Just another Day on the Farm

Purple Sweet Potato

Posted on October 31, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

As you know I grew three kinds of sweet potatoes this year, The standard orange, the white fleshed and the purple..

I have to buy special short season pre-started slips, I have started my own slips as well from short season Georgia Jet that I have over wintered the sweets and then done my own slips but also have had great luck buying pre-started slips and will continue to do so..

I have tried growing them in the ground and also growing them in a very heavy straw mulch, I will keep playing till I get it just right 🙂 The joys of gardening, never stop learning, never stop trying something new..

I cured them, and yesterday we baked off a nice purple as a small side dish.. I was very pleased with the color, outstanding.. the flavour has great depth to it, very sweet potato but a drier flesh and a more starchy flesh, more like a potato but only time will tell me if that is because of it needing more curing time or if that is just the way it will be.

I like the lighter ring in the baked one..

This is it all mashed up, before I added butter, salt and a touch of milk to make it more creamy, it was gobbled up that is for sure, but I would love to use it to color a cupcake or make a purple pie 🙂

I look forward to growing more of them in 2016. Do you grow purple sweet potatoes and if so, what is your favorite recipes to use them in.

Lending a helping hand

Posted on October 29, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

In the past few weeks, I have read in newpapers that we need to help this group or that group.. I have read posts on facebook talking about helping our countries own folks in need over others. I have read requests for donations to local causes and I have read blog posts asking for help in a number of ways. Twice in the past week in my mail box is the start of what will be the never ending asking me for my donation to causes.

I have views on pretty much all of it, but the truth is my thoughts on it are just that my thoughts.. and I am not going into details on them per say..

What I did decide was talk about what I do when it comes to lending a hand, a tool, giving a gift or making a donation, or supporting a cause.

I am of the old belief that you should start close to home, working your way from family to friends to local area to larger community, then to those in need in my own country and finally then out of my own country.

I break with this in one big way, I have supported a microloan program overseas for the improvement for women and children for years.. What I love about that program is that my money rolls over and helps again and again and again.. the payback rate on the microloans are in the high 90’s and once that money is payed back its loaned out again, which means that while each year I give enough to get so many small business started, with the money being paid back it, loaned back out..

As a women who was lucky enough to be born in Canada, I feel that not only is it my duty to help support women issues and rights in my country (cause lets not forget about little things here like the 30 percent difference in pay based on sex etc) but its my moral reasonability to also help women who live in a different culture then my own.

I want to respect their culture but I also want to find a way to help lift them up and support them.

However lets get back to my own local.. so family, well, that one is pretty easy at this point in time, everyone in my family is holding their own, friends pretty much the same, but there is ways to give, ways to help.. time is a gift to give, knowledge is a gift that can be shared an so forth.

Two things I do regular is I support the local green food box, not because I need those boxes of food most of the time, because my farm overflows (it is nice in the dead of winter though) but because its a great program for those that are in need an the more that buy in, the better the prices are for everyone. this means that I help makes sure that those in need get a little bit more in their box.

One of the other, and there is many reasons to this, I like older made items, their history has meaning to me, I like how well they are made, but I shop regular at the local church basement, its a triple win, I am getting what I need or want on the farm but I am not supporting a system of new, I am getting better quality and I am also supporting the church program that in turn supports so many different things in our local area.

Then comes the larger communities, I tend to give away hundreds of dollars worth of seeds, and plants every year, (this plant gift giving has helped create friendships which I adore) in a number of ways, I do not limit this to just the local plant sales or even to a certain group for fundraisers, I expand this gift of plants in as many ways as possible, I have gifted plants all up and down the Ottawa valley. I have worked with some of the local plant girls to help bring in larger orders that allow others to get smaller orders out of my shared huge bulk orders for savings for all.

Then I expand it outward, I have a love of the north and I tend to expand a helping hand that way next, I have lived up there and seen first hand the things that can and do happen in terms of need for food.

It is common for me to also give a little something to rescues for critters, I do not personally support the SPCA or any shelter, preferring to give a hand to those that do small personal rescues, so this year, I gave the funds to buy a large bale of hay for horses, I gave bags of kitten food to a person that had a dropped off expecting momma and it was nice to give them a helping hand on unplanned and unexpected costs.

I also give my time to a number of things I believe in, one of them is coming up on its 5 year gathering in 2016, how does time fly.. its a full day event and good amount of work but so worth it..

I have given to the local food bank, done a grow a row, helped buy the fixins for a Christmas basket an every year, I buy at least one gift to be given to the toys for tots in need program.

What about you? Do you support crowdfunding? Do you like to give in your own little pond, or do you like to throw that help as far as possible and create a ripple half a world away? Do you find a middle ground like I try to do.. working close and local first, finding ways to give back, finding ways to match your world in line with your helping others, finding a way to share your knowledge, and at the same time find others who share the same interests as well.

Do you give something to the non-human rescues as well, do you give something to help the world as a whole..

I still have my acres of rain forest I bought years ago as part of a project, its part of a reserve, I check it every few years to make sure its still going and working as it was intended.

But like how I used to support the SPCA and moved to small rescues, where I am giving to a person and to a animal that has a name, I have moved my world help from a global view to a tight focus on things like food forest, local community gardens, protecting our local waterways and so forth..

Like my pretty hen, I have my eye on the what is important to me 🙂 I love the look of grit and determination on her face.

In my teens and twenties, I went global, in my 30’s I started it getting more and more narrow focus on local.. It will be interesting to see what my 40’s, 50’s and 60’s will bring to the table.

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged Lending a hand | 2 Comments

Winter is coming.. Pantry is loaded.. and I am planning for 2016

Posted on October 28, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

Yup, seems like a odd thing to be doing right..

I keep reading homesteading blogs that are all about hay for the winter, wood for the stoves and talking about how much snow they are going to get..

(I have my winter supply of hay, straw, plus hay banked at other barns, We are set for our heat and snow is snow.. we have the tools and we live in Canada, and I have barns for all my critters)

I am busy canning, busy still bringing in the last of garden less then 2 percent till to come, my freezers are full, going to need to turn on another one for the meat butchering and do a lot more canning for meat yet, the pantry and root cellar is full of hundred and hundreds of pounds of food.

All my garden seeds are done for the year, the last set was dried, bagged and labelled and put into storage for winter. The seed potatoes are set apart, the best sweets for slips are placed carefully, the things that are to be overwintered, are bedded down, and the garden is not put to bed yet but its a slow process to get all the plants laid down, and the loads of manure added for overwintering, but as the pens are finished out from around the farm, and then will start back up again in the deep pack method till spring cleanout.

We are working on topping up a couple areas and I intend to expand some areas as well.. plus as things die back, I am hoping to get the chance to run the mower over a few things yet before the snow comes.

Which currently leaves me on pantry patrol, Anything not used that was canned 2007 or later is being cleaned, looked at, feed to the pigs and the jars washed for reuse.. I figure if I have not eaten it in the last 7 years, its not something that we are using.. Then counts are being made of what we do have, and a combo of these counts and what I have saved for seed will be what and how I plan and figure out next years garden.

Some things are easy.. I have a very good idea of how many tomato plants I need, anything over 50 is golden.. anything less and hmmm, I might need to worry a touch on if I will get enough for the year..

But other things are a bit more touchy, example.. corn.. Now the length of the cob and the amount of corn per stalk can change depending on the type, so while I know how many pints I need to put up per year for us, I need to overplant between fresh eating and a little unknown data on production to make sure I can do up a one year supply.

Ah, and there is the catch.. depending on the pantry, some things still need to ideally be planted for a two year supply instead of a one, and on other things, I only need to plant enough to do fresh eating, with a half year supply for a top up in the panty..

My stats are slowly coming in for this tracking year, some things are very good and others are a touch lacking but its safe to say, that I will once again make the 2000 to 3000 pounds of food for the household use, and at least 2000 pounds plus for the critters use.

Side note, I did find it interesting that when we went though and emptied over 60 jars to date from 2007 and longer for the pig use, not a single jar was bad, not a single jar had popped its lid, not a single jar had anything wrong with the food in it, other then color and in a rare case as tiny amount of texture change.. it was all good. I had rust on the outside of the lids, but I had not lost a single inside part..

I am trying a new plan of dipping the lids in canning wax to prevent rusting of the lids in the damp cellar in summer, even with venting, the summers are bad here for dampness.

This is worth noting because so many folks talk about a 10 to 25 percent loss on many sites and they are talking about 1 to 2 year old canning. not seven to ten year old canning.. I often wonder why they get such loss, sometimes I think its storage issues, other times, I wonder if its a missing thing in the process, example, the books call for ripping the rim with water to check it, but I always use hot vinager when I do the rim.. I always leave more of a head space then a lot of other folks and I am old school in regards to sugar, salt and acid levels.

So tell me, are you doing a pantry count at your place, are you finishing up your seeds or do you have things all over, are you pretty much done your garden canning, are you gearing up for fall butcher, are you hunting to fill the freezer. Are you going to be figuring out your garden and seed order in the next few weeks like I will be..

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged Canning, Fall, Garden, Growing to fill the pantry, homestead, homesteading Canada, Pantry, Saving Seeds | 1 Comment

Sheep Weights – Figuring them out with measurements

Posted on October 26, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

Measure the circumference of the animal, as shown in distance C in the illustration. Make sure to measure girth in relation to the location of the animal’s heart. On a sheep, ensure an accurate measurement by compressing the sheep’s wool so that the circumference reflects that of the body and does not include that of the body plus the wool.
Measure the length of the animal’s body, as shown in distance A-B in the illustration.
Using the measurements from steps 1 and 2, calculate body weight using the formula HEART GIRTH x HEART GIRTH x BODY LENGTH / 300 = ANIMAL WEIGHT IN POUNDS. For example, if a sheep has a heart girth equal to 35 inches and a body length equal to 30 inches, the calculation would be (35 x 35 x 30) / 300 = 122 lbs.

It was that time of the year, Time to do a full sheep checkup, they had a full body check, feet trimmed, they were measured and weights figured out, wormed and for the main flock given their vaccine boosters.

Mom was in charge of the book this year, she took the measurements given, figured out the math with the cheat sheet that hubby made for her(she was having trouble moving from kilograms to pounds) and made up the wormer shot and the vaccine needle for me.

Thanks for the help mom, (even if she did say she was freezing)

Here is just a bit of the information that went into the farm book for doing them. yes, I now that bigger farmers would be writing in numbers but my flock is small enough that I know each one by name, each ewe has her own color, marking etc that I can tell them apart. The hair sheep are a much smaller breed then the wool sheep are, yet even between them, I have a bigger line and a smaller line.

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged Fall Sheep Chores, Homesteading with sheep, Keeping a farm book, Keeping sheep farm homestead records, sheep, Sheep health care, Sheep Measurements for weight, Trimming Sheep feet | 8 Comments

Cranberry Cabbage Salad Recipe

Posted on October 25, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

This post is a little ahead of itself LOL, I did not get photos of the canned cranberry jam, but I have two more batches to do yet, so it will be coming. However this recipe does use half a cup of my homemade chunky cranberry Jam. So once I make it again, I will link back and you will have the full recipe (but I warn, its so basic but O SO good.. like 5 star good per all my friends that have tried it)

Four to six cups of diced cabbage, a grated med carrot, a bit of diced purple cabbage if you have it, can also use a bit of grated turnip, one diced apple, quarter cup of walnuts, the dressing is half a cup of my cranberry jam, with a quarter cup of dressing (if you like it wetter, add more dressing as required) a touch of salt (pinch).

Mix together and ideally chill for 30 to 60 blend flavours and then serve, its a awesome pink color that can be used at valentines or any table that needs a pop of color, its crunchy, sweet with tart.. While this photo does not do it justice, Green turned out to not be the right color choice, everyone went back for seconds, and someone (who will not be named, even took bread to the bowl to get that last bit out of it LOL)

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged cabbage, cranberry, Cranberry Canbbage salad recipe, Cranberry jam, Cranberry salad dressing, Pink colored salads, recipes, Sweet and Tart salads | Leave a comment

Beef an Veggie pie recipe

Posted on October 25, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

The Raw fixins are shown above.

Beef Pot Pie Recipe

1 pound stewing beef (in this case, grass-fed, homestead raised)
2 large clove of garlic (local of course, if at all possible, available china produced garlic, its been bleached)
1 med size onion
3 large stalks of celery
2 med carrots
Half a regular size turnip (if you do not like turnip, you can use potato) but it will effect the overall flavour palate on the dish, as the turnip add a hit of sweet in the stew, that potato will not.
1 quart of dark broth, if in a pinch, dark mushroom will work lovely.
Enough fresh pie dough to make a top crust, tradionally you would do both but I love just doing the top.
Salt, pepper, and spices to taste.

Bake the meat, onions and garlic in the broth at 350 for an hour, then add your veggies for another 45 min, then top with the pie crust and bake another 55 to 60 min till golden brown.. serve hot..

I thought I had made enough for two full meals, but everyone went for seconds and there was barely enough for hubbies lunch the next day 🙂

Posted in beef an veggie pie, grass fed beef, homestead, meat pie, pie dough, Recipes from the Root Cellar | Tagged Baking from scratch, Beef Pot Pie, Beef pot pie recipe, carrots, Fall Beef pie, Garlic, Homesteading, Pie dough, recipes, Turnips | 1 Comment

Beef Barley veggie soup.. Canning

Posted on October 24, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

Mom never used a pressure canner, in truth I still prefer waterbath canning myself but when it comes to safely making soups that hubby takes a pint to work and heats up barely, the pressure canner is the only safe way to go

She had never seen me do a batch of 18 pints, first thing did was add a tsp of pearl barley to each jar, then I made blend of carrot, onion and celery, half a cup per jar, in a heavy steel pot, I cooked our home raised beef with a couple cloves of diced garlic till brown, 1/4th cup on top, jar filled to 1 inch below rim with hot beef broth, rim checked, lids on and into the pressure canner for 75 min at ten pounds (per my sea level)

So hot still they are floating and jar boiling, it lowers as it cooled, where they will be washed and have the rings removed but hubby will put a ring on while traveling to work.

The cost on these are worth talking about, some things are only reasonable because I had thing, grew things and got on sale. The jars are eight years old, so .10 cents per for this year, the lids were got on a huge sale and I bought a case of them, so .20 per jar, .66 cents for the meat, veggie, barley and broth per jar. So not including power, it was 99 cents per jar.

high end soup in our local store will run you 2.19 per can and its not anywhere as healthy as what I can make

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged Beef Barley soup, Canning, Cost effective, Frugal, homemade canned soup, pressure canning, Saving money | 31 Comments

Scarelet Runner Bean with Winter Melon Soup Recipe

Posted on October 23, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

This is to be considered a lighter soup as its a broth based, it also only got four things in it, not including broth and spices. Which are Winter Melon, Scarlet Runner Green beans (nice young ones) Garlic and Potato. Its a white meat based broth with seasonings.

I had to sit on my mom as she wanted to add an add to the soup.. she agreed it tastes good but she likes thick loaded soups that are more like stews

This soup made four bowls worth. Peel garlic and finely dice it, Peel and cube the potatoes, peel, seed and dice the wintermelon, wash, tip and tail the green beans and slice them into small pieces.

Add everything into a pot with 8 cups of premade white meat or veggie broth, with salt, pepper, basil or nettle greens, a bay leaf (remove before serving), cook until the potato is done, the rest will be so. The beans will be tender but still holding firm, the winter melon will be melt in your mouth tender, the garlic will add a bit of a tiny bite now and again…

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged potatoes, recipes, scarlet runner bean soup, Scarlet runner beans, soup, Soups and Stews, white broth, winter melon | 3 Comments

using up the not quite ready beans

Posted on October 22, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

Well, the hard killing frosts have arrived and so the last of the young beans, both eating and shelling were pulled in, the dry ones were shelled, and are curing for winter, the fresh were either processed or eaten.. but what about the beans in the middle

The beans were to big to use as snap, but to young to properly cure an dry, so they needed to be cooked and eaten, the bowl above shows a colorful mix, there are scarlet runner, black hopi, an wild goose in the mix.

The scarlets are very much like lima beans in texture but with a softer skin, the wild goose is like a white bean but with more flavour.

this was a fast soup, easy to make, hot an filling on a busy fall day

Simmer your fresh beans in water for twenty min, strain and ready to add to the soup.

Soup base was onion, tomato, and veggie bits I had leftover in he fridge, I added the beans, salt, pepper and a small amount of broken noodles. No need to add meat when it was filled with rich meaty beans

if you were truly in a waste not mood, you could also make a stock from the green shells of these beans, sometimes to wonderful to just use up bits of things

Posted in Life moves on daily | 2 Comments

Pumpkin Cranberry Compote Recipe

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

Pumpkin Compote

5 cups of cubed (1/2 inch by 1/2 inch) pumpkin
1 whole peeled, cored cubed pinnapple or 1 large can of pinnapple tidbits
2 cups of whole dried cranberries
1 cup of diced dried apricots
5 cups sugar
1/2 cup of lemon juice
2 cinnamon sticks
1 tsp of pumpkin pie spice

Put the sugar over the pumpkin cubes and let it sit for an hour or two to draw out water, then add the rest and Cook them all together in a large steel pot, bring to a boil then simmer till everything soften’s, stirring now and again, remove the cinnamon sticks, pack the hot pumpkin mixture into pint jars, then top with the hot juice, Hot water Process for 25 min.