your very own fruit farm

Our garden is overgrown with weeds again. I'm pretty sure we'll scale it way down next year because gardens are a ton of work. They're work to plant, to weed, to weed, to weed, to weed, to harvest and to prep for the next season. Even right now, I cannot keep up with my tomatoes. Because I'm just not up to the challenge. I'm even freezing them...but getting them picked and processed it just not happening!

I told Rory that I think either you need to be absolutely passionate about gardening or have your life depend on your garden lest you starve to death in order to maintain a garden this size. Without the burning fire inside of me, the work just doesn't get done.

But fruit. Fruit, people! Fruit is amazing. AMAZING. To be sure fruit takes some time on the front end. You don't get to harvest anything the first year. Maybe you get a quarter harvest the second year. And half a harvest the third year. But then you are in the money. I love the fruit on our farm more than any other part.

And that's what I'm hear to say today. Listen up. My very favorite parts of this farm are all things we could have done on our 1/8 acre property in Minneapolis. Scaled down a bit, but still just as worthwhile and honestly, a whole lot less work!

I believe everyone should have a few rows of raspberries along their garage. (Last night I posted the recipe for that Raspberry Pretzel Dessert...did you see that? It's so good!) And a few blueberry bushes on the side of their house. Everyone should have an apple tree or two somewhere (I can fully endorse Zestar apples so far. They are AMAZING.) And if you want to really go bonkers, throw in four hens in a coop for eggs. Obviously not a fruit, but then you will have covered all my favorite parts of the farm. In your own yard in the city or the suburbs.

And! My friend Lacy recently went plum picking, right here in Minnesota, and raved about them! The kind she picked were called Underwood and now we will definitely be adding plum trees to our little orchard. So you might want to throw a plum tree in while you're at it. (Those are blueberries pictured above...just didn't want to confuse anyone...)

All this to say, the parts of the farm that I love the very most do not require a farm. Sort of an ironic truth for me, and a pretty awesome one for you if you don't ever want to live on a farm! I do love it here, but also feel like it's my responsibility to pass along how able everyone is to do the things we're doing in their own backyard. So plan out your yard accordingly. And when your kids come in the house with a huge tupperware full of raspberries for everyone to put on their oatmeal in the morning, you can call and tell me "thank you for your passion for fruit." And I will feel happy.

Raspberry Pretzel Dessert: The Recipe

I put this picture up on both my blog here and on instagram and have had many requests for the recipe. Special shout out to Gail Olijnek, a family friend from church. She's the one who contributed this recipe to the awesome blue Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church Cookbook.

And now prepare yourself. This is one of the best recipes ever. It's salty, it's sweet, it's creamy, it's fruity, it's got lots of texture...it's just a winner.

First Layer:

2 c. crushed pretzels (I use Rold Gold little sticks, crushed in a big ziplock with a rolling pin.)

1 1/2 T. sugar

1 stick melted butter

Mix these three ingredients together and then pack in a 9x13 cake pan. Bake for 10 minutes at 325. Cool completely in the fridge.

Second Layer:
3/4 cup sugar
8 oz cream cheese
8 oz. cool whip
Beat sugar and cream cheese well. Gently fold in cool whip (mine never completely mixes together...the cool whip seems to deflate really fast...) Carefully spread over pretzels, trying to cover pretzel mixture completely.

Third Layer:
2 c. boiling water
2 (3oz) boxes raspberry jello
2-3 cups raspberries (fresh or frozen)
Mix water and jello together and stir until completely dissolved. If using frozen raspberries add to the jello and allow to thicken. If using fresh raspberries, put jello mix in the fridge and allow to thicken. Then add the raspberries. (This whole thickening part is very important. I jumped the gun when we were first married and the jello seeped to the pretzels and made a mushy, soggy mess. Now I let my jello set pretty firm so it's even a little lumpy when I go to stir it up again before I put it on top of the second layer.) Then pour it on the cream mixture.

Refrigerate. Gail adds another spoonful of cool whip on top when she serves it, but I never have. 

It's best eaten within 24 hours. Over time the pretzels loose their crunch.
But we've never really had a pan last longer than 24 hours. This stuff is amazing!

the secret sauce to friendship

(This picture has nothing to do with this post, but I didn't get a single shot from Saturday night, and we did eat this raspberry pretzel dessert...so it will just have to do!)

I had a group of friends come over on Saturday night who brought greek food for a picnic dinner, unloaded and loaded my dishwasher, brought all the goods for a foot soak and pedicure and brought three hours of awesome, thoughtful conversation. It was dreamy.

These are friends I made while attending Cedar Valley Church in Bloomington. We were in a small group together from when I was pregnant with Ivar to when I was pregnant with Elsie. Sometime this past winter the mom's of the group started meeting up on one Friday night a month, me driving from the country meeting up in their neck of the woods. Their small group expanded and now there are seven of us who are either currently in or used to be in this small group.

We loved these friends when we were with them formally in the small group. But we were still at the infancy stages of relationship. We watched videos together and had spirited conversation. And we got to know each other. We ate good treats, walked through job transitions, laughed a lot and started building a friendship.

But it wasn't until we mom's met that first Friday night, just this winter, that I realized something huge about how friendships are formed. I was telling the story of how Ivar didn't care to walk until he was 18 months and how hilarious it was to have him three times the size of the other babies in the infant nursery at church because he couldn't graduate to the toddler nursery. Not until he walked. Which he was in no hurry to do. Finally he took his first steps...

And then someone broke into my story and reminded me, "we know. we were there!" And it's true. Ivar took his first steps at our small group. Surrounded by a group of adults in the youth room at our church, he walked clear across the rug right into our arms. And everyone cheered. It was epic!

I stopped telling my story, and was struck dumb with how awesome it was that these people remembered that milestone from years earlier, that I hardly remembered myself. And now, three years later, and (between us the seven of us) TWELVE kids later, we are still celebrating the milestones of one another. The secret sauce to these friendships is longevity. Time. Time together, shared experiences. Memories made even when I didn't know we were making them.

Saturday night will go down as another. The night they drove all the way to my farm to celebrate baby #3, to bring dinner, do my dishes, eat sour patch kids and raspberry pretzel dessert, to pray over me for my labor and delivery, and to pamper me. We'll add tonight to our list of shared memories and in time we will build more and more.

nine months pregnant! (I think)

If you divide 36 weeks by 4, you get nine. Which means if the average month is 4 weeks long, I have been pregnant 9 months. I don't know if I technically am yet, as weeks and months are terribly confusing in the world of pregnancy tracking, but 9 months feels very accomplished so I am going with it. Because I like to feel accomplished.

I just went through a hard month of carrying this baby. I was in pain and had a few other physical issues that were trying and those trying things got me down. Mentally down and literally down. I am on a pretty strict cycle of two hours up and active and one hour laying on my left hand side. Which, turns out, is awesome. To be forced to rest as a mother of two would be equivalent to forced daily bowls of ice cream. There just isn't much to complain about.

As a result of the pain I was in, I started eating better, cutting way back on social-anythings and we bought a bed for our living room. No joke. If you came over right now you'd find two couches, a fire place and a twin bed. Not awkward at all. I spend my "left hand side" time on this bed. And also sleep there at night. You can imagine Rory tucking me in at night and then heading up to our bed. Without me. The bed was purchased when it was terribly hot and I was dying in our stuffy bedroom. And when Rory kept waking me up to tell me I was snoring. To which I would sadly tell him, "but I was finally sleeping!" I also get up frequently to visit the bathroom and when I roll over (which is all the time) I have to readjust many pillows. I was restless and hot, and Rory was annoyed and crabby. The bed was purchased with both of our full support and enthusiasm. When baby comes I'll move back upstairs, but in the meantime the bed does serve as a quality conversation starter.

Elsie and Ivar are very ready for the baby and it's adorable. They love feeling kicks and seem very aware of what is coming (though none of us really can brace for all the ways a baby will change our normal). Elsie has taken to calling her pink blanket, "Baby Lily" and will come and tell me when Baby Lily "is crying because a lion bit her." I've always hoped my kids would have an imaginary friend, just for the fun of it, but this blanket that is held so lovingly is pretty close. I will continue to encourage this Baby Lily thing as long as I can.

Other than that, the baby is gaining an ounce a day. Pretty impressive. And I have to say this: I absolutely love being pregnant. Even with the harder parts of this pregnancy, there is nothing more marvelous and amazing and privileged than getting to carry a little life in my womb. I love this baby fiercely already. And this is before I've even set my eyes on my babe. What a joy it will be to hold him or her in my arms!

harmony, minnesota

For our babymoon we spent the day and night in Lanesboro, ate another awesome caramel roll in the morning, and then drove twenty minutes to Harmony, Minnesota. There are tours you can take of Amish farms, as well as tours of Niagara Cave. We just had half a day and chose the self-guided Amish tour, a CD you play in your car that tells you how to get to various Amish farms where they sell their goods to you, the tourist.

In the end, the CD wouldn't have been necessary. It was more like a talking GPS than a super informative self-guided tour. But I don't know how you get a map without having the CD... Also the CD tour brought us to many smaller farms, where we got to talk to one of the parents, whereas the tour buses that go tend to visit the larger scale farms with larger storefronts. I can see pros and cons to each...

I would recommend bringing cash. We didn't have much on us, but purchased something little at each place (jams, cookies, granola bars...) They sell much larger items too: aprons, baskets, bird houses, wooden furniture and my treasure from the day: a basket that holds all the plates, napkins, utensils and condiments for toting out to the picnic table. I love it so, so much.

On the whole it felt like these Amish families were living well below the poverty line. I could be wrong, but based on the appearance of buildings, peeling paint and weathered shingles, it did look a bit exhausting. You don't take any pictures on these tours either. They believe that photos are a graven image. (Unfortunately, the day before while at the cattle auction there were two Amish men sitting across from us. I was taking pictures of the cows and trying to get a shot of the whole arena when one of them caught my eye and shot me a fierce look. The other had his hat tilted down. The bummer was that I hadn't even seen they were there...we had just arrived. But the rest of the time I shot my pictures towards the other end of the arena and also deleted all of those first pictures.)

It was a drizzly morning, and visiting these farms was fascinating. I did get the sense that part of their actual income comes from people like us stopping by, purchasing in their shops. And the landscape along the drive was lovely. It's just such a pretty part of our state. 

In the end, I'm glad we went. And I'm excited to go back and visit the cave.