it out and freeze it for future baking use.  I have already made some pies, always a favorite this time of year as we approach the holidays.