Just another Day on the Farm

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!

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged fall veggies, Ham and Navy Bean Soup, Ham bone, Navy beans, Winter Soups | 6 Comments

The last of the sweet corn harvest oct 1st

Posted on October 3, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

Our late planted sweet corn is awesome! so good, It was planted end of july and everyone thought we were nuts, no ONE plants corn that late.. but just look at this corn picked today!

I am for sure going to do double planting of corn from now on..one in the spring on time and one late season for a super sweet, super short season, this corn was ready in 58 days and it lived up to it.

Love this tool, it makes taking the corn off the cob fast and easy..

Once its all off, perfect for canning it up.. but do not throw out all those cobs, save some and make corn cob syrup, but that is a post coming up.

Posted in Life moves on daily | 3 Comments

Pickled Green Beans Recipe

Posted on October 1, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

We are still getting lots of fresh beans in the house but not for long, the frosts are coming soon

Here is a nice basic Green Bean Pickled Recipe for you

Green Beans – enough to make 4 pints
1/2 tsp of dill
4 cloves of garlic
1/4 cup canning salt
2 1/2 cups vinegar
2 1/2 cups water

Put dill in each jar, one clove of garlic per jar, make your brine, fill your jars and process for ten min at water bath temps.

Posted in Life moves on daily | 1 Comment

Sweet Potato Harvest.

Posted on September 30, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

A little Frost and they needed to come out..

The purples out did themselves this year..

Just some of the harvest..

and the vines all went as pig food, They are a total no waste plant, always love with the non people parts of plant can be critter food

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged cruing sweet potatos, feeding sweet potato vines to pigs, Harvest 2015, storage food, Sweet potatos, winter food | 2 Comments

Scones with Clotted Cream and strawberry Jam

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

My girlfriend make scones, they are delightful, she also went all out and made clotted cream, the left over milk-cream was used in the scones, and I can taste that they were made with butter, they are very rich indeed.

Farmgal Baking Powder

Half a cup of butter or magrine or lard (your choice)
Three cups flour
1/2 tsp of salt
1 Tbsp of Sugar
2 Tbsp of Baking Powder
1 cup of Milk

Take the first five and add them in a bowl, cut the cold fat into the flour mixture till its blended in to tiny peices no bigger then the size of pea’s, then make a well in the middle and add the milk and stir, it will make a soft dough if its sticky, add a little more flour, turn out on a floured surface and gentle pat down into a round circle about half an inch high, you can cut it with a glass, or a jar lid ring, or proper steel cookie cutters or you can take a pizza cutter and cut into sqaures or you can score lines and bake it as a solid peice

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged Baking powder, Clotted cream, English style, Farmgal Bisquiets, Scones, Strawberry jam | 1 Comment

Still going strong.. photo update..

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

blurry or not my mom arrived..

so glad she is here..

Lots of laughs in the house an kitchen

New lino in bathroom, working on the paint next.. almost there now

living room, new flooring and then one wall painted so far.

new counter and taps in

Snuck for a few hours for the plowing event

Posted in Life moves on daily | Leave a comment

Dining room is finished now..

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

The dining room which is the other half of my kitchen, in the oldest part of the house is done 🙂 and I just love it. We still have a few things in the kitchen to do yet but the sub floor, the lino, the painting and the new door is in and done.. will post when its finished as well

Its been raining on the farm for a solid 24 hours, such a blessing, we needed it, filled the rain barrels, the pond and the big horse trough and will do wonders at raising the levels on the well.

It was greatly need in the garden as well, the pasture is done for the year, but it will still enjoy the drink.

I am not so sure I am enjoying the muddy paw prints on the floor but boy can my new lino hide dirt well.. a good things really but also startling when you sweep twice daily.

Wishing you all a great sunday

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged Garden, harvest, House repairs, rain | 4 Comments

Tom Thumb Popcorn

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

Tom Thumb Corn – HEIRLOOM

Extra early popcorn succeeds even in cold climates. Dwarf plants each produce 1-2 petite yellow ears for table decorations or wreaths. Pops well with a slightly denser texture than commercial popcorn. Improved by the late Professor E. Meader at the University of New Hampshire. YELLOW • Popcorn • Dwarf 3’ plants • 3-4” ears. Days to maturity: 85 days

I snapped the above from the net..

I got the tom Thumb corn seeds at Seedy Saturday from a local vender, which if they told me true, meant that the past generation was raised locally.

It was planted first so that we could stagger it when we did our sweet corn. It was grown in a hill, we had run out of turned space by the time it got planted..

So it was a 3 by 3 chip of old rotting straw, and a wheel barrel of mixed compost, dirt and sand, we planted out 16 plants, all came up fast and true, but we lost a couple to critters, so we raised 12 plants, all but one had two cobs, the one on the edge only had one and poor pollination.. the rest good to go. you can see the little cob at the edge of the bowl

They grew well, reached 3 feet and a few inches, they appeared to have no issues with pests and their cobs are bigger then I thought, they average 4 inches with the odd at 4 and half an the biggest is 5 inches.

They are currently drying, and the rest went to the pigs for part of a supper, I will do a follow up on popping and taste in round two..

They were a strong growing plant with good results.

Posted in Life moves on daily | 2 Comments

A little Family get together..

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

One more post on family and then I will get back to some farm and recipes, I promise. Had Hubby’s dad’s side of the family come to the farm for two days, it was great hosting them. It was wonderful for his mother to get to see her inlaws for the first time in a few years.

There are lots of photos of everyone but we also got a casual at the fire..

Posted in Life moves on daily | 1 Comment

Crazy Drive Day.

Posted on September 4, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

We had a crazy busy drive day to go pick up hubbies mom.. had lunch with Aunt C as well.. got some great family photos taken, and on the way back home, stopped at one of the many local lakes and did a few pictures. The new suv did good, the drive day was hot, roads busy but the construction was bad! Delay, after Delay no a thing you can do about it though

Have a great day.