Year in Review, Part 2 - Adventures

Right now we're looking forward to Christmas and the quiet week between the year.  Winter usually brings some peaceful days at the start of the new year, too.  Time to reflect on the past year, think about plans and pray for wisdom for the year ahead.  As we get older we recognize the need to steward our strength and invest well in those we love.  Here's a quick recap of some of the things we invested in this past year and the adventures we had.

Three times a week we are at the gym for Rock Steady boxing with our Silver Gloves class.

Sheep-shearing definitely qualifies as an adventure!

We built 11 raised garden beds for our daughter at her new home.  She had an amazing garden this year but getting those beds filled with soil was NO JOKE!

Pete and I attended an apple grafting workshop at Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa.  We grafted 6 heirloom trees there and then 5 more when we got home with our new skills.  We had a good success rate and are getting the old orchard repopulated.

We had the annual Easter Egg hunt on the farm for the grandsons.

It was Joshie's first egg hunt and he was very enthusiastic about it.

Auntie MiMi excels at hiding eggs.

Late April and May saw Pete and me heading to Maine and Prince Edward Island.  That is a loooooong drive but it was a long-time wish fulfilled.

My bridge phobia....ugh.  But I made it over and back.

Farm life:  Chicken butchering day at a friend's house.  Now that's commitment for someone who doesn't eat meat!  It's part of life in a farm community.

 We attended a Parkinson's Disease Victory Summit in Indianapolis.  Always on the quest to network and learn new things.

Social events from church and the neighborhood.  A great part of life in a great community.

A HUGE social event at the farm - K-Fit Farm Fest!  120 people for a potluck to end potlucks and a great evening on the farm.  And praise God the weather was great!  PHEW.

Family birthday celebrations are so important!  Lucas turned 9 and Micah turned 12.  Oma can still turn out a respectable birthday cake to mark the milestones.

Anne and I had our annual Labor Day Getaway, this time in Cedarburg, Wisconsin.

How many hydrangea plants can you fit in a Prius???  We always come home from these getaways with treasures of some kind.  This time it was thrift store, garage sale and plant nursery finds.  The car was STUFFED.

We started a monthly Parkinson's Support Group this year and it's been a huge encouragement to all involved.

I entered hooked rug pieces in the Sandwich Fair for the very first time.

We had to celebrate winning prizes with pie at the Methodist Church pavilion.

Day 2 of the fair:  Joshie loved the petting zoo and the train ride.

Annual Senior Citizen Luncheon at church - a big job to organize and carry out but a good time for everyone involved.

Harvest time on the farm and Joshie's first combine ride, thanks to Farmer Steve.

Throughout the fall Pete made four trips of varying length to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN to help my brother who is having serious health problems.  One more trip is scheduled before Christmas and I'm going along this time.  It's a lovely drive across Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Lunch at the Walnut Room with Anne and Kenji and a failed trip to the Christkindlmarkt in Chicago (closed due to high winds the day we were there).  We always make a day for a downtown Chicago adventure sometime during Advent to see the lights and decorations.

A beautiful Thanksgiving celebration (and believe it or not, except for the turkey for the carnivores among us everything was PLANT-BASED!  And DELICIOUS!)  Kenji was super proud of his vegan pecan pies.

Christmas cookie making with Micah

Support group had a Christmas potluck and year end celebration with ukulele carols!

A mild December day let us button up work in the garden for the year and put Christmas lights on the barn just before the cold weather came back.

All the beds have been put to sleep for the winter to dream of spring.

Year in review - the garden, orchard and beehive

Well, this year went by in a blink!  Posting to Instagram became a substitute for "real" content.  The garden and orchard are kind of the centerpiece of my year so when I look back, these photos represent a lot of my hours over the months.

Dark vegetables, high in anthocyanin (antioxidants) were the theme this year.

Merlot lettuce - definitely a keeper.  Slow to bolt and very delicious, not to mention beautiful.

Black Beauty tomatoes.  Not sure I'll plant them again - beautiful but really hard to tell when they are ripe.  My old standby Cherokee Purple are still my favorite but these did bear heavily.

Purple podded pole beans.  Say that ten times fast.  Also grew Borlotto Nano and Dragon's tongue beans.  All beautiful and delicious.

Not a heavy crop of blackberries this year but oh my, what beauties!

I love seeing the bees in the garden.  The sunflowers were volunteers from spilled birdseed and popped up in random places.  I let them grow where they wished.  Every garden needs a little chaos.  And they just make me happy.

Not a great apple year but enough to make 9 gallons of cider and lots of applesauce.

A friend shared her bumper crop of Concord grapes.  50+ quarts of grape juice - yikes!

A good crop of crabapples from the Dolgo crabapple tree.  Harvesting the little apples is no joke.  We had help.  And it makes the best jelly in the WORLD!

Pete had his expert helper for pressing cider.  Becca and I chopped the apples, they pressed the cider.

One new hive of bees this year so not a huge crop - 3 gallons but lovely honey.

Along about August and September when there is endless harvesting, canning, jelly making, cider pressing, honey extracting, applesauce making (and on and on) I always ask myself, "WHY do I do this?"  I don't think there's a good answer to that.  It's just who I am and what I love to do here.  On the farm.  Every summer.  Good for the soul as well as the body.  And somehow an act of faith...plant the seed, reap the harvest, share the bounty.