Tis the Season for Harvesting

As soon as the weather warmed up last spring/summer we planted a pretty big garden, and we had fun tending to it all summer, but really the fun part is harvesting what has been tended.  We had soo much lettuce this summer. It was amazing!  Living in the bush makes you appreciate fresh fruits and veggies a lot more, not because we can't get them here, but because its really expensive to eat a lot of it here, and we have just the basics...with a tiny bit of variety now and then. So, there's the motivation for having a garden...I like gardening anyways though.

Anywho, back to the harvest.  We planted lots of things for a first time.  Lettuce was a first, and we were able to share LOTS with friends around town, and we even ate it with lunch and dinner most days.

Potatoes were also a first.  We did not plant a lot of potatoes, but we got about double what we planted.  So we'd been harvesting spinach, lettuce, broccoli, and radishes since July, but this particular day in the pictures it was time to dig potatoes, which is like digging for gold to little boys.  They tired before they were finished, but came back to help collect when Aimee and I were helping. Yep that's right, they were visiting during harvest time, and we worked them while they were here!  I was thankful for all the help, and we had fun doing it together.

This one shows Aimee and Elena picking lettuce.  You can see Cara pulling carrots too.

Cara looked like a pro ripping those carrots out of the ground.  The kids had been so excited to pull the carrots.  I think the carrots and potatoes were harder for them to wait for because they couldn't see them growing underground.  I tried to explain the longer we waited the bigger they would grow.  It was hard for them to be patient, but they were very glad they waited.  We had a good little carrot harvest.  Definitely planting more of these next year.

My hands got too dirty to handle the camera, so I didn't get any pics once we all dug in...literally.  We had fun harvesting, and it was a blessing to be able to enjoy a bountiful harvest.  Thank you Lord!

Freshly scrubbed carrots, don't they look yummy?  They were.  Thanks to Aimee for helping me scrub!  Aimee and Nate also went berry picking with us.  We had a wonderful berry year here in Galena.  We'd picked blueberries earlier in the season, but now it was time for the cranberries!  Now my freezer contains just what I need to make some Pumpkin Cranberry bread!!  Although I haven't gotten around to it yet with all the craziness you'll see below.

While we were harvesting berries and veggies, the guys were looking for a moose to harvest!  Chris wasn't able to shoot a moose this year (if you follow his blog he shares about this) but we were so thankful our nephew Daniel was able to shoot, and they gave us the moose.  Hooray!  God was faithful to provide.  Living in the bush, its pretty important to get a moose.  They provide meat for the whole year.  Actually, we shared our meat because it provided more than we needed.

The easy part is pulling the trigger....then comes all the work!  Once the meat is brought home it hangs while waiting to be cut off the bone and trimmed.  The pic below is Caleb and Preston trimming after Chris cut the meat off the bone.

This is a leg.

We gave Preston, Clint, and Nate plastic knives and they helped too!  I was surprised how long they stuck with it.  It was probably 3 hours that they cut before they had to quit for dinner.  That is impressive for some little guys.

Once its all trimmed we start sorting and packaging.  We cut some roasts and tenderloins, and make ground meat.  Clint and Cara liked getting the filled ground meat bags and putting them in the tote.

Preston liked weighing the roasts and marking each package accordingly.  He only helped a short time because we were exhausted and ready to be done!  This was day 3 of processing moose!

We said good-bye to Greg and family, processed our meat, ignored our exhaustion as we packed,and the next day we flew to beautiful Port Alsworth.