~ New~ Harvest Homestead ~

  'New' to me, but certainly not 'new' beans.
These are Fremont Beans.
These are heirloom beans that date back to the Fremont people.
They are a 'new to me' bean that is from a local 'new to me' company: https://heirloomsandmore.com/

Near our new town, there is a great farm that grows wonderful beans, and produce, and herbs, etc. 

They are sold at a farmers market, which is where I bought the beans in bulk.

I made 'refried' beans with these beans and made them in the Instant Pot.
I added onion, garlic, chili powder, cumin, and a little cilantro. Once they were cooked tender, I blended them with the stick blender and seasoned them to taste with sea salt and pepper.

We had company for dinner Sat. and we served these beans along with chicken street tacos and they were a huge hit!

I'm so happy to have found this great farm and have linked the website above.

New views.

The picture below is overlooking our new backyard.
We are on just over a half an acre. 

About half of the backyard is grass (newly hydro~seeded)

and the other half of the backyard will be a potager style garden. 

My sweet husband has the tiller out and is working the soil.

Our house is located in a newer subdivision that was built on an old farm.

In fact, the folks that owned the farm live just a hop and skip away, and they are very happy and proud to have developed this subdivision.

 One of my favorite things about our new house is the nightly sunset shows. 
Every night, we have the most spectacular sunsets.

 We placed our wood swing on the patio, and it has become our new nightly routine to swing and watch the sunset.

New name for our home: Harvest Homestead

 New:
 ~We've planted 6 new trees. 
~My sweet husband has continued to place the privacy slats into the fence.
~ We have a 'new' clothesline. A friend was moving and offered to let us have their clothesline. It's now installed and I just need to give it a new coat of paint and new line, then it will be perfect.
~New this week: I pulled my car into the garage... hee hee.. finally after weeks of putting things away and emptying boxes out of the garage, I was able to make room for my car... Yay!

Wishing you all a happy week. 
I hope you are all enjoying the last weeks of summer.

~ and then ...

 In the middle of the night,  smoke drifted through the windows, waking us up, and then we realized that there must be a wildfire burning nearby.
In the light of the morning sky, we looked across the meadow, seeing the smoke filling the valleys and obscuring the mountain views.

 And then, we spent the day digging out the old rock edging and replacing it with a scalloped metal edging. We bought the metal edging at Walmart in the spring.
Additionally, we pulled out nearly all of the Brunnera that had gotten crazy~overgrown and cleaned up the beds.
Cut back the bleeding heart, cleaned out the window boxes, etc.

 And then,  we decided to clean out the potted annuals and transplant those annuals into the border beds to make them easier to water and maintain. 
We are currently on watering restrictions in our little town.
Finished the front border bed and then we will continue to work around the house, getting all the border beds cleaned up and we'll thin out the leggy overgrown plants.
Even though cold weather is a little ways off, it will feel great to get the beds and borders ready for Autumn and winter.

 
 Sunflowers growing like crazy.

Sea Holly.
 This is the second year for this perennial in our border. 
The sea holly was a birthday gift for my husband two years ago. 
It has become one of our favorite plants.
I've seen Sea Holly pared with sunflowers on Pinterest and would like to fill a vase or two with the pair one of these next days.

Dowels drying in a wire basket on the window sill. 
We have a monthly "Dinner Club" where we get together with other couples and then have a themed dinner party.
This past Sunday we met and one of the menu items we made was 
" Italian Bread Twists". 
There is a Utah restaurant that makes bread twists and they are delicious. We did a copy~cat version of the bread twists.
 The dough is wrapped around wooden dowels, and then baked hanging over a cake sheet as to not have a flatted side of the twist. 
Here's the link, if you would like to make the recipe:http://www.rhodesbread.com/blog/blog/twisted-breadsticks

We've had string bulb lights on the front porch, though they were the style that had the brown wire between the lights, so we took off the old lights, and then hung up new lights with a white wire.
 A lovely glow for a summers night.

And then, we awoke to a new fire this morning. 
This fire is closer than the last one.
 More smoke-filled air, more murky sunrises, and sunsets. 
Many prayers for everyone that is feeling the fear of wildfires creeping closer to their homes. 
Prayers for brave firefighters. 
Prayers for rain.

 ~ Update: August 7th, 2018 12:24 pm 
                                    Hilltop Fire ~ Sanpete County Utah

                                     *picture via SanpeteMessenger.com
                                    Our local newspaper
The fire has grown from 50 acres yesterday evening, to over 1000 acres currently. Two structures have been lost and over 150 homes are threatened.

~Attitude of gratitude:
We received an awesome text early this morning. 
Our daughter in love and Grand are coming back to Utah!! 
They will be home this next week.
She and our Grand have been in Brazil, visiting her family for the last 5 months, while our son (and her husband) has been in the language training school for the military; he's learning Mandarine. 

Feeling grateful for a date night with my hubby tonight. 
Picnic dinner in the mountains, and a bit of summer fishing.

So thankful for sunshiney~ summer days. 
Thankful for fresh flowers. 
Thankful for a wonderful husband that works side by side with me on projects.