1000 Pound Tomato Harvest at Midnight Sun Farm!

Today, Audra and I helped Nick and Becky of Midnight Sun Farm harvest 1000 pounds of tomatoes!  I loved every minute of it.  Each tomato is so different from the next and they have planted many varieties.  

Going down the rows of tomatoes!

Many, many rows of tomatoes!

I really love the yellow ones.  They taste so good.  I am going to make some salsa with them.

I love my Friday mornings on the farm.

Black Caps and Garlic Scapes!

Jeff and I picked a bunch of black caps yesterday.  They grow all over in random places and are actually wild blackberries.  I found those pink flowers while we were looking for the berries.  They smell so wonderful!!!

This is what they look like when we find them.  They are ripe once they are dark purple.  I put them on my oatmeal today with some brown sugar!

Garlic scapes are the swirly things growing from the middle of the garlic.  They are actually a flower but you have to cut it off so all the nutrients goes to the garlic bulb and not the flower.  Anyways, garlic scapes taste super good, like garlic but a bit more subtle.  You can chop them up and put them in a salad or saute them.  Laura said she pickled them last year.  They are only around once a year and you will only find them at your local farmers market.  We harvested a ton of them today!

A garlic scape cut from the garlic.

The black caps were all along the outside of the trees.  It is so open and beautiful out here!

Strawberries, Beets, and Mr. Daisy

I have painted about 140 strawberries and cut them out.  They will be attached to each other and the few months they are harvested!

Yesterday in the garden we thinned the carrots and beets.  We pulled out some of the carrots and beets that were too close to each other.  This will allow the ones in the ground more room to grow, otherwise they would have stayed small.  I sauted the little carrots, beets, and beet greens with some chives, garlic, and olive oil.

Mr. Daisy is doing well.  I took him outside of the chicken coop yesterday.  He finally was excited about all the green food surrounding him!

And tonight is the opening reception for Indulge at Water Street Studios curated by Anni Holm.  Diversity of the Tomato will be on display until September 8th!

Harvesting the Carrot in the Midwest

I finished Harvesting the Carrot in the Midwest!  The carrot is harvested in the Midwest from July to November.  It is time to be more connected to our carrots and their growth!  This work is 48 x 58 inches (though the size can vary depending on how it is installed) and is made of watercolor on paper, jute, burlap, and fabric.

They grow in a variety of shapes and sizes.  It is always a surprise when I pull one from the ground.  And although one might seem a bit strange, it tastes just as good as an average one!  

Paintings From a Year Ago and the BFA Show

I have been doing a lot of cleaning now that things are slowing down a bit. While cleaning I came across some paintings I did in September last year. At the time, everything was still very unclear (not that everything is clear now) and I wasn't sure what I wanted to do or say with my artwork. But during that confusion I continued to paint so Mr. Kennedy didn't think I was a bum. heh.

I had this idea that I would paint a bunch of tiny paintings and then make a collage out of them. But that idea, along with many others, turned into something else.

This is an image of my work at the BFA show last Thursday. I was very pleased with the look of my four pieces together. I really love talking to people about my artwork. I have trouble talking about all kinds of things but my artwork is one thing that is getting easier and easier to tell people about.

A close up of The Vegan Eats an Egg and in the back, on the left is Harvesting the Blue Potato, on the right is 80 Becomes 40.

A closeup of Harvesting the Blue Potato.

Diversity of the Tomato with it's 12 new tomatoes! It looks a lot better now that I added some more tomatoes.

A close up of 80 Becomes 40.

It's interesting to see where I started and where I am at now. I wonder how different my work will be next September.