Just another Day on the Farm

Pink Grapefruit and Rose Petal Marmalade Recipe

Posted on January 11, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

This one is for sure a Farmgal Recipe.

Pink Grapefruit and Rose Petal Marmalade

4 large Pink Grapefruit, wash, trim, remove stickers, slice peel off, slice thin and then par-boil for 20 min, cut the grapefruit in half and get every drop of juice you can from them.

Measure out cooked peel, Grapefruit juice and 1 cup of dried rose petals into a bowl

At that point, do a 1-1-1 recipe. One cup of mix to one cup of sugar to one cup of water

Bring to boil and test to up to 220 and till thickened on the testing plate.. as I knew I wanted this as a cake glaze I cooked till I had a nice jelly on it but not as thick as a full marmalade but if you wanted it thicker, you could just cook longer 🙂

I did have some settling issues on this one.. but the flavour more then made up for it.. the bite from the grapefruit, the sweetness from the sugar and the floral undertones of the rose petals made this a huge Winner!

The Rose petals were from our farm and picked and dried for winter use in teas and such..

Lime Pina Colada Marmalade (jam)

Posted on January 10, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Lime Pina Colada Marmalade.

Wash 8 limes and take off tags and the end.. then grate the peel off then all.. leaving as much white as possible on the lime.

Then roll your limes well to help get the juice flowing and cut in half and get every drop of lime juice out of them, I got just shy of a cup, top up to a cup with water if needed or if very dry limes, top up with store bought lime juice.

In a large heavy bottomed pot, combine rind, juice and 2 cups of pina colada drink mix to slow but steady simmer for five min so that your peel gets a chance to cook and blends into the marmalade.

Then add in five cups of sugar, bring to a boil.. add your one box of dry pectin and bring back up to a full roiling boil for a min.. skim the foam and then jar into your prepared jars and into the waterbath for ten min.

Its a creamy off white with lovely bright green flecks in it.. and its flavour is a mix of fresh bright lime with undertones of pineapple and coconut.. just delightful! It did not set up as firm as I would like.. but its well within norms. it holds on a spoon but spreads into those drips over the edge once on..

I wanted to drizzle this over baked apples but alas my horses have been gifted all the fresh apples in the house lol, so I am out..

Posted in Canning | Tagged Canning, lime peel marmalade, lime Pina Colada Marmalade Recipe, Using fresh limes in marmalade, Winter canning | 4 Comments

Around the kitchen table

Posted on January 9, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

I am adding in a new title.. just like we have this and that posts, were I write about lots of little things to catch you up or when I do photo blogs, were its more about sharing or a trip post, I am going to be adding in a new one.. Around the kitchen table.

Its meant to be both real and maybe funny in its own way at time.. its when we have had a talk at the table about something and afterwards I think.. that would be a interesting blog post.. most of the time, I try and wrap the idea into a neater package of information, often splitting it into different posts.

But I am going to try keep it all together.. in all its free flowing, often ends without a answer, like you are joining me at the table.

Here we go..

So I need to talk to you about Rams.. Hubby blinks at me and nods.. (that’s my cue to keep talking) I am trying to figure out what to do with the sheep flock

We currently have Whiskey, he is a sweet ram, produces healthy active live births and good weights on his offspring but he is a wool sheep, he is not a big ram compared to our last boy and for two years running, at least 10 percent of his off spring at around the big weaning time do not come off mom and onto our pasture and go from just fine to dead.

We have Hairy, he is a Whiskey Son, he is outstanding, he is out of my Butterscotch-Dram line, and he is the current boss ram, he outweights his father by a solid 50 pounds, he has a good temperament and is my very effective clean up ram, as his mother is fourth gen born on my farm, his offspring are a touch bigger at birth( a big harder on the mothers) but they grow strong and do not have the “what the ??” issue with all of them reaching butcher age.. but he is half wool-half-hair and he sheds his coat out very well in summer but he throws a lot of wool on his babies.. enough that they would have to be sheared and he throws horns and horn buds.

we could just keep breeading Whiskey for a few more years and deal with shearing him and deal with having more half or whole wool lambs born in the flock.. and work to figure out what is missing that we are having lamb loss at weaning stage.. do they need more loose minerals, do they need to be wormed more, will need to spend some more time and money figuring this out.

We could move over to Hairy as our full time breeder.. but he is related to all the butterscotch line.. so while he does have 50% of Whiskey.. do we want that or do we want more outcross.

We could buy a new ram, a hair sheep again.. and raise him up for the year and then move back to having a hair sheep as the lead ram to go with the hair sheep girls and greatly reduce overheating issues with the wool lambs and the shearing that goes with.

Or we could move Hairy in with Tess (the new line of hair sheep female I got last year) and breed our own new ram.. Tess brings in 50 percent new lines to the flock, Hairy would bring in 50 percent new lines from Whiskey and 50 percent of my own line-bred tough as nails suited to my own farm and land hair lines of Butterscotch and Dram.

My hubby listened and his question was this..

Are you wanting to hold back replacement females in the next three years?

My answer was.. I am wanting to look at Mocha’s offspring as I do not have any hold backs on her line and she is getting up there in age.. she is 8 this year and is only 2nd gen on the farm.. she tends to give me boys.. lots of boys over the years. I am still waiting for a ewe from her.. I don’t normally like to keep back from a female under the age of four or five, I really want them to prove themselves and then she has just thrown me males since..

And I willing to consider offspring from Tess as she is a new female an I might want to grow out her offspring till 2 just to see how it develops and such..

but I am hoping and planning to buy a new milking sheep ewe lamb to add to the flock this year..

Otherwise, no, I am not looking to add at this time..

And then we mulled.. So got questions to ask? Got thoughts? What would you do? Why would you do it?

I am still making up my mind to tell the truth.. so I will share what is decided at a later point but I am looking forward to hearing what you think?

Posted in At the kitchen table | Tagged Around the kitchen table, Breeding sheep, picking your ram, planning the future flock, sheep | 8 Comments

Kumquat Marmalade

Posted on January 8, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

This is the official marmalade post for the Food in Jars Challenge for Jan

These little fruits were Persnickety lol.. having never worked with them before but having heard good thing I decided that they would go on the list for hubby to look for in the big city at the fancy Farm-boy

I asked for a pound, got about a pound an half and quickly figured out that they would need the middles take out, dry, pith an seeds..

This left me with the skins an some fruit bits..

This took forever but I finally had them all done, and as I was not able to find any recipes for them in any of my canning books, and I want them in their purest forms as a first sampling.

I did them in a simple 2-1 recipe.. and brought it to 220 on the candy thermometer and it cook, an cook, and it changed color and the flavours deepened and grew.. finally, I got gel stage and jarred up 2 8 0z jars an 1 40z jar

As a fresh Marmalade off the spoon, this was my least favorite, not that it was wrong in anyway, its just didn’t pop to me the same way the other did..

Boy was I wrong! let it set up for 24 hours, let it chill and serve it up and wow.. the next day, this is awesome Marmalade.. both hubby and I gave it thumbs up..

The final test.. how does it go with old chedder.. PERFECT!

But please consider checking out a few more of the ones I did on the same week, I had a lot of fun 🙂

Blood Orange Marmalade

Pink Grapefruit and Rose Petal Marmalade

Lime Pina Colada

Lemon-Crown Royal Marmalade or Jelly (your Choice)

Posted in Canning | Tagged Canning, Canning Marmalade, Food in jars challange 2017, kumquat marmalade, Tradional Marmalade Recipe | 6 Comments

Blood Orange Marmalade – Recipe

Posted on January 7, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Over the next while, I will be sharing a few different marmalade recipes, most of them will come from 250 Home Preserving Favorites by Yvonne Tremblays book, or at least the basic’s of the recipe will.. knowing me, I will be tweaking this and that.. I will do my best to make sure my changes are very easy to see..

Today however we are going back to the basics.. marmalade are in its purest form a 1-1-1 recipe.. 1 part Citric, 1 part sugar, 1 part water..

I washed the oranges well, removed their stickers, and I sliced off the top with the hard bit.. I sliced one in half to show you the pretty blood orange color and to show you the nice thick rind on these oranges..

Now into a heavy bottomed pot, I add the rest of the oranges and water to simmer them in, I added enough water to get them to float and brought them to a boil and then down to a steady simmer.. I am looking for them to fully cook though.. that will take about 45 to 60 min give or take..

They will have a sunken in appearance and the rind will be softened and cooked.. you ca see how easily the knife went into the orange.. then once cooled enough, give them a smash and pick out the seeds..

Then mashed them up.. stir and then mash them some more.. and then if need be.. take a forks and break up the last bigger bits..

Measure it out and add the proper amount of sugar and water per the 1-1-1 ratio and bring to boil and then down to a slow simmer.. but you want it boiling.. then put in your candy and make sure it gets up to 220 and let it simmer, till it starts to thicken up from the natural pectin.. check it on your chill plate in the fridge and when it wrinkles.. and is at the thickness you want.. some like it a bit more runny, some like it thick-thick.. your call on that one..

Put in your cleaned and boiled hot jars and wipe your rims and seal finger tight and into hot water bath for ten min and then allow to sit and cool down..

Posted in Canning | Tagged Blood Orange Marmalade, Blood Orange Marmalade Recipe, Canning Marmalade, Marmalade on the farm, Tradional Marmalade Recipe | 7 Comments

Photo Friday.. This and That around the farm..

Posted on January 6, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

It was a cold but sunny day, the solar heating in the house was lovely!

Pom is looking mighty fine in full winter feather up..

Harry is looking mighty fine, I just love my clean-up ram, he is sweet, easy going and good with the ladies and the lambs.. He is out of Whiskey and my Butterscotch line.. I am very tempted to hold him but that is not the current plan, I am going to get a new wee baby ram this year to grow up if it goes as I plan.

All the hens where going in their flight feathers when they got moved and so they were not trimmed at that time.. they are all being bad hens and flying up to the top of fence run.. in fact one of them even flew right by hubby at chore time.. nothing like being air buzzed by a 9 pound duck.. zoom!

Love the light and shadow, the just starting to go down sunlight changing color.. The boy’s were enjoying posing for me and where very sure there was something that had their interest in the woods across the road..

Posted in Critters, draft horse, photography, sheep | Tagged Duck Photography, Farm photos, Geese Photography, homestead, horse photography, photography, Sheep Photography | 2 Comments

Garden-Budget Plans 2017

Posted on January 6, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Normally, I have a thousand dollar yearly budget for my garden-farm, this budget includes, seeds, tubers, plants, bushes, tree’s, tools and garden related training classes, seminars

Most years I am under budget by a hundred to several hundred but not always, some years I push it to the very edge with travel costs an overnight hotel stays at an event.

This year is an interesting year because almost all my budget has to go to the pasture project.. up to 500 to rent the equipment-man hours to have my fields prepared properly, 200 in custom blended seed at a min (could be more depending on how thick it must be spread) and at least 100 for the spreader, which we will get a heavier duty 80 pound walk behind and do that part ourselves.

That brings me to 800 of my thousand.. leaving me 200..

So far I have ordered my seed potatoes at a total cost of 43.00

This includes 4 kinds, one early fresh eating, two later season storage potatoes and one mid-season that does it all, that has in the past produced tps balls for me. It was an interesting call this year on our potato harvest on if we should hold back for seed or buy seed.. we decided due to the much reduced drought yield that we would order in seed.

So now I am down to 150.. or am I?

Nope, ordered in upland dry planted rice, and that sucked up another 50, now part was us exchange rate (yikes) an shipping(double yikes) and asking for help and ending up with two folks giving a helping hand an therefore getting two orders.. which I am great with, should have enough seed to share with a few folks and plant for myself for two or three years.. Below is a photo from the producer and it shows the proper set up.. this will also be a investment, but we have extra netting an standard metal poles and zip ties, so I am not count the setup in the cost as its sunk costs from a different year.

If you want to order an try growing some rice, here is his link

http://www.sherckseeds.com/pages/seeds/grains/rice/duborskian-rice/

Now I have a hundred…. 1/10th of my normal budget.. left for the rest of the garden..

A dear friend smiled at me and said, you do understand that 100 for the year is more inline with what normal gardens would spend in a year.. hump.. (is that true? what do you spend on your garden?)

Needless to say, no eco-farm day for me this year, no seedy Saturday this year for me, no trip out for asterlane edibles farm, no buying from the amazing holly and her outstanding tomato an pepper starts( not only awesome kinds but gave me so much more starting room without these being in my house)

I will need to do a lot less shopping and have a full but leaner amounts of things in my garden, I will be planting out mainly

A) all my own saved seeds

B) all my older seed stash

C) I will be saving seed like mad to re-stock for the coming two years

D) barter.. I might have lots of this or that and someone might want some an trade me a few extra squash seeds for it..

E) all my own seedling starting.. welcome to the jungle!

I will fill in the blanks on what that hundred gets me.. once I have it figured out.. I know that this year, I will be buying from a local store for extra seeds as I will tag it to a feed buying trip, so that I can avoid shipping costs.

ps, this was just after the first wash an drain, do not dry your seeds on paper towels, once blotted, move them to glass trays or wire trays and dry open air..

While it will be different, I think its very doable and I don’t think I will see a reduction in production, just a reduction in variety..

What is your annual garden budget and for how big of space..

and please don’t let any tools break this year an need to be replaced!

Posted in frugal, gardens, Goals | Tagged Dryland rice, Garden, Garden Budgets, garden costs, Seed Potatoes, Seeds | 10 Comments

Turkey Barley Veggie Canned Soup with Recipe

Posted on January 5, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

I took the left over meat that I could pull off the bones, and then, I added two diced onions and a good amount of garlic.. about 8 cloves with 1/4th cup of plain white vinager, and I cracked open the bones, snap pop.. all scraping from the cooking pot.. and then topped up with clean well water and to a boil it came, then the heat got turned down and it simmered for a full day..

Then I pulled the bones, picked any extra meat back into the bone broth that I could get, chopped up the leftover meat add it back in and added a big old heap of 1/4th cup of a basic herb an garlic blend from bulk barn.

It was heated back up.. and I had washed the jars and gotten the pressure canner ready.. I have learned the amounts for fresh an the amounts for dried and I have a very good idea of what hubby likes for his lunch soups..

I was doing a full canner load, in each jar, went one tablespoon of pot barley dried, and 2 tablespoons of dried mixed veggies.. (you can dry your homegrown, you can dry a big bag from the store that is got on sale or you can buy dried mixed veggies in bulk at bulk barn or the like) after you get them measured out, go back with a knife and give them a light stir to mix them up and then I filled each jar with the hot turkey bone broth with turkey, onion and garlic and herbs in it with a full 1 inch of head space left in each jars.

Into the canner and done per my level etc, use your book to figure out how long for your cannner, the size of jar and sea level..

For myself, I would be more then willing to add half a jar or a full jar of water when reheating but my hubby loves his rich broths, so the odds are good he will eat his as is..

Did you make any soups from your holiday leftovers? Did you pick up a turkey or two on the sales just to something like this? What is your favorite turkey soup recipe for canning up. Do you like using dried veggies for your canning or do you like to use fresh only?

Posted in Canning, Soups and Stews | Tagged Bone broth turkey, Canning pints for lunches, Canning turkey veggie soup, Turkey leftovers, Turkey Veggie Barley Soup | 4 Comments

How is your budget looking this year?

Posted on January 5, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Now I don’t know where you live, but in my neck of the woods

We have three new taxes on basic things, increase in what we have to pay for our portion in regards to medical coverage (yes, I know I live in Canada, the country with the free medical care.. Yes and NO on that one) A increase in what we have to pay for CCP. A new carbon tax and a continued increase power costs that are out of control.. (truly for my country, despite not living in the north and our province under-selling our extra power for pennies on the dollar)

Throw in the fact that everything has gone up in cost.. from seeds for the garden, to feed costs, to hay costs, to wood costs and food costs..

The bottom line.. Nothing is going to cost us less and everything will cost us more.. the little magic program says that the new carbon tax and other new tax’s should cost my family around 5 grand.. We will see..

I am pulling in tight on our budget this year.. There are Four reasons for this..

One- we are going to be paying out more per pay day.. and that’s a fact..

Two- I have a few things I really want to do this year and we need to have the fund required to do so.. these would including some bucket list things, a kickin week long camping trip and a number of day trips to new provincial parks. If you want something enough.. you do what you need to do to make it happen!

Three- Reno’s.. we have things that need to done in 2017 on the farm.. I need that extra saved money to be put into hard ware and paid skill set.. Its a upkeep year on the farm..

Four- I need to redo my pastures, which means I also need to pay to feed hay all year long as I keep the critters off the pastures, other then for fast push them though grazing with hot lines for the sheep or goats only.. I have a issue with white clover and I am going to need their help on it 🙂

I am running a number of budgets for different projects. On a few of them, I will do a post or two and see how close I get!

So what about you? How is your budget looking? Up in the air.. started at least, going to be a good year, had a increase income (hey, it happens) a reduction in income or a unknown.

Unknown because weather, and people factors are all at play, and you are self-employed or you have a base line from one person but are not sure about other extra’s that might or might not come in..

And here is the big one.. how much are you counting on your garden, your farm or your hunting or fishing, or foraging to cover for you..

I am going to big this year.. I want my wee farm to produce enough that “if” I had to buy it locally at equal value that we would need to pay out a min 20,000 and max 30,000 to do so..

We will see.. We will see if I can do it.. I know, I know.. don’t count your chicks before they hatch.. I say.. true but it helps when those eggs all produce something different?

Posted in Goals | Tagged Goals, Goals on the homestead, Homestead Budgeting | 4 Comments

New Year Storm…

Posted on January 4, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Ok, I had gotten into a bad habit in the past year or two of trying to get a post out each day, instead of writing the posts I want to share and never mind that somedays it s 1 post and some days its more..

I expect if this year goes the way I think it will.. a lot of days will have at least two.. So the freezing rain came.. it was a slick cover to everything.. I mean a sheet of ice a solid inch an half to two inches thick that was crackable with the ice breaker, so slick that you needed to put down grips and where spikes on your boots..

And then the temps went up just a tad and it rained.. cold bitter rain for hours.. and they said.. don’t worry, the rain and the warmer temps will melt that freezing rain and so I waited.. around me 20 min in this direct.. it melted and 40 min up the valley.. melted.. smaller amounts of ice and the rain took it away..

Not here on the farm.. by evening chores the first tree was down in the pasture, across from the pathway to the Big Barn.. and the temps were dropping, and they said.. snow is coming..

It was a white winter land out there this morning, with a fresh light dusting of 2 inches but more, much more is coming.. back to back snow storms they say.. hitting Friday and Monday.. if we only swipe the edges of it.. just a mear foot to two.. if we get hit with it fully.. two to three….. we will see..

Yes, you are seeing that right.. the average load on the smaller branches are the ice is thicker or as thick as the branch ad the snow on top of that..

So far the smaller tree’s, the bigger and smaller branches that have come down have all come safely, in the pasture, in the yard or in the open ground.. I would be happy to take any extra prayers beyond my own that none come down in a dangerous way! So far the power has stayed on.. but we will see

If you are in the local area, stay safe.. and do your winter prep, check your gear and get caught up on extra’s.. (currently in my bathroom is a extra ten full six gallon buckets of water, just in case.) for livestock needs, plus, they will have snow access and the water troughs are full from the rains.. and are heated so free and open.