Just another Day on the Farm

Musquee De Provence Pumpkin Pie Recipe

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

While I was doing the research on this lovely old French Squash, I read over and over again, Fine eating for pie.. Ok then.. you know I had to try it.

I am going to do the farmgal (or any other Homestead Farmers) first, then I am going to do a more Modern Recipe

Farmgal Recipe*

3 Cups of mashed Baked Squash
1 extra large Duck egg, 2 large chicken eggs or 6 quail eggs
1 cup whole sheep or goat milk
1 and half tsp of pumpkin pie spice
sugar or honey to taste (start with half a cup and try the batter, you and only you know how sweet the squash started)

One bottom of a pie dough , I baked it in a cast iron fry pan at 350 for 65 min but I started checking it at 55 min.

Farmgal recipes are based on a few things, they assume you understand basic cooking information, they assume you have access to garden produce, in season food, and the extras that come with having a farm or homestead of any size..

Now for a Modern Version

Musquee De Provence Squash Pie

3 cups of baked squash, peeled, seeded and mashed
2 large eggs
1 cup of condensed milk
3/4th cup of sugar
1 tsp of pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp of cinnamon

Mix the above in a bowl till well mixed, Place into one raw bottom of a pie shell, fill with the filling, preheat your oven to 350, bake for 60 min approx., knife should come out clean, allow to cool before slicing, Serve as is or with a dollop of whipped cream

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged baking a pie in a cast iron pan, Fall Pie, Farmgal recipes, homemade pie, homemade pie crust, Musquee De Provence Squash Pie, Pie with coffee, Squash Pie, Using a winter squash | 9 Comments

Musquee De Provence Squash

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

This big squash came in on the scales at 22 pounds, it was one of my unknown, sort off, it came from a friend who started a few different heritage and she knew what she had started for me, and only the Musquee De Provence Squash fits the bill on what I got, size, shape and flesh color and texture.

The seeds came from out west, the plant breeder has a good rep, so even thought its a little off in size, the average for this type is 12 to 15 pounds. The flesh is fine, rich and so good. the rind is crazy hard.. I can see why these are good winter keepers with that skin.

I boiled some, so good.. taste tested by a few ladies everyone liked it. I love it, I am going to order in seeds on it from a few sources, and do a minor landrace grow out on it next year, I have saved seeds but am unsure if it crossed or not. I also dried out a few seeds and baked and salted them.. very nice.. good size to them but not to fat compared to some pumpkin seeds

I canned some, roasted some. Made Pie with a portion of it.. Recipe coming very soon, as in the next blog post 😛

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged Baking squash into pie, Big Winter Keeper Squash, Canning Squash, Heritage sqaush, Landrace Planting, Musquee De Provence Squash, Rare Squash in Canada, Seed Saving | Leave a comment

Juno needs a boyfriend..

Posted on October 19, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

Miss Juno is huge for a wee girl yet, she is not expecting, which is excellent, I had a minor worry that she got bred before coming home but she has had her first fall heat. I am glad that she got to put all her energy into growing and grow, she did.. She is as big if not bigger then all my hair sheep already.

Certainly she will need special feed and care after being breed, but she also needs a boyfriend.. he will be joining the farm next week for a visit, we will have him for her next breeding cycle, and keep him till she either comes back into heat for the next round or goes out of heat and is proven expecting.

He is a very sweet, calm, polled boy who is mostly the same mix as her, dairy with meat mixed in..

Their offspring will good for a milking doe and even better if she gives me bucks to fixed young and fine eating when butchered out. Looking forward to working with goat hides again as well.

But of course the real goal is lots of fresh milk for the house. I will be busy with a milking goat and a milking sheep for 2016.

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Trip into the Hillls, Hard Frost.. and Cleanup Ram..

Posted on October 18, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

It was so pretty this morning, our first morning of white.. hard frost..

Yesterday we took mom into the hills for a drive on the Quebec side, o the colors!

The sheep are breeding, and I am going to use Ice and Whiskey’s Son as the clean up ram this year, as he is unrelated to all my ewes other then his mother, Such a great looking big ram lamb.

Posted in Life moves on daily | 1 Comment

Winter Duck Plan 2015-2016

Posted on October 16, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

The butcher out plans and post will come later, along with lots of new duck recipes..

This post is about figuring out who is staying..

Drakes..

Big Red- New boy from a bird auction 2015.. great build, great temperament and very sweet and gentle with both hens and young ducklings, a great uncle babysitter. BAD with chickens. Good with people Proven Breeder

Young Jake- The great=grandson of Big jake, and the son of WTH drake that was a off with your head, he has a very good temperament mother and I raised them with Big Red, so far, sweet and steady on him, but huge boy! Unproven 2015 hatch

White Boy- New boy from a bird sale 2015, what a great drake, big, great structure, legs, great temperament, good with everything he has been with, all other birds, hens and wee babies, chases cats, defends all his flock but good with humans and can be dog driven- Proven and carries chocolate and Barried

Hens

Young Jackie – The great=granddaughter of Big jake, and the daughter of WTH drake that was a off with your head, has a very good temperament mother and I raised them with Big Red, so far, sweet and steady on her to date! Unproven 2015 hatch

Jessie- proven, great sitter (two hatches per year) up to a 100 percent hatch rate

Harreit- Proven, great sitter, (two hatches per year) strong layer, quick to start again, good mother, very nice hen. New from a farm sale 2015, sold to me as a unrelated pair with brown drake that went to a friends, as they looked to be the same age, and I expect they were littermates.

I ideally, I will find one to two hens I like out of Harriet and White Boys last clutch,

So I am going in with 3 to 5 hens, and 3 drakes, this means I have no need for bird sales next year or even a couple years if I do not want to go.

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Fall Colors.. out with Farmgals Mom

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

Posted in Life moves on daily | 2 Comments

Canadian Wild Goose Bean 2015

Posted on October 14, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

Well, lets see, I can find pages of ..

Old, Rare, Heritage, been around for hundred year and so forth..

However, at least 25 percent show or tell of a different bean then the one I grew..

So I am going to do this instead..

Given to me by a girlfriend and with new genes bought at the local seedy Saturday, I am growing what is labelled Canadian Wild Goose Bean.

This bean is the size of a typical white navy bean, it is a mottled grey-white with a slight orange hue, they grew five feet high on climbers, the young beans with their purple mottling on dark green pods are so crisp and full of flavor, I had to force myself to stop picking so we would have dried.

Next year, I will take photos of the plants, the flowers , the pods and the seeds, almost all of my pods held six beans per, with maybe 20 percent or less having four or less.

I currently have a pound an half of dried beans with more coming in, just enough to try a few cooked and to put the rest up for seed.

I also have just a few of these much darker ones, all from the same two plants, I am going to see if I can grow them out alone next year and get more that look this way.. a fun little project. They have flipped to grey with white speckles

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged Canadian Wild Goose Bean, Heritage canadian bean, Wild goose bean | 9 Comments

Butternut Squash Growout Wrap up for 2015

Posted on October 13, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

A good fall day to day you, I hope that you had a lovely Canadian thanksgiving weekend, and a great weekend, if you remember back in the spring, I planned to grow in the great butternut squash grow out being done locally

Let say first, I grow butternut squash yearly, I love it, and I grow a lot of it, so I honestly thought.. no problem.. NEVER do that when it comes to gardening LOL

The first thing was instead of popping in squash here and there on edges and in differnet beds and gardens, I decided to do a new hilled huge area just for this project, I have done the same method for five years now and when it comes to squash they love it

But! I ran out of certain compost spot, no problem right, grab from a different spot and mix it with well turned pig compost from the back barn.. Boy was I wrong..

Everything I planted in this mix struggled this year and I do mean everything.. but back to the story at hand, I got it ready, I got it planted and nothing.. I watered the hills, nothing.. around me, others where having 90 plus seed starting rates, in my other areas, squash seeds where up and growing..

(this should have been the clue to start again) but instead I reworked the hills, and watered and watered them, finally stunted fragile seeds came up.. and did nothing.. I weeded and checked and babied them, I watered, I finally had hubby haul a 55 gallon drum, my first extra water nettle tea, then I tried my green tea..

and time was moving on.. I was watching these plants in horror , I had been given a huge amount of seeds, I had given a huge amount of land to this and I had nothing to show for it..

I growled, and ripped it all apart, I was down to 24 seedlings, they had two to four true leaves and others already where in flower and running.. I pulled off a 3 by 3 section of 6 plus inch straw, I remixed the hills and put them on the ground, and I replanted them, will water feedings of comfrey tea and finally they took off

I shook my head and shugged the shoulders and pretty much walked away at that point, if any made it to fruit, it would be few indeed.. out of the 70 seeds, 24 made the transplant, 11 lived..

Yup.. 11 plants was all that made it to producing for 2015.. those 11 plants produced 41 butternuts, for a total of 106.6 pounds of squash.. I only got eight over 4 pounds but I will still take it, the average was three to four pounds.

I saved seed from the biggest, best shaped and with good skins, this was a good thing, as it means that I can send seed back but I can also keep back 10 or 20 seeds to mix with the ones sent to me for next years grow out.

I have placed the best quality but 3 pound ones into storage and the rest are being canned or baked and mashed and frozen up.

The flesh is paler then normal and very mild, I am interested if the curing time will help on this or if its just because the plants rushed to get these to turn for fall.

Its a good amount of butternut but certainly not my normal amount, am short about 200 pounds from where I wanted to be on these. I am grateful I got any and have seeds to send back, and I learned more about compost, what each critter gives or lacks in their poos this year, and was reminded that I do things for a reason..

Posted in Life moves on daily | 3 Comments

Thanksgiving, High Bush Cranberry Jelly

Posted on October 11, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

Only had a few heavy frosts, so very tart indeed but still so good when done, plus its our local way to make cranberry jelly.

into the pot, need to be cleaned, washed, water covered and then slowly simmered till they burst open, then strained and allowed to drip there rich goodness into the draining bowl.

Following the certo box, measure your juice, sugar and at the right time pecton, jar up into cute 8 ounce jars and voila, home grown cranberry jelly for 2015.

but you need to try it.. and foam is the best treat.. o yes..

A even better treat, sharing fresh jelly with your momma, who has not eaten this kind for many, many years

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted in 100 mile diet | Tagged high bush cranberry jelly | 6 Comments

Ham and Navy Bean Soup.. (stick to your ribs)

Posted on October 10, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

I cooked off a lovely ham while mom was visiting, and we had a big meaty ham bone.. and that means soup.

I took 2 cups of navy beans, covered them, brought to a boil for two min, turned it off and let sit for an hour, drained and ready to be put into the soup pot.

In the soup pot, I put the meaty ham bone, 2 large diced onions (peeled) and 2 cloves of garlic, peeled, cover bone well with water or white stock, added salt, pepper, bay leaf.

Add the pre-started white navy beans and simmer for four hours at a low heat.. then pull the bone, and demeat anything that did not come off in the simmer.

Then add, peeled, diced 2 large carrot, and 3 large potatos, 2 heaping tbsp. of tomato paste, 2 tbsp. HP sauce or homemade version of iit, 1 tsp of wostersauce, add any leftover ham diced to the soup.. check your spices, add salt, or pepper as needed..

Cook till veggies are done.. good hot, and even better reheated!