I don’t ever remember harvesting potatoes so early since I’ve lived in Minnesota.  This year, after having almost no rain, when it did start to rain the already dead potatoes were starting to sprout.  In the end it turned out to be not a great amount of potatoes, but the ones we have are delicious!  I think they will hold us into the early spring though and that makes me happy.  Usually we have an enormous amount which is why we didn’t plant as many seed potatoes this spring.   The Yukon Golds had some kind of rot inside for the most part.  The Pontiac’s did the best for size and the Nordic taters were smaller but a decent yield.  It’s a good thing to plant a variety though, because you just never know.  Usually my Yukon’s are great, so who knows.

Brother Joe’s family came and went  quickly and I think the kids have finally recovered from the very late night campfires!  We had such a nice visit and love it when any of my family can make the long trip out here.  Joe has visited us many, many times over the years and with all the kids either in college or graduated, we were down to only two cousins!  But, they were packed with plenty of fun and now it’s all a great memory.

While some played, others kept up the usual farm routine and one daily routine is  training the oxen. 

While most work around here on the farm, there are some who mostly have fun.  I love this photo of my youngest son, Mario, age 7 with one of our many farm cats.  Who couldn’t love this photo?

We made home made ice cream several times and I’ve got a couple of new recipes that I’ll be sharing when I get back from Ohio.  The recipes came from an old book I found at the thrift store and I have to admit, it’s better than my other recipe I posted here way back.  See photo below of the Vanilla; creamy as can be.

All good things must come to an end and the sun set on our nice visit all too soon.  You all come back now ya, hear?  God bless our city cousins with love, from your Minnesota Family.

Since the Petruccelli’s left, we’ve been working overtime trying to get things done before some of us leave for our trip.  I think we froze around 30 flat bags for apple crisp.  Some of the eggplant is fried and frozen.  Since the tomatoes are slow, I have been freezing them until I can a large enough load to justify starting the canner.  Hopefully that will be when we get back.  We froze a bunch of the green beans and the sweet basil we keep freezing as well. 

Now that all that fun is over I am so looking forward to seeing Jessi, Luke and my grand children as well as all of the out-laws, I mean in -laws:)  Jess sent me these photos and if you look really hard you can see they appear to be missing their Minnesota Grandma.  While Grandma Beth is doing a fine job loving them, they need some Italian hugs, kisses and squeezes, don’t you think?  Hang on kids, see you in Ohio on Monday.  I love you all………………..

The guys are out in the quonset testing out our home manufactured Hops Picking Machine.  I was out there and snapped a few photos but will let you know how it works in a couple of weeks.  Fred will be doing most of the hops harvest with Marisa, Mario and Caleb while we are gone.  Bad timing on my part, but that couldn’t be helped:) More photos soon but here’s a taste for now.

Prayers for our safe travels would be greatly appreciated.  Also pray for those left at home to hold the fort, not such an easy task, especially during this time of the year!