The Search

Have you ever searched for something in particular only to never find it until you’ve purchased its replacement? or, when you gave up looking for it then you find it?

Not too long ago, CountryBoy and I were in search of some soup bowls.  Not just any soup bowls but bowls that could be put in the oven.  See, we had a hankerin’ for some French Onion Soup with the melted and slightly browned cheese on top and dripping down the sides of the bowl.  Yum!

My brother makes THEE BEST French Onion Soup (when you can get him to make it, ha!) and even then, we live eleven hours apart so it’s not likely to get a bowl or two even if he did make it.  So, we decided it was time to find a recipe, find some soup bowls and try our hand at making our own French Onion Soup.

We searched and searched our local antique and vendor malls only to find one bowl here and one bowl there.  We began to think that finding a ‘set’ of bowls would be impossible and, well, we pretty much gave up looking and eventually, the hankerin’ went away.

Then, it happened.  We went to town to do some errands the other day and we stopped in the antique/vendor mini mall on our way back home.

I came across one soup bowl and decided that maybe we should buy them one at a time and eventually we would have a set if we were lucky.

While the thought is running through my head I hear dishes clattering in another area of the shop.  I figured it was CountryBoy so I headed towards the sound with the one soup bowl in my hand.

Upon finding him, I see that he has found a set of four of the very same bowl I had in my hand AND they came with sandwich platters.  How cool is that?!

Needless to say, I put the one back in the booth where I found it and he straightaway took the set to the counter just in case someone else was interested in a set of soup bowls!  (We lost out on a deep cast iron frying pan because we hem-hawed around on deciding whether or not to buy it. sigh.  Lesson learned!)

These are Hull dishes of which we already have several platters and serving bowls so it was an extra-special find.  Now to try our hand at some French Onion Soup!

Another search I recently did was online looking for dairy cows for sale nearby.  I finished my search disappointed.

It wasn’t that I didn’t find any, it was the realization of the cost of said dairy cows.

I had heard that they were costly but I was hoping to find something that was fairly reasonable and doable for us in the near future.  But, it looks like that addition to the farm will have to wait a bit.

Now that the major renovations to the farmhouse are complete (for now) and the gardens are put to rest for the winter (for the most part) I am longing to have some life in the barn and the paddock.

In due time.  In due time.  (Yes, that is what I keep telling myself.)

So, for now, I will concentrate on educating myself about beekeeping and will focus on doing what I can to obtain and start a hive come next Spring.  Lord willing and the creek don’t rise that will be the next addition to the farm.

I mentioned the garden earlier that is resting for the winter.  Well, at least most of it is.

This is all that’s left… a few heads of cabbage that aren’t ready for harvesting.  They seem to be really slow at forming so I’m not sure if they’ll be ready before the dead of winter.

Meanwhile, the other heads are fermenting away in the pantry and will, hopefully, be delicious sauerkraut in a week or so.

This is my first attempt at fermenting vegetables and I’m really hoping that it turns out.  Sauerkraut is an excellent source of natural probiotics to aid in digestion and immune health as well as lots of beneficial enzymes. It is best when eaten raw as cooking the kraut causes it to lose some of its nutritional benefits.  I’ve never had raw, uncooked kraut but I am willing to give this batch a taste.  I’m hoping it’s tasty in the raw form.  I’ll let you know how it goes.