Just another Day on the Farm

In total this year, there was 15 pounds of these lovely’s but the truth was I did 20 plus pounds of them last year and so I still had a good amount of them, both in pickled, frozen and pesto..  so as I was having a awesome visit for the day with Deb, one of my meet in real life now readers 🙂  I sent her home with ten pounds of them and only kept five to six pounds for myself..

Cleaned up, it made a large roasting pan full of them. While a few of them will be eaten fresh, roasted with olive oil and salt.. (so good) a few bags will go in the freezer for later use, the old ones will be added to my homemade pasta sauces later this year to use them up..

But most of them will be made into this recipe below.. its the one kind I am totally out of, and that because despite having made them for a few years now, and making more and more of it each year.. as soon as these ones get opened up.. snap.. yum.. gone!  yes, I am sharing this recipe again.. it is on the blog, but its worth sharing again..

Sweet with a bit of heat-yummy garlic pickled scape’s..

These are made with a standard Medium Syrup, scapes are a low acid food, they must be preserved with salt, acid (vinager) or sugar, or you could ruin them texture wise with pressure canning I highly recommend keeping that flavour and texture alive with water bath canning.

5 cups water, 3 and half cups of sugar, four cups worth of apple mint leaves. Collect your leaves, wash, no stems, bruise them a bit to help release the mint flavour, and add them to a pot that has water and sugar on med heat, bring to a gentle simmer, turn down and simmer for five min, lets sit for another five, strain out the mint leaves.. bring back up to a boil for jarring up.

Tip and tail your garlic scapes, wash them well in cool water, then drain and cut them into two to four inch pieces, this really does need to be a big flexable as size and curl effects the cutting.

Prep your jars, lids and your canning pot as per normal, when you remove the hot jar, put your three to five whole black pepper and two cloves per jar, one inch by one inch horse radish, fill the jar with garlic scapes, fill to half a inch from top, then add the mint syrup to half a inch from the top, wipe your lip, lid and seal, into the hot water bath for ten min.

Out and onto the towel, allow to sit for a full 24 before moving, can be used within a week but ideally let it cure for at least a month, these are sweet, with a bit of heat, crunchy and awesome!

Made five pints. We made these last year and loved them, so needed to make more for this coming year..

Sorry Patrick, covering your eyes and ears will not stop this from happening.. you little coffee thief!

Now, you are most likely thinking.. huh.. what do you mean and how can you tell this in the first week of July..

Well, I should be clear on this, I will have more meat then you can shake a stick at, the freezers will be full, farm gate sales will happen and I will need to be running my pressure canners to put up many jars of canned chicken, pork, lamb, and goat..

I will have eggs, I will have my older flock and I have young hens coming up that will be the right age to come right into first lay late fall that will lay thought out the winter for me..

I will have milk, there will be a dry out time but it will be very small, Juno the goat will provide milk for a good while  and when she is dried up, one or more of my milking sheep will have lambed again and I will have fresh milk all winter long. which means milk, yogurt and cheese..

BUT then it gets much more tricky.. this drought is bad, in the past week I have been getting the talk, and from so many sources..

My biggest hay burners, but they are so worth it!

My main hay supplier… I have hay for you, but do not add any more critters to the farm, unless you balance it out.. you have only “this much” booked for the winter..  Ps if folks ask.. I have no hay for sale.. only just enough for my regulars

My secondary hay Supplier- No hay..

My main Straw Supplier- No Straw this year!

My Secondary Straw Supplier- Maybe, a little but you are not getting full order, I might? be able to give you a quarter of your normal..

I do my best to buy my grains from local sources,  and I am hearing the same thing from them..  the crop yields are in the 40 percent range if that..  they are going to do their best to try and meet their “regulars” needs..  but they have no extra for sale..

I took a deep breath and said.. what about cost? because when things get this lean.. you know you are going to pay more.. and yes, I am taking a small hit on that.. I nodded and went.. ok!

But then I asked nicely.. ok, so if I was not a regular and you did have a bit left over to sell, what would that price be like.. my regular hay guy, he has doubled his large hay bale price.. average in our area is 40 in yard pickup and he is not even going to consider lower then 80 a bale and my one grain supplier, the farm next door was buying extra and he was already paying 70 a round bale and the guy he bought extra said that second cut what he did get of it, would be a hundred a bale..

Let me give a idea of just how bad it is.. was talking with one of my local’s in his hay field.. one stunted plant, with 6 to 18 inches of bare dead earth around that plant.. he is going to plow the hay field up and replant it back into hay again, hoping that it will come again.

Corn stunted less then knee high and its starting to head out.. its being taken off as silage because they are out of feed, because they did not get a 1st hay cut, so they are needing their grain crops NOW to feed their cows..

Wheat that is only 10 to 11 inches high and are all ready headed out, now to be fair the heads do not look that bad, just very small though.

My local potato farm is showing the strain as well, they water and even with their extra help, everything is stunted, those plants should be big enough that you can not even see the sandy soil they will grow in and instead, they are looking to be four to six inches high and lots of ground showing still.

I honestly thought that my garden was suffering, and compared to a normal year, it is.. it is! but at the same time, I take it all back, compared to so many fellow gardens in the area, my garden is rockin along..

Now you can not compare my gardens to town gardens, the ones that are a average town garden with a person that has a water hose.. they can still be doing great if the person is watering regular.. I know, I know, they are begging for rain, they are with empty rain barrels as well but they can turn the tap on and go..

Myself and others with well, we can not do that.. I would be in a world of hurt right now, if I did not have my new water tank in the yard, I am taking around a 150 gallons out of it daily and I know that my well would not be holding if I had to take it from it.

As it is, I would take a bet that if we do not get rain and a good amount of it, I will be buying water for my well in aug-sept.. one load a month.. The river is low, its end of the summer low already, and its warm, we have been swimming and until you hit a deep (as in feet do not touch the bottom) area, you do not even get to cool water..  its lovely to swim in but that kind of warmth should not be in the water at this time of year..

Creeks are even harder hit, and in the local news some of them have already run dry and up on the other side of the valley, one of the big rivers is running at only 15 percent of its normal rate..  Read that again.. 15 percent!

Now lets get to the reason’s why my own gardens are doing as well as they are..

a) I am on river loam, its just good soil to start with..

b) I have lots of compost, I really do believe that the amount of compost I have added to my soil and gardens for the past years..

c) once again, the hugelbeds and planting with swells in mind have been my greatest secret weapons for producing this year..

d) The last but not least by any means is that I over plant and interplant.. but as I have watched with my girlfriends on more sandy soils then mine.. those that have lots of plant compost or plant cut and drops but do not have the same kind of animal compost to add to their soils, they proved that without the moisture in the soil, the seeds will not germinate..

Do not think that this is about home gardens, this is effecting local CSA, this is effecting local u-picks, it was on the news yesterday that many of the huge local strawberry u-picks only had one or two weekend that they were open, instead of weeks open because they do not have the fruit in the fields to have the gates open.

the farmers markets are hurting as well, the prices are already high and many have made it very clear that the prices are going no where but up! and the amount available is down, way! way down..

So that leaves me at least in a limbo.. I normally buy locally produced food in bulk to produce my own food, if I can not grow it on my own land.. but on a normal year, that is always more cost!

I can head to the regular stores and buy larger amounts at the local wholesale fruit and veggie store but it will not be from Canada and it will not be local.. and in most cases, I will have no idea what so ever if it is GMO or not

Not at all within my own personal views but if I do not buy it bulk and process it, then that leaves me buying pre-made from the stores.. and in many ways, that is even worse for some things..  (some things in the store are Canadian grown and made in Canada)

So that means we are going to have a very lean winter when it comes to what is being put up..  only the next few months on my own land, will give me a idea of just how lean..

Some things I had put away a two year supply of last year, so I am covered for this year at least as long as used in moderation.. but we will see..  we will see..

Are you in a drought zone yourself? Have you been working in a drought zone for a while? Do you find the funds and buy local at the higher prices, do you eat less of what is not available, do you buy from a zone that is producing it?

As my crazy little faith (the first kitten I have ever owned that truly climbed the curtains) says.. HANG ON! LOL

The past week has been crazy busy, hubby went to alberta to give his momma a helping hand and I was holding the fort..  got to see my dad which was very nice.

he had time to visit some of my family as well 🙂

hubby came home to a new to us second hand extra large leather chair, I got it at the second hand shop for twenty, awesome find, hauled it home in the horse trailer

Got a call from a daughter of a friend who needed to rehome her budgies, so Tweetie and Tweddle came home to the farm, they are settling in very well, they have a regular cage until I get a custom one built for them

Twiddle is the more friendly one

the black broad beans are doing well, as are the purple sugar snap peas but they are a new heritage pea to me and they are tender an yummy but, they taste like a green bean.. very odd

lots of drying going on daily..

strawberries are coming ripe now an picking daily..  great for any help in controlling the pests and slugs an such.. love how pretty this frog is..

first cut of hay done and its not good news at all, the hay is ok quality but the volume is very poor indeed,. a third or less then normal.. the drought locally is effecting all crops and its showing! my pasture look like the mid-aug unstead of end of june.. we have only had two good rains and maybe six teasing rains in the last two months.. crazy!

Something had to give, the well will not hold in this drought if everything is on it, so we added in a 2000 gallon water bin and its filled and will be used for livestock an garden needs, while the well will do household and we pray for rain

my elderflowers are a third the size of normal but at least they are there, the huge blackberry patch has just aborted all their fruit.. we will see what happens..

The geese have settled in fine and with that I need to run.. as you can see, the farm is hopping right now! how is your world going? gardens? critters?

Boy, have we been busy, and this post is a quick one, meet the new farm critters..

the imported from usa salmon faverolles chicks are doing great

my new billy kid is lovely, meet Jack a fab tri-color mixed buck he has both dairy and boar in him.. he will make very pretty babies with juno

my new breeding trio of  Sebastopol  The Sebastopol is a medium-sized goose with long, white curly feathers. The feathers of the neck are smooth and sometimes greyish-brown. ^] Feathers on the breast may be curly (frizzle) or smooth. The gander weighs 12-14 lbs while the goose weighs 10-12 lbs

I have both a smooth and a frizzle female, all are proven breeders, sitters, hatchers and baby raisers

And Blue the kitten joined my pride of baby purrpots of 2016

life is keeping us hopping! but still time to stop an smell the flowers now an again

http://taylormadehomestead.com/homestead-sites-state/

A few weeks ago a reader suggested that since cooking directions can change based on altitude and gardening plans can differ based on planting zones, someone should compile a list of homesteading / Simple Living blogs separated by the areas they reside in.  BRILLIANT, and challenge accepted!  Such a list is helpful for not only the reader of my blog but also for all blog readers, so below you’ll find a list of awesome blogs separated by U.S. location and there’s even a spot to list some great blogs from our Canadian friends below!  I’ll place this list on a separate tab on my blog so it’ll always be easily accessible and I’m asking all blogs included in this list to share this list on their own blogs as well

Check them out..