Just another Day on the Farm

March Pantry Challange 2017

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

March Pantry Challenge started back in 2011, it was a simple statement and much more difficult goal.. Eat out of your pantry only for the month of march.

Potato pie with homemade corned beef tongue with sheep milk yogurt with dried nettles Pantry Challenge 2011

2011 was the year of finding gaps, and I mean gaps, if you think you have a nicely done complete pantry, go ahead.. stop buying anything from the store.. cold turkey.. no shopping ahead.. and then make everything from scratch for 31 days.. Its eye opening to say the least.

In the cold of Canada, there is no fresh food.. if you are very lucky you might be able to dig out some small spots in the snow in the garden and cover with buckets and force a few things.. If you are on a farm, you might have eggs or not, you might have milk or not.. you might have one more chicken or rabbit that you can butcher yet.. or not..

In 2012-2013, I got better, much better at working my pantry and increasing what I keep as my basic’s and standards.. my biggest tips, always put up more yeast, baking powder and fats.. and more dried fruits for Baking.

In 2014 and 2015, I mixed it up and added extra challenges, added in growing more fresh greens in the house, more sprouting, more double bedded outside growing beds for forcing a few things early (starting them in the fall and overwintering them) and start them growing back in the longer daylight days.

2016, I did the war time food challenge to make it fresh again.. which leads up to this year..

It took me a few days of thinking to figure out what I wanted to do.. don’t worry, I was quietly making sure everything came out of the pantry just in case.

So my pantry goals for March of 2017 are twofold..

March Pantry Challenge 1- Do a full canning pantry count and get my canning page updated with a overview of what I want to put up by the end of the year.

March Pantry Challenge 2- Once a week round up of recipes-meals that had a min of one item that comes out of the cold storage, the canning pantry, the home grown and dried cupboard or the meat stores of only raised and processed on the farm. Some recipes will be included in regular posts and some will only come out on the week round up post.

It will be a fun and interesting march with these little rules in place.. Something different that makes it different for me.. and I hope interesting for my readers 🙂

While I can’t say that I will do all of them. is there anything you would like to see used in a recipe, a certain fruit or a certain meat or a cut of meat or a certain type of veggie from the storage area??

Drop me a comment and I will see what I can do about making it and getting it up on the months round up list.

Posted in March Challange | Tagged Frugal eating, Living off the farm, Making do in your kitchen, March Challange 2017, March Challange Pantry, Pantry Challange, Using what you have in your food stores | 1 Comment

Blueberry Lemon Bar Recipe

Posted on March 2, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

The bottom is the standard graham crumb crust, 2 cups with the required 1/4 cup melted butter, mixed and pressed into the pan.

The lemon layer is a standard lemon pie filling, freshly made and spread evenly, chill the pan till its cold and firm

The topping is rich an yummy but not sweet at all like the other was, one package cream cheese, half a cup of sugar, blended till fluffy and smooth, then I moved that to a small bowl, added two cups of heavy whipping cream, beat till just fluffy, then add the cream-cheese mixture into cream into four equal spoons out, beat till combined and starting to thicken, do not over mix, drop over the bottom layer and then spread over to even out gently.

I made the mistake of putting a line layer of my homemade blueberry jam on the lemon, don’t do it.. it made the bottom a touch wetter.. instead just put your cool blueberry pie filling on top.. I took a jar of my home canned wild blueberries and the juice in the pint jar and made it into a blueberry pie filling, with a touch of lemon juice, and pinch of salt.

Now having made this, I have made notes to improve it.. I would make the crumb crust double the thickness next time, I would not put the jam on the lemon filling, just on the top..

Regardless this was Hubby’s birthday dessert and it got 7 thumbs up 🙂

Posted in Baking | Tagged Blueberry Lemon Bar, Desserts, Homemade Blueberry Lemon Bar Recipe | Leave a comment

Food in Jar’s Challange 2017- March- Jellies or Shrubs

Posted on March 2, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

I was so happy to see that my lovely Cured Salmon with Nettles made the blog in the round-up for Feb! Want to see lots of other amazing bloggers takes on flavoured Salts, Cured Egg yolks and all salty goodness.

http://foodinjars.com/2017/02/mastery-challenge-february-round-salt-preserving/

For the month of March is Jellies and Shrubs. I have to admit that I did a head tilt, I mean this is not the time of year for Jellies.. my Jellies are all sitting in pretty rows on the shelf’s and I looked at the word Scrub and went hmm..

A google search on it and suddenly I was doing the dance of joy.. I know Shrub by one of its old names Sekanjabin and I make a number of versions of it.. Now that I can get behind..

Suddenly, the world of shrubs just opened up into so many different flavour choice’s, and we are going to make a number of them.. but first we are going to talk about what makes a drink a shrub.

In a nut shell, it’s a mix of fruit or herbs that are made into a juice, mixed with a sweet hit be that sugar or honey and combined with plain or flavoured vinegar.

The mix between fruit and sugar can be as equal are 50-50 or it can be as low as 75% fruit with 25% sugar and that finished fruit or herb syrup is blended at 2/3rd fruit syrup to 1/3rd of a vinegar..

Now you can use a touch less vinegar to start with if you find it a touch much, but you want to create a mix of sweet and sour to the drink.

This is one of the most popular drinks on the farm in the early spring here on the farm. It’s just bursting with freshness and this blend gives a stunning color and outstanding fullness of flavour.

Spring Rhubarb with Nettle Tea Shrub

4 cups of coarsely chopped Rhubarb stalks
1 cup of cleaned coarsely chopped Nettles Leaves
2 cup of sugar
Half a cup of White Wine Vinegar
Tiny pinch of Salt

Place above into a steel pot and add six cups of water, simmer gently till the rhubarb is cooked though, pour though a cheese cloth, straining it out, if you want a pure sweet color, do not squeeze the bag at all, or if you are like me and it matters not at all that is cloudy and might have bits in the bottom of the jar, get every last bit of goodness out of it.

Put in a clean jar or jug and chill till cold, work up a sweat in the garden or yard It is the most lovely pink color, almost like the fake pink lemonade from the store but so much more healthy for you!

Now the reason for this combo here on the farm is because Rhubarb and Nettle are my first plants up in the spring.. however if you are in a climate that allows it and or you don’t grow nettles for eating (an you should) or you can’t wild forage for them locally. Then do feel free to use a fresh mint, I use Apple Mint in place of the nettles. It will change the flavour of course but its very good as well.

Posted in Food in jars | Tagged Drinking shrubs, Food in Jar's March Challange Shrubs, Rhubarb and Nettle Shrub Recipe, Shrubs, Sweet and Sour Fruit Drink | 7 Comments

Happy Birthday Dear Hubby!

Posted on March 1, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Today is a very special day to me.. it my husband’s birthday! One year has come and gone since his last.. We have had our world stay pretty steady in a many ways, us, the farm and him working at same building, awesome friends

However in many ways, its been a year of change.. we lost a number of our beloved hounds to old age, to cancer and we lost our older purrpots, including our oldest 19 year plus love me, love my cat that came with me into our relationship all those years ago.

New bosses, New Work Challenges, New Work Travel Challenges (with me holding the farm down on my own more) New Work for myself, as I did a number of speaking and hands on presenting last year and am already booked for a number this year.

We had a number of challenges due to aging parents, Hubby flew not once but twice to Alberta to help his mom in downsizing her house and moving into her new retirement home and after she had her last surgery (double bypass) and we are working slowly but surely towards becoming a multi-gen household with my mom moving to the farm, with all the blessing and challenges that will come from it. One of Dear Hubbies aunties passed away and he took the time off to head north to see family and attend her wake.

We made some amazing memories over the past year and here is making many more in the coming year!

Spring is coming my dear.. new life, new challenges, new memories to be made!

Posted in Family | Tagged Happy Birthday Husband | 1 Comment

Canada 150 Food Blog Challange “Doing without”

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

All month-long I have been rolling this around in my head and trying to figure out what I wanted to blog in regards to this subject.

I looked back onto a number of things I have posted in regards to the war-time and challenges, such a great subject to talk about and learn from

However in the end, I decided to put a personal spin on it.. as regular readers of the blog know for five-year running every single march I do an eat out of your pantry challenge here on the farm. I picked march for a solid reason, it the lean month.. it was the starving month back in the old days.

It is when the larder is stretched thin, when the root veggies can and will be running out, when a warm snap can cause softening or sprouting, when the hens are just thinking about laying again, when your milking animals are dried off and heavy with young, when all the young butcher animals are done and you are waiting for new to be born, when its to dangerous to be on the ice for local fishing but not safe to be on the open water either, when the ground is frozen hard, nothing green is growing..

I can remember my grandfather shoveling snow off a certain patch of ground and us putting the big metal bucket over it, we were doing a rough job on forcing that rhubarb plant, the snow was removed, the dark metal bucket heated in the winter sun and as the ground thawed down, we would twist it into the ground about an inch and it was heat the soil and force that plant up and out for some fresh eating.

I do it with my local nettle patch every spring.. and while now using cover crops to push new things in the spring is the norm in gardening, I remember being amazed to see gardener’s in Yellowknife have double layered baby greens growing rapidly for fresh eating, while the yard was still four feet deep in the snow..

Which brings me to the main part of my post.. have you ever read an old cookbook and think wow.. 6 or 12 eggs, a quart of milk or pound of butter in those recipes.. that is because that is what they had in the leanest part of the year..

They would have hens just starting to lay and they would have something coming back into milk be it cow, goat or sheep.. they would had grains and potato’s on the farm.

I am going to share one of my families favorite meals for the young babies, for the elderly for those that were recovering from sickness

Egg Pie

This pie is interesting in that its a form of a custard, its also one of those fun, make your own crust pies.

Normally this is a very loose recipe pie but I am going to settle it down to recipe that gives me a good result (so before my aunties and cousins all write me, yes I know that we can use less or more sugar, butter or seasonings )

4 eggs
1/4th cup of sugar
1/4th cup of melted, cool butter
1/4th cup of flour
2 cups of whole milk or 1 can of canned milk
Pinch of salt
and or.. a pinch of nutmeg, or cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice or all spice

Take all the above and beat it well , pour into a greased pie pan, bake in a oven for 45 min at 350. the middle will still be soft and wiggly but will firm up as it sits. Can be served warm but will not hold its shape if you do so.

Can be eaten cold and is very good and if you want a real treat, a tiny bit of maple syrup can be put over top of it.

But what if you don’t have eggs yet but you do have a animal coming into milk, the first milk coming in is Colostrum.. something that we don’t see much of now but back in the day, you used it all.

Now in keeping with Doing without which is me is all about making due and using everything you can.. so lets talk about making a Colostrum Aka Beestings Pie

http://www.westonaprice.org/food-features/cooking-with-colostrum

The other thing that caught my eye was that it can be used to replace eggs in setting a dish, and that 8 oz’s is like two large eggs.. you know that when farm gal reads something like this, she has to see if its true or not..

So late this afternoon I whipped up a batch of Egg Pie.. I used two cups of sheep colostrum milk, 2 cups of regular sheep milk, 2 tbsp of sugar, 1 heaping tbsp of flour, a pinch of salt, and a good sprinkle of pumpkin pie spice with some fresh grated in nutmeg, all whisked together and put in a slow over and baked for 40 min and O my, so pretty, can’t wait to taste it..

Well, they say that the truth in the tasting and in that regards there are few things to share, first, yes it will indeed set a dish like eggs will and do it beautifully!

However it does not taste like a egg pie on its own, its like a cheese-egg pie.. very good indeed. Not something that I expect many people in today’s world will get a chance to try but if you get the chance, do take it will be worth it.

Posted in Canada 150 Birthday Events | Tagged Beestling pie recipe, Canada 150 Food Blog Challange, egg pie recipe | 2 Comments

No Buy Feb -Wrap up 2017

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Well, as you saw on the farm wrap up for the month, its been a high cost month, trust me when I say, that unlike other years when I truly feel that we saved money, this month.. not at all.

However, I will say this.. since the last weekly round up, we have said, No Buy Feb at least 30 times.. and so that is 30 times that we didn’t buy that coffee, or get that thing or x y or z

It was the kind of month where you just wanted to have a few little things extra for comfort, and we were good about that.. extra came out of the pantry, out of the freezer and was made by scratch.

So I did pay my ten dollars to race.. but we did pack a cooler and bring a bag of goodies with us to the event, and let me tell you, that the group of teenagers raided it very well lol

I did spend a bit of money printing some photo for a dear friend of mine, I do not nor will I get permission to post any of them online or on the blog.. but her much beloved mare turned 25 this past week and that is getting up there in horse years and she has had her since she was a weaned baby.. She is very much her heart horse and I wanted to give her the gift of photos with her girl. I love my photo with my Brandy but I wanted and put it off, and put it off and so we did it to close to her day of passing.. Time will help remove that blending of memories for me..

I didn’t want her to have that.. I wanted those memories to be clean, filled with love and laughter and that is just what we got.. I even sweet talked her into allowing me to get a only her photo shoot in..

It was unplanned but it was 40 dollars spent in a way that I know will be a good thing for many years to come! No regrets on this one at all.. it was a make memories day for all of us and those are blessings indeed.

So my overview for No buy Feb in 2017, strangely challenging.. it just seemed like this month was a time where everywhere I turned around there was something.. some of them were no question asked.. Call the vet etc

Others were timing like the photo shoot talked about above..

But others, they were just there and it seemed to be never ending.. and I am not sure why it seemed so in our face this year compared to others.. hubby struggled with it in regards to work, I struggled with it on and off the farm.

I am giving this year’s rating a mear 2.5 out of 5.. I don’t feel like we nailed it, but I don’t feel like we truly failed either.. it was just a slow slog.. kind of like the rest of the month, just as we seemed to have never ending storms be it snow, freezing rain, or strangely for us thunder storms with wild winds and rains..

The month felt in some ways the same way.. we got it done ..

Posted in No Buy Feb | Tagged No Buy Feb 2017, No buy Feb round up 2017 | Leave a comment

Feb Canning Update 2017

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Well, this is a sad little post.. because I have not canned this month.. I mean.. I think I can every month, but this month.. nadda.. nothing.. I have not canned anything.. I dried a few things for the pantry, I salt cured things, and I even made salve.. but food canning.. its wash..

So what do I write about in this post.. hmm..

My Red Pepper Pasta Sauce

10 pds of red peppers
3 pds of Roma tomatoes
3 pds of white onions
1 whole garlic or about 8 big cloves
1 or 2 hot peppers, seeded out depending on the heat you like, add more or less.
2 cups of white or apple vinegar
3 cups of white or brown sugar
3 tbsp of canning salt and fresh cracked black pepper

Put them though the blender, and then simmer for at least 4o to 60 min till thicken to your tastes, then can, while most books say that peppers need to be pressure canned, between the vinegar, sugar, I have always water bathed canned this sauce

This sauce can be used in cabbage rolls, or as a pasta sauce as is, or if you mix it with cream or cream cheese, it is a different and delightful sauce indeed.

well, how about a couple nice proven recipes from past years for you..

Got a new history/cookbook called Acadian Plantation Country Cookbook by Anne Butler. It’s an interesting book, a couple of pages on the history of each local Plantation with photos and then three to five of their most famous known recipes..

So far I have made one, sort of.. Can I ever leave a recipe alone.. most likely not, but my version turned out amazing! so we are going with the one that was made, it was inspired by a recipe from Hilary Slaughter Grand Coteau.

8 ripe pears-peeled an cut into cubes
1/2 cup of frozen orange juice concentrate (I used pulp-free)
3 jalapeno, sliced thin, seeds discarded
1/2 cup of finely diced red onion
2 cups of sugar
Juice of one Lime and one lemon
1/2 a cup of apple Cidar vinegar
1 cup of water
1 tsp of powdered ginger
1 tsp of Pumpkin Pie Spice
1 stick of cinnamon

Cook all ingredients in a big steel pot until tender and the juice is thickened(watch this carefully once it started to boil, and stir often) Made 4 8 0z Jars, water bathed for ten min.

It was recommended to go with all kinds of meats, but I can see all kinds of ways to use this amazing spicy flavor burst!

Posted in Farm Tracking 2015 | Tagged Feb Canning update 2017 | 6 Comments

Feb Garden Overview

Posted on February 27, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Hello Folks, I am going to do my best heading into 2017 to have a big old tracking year, I need to do this and I have the book, the paperwork and the plan.. I will make it happen..

Feb Costs

Output Costs: 0

I was a good girl.. no costs this month went out..

I did plant out pepper seeds and Brussel Sprout seeds for early starts so that by the end of 2017, we will have a lovely harvest of these 🙂

Jan imputes: Sprouts -2 trays per day.. organic mixed sprouts each tray is slightly bigger then the tray at the store at 3.99 each.. so that’s 8 dollars per day in sprouts

Total produced : $248

Jan $ 161. 40

Feb $248

Garden Imputes to date : In the good 409.40

Posted in Farm Tracking 2015 | Tagged garden overview 2017 | 3 Comments

Feb Farm Overview

Posted on February 27, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Ok, I am wanting to track this down for this coming year.. we are in the heart of winter right now, cold an snow.. but I can see the sunshine that is coming! I have faith that at the end of the year that my numbers will show a positive an then some

Costs for Feb 2017
Hay-$300.00
Feed- $288
Straw- 32

Farm Outputs:

Eggs: 10 dozen at 5 per dozen as eating eggs- $51 dollars
Goose Egg-1 breeding-Hatching egg-5 Dollars
Sheep Milk- 1 liter -Worth 6 dollar per 4 oz feeding if bought at local stores in powdered form and made up. -32 dollars (Milking twice daily)
Manure: Finished composting down.. at least 50 dollars worth of compost produced this month.
Two lambs (current market value per lamb 150 as bottle babies, I don’t know why they are so high this year but none the less) -300

Farm loss’s in Feb
2 Duck Hens – at 25 per hen – (per their adult replacement value)
Still born lamb

Farm extra’s Costs
Building supplies -38
Farm sled- heavy duty big sled can be used winter and summer -can move up to 600 pounds -160
Vet over the counter stock up and supplies for birthing kits an so forth- 217

Farm extra’s..
hardware – 0
Ferrier -$210
Vet- $890 between cats, horse and sheep

Garden Overview Feb

Total Garden Costs -$ 0
Total Garden Return – $248.00

Total Out cost for Jan on for the farm -$2,135

Total output of the farm in returns -$706

Jan – In the hole –1,029
Feb -In the Hole –1,429

total Minus-2,458

Feb was a brutal month on costs going out.. over a thousand out between the vets and ferrier this month and while the cats where planned the rest was not..

I know that this post is coming out one day early but I will adjust if needed but as I am home on the farm and have no shopping plans..

Goals- No selling of anything off the farm is planned, the saving costs are what we would have to pay if we bought in the local free market to replace what the farm produces that improves our lives.

Its a tracking year..

and also I have had and seen a number of comments many times of folks saying, my 5 acres and under homestead needs to pay for itself.. well, I like to think mine does, I like to think that a well-run homestead can do just that! So lets see if I am right or not?

Posted in Farm Tracking 2015 | Tagged farm tracking year 2017, farming is hard, Homesteading up and down | 4 Comments

Freezing Sheep Colostrum

Posted on February 26, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Below is a really great post on Freezing Colostrum but first a update.. I missed the post yesterday, what a day.. I was up before the sun, showered and ready to head off the farm for Eco-farm day about an hour away.

Very excited about it, lots of good talked and seminars that I was wanting to attend and even better a dear girlfriend was going to be there so a nice planned visit at lunch.. but the sheep had other idea’s, Hubby came in and said, hon. you need to check this ewe..

he was right, she needed some supportive care and I assumed that she would also be birthing pretty quickly, yes on the support, no to the quickly, and a second female yearling girl started as well

We are still waiting on the bigger female with twins and the yearling had a single stillborn lamb, so we have cleaned her up, started her milking stand training an milked her out and them strained and froze her Colostrum into 4 oz feeding for “just in case” for the rest of the lambing season

Normally I milk share with the lamb or lambs, but in the cases of sprite, I will be milking her full time twice daily, I am thinking at the moment for a 7 and 7 for my milking timing and we will see how that goes.

As she is a first time freshing, I have no idea at all on what her milking curve will look like, but will find out.. she has a nice teat size and placement and she let down well for me and didn’t kick which was really nice, for a first time milking, it went very well..

Its a great idea to freeze up one lambs worth of colostrum just to be on the safe side, ewes only produce Colostrum of the best quality for around the first 24 hours, but it does take three full days to bring in proper milk..

The kind shown above is in fact my cow Colostrum after its been chilled in the fridge, it was thicker I found then my sheep but its a great photo to show what I wanted.. See example of sheep itself further down the write up.

itself is a very thick rich dark yellow milk, you would never look at it and think regular milk. It has not only a amazing amount of goodies that the lambs need but can only accept in the first 24 hours but it also gives the lambs a dose of antibodics..

And not just any old from my mom antibodics.. o no!

Tailor made for your farm, your barn and your flock Antibodics, they say that the mom needs to be in the area of birthing a min of 14 days before giving birth to give the best protection, so do not move them from field a and shelter Z one day before lambing or you will get just a bit less protection.

The highest Quality Colosturm is from a older full grown female, while a young female will produce she as good at hitting the best high end note..

A ewe in very good shape will produce enough to feed at a min twins or triplets, but if you have a female in good shape that is older that has a single, its a great idea to act as the other twin and milk her out for saving for possible use in the future.

This amazing liquid gold can be used in a number of ways..

For a newborn lamb that lost its mom

For a third born lamb that its mom does not have enough of her own and you can give a little extra to help

But it can also be used for other critters or ourselves as a powerhouse of health.. I gave a portion of this mornings milking to both Mimi and Priss, the youngest and the oldest purrpots in the house.. and they both went crazy for it..

Remember it is considered ideal that lambs get their first nursing or feeding within the first 30 min of birth but they must have it no later then 18 hours after to have any effect at all..

Frozen colostrum should be thawed very slowly in a warm water bath. Do not use direct heat or this will destroy the antibodies within it

Do not use a microwave, its just to easy to overheat by a second or two and ruin it.

It is best to freeze colostrum in small amounts because once frozen colostrum is thawed, you only get to use it once, you can not freeze again. and as you are only feeding it in small portions, keep the frozen portion ideally the right portion for a single feeding of a lamb.

Frozen colostrum can be stored for up to 12 months but I never do that, I try and freezer for the birthing season and then I use it up afterwards if not needed, either for our own use, the critter use or in soap making.