Here's our Emma. She's always sweet and always hungry, and she won over her big sister in no time at all. ​

When it comes to baby #2, you wonder how your heart will make room for one more. You question if you can do it all over again and worry about what life will be when everything settles. At least I did, until the moment I met Emma and knew immediately that she was always meant to be ours. 

Matt and I have a rule that if one of us sees something worth stopping for on a road trip, we'll always make time to pull-over. Once, several years ago, we were both struck by the miles and miles of sunflower fields that lined the highway as we drove through South Dakota. But we didn't stop. By the time we made our way back in that direction, the flowers had begun to fade, and we both held onto the feeling that we had let an opportunity pass us by. I think that's why we both agreed it would be worth it to drive nearly an hour to go see the Treasured Haven Farms Sunflower Field this past Labor Day. ​

I don't know what it is about a field full of flowers in full bloom. It didn't hurt that the weather was perfect. And although there were plenty of other people there, we could wade into the rows of flowers and feel almost like we had the place to ourselves. 

It was about this time last year that I came across Cut Flower Garden by Erin Benzakein and started to imagine growing fields of flowers of my own. Autumn Meadow Farm was always going to have a garden and a few animals, but I've started to dream of flowers too, my own addition to our little "someday" homestead. 

I experimented with growing different flowers from seed this year, including Sweet Peas, Tulips, Zinnias, Cosmos, Snapdragons, and Larkspur, and learned a little bit about myself as a flower gardener and A LOT about flowers and cultivating them in my own yard. For example, Sweet Peas have the sweetest smell and DO NOT like to be transplanted, Cosmos take their time to bloom, and, apparently, Snapdragons and Larkspur prefer to be watered so they can actually germinate. 
I'm interested to see if my tulip bulbs will survive another winter and flower again in the spring. The bulbs I got from Floret Flower, Erin Benzakein's family farm, are absolutely stunning. I was disappointed that they bloomed when the rest of the yard was still recovering from the winter, but it was a good excuse to arrange them into a bouquet and enjoy them inside. They lasted for quite a while too!
Annie has loved checking in on the "pretty flowers" everyday, and I have never appreciated new growth or fresh blooms more! But I think when it comes to Autumn Meadow Farm, I'll just pick a couple of varieties to focus on. Probably flowers that can also serve a purpose in addition to their beauty? Right now I have visions of Lavender and maybe Sunflowers. Until then, I have plenty of time to learn!

Here's what I love about reading: There will always be good books to read out there if you just know where to find them. I've used Pinterest, Goodreads, and even Instagram to find my next read, and recently my efforts led me to a New York Times Bestselling novel published in 1978 that had otherwise completely escaped my notice.
The Passing Bells Trilogy by Philip Rock starts out feeling a little too much like Downton Abbey. It honestly felt as if Julian Fellowes had created Downton based on Abingdon Pryory! And while I enjoyed Downton Abbey (and watched every episode), The Passing Bells could never be mistaken for a soap opera, as Downton often was. While there is romance and the development of beautiful, enduring relationships, that is not what these books are about. They are about real life, real love, and the effects of time and history. As you follow each character's experiences and point of view, they become real to the reader, representing not only a bygone time, but also the lives of the people who experienced our history firsthand. The writing is artful, and the descriptions, especially of wartime, were simply powerful. 

I've loved Natasha Solomons since I read The House at Tyneford back in 2012 (a book I credit with getting me on the path of readership I am on today), but this book was something else entirely. House of Gold by Natasha Solomons follows a wealthy Jewish family (modeled after the Rothschilds) in the years leading up to and during WWI. I simply cannot imagine the amount of heart that must have gone into writing this book, especially concerning the treatment of Jews throughout Europe during the time period and the specifics of the money markets and political turbulence. It was so well researched that the characters truly came alive and their stories became real. 

I also recommend The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson and Seven Days in May by Kim Izzo if you're looking for a well-written (although perhaps lighter?) WWI read.
Do you have a favorite WWI book that you recommend? 

I keep thinking back to last summer and how sad I was to see it come to an end. It had gone by too quickly, and for the first time, it felt like the wait over the winter for new planting, growing, and harvesting was going to be tediously slow.
But this year is different. Yes, I have a due date to look forward to (so time can't go by quickly enough), but I've also taken full advantage of the seasons this time around. 
I've definitely noticed an impatience this year- with wanting the seeds to sprout, and wanting the harvest to come. I've been disappointed that things don't flower all at once and that the beauty and bounty don't last. But there is also something beautiful about being so intimately involved in the cycles of our garden. It does make you look forward and enjoy the harvest when it does come.
We noticed recently that life is a lot like June in the garden. Everything is planted and in the ground, and all that is left is to weed, water, and wait. So with that in mind, I'm especially grateful to have made it to August (nearly September!) and to be enjoying fresh vegetables that will sustain us for months to come.

First of all, it turns out that these plants are VERY prolific. We really only needed one and I'm still not sure what to with all these tomatillos!
Something else I learned this year? Tomatillos are ready to pick once the husk that grows around each one starts to split.
I haven't canned anything with the tomatillos, but I did make and freeze a double batch of sauce from the Green Chile Chicken Tamales by Rick Bayless​.
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We don't have a Cafe Rio here, so I make this dressing and put it on everything.

There are a million different varieties out there, but this year our favorites are Sheboygans (As in Sheboygan WI, so you know they love this MN summer weather), Black Cherry Tomatoes, and the traditional Italian San Marzano. 
Couple of tips and tricks:

• Grow your basil alongside your tomatoes. Supposedly basil as a neighbor improves flavor, amongst other benefits.
• ​Cut down excess growth on your tomato plants so they put their energy into making tomatoes instead of leaves and branches. We neglected our plants this year and saw significantly less produce.

And what do we do with all of our tomatoes? I'll make and freeze a few soups and lasagnas and I'll can a bunch of the tomatoes. But it's incredible how much a fresh tomato or a new variety can enhance the flavor of a recipe. Here are some of the recipes we love this time of year:

• Tomato Galette with Basil Pesto and Feta by Wood and Spoon
• Mexico: One Plate at a Time by Rick Bayless (tomatoes AND jalapenos AND onions)
  • Creamy Enchiladas with Chicken, Tomatoes, and Green Chile
  • Red Tomato Rice
  • Classic Shredded Beef

What do you do with your summer produce?
And do you need any tomatoes???

One of my favorite things about good recipes is the way that certain foods and smells can evoke powerful feelings and memories, inviting feelings of home and family, preserving a link between homes and hearths and generations of bakers. No food more perfectly conveys this relationship between food and emotion than homemade bread.
My grandma's rolls will always prompt memories of Thanksgiving, and Banana Bread makes me think of my mother. Nothing welcomes in the change of seasons from summer to autumn like Pumpkin Bread straight out of the oven, and Sourdough will always remind me of my dad.

And yet, even though I enjoy baking (and eating) homemade bread, it wasn't until this last week that I finally found the courage to attempt Sourdough. The very idea of creating a sourdough starter was simply intimidating. It ferments on the counter and you feed it periodically? And what if I put in all the time and effort and it doesn't pay off in the end?
But it turns out, like most baking, you just have to follow the instructions. The starter was not as intimidating as I thought it would be (and for minimal effort, I am felt pretty pleased with myself :), and the only tricks to making the bread were finding the right recipe and planning ahead.
​ It's the prettiest dough I've ever handled--with possibly the greatest pay-off--and the labor of love involved in preparing it will undoubtedly add to the sentiment my family will associate with its distinct flavor. 

I just finished reading Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro, a powerful story well told and artfully woven into the history of genealogy, DNA testing, and early fertility medicine, and the whole time I was reading it, I kept thinking of my own recent discoveries about my family history.

My Nana was adopted as an infant, and knew very little about where she came from. She passed away several years ago, but her story always felt like it was part of my own, and I wanted to know more. We had a last name, a place of birth, a story of two sisters both giving up their daughters for adoption. It didn't seem like a lot to go off of on its own, but then we added DNA testing.
A friend of mine was able to help me interpret the results we had on Ancestry.com, leading right to my Nana's biological mother, Margaret. I will always remember coming across a picture of Florence, Margaret's sister, and seeing a family resemblance so strong that I was moved to tears. It really was like discovering a missing piece of myself.

Not long after we made those initial discoveries, my aunt forwarded me a message she had received on Ancestry from my Nana's biological cousin.
​

​We started corresponding through email and over the phone, and she sent me pictures and shared stories that I had to remind myself belonged in part to me as well. 

​There are still a lot of missing pieces to the puzzle. Nana's biological father remains a mystery as well as the motives that led to her adoption. I recently sent a letter to a woman who we suspect to be Nana's half-sister, and I am excited to see what will come of that as well. But it is still incredible how much more we know now than we did just a few short months ago.