Homesteading while expecting and Zucchini Sheet Cake

This year has been a year of many triumphs for our family and small farm. Our homestead has produced tremendous growth this spring, and as you can see from the picture below my waistline has as well.

28 weeks and 1 day along already. Time is flying!

Brock Steven Paschall is expected somewhere between the 5th and 15th of September! This is probably the single most monumental achievement of my life. Why, you may ask yourselves... Well, because for the last six years I've been told I would never get pregnant. Never. It was devastating news to me and a huge shot to my self confidence. But the hardest part was when I had to tell my boyfriend, now husband, that if he wanted to have children he would have to leave me. I felt like such a failure as a woman and I knew I had to tell him before we took the next step. By the grace of God I am one of the lucky ones who found herself a true soulmate, life partner, and a truly good man. Kent held my hands and said "There's other options. We can figure this out." A little over a year afterwards we were married. Three years after that we're expecting a healthy, beautiful, strong baby boy!

I'm a very active woman. I don't mean in the traditional sense of going to the gym and attending Pilates every Thursday in my Fabletics gear (Although pregnancy yoga has made me super flexible and I definitely recommend it to anyone preparing for natural childbirth). I work hard. I work tough. I work outside. Which is substantially more difficult when you're experiencing things like morning sickness and carrying around 16 extra pounds in the middle. But not impossible!

 On that note- I experienced the kind of morning sickness that most women only talk about in horror stories. From week five through week fourteen all I did was throw up... 24 hours a day... all day and night.... every single day. I had to go to the doctor every three days to get an IV because I was so dehydrated and weak. The only food that didn't make me sick instantly was grapefruit. So, all I ate for two and a half months was grapefruit. I am genuinely shocked no one has died from it. It was hell. Even more hellish was planting, pruning, and my other homesteading activities through it all. But it gave me a new respect for my own strength and determination. And somehow I did get everything planted in time for a massive late freeze that killed it all. So not only did I do it once, but then I had to repeat the whole thing several weeks later. 

Just a typical day's harvest

We planted an assortment of lettuce, onions, cabbages, green beans, snow peas, bell peppers, jalapenos, sweet corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, carrots, melons, and strawberries. We also added several new peach trees to the farm bringing us to a dozen. Even though the weather has been uncooperative this spring with flooding, late freezes, and humidity reserved for the Gulf- we've produced about 4x as much as last spring by June. For anyone looking for a hearty, prolific, and good size tomato in central Texas I'd recommend Romas. I've gathered 30lbs of tomatoes in the last month alone. It has enabled me to can 10 jars of whole peeled tomatoes and 6 jars of salsa which adds up to approximately $25 saved at the grocery store. My Better Boy tomatoes are still green but that has allowed me to enjoy several batches of fried green tomatoes this spring, so no complaints. The only real disappointment his year has been our Peach trees. Last year we ended up with a bumper crop and this year has been the exact opposite. Too much rainfall and a few late freezes led to us losing most of our flowers and their subsequent fruit. Better luck next year hopefully.



And fyi. It's probably going to be a short growing season for me. My back hurts and the heat is getting to be too much for me even in early June. Sorry plant babies... You're on your own come July!



To keep myself occupied (and use up the copious amount of zucchini we have) I now give you my personal favorite (to date) zucchini sheet cake recipe:


Ingredients:
3 eggs
½ cup vegetable oil
½ cup unsalted butter
¾ cup white sugar
¾ cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
2½ cups all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1½ teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
2 cups shredded zucchini

Frosting:
1 (8 oz) package cream cheese
¼ cup butter, softened
3 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla


Instructions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spray a 9x13" baking pan with non-stick cooking spray or grease. Beat eggs, vegetable oil, butter, white sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla together in a large bowl. Add in flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, cloves, and nutmeg. Mix well. Fold in zucchini and stir until completely mixed in. Pour batter into prepared 9x13" pan. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. While the cake cools, mix together frosting ingredients and spread over the top of the cake. If desired, sprinkle the top of the cake with cinnamon and sugar.