Just another Day on the Farm

Chili -Comfort Food

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

If you like chili, you know what I mean, a pound of ground meat, a fried onion. garlic, beans, mushrooms, a big old jar of tomato sauce, chili spice and time.. yum, lick the bowl yum!

Hit the ditch this morning in the van, I’m ok, other then I didn’t help the back issues from the cow any, and while it took five hours from start to finish to get everything sorted out, I am grateful that myself and the van seem mostly ok, I had to walk to the nearest farm, and the cold and windchill was brutal. one of those so rare moments I would have liked a mobile phone..

Sleep well, and tomorrow is a new day..

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged homemade chili | 2 Comments

12 months- 12 soaps -Cold Month- Cold Soaping-Spiced Pumpkin

Posted on January 29, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

Well, I hope next months soap will end up being done sooner in the month, during the day with lots of nice lighting to take photos on, and I am going to recommend a few really good basic books on soaping, I thought about this long and hard, and while I have NO issue giving my recipes, without video and lots of explaining the small details, I am not sure I can do a basic soap making on the blog in the detail I would be comfortable with.

But lets get back to Jan’s Soap, this month has been a little on the crazy side, its been so cold and the cold has brought a number of issues with it that have needed to be dealt with, and so I just didn’t get to the planned soap on a timely plan..

I finally made the pretty heart soaps for my Valentine Bags, but I still needed to get a kick in the pants on making either hair or baby soap..

Finally I said, just make any soap, what do you want to make or do, the answer came back quickly to me, BRRRRRRrrrrr, its cold out there!

So that’s just what I did, I pushed the edge of cold temp soaping, I am doing my best to slow all heating on the soap down, and I am working hard to not gel this soap.

The oils were just melted enough for me to blend it into a whipped oil, I used a icy slush of water and cooled my lye right down, and I had a thick trace to the point, I wondered if it was a false trace.. (and then everything started really moving along) I was working with two colors, and a layered/marbled/swirl effect in my typical two pound loaf in spiced pumpkin scented.

I got it in and finished but it was touch and go to get it done as fast as it was happening, I banged it good, I hope I got it to settle well, IF? it turns out correct, it will be a soft marbled effect with each bar looking different from the next one.

And here is the finished soap, its quite pretty, its a very hard soap with a good lather, it does have a very nice marble effect but I should have cut it sooner, it was just a touch to ready by the morning, I think this one was ready to be cut by the time I went to bed. Middle a full size bar at 6.5 oz, side to the left a nice 3.5 hand size bar, and to the right the back side of the bar

Posted in soap | Tagged 12 months 12 soaps, 12 soaps in 2014, homemade soap, Pumpkin spiced two toned swirled soap | 8 Comments

Great Goose Challange :) -2014

Posted on January 28, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

A friend of mine gave me a grassfed goose of a heritage breed and said, can you cook this and figure out how to make it taste good!? LOL

She informed me that she has a number in her freezer and the one they did, well lets just say that they were not impressed at all.

I have thawed out the goose and its been just sitting and chillin for two days to relax! I intend to allow the breasts/legs/thigh to sit in the fridge for another full day before doing anything with them.. the birds were frozen after butcher before they had a chance to relax, so this is very much needed on the back end.

Now I intend to cut it up into parts, different recipes for different parts so that I can try and give feedback on ways it was cooked.. now this was to be a young bird, hatched that spring, pasture raised, with almost no grain at all.

(Ps, this always makes me laugh a bit, every HUNTER know’s that they are aiming to get that goose that has been stuffing itself on corn or other grain or acorns or fall berries and treats, not the grass-fed only ones, but its all about marketing these days, a mostly grass-fed raised bird that was then “lightly finished on local Non-GMO grain would of course give you a MUCH higher quality bird” but it won’t sell as well)

now I am not knocking the grassfed part of the bird, but its a thin bird, and its not got a lot of fat on it, which by the time fall came on a natural wild bird, they would be plump, and have a good amount of fat in place..

My plan is to break the body into parts, two breast, two leg and thigh, roasting off the rest of the goose, which will lead to a meal with roasted meat and ideally enough left over to do a pick off and a second meal like goose pot pie..

I will render out the fat off the bird for a use as well. Now interesting to me is that this full size young goose is the same weight as one of my spring born, farm raised Muscovy drakes of the same age approx.

The wings are going for stock, and I have not decided if I am going to split the legs and the thighs into different meals or not.. time will tell.

While I am not going to be say that I will use it, anyone got their favorite Grassfed goose recipe they want to share? I’m open to ideas 🙂

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged great goose recipe challange | 5 Comments

Figured out what i am making with the calf hide

Posted on January 28, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

I am going to make a end table with it,,

Fresh Wet Hide

Finished Hide

and plan, wooden end table with a finished hide on top, the photos of the ideas are all of the net, but they give you the general idea.

Posted in Carfts an Hobbies | Tagged Calf hide | 1 Comment

A few little Valentine Soaps

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

I made dark pink heart tops, and then a few big full sized Pink and white with pink middles, and I had a little fun cutting up some to be a “broken heart”

Somethings on this worked, and some didn’t, its always a learning curve, It was nice to play a little..

Posted in Life moves on daily | 4 Comments

Introducing Lou – A pure Sebastopol Gander

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastopol_Goose

Now don’t get to excited, as I don’t have a purebred female to breed him to, but if you are interested in this breed, let me know and I will provide the contact info from where I got him from, she does a solid breeding program and would have purebred available for sale.

I got Lou to mate with Pom, giving me two breeding sets of geese for this year, we will see if I regret this idea or not.. I have Honk a mixed breed of Embden/ Pilgram and Hiss would appears to be a Embden/Buff.

Pom is a purebed female Pomeranian, who will be mated up with Lou the purebred Sebastopol Gander..

Of course the truth is the geese might have something to say about that, they might bond and breed in a way I was not expecting, but I am hoping that I won’t have to move them into breeding pairs, I am hoping that given that Honk/Hiss raised babies last year, will mean that they are mated up for this year.

The goal is to raise the babies as naturally as possible, with a light grain finish, I hope that each female will hatch out 6 to 12 babies per goose.

I am planning on ideally doing some goose down feather projects in the future, as well as wanting to plan for rendering a good amount of goose fat.

Do any of you raised geese? Any helpful hints or tips? While I do remember my mothers geese from my childhood, they hated me! and I have had Honk a couple years and I do so enjoy him and hiss, I was not quite as happy with Pom’s temperament, she is a little more pushy, Lou is a total sweetheart, he was imprinted on people as a wee babe and so he can be picked up, petted and handled.. total sweetheart but of course if mated and defending his female and babes, I expect that he will be a lot more protective.

Honk and Hiss were given the bought babies to raise last year (as Honk was bonded to Apple the duck hen when Hiss came and while she was laying, he would not bond or breed with her at that time) and they were amazing parents, and I have high hopes for them being the same this year, it will be Pom/Lou’s first year of breeding, so we will see..

I am open to any helpful hints or tips on raising geese as naturally as possible, I want the females to sit, hatch and the parent unit to raise the offspring..

Posted in Critters | Tagged Geese Update 2014 | 3 Comments

Sorry for the MIA

Posted on January 26, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

Hi Gang,

Rough couple days at the farm this week, Not going into detail on this, its just to raw to me, so going to touch on it and then we are going to move on..

As you know I lost my big old ram, it was a awesome boy and it was a blow, every time I see the flock, I feel him missing..

Then came Girl, I had not planned on moving Girl out, I knew logically that it was a good move but I was not there in my heart, then Girl pushed the issue with her “I will be top cow” and so she got moved out, I remained standing and pushing though, but the cracks were showing..

But this week, was not expecting it.. I have a goodly number of hounds, and a number of them are older, as in into their teens and I baby them and we have all kinds of things in place to give them the best older years possible, but I was not expecting one of “middle” age hounds to get sick and it was found that he had cancer, and he went downhill very quickly, it was a very hard choice that needed to be made and I know it was the right one, he passed over the bridge to the other side.

But that does not change the fact that it has hit me like a brick wall, Rest in Peace my lovely boy! You will be sadly missed, you were as quick with your tail wags as you were with your tongue, you loved your head snuggles and your special run, hit the door, turn a full 360 was filled with joy.. you were always filled with life, kindness and love..

For all of you who share your world with critters, hounds and purrpots, you know just how much of a void they leave in your life when they go..

Posted in Life moves on daily | 9 Comments

Farming and injuries..

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

I love sharing my recipes, photos of the critters, the lovely newborns, the cycle of life on the farm, the garden and more with you all.

There are a few subjects that don’t get covered as much on other blogs that I read, and I am trying to a point to cover them when needed on mine, as an example, last year when I got kicked by the cow, I shared the injury and the recovery in pretty good detail.

Of course, I didn’t talk to much about the knee being weaker, and that I have now done month and months of workouts to strengthen the leg and the muscles that support the knee itself.

Which brings me to the lastest of my ow’s, Now if you have been following from the beginning, I have a amazing ability to find any nails that are flipped and step on them, I can slide and fall in winter, like no body’s business..

These kinds of things I consider my own fault and so be it, but this time is the not my choice for getting injuried, it was girls, three days before she was to leave (a couple days after she had a run in with being “over the top boss cow attitude” with my hubby, she took a run at me, it was over quickly and I handled it well, she was fine afterwards, and I had only taken two cow head butts.

However, they were good ones, and I went to bed the first night and rested, I took it easy and I did my stretches and I did my standing DVD and in truth I thought I was healing pretty good.. I really did, I felt not bad, energy coming back up, until I went to see Isabelle..

O my, we could work and put hips and neck back in, but I have pulled/moved my left ribs cage.. and its not nice, not nice at all, when she went to work on it, I about came off the table, I love that girl but at that moment, I didn’t know if I wanted to scream, curse or hit something 🙂

I went with a low moany wail of pain, she went with, massage, ice rub and you need to book in for a message before I can even begin to work on that, and I will be seeing you much more often till we can get it fixed..

Sigh.. not only is the cow costs unplanned but now I can add in several hundred dollars worth of extra medical that I was not expecting either, thankfully some of it will be covered our medical plan, but that means that I won’t have that coverage later in the year.. sigh.

I can let it scar now, and deal with it later in life or I can deal with it now.. I prefer now..

We don’t talk much about the little bumps that farmers get, and I get why, we just deal, its part of life, I mean, broody hen, fresh laid egg, of course I am going to peeked yesterday when I made her move..

Yes, I got a small burn when canning, and every time it gets near heat, it burns, a reminder to not be so careless next time.

Feeding out grains, sheep are not polite, they will bump you as they mill around, you can use a dog to hold them back if you want to do so, but none the less, bump, bump, bump..

Out riding in the bush, dodge a branch, thawk.. you get the idea..

We move on and we get it done, but that does not mean that we don’t get strains, bruises or even true injuries, we just tend to post cute photos, interesting stories and recipes..

Thankfully, its all worth it!

Posted in Life moves on daily | 7 Comments

Jan 2014 canning Update

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

So far, its been pretty slow really, but I am ideally going to be canning a bit more before the end of the month, we will see how it goes..

The plan is to just do one monthly canning update, with some photos of the end products.

So far I have done up pineapple, its a very frugal canning project, twice a year, the local sales go on for a extra large pineapple for one dollar, (no tax) and each one makes two pint jars per.. so if you buy 20 pineapples, you get 40 pints, as pineapple is one of the fruits that can be canned in water, you don’t need to use a sugar unless you want to, and if you are reusing jars/lids, then the only costs are new lids, and power, so each pint jar of will cost around 60 t0 65 cents per, which is excellent compared to regular dole pineapple tidbit pricing, (granted if you don’t can, you can watch for excellent sales on those cans of pineapple but the can just keeps getting smaller)

If I can more, I will update it on this post, and then will add the single months post to the canning log on the top of the blog 🙂 A little bit of fresh sunshine on a cold winter day..

Posted in Canning | Tagged Canning Pineapple, Canning Update jan 2014 | 2 Comments

Roasted Guinea fowl

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

As promised, I have some fresh meat in the house, both a guinea fowl and a rabbit was done this weekend, today I roast off the Guinea fowl on a bed of celery, onion and garlic, served it with butternut squash, yum!

nice full flavour, like a dark rich, just a little gamey chicken. its a got a real depth of flavor to meat, despites its smaller size, we will get three regular meats and then I will pick the bits of for a small pot of soup.