Summertime Eatin!

Some farmers at the Dallas market

Alyssa helping out daddy at the market



One view of our fruitstand



Aubrey and Aaron...first little okra picked this year!!!!!!




Aaron and Aubrey....about 25 acres of just okra :)



Some blackberries my mom picked just for us!



Dinner....mixed spinach, swiss chard and radish salad, fried together...squash, onion and green tomatoes, baked chicken and baked red potatoes and fresh sugar snap peas! Then vanilla ice cream topped with blackberries for dessert :)




So I have said before that farming season is hard. It's hard on my husband because he works at the post office, and farms, and tries his hardest to balance family life and stay connected with God. It's always tough....BUT it is also very rewarding. When we go out to the farm or even in our backyard to our little garden, I get this huge sense of pride. Watching Aaron and my dad work their tales off getting things ready, and then seeing those sprouts pop up out of the soil and then produce, what we think is the prettiest veggies you ever saw, it makes you so proud. It's rewarding. You also feel connected with God. It's a miracle that you can plant a tiny seed in the ground and watch it grow into a plant that produces beautiful fruit! Aaron would tell you that he has learned so much about God through farming.
Aaron goes to the Dallas market to sell our onions, squash, and okra, during wholesale hours. Me and the girls have tagged along a few times. Wholesale hours are when everyone else in the area is still in bed. In fact, Aaron sometimes never makes it to bed during harvest time on some nights. I'm not really quite sure how he does it....but it's a short season. Thursday nights and Friday mornings are the biggest times to be there to sell and buy. People from all over Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Florida truck in to buy and sell. All the dirt farmers each have their own spot and pull up their farm trucks full of their crop, that they all think is better than everyone else's there :)! They all pull down their talegates, set up their boxes on display and wait for people to shop with them. The times we have been has been fun. I love walking in between the rows of trucks looking at all the beautiful farm fresh Texas veggies and fruits. Me and the girls would all sit in the back of Aaron's pickup and chat with all the other dirt farmers as we all waited for customers. Being up there around all the farmers reminds me of growing up and working in my dad's grocery store, listening to the country station and helping the same kind of good ole hard working small town people that came in our store everyday. It takes me back a bit in a way....gives me back that good small town feeling.
One of the very best things about being a farmer's wife and daughter and having a mother and brother with a green thumb is the summertime meals. I never fry anything all year except in the summertime. We love fried okra and squash and green tomatoes! We also boil and make gumbo, bake, saute' it, and eat it raw, but nothing is better than fried! Here lately we have basically been living off the land in the fruit and veggie department and it is so good! Fresh lettuce, spinach, and swiss chard, green tomatoes, bell pepper and cucumber in our backyard, squash, zucchini and onions and beets from the farm, and super sweet blackberries, green beans, red potatoes, mustard greens and radishes from my mom's garden. We eat real good in the summer and get spoiled. Then when it's time to shop produce at the store again, it all looks old and not near as appetizing. If you don't already, go shop from your local farmer.... I guarantee you the quality is way better and you'll taste the love that was put into the crop :) Support your local farmer...."No Farmer, No Food..." or at least the healthy kind :)