Just another Day on the Farm

Making Bone Broth..

Posted on February 24, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

Now we all know that Bone Broth is so good for you, and you see it on so many homesteading blogs, and I do agree, its very good for you, if wonderful to make your own broths.. but so often I see folks take the bones, put them in a stock pot with onion, garlic and sometimes celery and carrot..

Now I would love to take credit for what I am about to tell you, but it came from mom and she got it from her mother.

Are you ready.. … drum roll please.. bake/brown your bones before you simmer then in your pot..

Drain off the lovely tallow and save it for future use, it will also lean up your broth, now I will admit that I would have not have minded baking these bones a bit longer but I wanted the oven space for something else, and these were done well enough to all color, and flavour to the broth, every single bit of that awesome golden broth color on those bits of meat, fat and bone itself is going to go towards making my bone broth full bodied, dark an rich colored..

Do give it a try 🙂

Lovely to ride today..

Posted on February 23, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

They say that the temps will be dipping back into the cold soon enough so today was just a perfect day to get out for a nice short winter ride.. Brandy’s foot is healing much better and faster then I expected, and Jason is under 200 pounds, and her saddle is one of those light weight synthetic, unlike Sam’s which is a good old fashioned heavy real leather one.

So I figured I would do a few ground training on her and if she looked good, her and Jason could take a slow steady careful walk only ride.. (at least that was the plan) and O did she want to go for a ride..

She did everything perfect, she opened her mouth and took the bit, she stood and stood for Dh to mount and she was a perfect horse the whole trip, she was truly a please to ride, she did everything asked of her, she was slower in her walk then normal and Dh said he could tell that she was striding different and while I could see it just the tiniest bit, it was not really showing in her movement.

It made my heart all warm to get to see her and my man make sure a good team today.. Proud of both of them.

Sam and I had such a bad ride last week, that I decided that we needed a whole new plan for today, so he was tied up and left in the pasture while I worked with Brandy in the front yard, then I went and got him and we did ground work for a good solid 20 min, I then backed him though the gate and down the path before taking him to the grooming and tacking area.

He got a new bit, and some tack adjustments, the new bit is one my dad sent me and while I need to get use to it, there is no doubt in my mind that I had better control with it then his old bite, so that is good.

It was a very good ride, we only had one small “fight out”, and that was when I asked him to circle , I wanted him to circle Brandy and he “thought” I was asking him to leave her and head in a different direction and so we did a lot of side to side and move sideways, very little backing as I was driving hard for forward, I finally got a full circle and we caught up.

The rest of the things I asked him went well, we did whoa and stand, we did walk on’s, we did slow walks, fast walks, and trot, we did soft left and right shifts, we stood in a stand for vehicles to go by, we walked while they went by, all in all a very good ride..

We had some gun shots happen and Sam very much started and was concerned about them, Brandy is a old hand at them and other then looking and turning a ear, didn’t much care, so clearly that is on the list of things to work with for sam this year.

We let the horses pick their feet and placement carefully on the ice/snow that we did need to cross but mainly we rode our clean road and at times the gravel side, it was a slow, easy, steady safe ride.. and it was about a perfect way to spend the morning, I got to sleep in, Dh made me fresh dippy eggs, I worked with tack, played with the horses and took a ride with my man.. I am a Blessed FG and I know it.

I hope you had a wonderful sunday with your family and loved ones.

Now I had better get some work done, because this morning sure felt like play to me 🙂

Posted in draft horse | Tagged Winter Riding | Leave a comment

Live and learn.

Posted on February 22, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

Today was in many ways a wonderful day, great company, the alarm went of crazy early, I was awake from about 3am and the alarm went off at 6am, I was up and making chili in the shuttle chef for a hot lunch, buns, beef Jerky, hot chocolate and water plus fruit was packed up along with chairs, wool blankets, winter gear and I meet up with the girls and we loaded up the horse and off we went to a jumping clinic, only one was jumping and two were watching and spending the day listening and learning.

Now the farm and area is awesome! The ladies we meet are helpful, kind and some of them are bust a gut funny, the horses were mixed, all lovely but some were very green, some were old hands and others were just loving it..

The day ran smoothly, things were on time and everyone got their time in the saddle..

Only one hiccup.. what we went for, is not what we got out of it..

Now you have to understand the information was steady, the instructions were good, the instructor was very good at shifting things around for each rider and horse team.

But everyone else went to learn to jump, or to expose the horse to something different or to have a fun day out..

We went to learn how to jump better, not jump better for in shows, or jump better to work towards titles or ribbons, none of that mattered to us.. we wanted to learn how to jump better with info that could be brought home to the farm and our trails etc.

The first thing we learned is that we are using the “wrong” saddle, the “wrong bridle and bit” the wrong seating, and yet at home on the farm, and on the trails, we are jumping regular and often.

That’s were it gets tricky, you see you want to learn, I mean you paid to learn from someone who is very good and knowledgeable in the field.

The trick is to know that you are in fact working on different fields.. I know, I know, it should not be, It never fails to amaze me when someone says, you can’t do such and such..

But we are doing it..

well, you have to be doing it wrong..

Why wrong.. because you can’t do that western

But we are doing it western

Well its not safe, it has to be English..

How the hell did my grandfather, my uncles and aunts and my mother, myself, my brothers and thousands of the rest of us somehow all be able to jump and ride our thousands of horses in the west then..

It was a moment of huh, you see the wonderful ladies stepped up, they helped us with tack and they did it with smiles and we were grateful..

An yet, there was a small part that was also doing a slow head shake..

Sometimes it pays to have a better understanding on where they are coming from and a very clear understanding on what it is you are wanting out of event..

It was a good time in many ways but when you don’t have the same goals, it just can’t be a meld moment..

On the other hand, I can’t wait to take what I learned about flat work and use it in my regular workout with Brandy and Sam in WESTERN tack LOL

Posted in Life moves on daily | 5 Comments

Basic Beef Jerky Recipe

Posted on February 21, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

I got a request for sharing how to make Beef Jerky.. now I do have a dehydrator, but not everyone does, and I have the ability to use a smoker but not everyone does.

So for this post, I decided to go as basic as possible so that someone new to this would have the best chance at turning out some mighty fine basic but yummy jerky.

Take a lean roast, I used a sirloin Tip, but any roast will work, you want that baby cold, I mean part frozen pretty much for slicing, I was going to cheat and use my meat slicer and then remembered that most folks most likely don’t have it either…

So take a very sharp knife and slice it as thin as you can, its fine if its not perfect, trim off any fat, if needed trim off parts of the roast, you need lean meat to get proper jerky.

You will be amazed at how much Jerky can be had from a single roast, take a glass or steel (not plastic) container. Put a little layer of the sauce and spice down and then lay a layer of the slices, repeat until you finish and have the sauce on top.. put a cover over the pan or bowl and into the fridge for at least twelve hours.

Now the most basic sauce is soy sauce with a touch of Worchester sauce and I highly recommend you get the naturally brewed kind if at all possible, but you can use whatever kind is in the house.

Now you can add a tbsp. of brown sugar to it, I know folks that do, but I don’t think its needed, IF you can’t use the soy sauce then, consider a nice rice vinager1/3rd, apple cider vinager 1/3 and brown sugar 1/3rd.. because with the vinagers, you need to sweeten them up a bit.

Spice time.. it can be as simple as salt and pepper, or seasoning salt, or montreal steak spice or your favorite jerky spice mix..

I happen to know that the girls that I am heading out to a horse clinic with love it a bit spicy, so I made mine with Montreal Steak Spice and seasoning salt, some of the pieces will be a little less heat, and others a little more heat.

So now they have sat for 12 hours and you are going to notice that they “firmed” up compared to yesterday when they went in, that’s just fine. I figure the odds are good that you all have a oven so turn it down to either its lowest setting or 180 to 190 c, if you have a warming cycle, that is not hot enough, needs to be at the lowest cooking setting.

Put it out on cookie sheets or if you have it, cooling baking racks on the cookie sheets so that you get air flow on both sides at the same time but I am going to assume that folks will have cookie or can pans but not going to assume that everyone has cooling racks.. The photo below, you can see the pull back and the nice drying and color on it, its ready to be flipped, this the same piece as the finished one on top in the bowl..

So lay them out, not touching and into the oven to go.. they will need a good amount of time to dry, the smaller and thinner pieces will dry faster, about half way though the process, you will need to flip them if they are on a flat surface, if on a rack or in a dryer, this is still a ok thing to do but its not nearly as needed.

You are looking for a dried piece of jerky, it should feel firm, dry but should still bend just a bit to the touch, if it snaps, its really well done, nothing wrong with that but for fresh eating, you want the bend ideally, it will be better eating. If you want long term storage, they will need to be dried to the point that they snap when bent.

Posted in Food Production and Recipes | Tagged homemade beef jerky | 4 Comments

Eastern coyotes aka coy-wolvies

Posted on February 21, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

Being raised it the west, I was raised up knowing what a Western coyote looked like, but when I moved to Ontario, they were just wrong, found out that the coyotes in Ontario interbreed with wolvies

For year now, there has been a pack in my area and I have never had a issue with them, they circle around the farm, some nights they sing so close that we lift our heads, and head down to lock down the doors on the barns just for safety sake..

We have had fishers, coon, and skunks and we tend to have a fox problem pretty much every year with the free range birds till we got the guard goose’s.

But never the coyotes.. till yesterday..

Till one of them cross over from local bush lots, trotted right up a well used path, jumped a fence (which is very low jump because the snow is so high at this point) caught one of my wee bubble twin lambs, and jumped back out and took it back to the woods..

SON of a @&&*, parden the lang but the idea of one of my trusting sweet lambs having to suffer that kind of fate is enough to make me both want to howl in anger and cry in sadnesss.

I had hoped to do a bit more tracking today but the weather has succesfull destroyed that chance, so we only have what we got in night by flashlight.

The sheep and lambs spent the night in the barn locked up, as did the geese etc, they have only been let out well after dawn and they will be locked back up well before dusk.. The trail cam is current set up in a spot that I hope will give me some answers, and the locals have been informed of what has happened as well.

I have a very firm policy that I let the wildlife be wildlife, I don’t feed them, I don’t mess with them, but I also have a firm policy, no messing with my farm, gardens or my livestock!

A very grumpy Farmgal this morning..

Posted in Life moves on daily | 26 Comments

Lamb love..

Posted on February 20, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

Posted in Critters | 2 Comments

March is coming.. anyone going to join me this year for the pantry challange?

Posted on February 20, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

March is coming, its not that long before I will starting my fourth year of March Pantry challenge.. I have a number of new readers over the past year, so I thought I would give a head up in case any of you would like to take the challenge for the weekend, for a week or two or get really brave and aim for the whole month?

Basic Rules are as follows, eat out of your farm, home and or Pantry only!

Pets and Critters are exempt
Pick a month and go from the 1st to the 31st

Our extra rules

Can still shop stores for loss leaders or sales for our food pantry but it can not be used during the month of the challange.
If DH is traveling out of town for work, those days are exempt from the challange for him.

Dh agreed to the challange but threw out one of his own.. he says he is happy to give a hand and follow along but that I need to make it seems like there is no challange going on when it comes to meal time..and that in and of itself is going make this just a touch more tricky..

So the month we picked was March for a couple reason

Its a long month with a full 31 days in it.

Everything outside is still frozen solid-putting me at a disadvantage
we are well into winter and there are a number of things that are getting low in storage as we have already been eating out of our home grown pantry for five months now.
No Shopping extras, still can only have my regular max of 60 dollars on the coming shopping for the last two weeks of Feb, plus my regular 40 for stocking if sales are there

These factors should give the challange a bit more Oomph!

“Just to add a little more work and to keep myself on the level -I will do a daily meal planner and to make it interesting to the readers, I will do my best to post lots of recipes and photos to go along with.”

I did this on my first year of 2011, and it was a lot of work but those are posts that are very interesting to read and I think it really helps folks see what can be in a pantry and how its used.. so I am going to work hard to do the same this year.

Its worth noting that DH works off the farm full time, and that I am home full-time working on the farm, there are times where we both take time off the farm related to our work jobs (but never at the same time).

So I was talking to my momma about this upcoming challange and she was all on board, turns out her farm womens group had this same challange in March of 83, and she did it herself, she said the only thing she ran out of was brown sugar and libbies baked beans, an that us kids eat her out of all her canned fruit.

One of the ladies of the group was named Agnes and she gave up in the middle of the challange, and went to the store for coffee an a few other things and Voilet (who was in her 80′s at the time) said to her, “Honestly Agnes, some years we did not go to the stores at all if we were expecting.. we only sent our husbands once a year for coffee, tea, baking powder, Baking soda and salt in 50 or 100 pds bags”

Love hearing about how things were..

Posted in food | Tagged march pantry eat out of your house challange 2014 | 5 Comments

How to use liver -Liver Recipes

Posted on February 20, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

Now I asked for hints of what folks are looking for and someone said, can you give me a idea of what you do with your liver.. I am cheating a little here folks, I am pulling out photos and recipes from the past on the blog.

So for me at least the liver comes in a huge big piece from my butcher, it does not come in a good freezer bag either, so my first steps are to get out my knife, now you can use a regular knife but I like my old electric Bread knife to be honest and I cut it pretty much frozen, as in just thawed enough to cut but ice cold and mostly frozen, its cut into slices for some, and chunks for other dishes, then its repackaged. Some of its will go for dog training treats, some of it will go for pate and the rest will end up normally fried and served up as a liver supper.

On the farm, I am much more likely to have fresh small livers, fowl, rabbit, lamb or pork, Beef liver is gotten max once every year to year an half so most of my recipes are based on the smaller livers but regardless the basic’s are the same, shift the recipes up and down based on the size of livers you are using and the amount of portions you are making.

(yes, I know, I know, I expect my readers to have a steady grasp on the basic’s of cooking)

https://livingmydreamlifeonthefarm.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/pork-liver-with-peppers-and-greens/

https://livingmydreamlifeonthefarm.wordpress.com/2013/01/09/fried-rabbits-livers-on-a-bed-of-colorful-veggies-recipe/

https://livingmydreamlifeonthefarm.wordpress.com/2012/12/28/lamb-liver-with-onions-mushrooms-on-sauerkraut-recipe/

https://livingmydreamlifeonthefarm.wordpress.com/2012/08/07/farmgals-duck-liver-with-applegreen-tomato-recipe/

https://livingmydreamlifeonthefarm.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/breaded-lamb-liver-recipe/

https://livingmydreamlifeonthefarm.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/rabbit-liver-pate-recipe/

https://livingmydreamlifeonthefarm.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/duck-liver-pate-recipe/

https://livingmydreamlifeonthefarm.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/lamb-liver-pate-recipe/

https://livingmydreamlifeonthefarm.wordpress.com/2011/02/28/curry-chicken-liver-and-potato-soup-recipe/

Ah but there is one other way to use up some of that liver, grind it and mix it with your ground meats for stuffing in sausages, Like heart, lungs and spleen, a small amount of liver ground up, with organ meats taking between 5 to 10% of the overall mix will just blend and your family and friends will never know 🙂

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged Liver Recipes, Ways to use liver | Leave a comment

Picked up our Beef today

Posted on February 19, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

Well, we picked up 510 pounds of beef, plus bones and organs today from the butcher, my o my, that is a lot of beef.. Low end costs bought a full buy out, its around 2500 hundred dollars worth of beef, to buy equal to ours grass-fed, non-gmo feed locally, you are looking between 4080 to 5600.

Blade Roasts-7
Rump Roasts-4
Cross Rib Roasts-5
Blade Roasts-5
Loin Tip Roasts-4
Sirloin Tip Roasts-7
Minute Steaks-11 Packages
Boneless Stew-6 Packages
Burger -126 Packages
Rib Steaks-11 Packages
Top Sirloin Steaks-11 Packages
T-Bone Steaks-17 Packages
Round Steak- 13 Packages
Filets Steak-3 Packages
Brisket-2 Packages
Beef Bacon-2 Packages

Still left from our Last Beef Marty.. please remember that we didn’t plan on shipping girl when we did, we expected to need to make our Marty beef last till this coming fall so I had been staggering it out, now suddenly boy do I need to start using it up.. Given that Glenda will be ready for butcher this fall as planned.

Stew-4 packages
Burger-20 Packages
Short Rib Roast-3 Packages
Cross Rib Roast-3 Packages
Sirloin Tip Roasts-4 Packages
Rump Roast-1 Package
Rib Steak-5 Packages
T-Bone-7 Packages
Blade Steak -4 Packages
Filet Steak -1 Package

Given that we needed to clean out, tidy both of our freezers, it seemed like the perfect time to do a full count on what we have at the moment.. I am not going to weigh it out but my guess is around a min of a thousand pounds of farm raised meat. Wow do I feed blessed and I don’t feel the need to raise or grow near as much meat over this season, some yes, but I think I will consider slowing down some of my breeding plans on the smaller critters.

Lamb- One whole lamb 24 pounds and 6 pounds of burger

Four whole Roasting Rabbits

1 Whole pig, right around 180 worth of Pork.

One turkey breast (farm raised left)

Parts of Chicken(farm raised left) totally, approx. three chickens

Parts of Duck (farm raised left) totally approx. four ducks

5 B.C. Salmon cut and wrapped into portions.

Ok, so talk to me folks, I am planning on Beef Jerky, Beef Bacon, Beef Sausages both fresh and cured, Corned Beef and I am sure I will figure out a few more things as well.. Is there anything you want to see me make with beef over the next while?

Posted in food | Tagged Whole Beef order | 12 Comments

Maple Syrup Season is around the corner!

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

This is a old photo from a couple years ago but the time for planning is now. I have a dear friend that as said that I am allowed to tap some of her big maples, I am hoping to do four big tree’s this year, I never said that I was doing a huge Maple syrup season now did I 🙂

It will be enough to make some for ourselves and for gifts for the homemade family Christmas of 2014..

I am so looking forward to this Christmas, so many things planned now, new seed orders for really hot peppers for Big Brother, new little tiny red popcorn seeds for growing popcorn for stocking stuffers, New seed and book orders for how to grow and make gourd bird house, both for gifts and for the farm, also a second one that is said to be able to be made into gift bowls.. we will see if I have any talent there or not LOL

I am going to see if I can make my mother in law her favorite maple sugar but with our own maple, I am hoping to make some maple candy lollipops.

But the big one that I am drooling about is making some maple sausages and making my maple corned beef, o my, o my, if you have never cooked something in maple water, well let me tell ya, its something else.. the flavour is out of this world good!

Add in a little crabapple smoke and its heaven in each slice.. Now I need to figure out taps, buckets and all the other bits, some this year is going over a fire and some is going over propane, it gives such a different looks, taste depending on how its done.