Farmer’s Market in Tioga

When Jenny and Christopher Norgaard harvest their garden produce, their place becomes like a Farmer’s Market with squash, pumpkins, onions, beets, carrots, and potatoes everywhere.  Oh, yes, and we can’t forget the pickles and salsa already in jars on their shelves.

We drove out to see our daughter and her family on Monday, October 14th.

Part of their garage floor was covered with squash from their garden.

Next to the squash was a big bunch of beets.

This is just a sample of Jenny’s pickles.  She supplied much of Tioga with cucumbers.

She made salsa with some of their tomatoes.

While we were there, we spent a few hours doing carrots — washing, blanching, slicing, bagging, freezing.

I did the washing, Jenny the blanching, Gunnar and I the slicing, and Allan the air-tight bagging.  We ended up with 28 bags, each holding about a pinr and a half.

Jenny’s beets were monster size, bigger than softballs.

We blanched them (actually cooked three giant kettles of them in water for about an hour), wiped off the peels, sliced, bagged, and froze them.  We ended up with 18 bags, each about a pint in size.

Jenny had dozens of pumpkins and she gave most of them away.  Squash too.   I rode along to deliver them to friends in Tioga.  Jenny sent us home with all kinds of garden things too.  It’s all delicious.

Jenny got a pail of apples from one of her friends and so she made apple crisp for us one night.  Gunnar likes to help his mom in the kitchen.  The apple crisp was delicious — all gluten and dairy free, of course.

Then men worked outside, pulling out most of the overgrown shrubs growing around their house.  They are going to reroof, reside, and add other home improvements later this fall and next spring.

Chris pulled them out with his truck.

He used his backhoe to dig out the deep roots.

Allan and Gunnar were good helpers.

Gunnar used his four-wheeler to pull branches and debris to a pile back behind the barn.

Addie helped her mom dig up prize-winning iris bulbs in their backyard.

Jenny had planted them there temporarily when they first bought the place.

Then she transplanted them to a spot in the front yard.  The irises once grew in her Grandma Vera Orsen’s prize winning flower garden, and Jenny remembers that it was her Grandma Betty Claeys and Aunt Nancy Boerboom who spent time digging them up for her back in Minneota, Minnesota.

Their scarecrow needed a little readjusting after some of the North Dakota winds blew through.

Goliath loves Jenny.

Jenny loves Goliath.

Little Miss Adeline coordinates jackets and hats and is much like her sweet mama in so many ways.

We got to go to Williston one night for Addie’s gymnastic class.

It was fun watching her on the balance beam.

After gymnastics we went to a Mexican restaurant in Williston for supper.  Mmmmm.

Grandma Sue likes to play Scrabble with the kids.

And I love to look at all their toys downstairs.  It’s better than Toys R Us.

They’ve got nearly every toy and game and gift they’ve ever received and they spend hours playing with things.

Jenny spends some time every day playing with Goliath.

Thank you, Christopher, for being such a good host .

Thank you, Jenny, for being such a good hostess.

And then too soon it was time to say goodbye.

Email:  Sue@PrintsPublishing.com

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