Growing, growing . . .raccoons?

Growing up in rural American we grew a sweet corn patch every year. It was on the edge the field by by grandparents house and was oh, about a quarter of a mile long.  Once the corn was ready we would have two weeks of all you can eat sweet corn at every mea. And then two days of a family corn freezing party--it was a hot sticky mess, but delicious to have home grown corn right out of the freezer in the dead of winter. But first we had to battle the raccoons. I don't know exactly how my grandpa got rid of the raccoons and manged to save some corn -- it might have had something to d with our farm dog . . . but I definitely didn't expect our own raccoon visitors to show up in our garden. Who new?! Raccoons will STILL get in your sweet corn, even if you live in town!

But it happened, one morning we went out to the garden and had several downed ears. The raccoon had clearly been hard at work first nibbling the plants and then shucking the corn. Quite the resourceful little fellow.

Our dog is too little to battle a raccoon, and we don't have an electric fence, so we tried a couple other options. And while we never caught the raccoon, he eventually stopped turning up and destroying our almost ready ears. In the end,we got to enjoy a pretty bountiful harvest.

First corn of the season, YUM!

Gather round — Our new table!

It may be old fashioned, but JT and both grew up eating dinner around the table with the family every night. It was hallmark of our childhoods and is something we still do every night and want to continue to doing well into the future.

Our first dinning room table was a handme down—ok, so all the furniture we had when we got married were handme downs, which was fine, but we finally saved enough to replace it—Yay!!

Then beganthe shopping and learning and comparing. We had replaced other pieces of our furniture before this, but nothing that would be quite so permanent and central to our lives. I mean, we will eventually replace our couches, but this table we will have  for almost the rest of our live AND we will use it every day.

Who knew there were some any choices when picking out a table? I'm a decisive person, but you when throw 10 different wood types, 20 different stains, 30 different chair styles, edge finishes, and too many different table styles to mention you have one overwhelmed girl. Luckily, we took our time, did our research, visited Redekers (those of you in Iowa know that this is THE best furniture store), and came out with the perfect table that will last us forever.

Its a pedestal table which we love because you don't get boxed in with legs, plus the pedestal has supports that remind us of a barn. The top is called a Pioneer top and we chose Hickory as the wood with a medium to dark finish. Add six window-pane style chairs with lumbar support and you have our table. Let the dinner guest arrive!

Hot off the grill - Baby Back Ribs

One of the things I love about having grown up on the farm is the endless supply of home-grown, farm raised pork and beef. Growing up we never really purchased meat at the grocery store, we just went to the basement deep freezer that was always fully stocked. Everyone where I'm from has deep freezer and those deep freezers are always full of beef and pork that either you or your neighbor raised.

For our wedding, my parents gave us a deep freeze full of meat, which was . . . Awesome! . . . except that we lived in a one bedroom apartment. I'm pretty sure we were the only people in our apartment complex with a deep freezer in the dinning room.

But now we have a house with a basement, which is exactly where deep freezers belong and we are putting it to good use. The latest meat I commandeered from my mother's deep freeze stash--she has two freezers--are baby back ribs. That's right, fresh, home-grown baby back ribs, now just to figure out the best way to grill them . . . I'll left the grilling up to JT (its best that way).

 Two hours later, he did a pretty good job and the sweet corn went with it perfectly!

Here's a link to the recipe we used.

Growing, Growing, Gone!

Earlier this spring we put in our first garden--despite my warnings to JT that any plant I touch with die--and thanks to JT's hard work and affection things are looking pretty good.

Well, except for the peas and pepper plan the neighborhood rabbits ate. Darn rabbits.

My mouth is just watering thinking about the delicious sweet corn we will have in another month.

Did you know, that the corn you buy at the store whether it be frozen, canned, fresh on the cob, or however you buy it is NOT the same corn that farmers grow in the fields? The majority of the corn you see farmers planting and harvesting is actually fed to animals. The kind of corn you buy in the store is sweet corn, the same kind we have in our garden, and is related to field corn, but not the same. You can find out more about corn from the Iowa Corn Growers.

The tomatoes are looking pretty good too. Here's hoping they taste as good as they look!