Just another Day on the Farm

Zucchini Loaf Recipe

Posted on August 10, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

This recipe is going to use less oil then normal and I had to remove the walnuts because while I have been eating lots of other kinds of nuts with no issues, I can’t quite bring myself to eat a walnut yet..

Farmgal (frugal on store fats but heavy on farm fats) Zucchinni Loaf

2 large farm fresh eggs, or 3 med eggs
(sweet Version 1 cup of sugar), non-sweet – 1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of fat, or 1/2 cup of farmgal sweetened apple sauce
1/2 cup full fat milk if you are using the apple sauce
2 cups of flour
a pinch of salt
1 tsp of cinnamon
1 tsp of allspice
1 cup finely grated raw zucchini
1 tbsp. of baking powder
a pinch of baking soda

Beat your eggs and sugar and oil or apple sauce and milk, beat well, then add your flour, your spices, salt and Baking powder and salt and zucchini, mix in till just mixed, into a greased loaf pan at 350 for a full hour (but often takes up to ten more min. knife check that it comes out clean.

This is a thick, heavy loaf with lots of filling power, its not a light zucchini loaf, but it will do the trick when you need a good solid energy boost at the coffee break.. Its a bit on the spicy rich full bodied side but if you want it even more so.. add a 1 tsp of ginger to the mix.. be it dried or fresh grated. just yum!

Posted in Food Production and Recipes | Tagged Zucchini loaf recipe | Leave a comment

Fall Crop planting and spring crop harvesting..

Posted on August 9, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Well, its that time of the year, while parts of the garden, like spuds, corn and squash are going strong in their own area’s there are many others that are either ready for harvest or ready to have their area pulled of finished plants and if you are lucky enough to live in a area that has spring, summer and fall, to be replanted.

I am unsure why and where came the idea that you plant once in spring (on may long weekend) and then you harvest and you are done when you are done.. but I know that for me at least in my zone 5a here in the Ottawa valley, that is just thrown out of the window, partly because our weather has been changing by the year (who’s has not) but last year we were harvesting our first baby eating potato’s at the end of may! Two years ago, while we got one or two frost nipped nights, we then had almost another six weeks till the next good frost, I was bringing in fresh rasberries to harvest and enjoy into Nov..

Now of course, I am not above cheating, I use hot box’s, greenhouses, row covers and all kinds of other tricks to add heat in the spring, and to protect from frost and give that added bit of warm in the fall.

Still, the past couple weeks have been crazy on the farm, so while we should have been planting (and we did get some done) most of the time we have been off and running.. so its been a joy this week to get out and get more harvesting done, and to get many many more rows planted.. Dh got five more piggy plots planted out at the end of july and they are all up and growing to beat the band, I am redoing all the hotbox’s, and will be working on the greenhouse and getting it re-started for fall..

I am also starting seed saving, my vine dried pea’s where ready this week for harvest, radishs are coming right along and so are nettle seeds, the burdock plants are ready to be cut, burned and the roots harvested, ideally something we will be getting done this weekend. A whole bunch of bigger beets got pulled but with them came the smaller baby beets.. so yummy.. I like to steam them, slip the skins and serve them with just butter and salt/pepper.. the hounds begged for fresh beets more then they do when its meat on the plate, they love, LOVE beets!

What is your favorite way to serve fresh baby beets out of the garden? my favorite way of all, and I have many of them is beets in a creamy milk sauce.. o my…

The squash flowth over..

Posted on August 9, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Well, the squash bed is sure getting interesting.. so as you know the original bed started out at 700 square feet, this was a full round bale rolled down and then hills made, it filled it and continued to spread.. so we mowed two on one side and three on the other side right to the tree’s on both sides of the bed.. it contined to grow and fill that space.. now in the first week of aug, we are at the tree lines.. On the left, you have two lines of different tree’s and fruiting bushes and canes, along with ground covers.. and on the right side, you have spruce, fruit tree’s, fruiting bushes and herbs..

Well, the squash has on the right, in some case run right through the tree rows and come out the other side on the top of the ditch hill.

on the left side, it continues to grow into the ground cover and it also is climbing trees..

The first produced winter squash are already huge, a lot of them are already over a foot in length and some are upward of eight inches across already, with dozen and dozens of small ones ranging from itty bitty to the size of many hand already forming,

we have not had hard good rain in a week and I have been keeping a close eye on the plants so far, they are hold very well, but I will give a deep watering this weekend and then hope for rain over the next ten days..

How is your squash coming this year?

Posted in Food Forest | Tagged food forests, squash grown in straw, Squash hills, squash plants | 5 Comments

O my god, really? Water tips for when you have to haul it by the bucket.

Posted on August 8, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Ok, this is related post to Doomer and Sunshines requests for info on saving water, see the whole post here on Canadian Doomer..

http://www.canadiandoomer.ca/2013/08/looking-for-water-conservation-tips.html

As I can no longer commnet, despite fighting with the comment software a good number of times, and because I will be writing out some easy and some no so easy to live and do tips, I figured it would be a good blog post as well.

Ok, a little background info on the times that I have been without water (as in running water in a house)

1st time, younger child, at first water was hauled in and then a well was drilled, so we had a well in the yard to haul in from.. house had power and propane. I also spent a number of weeks in my teen years at the same place with the same no running water in the house.

2ns time- older- again a house without running water, propane limited, gen -limited, with a creek an a drilled well

3rd time- my current farm, worked off the back well only, which means hand pumping all water and carrying it to the house for use.

Ok, so this is in fact a combo effect, they had a low water in the well, due to a leaking toilet, so clearly, ideally they would have a way to check to listen if their pump is kicking in but I am not sure if they have a pump, I think it was gravity feed, so in that case a once a week check on all area’s that could leak would be well worth that bit of time.

Second, checking the well at different times of the season well worth it, and then as you learn your land, and your well, you can begin to learn “signs” for when the well is going down, also learn the taste of your water, it changes based on the amount of water in your well and if you are good at that, it will help greatly, I can get to within a few feet of us checking based on the taste of my water after this number of years.

I can also look at my slew area and my pond and have a good tell on them on where the well will be at, as I have a large hugelculture near the well, the plants also tell me, my swells tell me information as well.

Ok but getting back to their questions, first off, I am going to straight out say, that a lot of folks will cringe alittle at the idea of this given our modern, but I am going to share anyway.

So for the hand washing water, first where gloves when possible, they will get really dirty but they save your hands a fair amount, second, in the morning, have a wash pan with a bar of good soap, pour your water in the pan, wash hands with soap, rinse in the same water, dry hand on small towel (to remove the soapy water) and in a much smaller bowl have clean rinse water with the typical amount of bleach per the bottles instructions, then dip the hands in the clean and reusable rinse water, air dry them and repeat, that first water can be used all day with bits of fresh added if needed to warm it up but mainly its just reused over and over, as is the rinse water.

Second, forget baths or showers.. if water is truly tight, you go back to sponge bathing, and once a week hair washing, if you are positive you must shower, and you are willing to haul the water to do so and to heat it up etc, stand in a tub so that the water can be reused for flushing a toilet or for wash water etc.

Hand washing will take much, much less water then using a machine, unless you can save the water as it comes out each time.. my currently machine takes eight five gallon buckets twice to do a single load, I can wash and rinse, wring and hang to dry two to four loads by hand with a total of four five gallon buckets..

How much water can you lift, standard is five gallon buckets which is 40 pounds per side, as you should ideally carry a bucket on each side to balance the weights on, I personally never go heavier then that. dumping it out is the same, just different buckets but as I believe they have a system for grey water, you can put it down the sinks or the toilet.

I don’t agree with replacing the toilet as commented on, its already there, its set up etc, what I do recommend is considering adding a working outhouse to the farm, this means that if water is low, everyone goes out, but when water is good, you can have both working systems, also it means that in heavier work times or with busy children, feet and footwear does not need to come off before coming in the house etc.

Where and how can I dump it, I don’t understand this one? its grey water, you can dump it anywhere you want, in the gardens, on the tree’s, in the compost pile to keep it at the right water content.

Now laundry got brought up, so there is a couple things of note, first, there should be outside cloths, be it overall’s or a certain pair of pants and shirt combo or dress, that is considered farm, if you are truly short short on water, this outfit is a over or outside outfit out, and you where it over and over again without washing it.. sorry folks.. it was a running joke that true farm blue jeans could stand up on their own, they go on and then come off, but they don’t go to the laundry any more then barn coverall’s do.

Most of the time, these cloths don’t make it past the mud room or the pegs on the outside porch etc, they stink, and they are dirty, go to town cloths are the opposite, they are clean, press and worn off the farm, and the second you walk back in the door, they are taken off, hung back up and might be hung outside to air out, but are again only washed ever so many times they worn, or if you spill, you would spot wash them, example a spill or example wash out the pits only, rinse and dry.

now the daily wash is simple, its one load, socks and underwear, these need to be washed daily and kept on..

Before bed washing always includes necks, feet so that you are climbing into bed with clean feet, as your sheets are going to be washed typically once a month in this system, again they can be taken off the beds and air dried and blown around on the lines to sweeten them.

Again, I am not talking about typically living, I am talking if you need to really conserve your water for a few weeks to get you though the heat of summer.

Which bring me to the next point if you are going to run low on water, you will need to look to every way possible to get water off the roofs of buildings etc as the amount of water able to be collected off of them is amazing! and each drop you can use from a rain water system for your animals watering needs, your garden watering needs, your household needs is one less bucket coming out of your well for “clean water needs” rain water is perfect for washing floors etc.

Now something that uses more water then most think of is canning, it takes a lot of hauled in water to fill a big pressure canner, ideally you can get a few uses out of it, and a splash of vinager in the water is a great help on this but if you are canning daily, you are filling it daily and it takes an amazing amount of water..

If possible waterbath as much as possible as it takes less water and if you treat the water can be used for longer, then the pressure canner can do so. That water can be used for garden use

Well, I hope that helps a bit.. and hopefully, if you are going to run low, it will only be for a few weeks of the year at a time.

I’m using city water, but monitoring how much I actually use each day, and trying to break down everything into the simplest and most efficient steps: how to wash (& rinse!) your hands without running water. How to best do laundry. How much water can I lift, either to haul water or to dump it out? Where/how can I dump it? (I especially wonder what I’ll do in cold Canadian winters!!)

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged water saving tips on the extreme end | 8 Comments

Moving Pigs- Using herd instincts and boards..

Posted on August 8, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Pigs are very interesting critters, in some ways they are very much herd animals and they are a odd mix of prey and predator in their behaviour.

Now I am going to talk about this in terms of a small farm, in no way is this advance meant for someone who had many many pigs, nope, this is for those of us that have one or two sows and raise a litter of piglets, some for weaner sales, some to raise pork for our own freezers or for farm gate sales.

so the first thing we need to learn is that our lovely sweet pig or two who we will be able to gentle and have voice trained will not be much help on the piglets that are going to be a mob at the weaner age, when it comes to the wee babes, I don’t even bother with the board/herding stick training, I just go straight to the food and the board method.

So lets look at the ways to train your pig and piglets.

The call.. o yes, this is a near and dear thing.. this is the call you make when you arrive and you are carrying goodies, be it hay, bedding, scrapes or feed.. you should have the same call for everyone on the farm, in my case, its Pig, Pig, Pig, said in a lower, sharper almost grunty repeat of a sound.. its farmgal’s version of a momma pigs food call grunting. Only if the pigs are far away, will I raise it up to a higher sound but it keeps the same rapid sound, but it becomes a lyric sound, this tells them to come in, where as the lower sound says “food/Water/Bedding etc”

now if you have bigger outside pens as well as indoor pens, awesome, this is even better because you can teach them to move from spot to spot, if they are sitting at x, don’t feed there, walk over to y or z and call them to you. If they are all waiting at the gate, walk down the fence line and call them and then feed and walk back up to do the water etc.

They should learn at a young age, that they want to get to where you are at but they also need to learn how to follow..

The bucket.. even if you are feeding food that does not rattle, learn out to make your bucket rattle, rattle, rattle is a very good thing, if you always use the same buckets and the same sound, it will create a conditioned response.

Every now and again when you just one pig or two, let them stick their head in and take a bit while leading them around and soon enough you will have a pig that is well trained to move from place to place following the “lure” now the bucket is lure that I like but Miss Piggy is trained to banana’s, its considered a special treat around the farm, and even when she is out in the pasture and giving me the stink eye on, I am not going to the barn or to that other pasture, banana is sure to get the correct following.

Now that is good for everyone, and if you are only doing one or two pigs, the above will meet most of your needs, but piglets are different matter. They are a wee mob and will run this way and that, and be danged the food bucket, or the call.. we are so busy! busy, I tell you..

that is when the boards come into play, they are great for smaller spaces of course but even for bigger pastures, they are handy, the reason is simple, if they can’t see to go that way, they won’t, if you can line it up that someone is leading and the other is pushing, even better..

When it comes to loading, using boards makes it so much easier but so does finding out what kind of crate the person is bringing and trying to get it into their area and encourage them to sleep in it, or be feed in it etc

If you know that you are going to need a ramp to go up, consider setting up a ramp for them to play on and learn to go up and down, I am lucky, the inside pen has a gutter, and so you can set a wooden ramp up and they can walk up and down it, this is very helpful.

If you are doing it from the ground, if you can darken the sides of the crate but leave light coming in on the end, this is close to perfect, they will go to the light, but struggle typically about going into the dark when they can’t see a way out of it and its a unknown.

So the start is to feed them goodies, and then walk among them with your board and herding stick and just start by walking up and bumping them with the board, let them get over that fear first, then get to the point you can walk beside them with the board and if they stop, do a light tap on the rump and get them to understand that its not going to hurt them, just going to move them forward or if done at the shoulder, ideally backward or side ways.

Once you have those basic’s done, you are so rocking along, between the different things you can do above, there really is no moving or loading that can’t be done safely if you take your time, read your animals and do it slow by steady!

Posted in Critters | Tagged loading pigs, moving pigs, training pigs, training pigs to boards, Training pigs to the herding stick, training pigs to voice commands | Leave a comment

The New Chicks..

Posted on August 8, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Well so far momma hen has hatched less then 50% of her clutch, the four are doing great, Momma is still sitting on her eggs and she has now hatched a single chick for three days in a row.. and she shows no signs of stopping the sitting yet.. so I will see how many hatch.. never had this long of a extended hatch before, but who am I to complain..

Now these are a mixed clutch of eggs between a couple different hens but all with same daddy, who is a new roo being used this year, so only time will tell on color etc

I really hope I have a few hens in the bunch, there are more hens sitting on eggs, they should all hatch in the next week to ten days for both the chickens and the ducklings.

So far my hatching rates are down this year and I am not sure why, the chicks that are hatching have been strong healthy go getters, they all have good structure and strong legs, just another side bonus of truly free ranged mothers, they tend to produce really healthy chicks.

Posted in Critters | Tagged Chickens, free range hens breed strong newborn chicks, new chicks | 5 Comments

A wee Mob.. :) Baby Keets

Posted on August 6, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Continue reading →

Posted in Life moves on daily | 1 Comment

Pretty soap-Flower Molds, liquid homemade laundry soap.

Posted on August 6, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Well, yesterday, I tried a modified recipe of my regular laundry soap, this one was to give me a liquid soap, instead of the harder gel soap, I normally get, It required a bit more stirring but I am pleased to see five gallons of thick and glossy liquid soap in my bucket this morning, awesome, I have a old container and intend to fill it and use it that way, with the bucket under the sink. I might be the only one, but soap curls are just so pretty..

But that was not the only soap that I was making yesterday, you see my itty bitty 1.5 oz flower molds had arrived in the mail, I got two sets of them, so I can make a total of 12 different little soaps, you see almost always there is just a bit of soap leftover when you make the bars,

I want to fill one of these trays or something like it, each time I make a batch of soap, then I will have these different lovely little soap samples or gift soaps that can be given away to friend and family, and if you took five or ten of them and did them up pretty, o my, they will be stunning as a stocking stuffer.

Just perfect size for little hands!

If these continue to work as well as these have, I will be ordering in a few special trays in certain xmas molds, I have a certain family that I think would love to get little penguin soaps in their stockings 🙂 Even if it was just to be put on show in the bathroom..

Posted in soaps | Tagged Flower soaps, gift soaps, Homemade laundry soap, Little soaps, soap samples | 3 Comments

The biggest Catapillar that I have personally ever seen!

Posted on August 5, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

This is DH’s big old man index finger and as you can see that catapillar is huge.. according to my reading, it will turn into a very very large black and brown moth over six inches wide with two big eye spots on its back.. Have you ever seen one of these in real life.. don’t you just love finding new things?

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged huge green catapillar | 11 Comments

This and That…

Posted on August 5, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Well, my cousin and her man has headed back home to alberta and that is the last of our company for a good while, today is the first day back on the farm, I am behind on emails, and the blog, thankfully, we kept up on the farm with a little farm helper help and the fact that our vistors understood that we needed a couple hours each morning and evening to make this happen! (thank you for that!)

We got some great photos with both sets of vistors, and I am going to get some made into 5 by 7 to send to family out west, as its rare to get together photo of Dh and I, as normally one of us is behind the camera.

So on with the farm news,

The keets are doing very well, they are fast and they are fearless, they can pop out between the chain link fencing at this point and I am worried about them getting eaten by one of the farm cats, they are to be staying in the fully inclosed safety baby pen but they really roam, unlike the chicks that stay pretty close till they are bigger then keets just go anywhere they please.. they are growing very quickly. the other hen that is sitting now has a roof over her head, and a fully fenced in yard with a gate so we can bring her food and water, we are hoping that having done this means that with careful tracking we will be able to keep her safe where she is nesting and as it gets close, we will slip the one big 16 square foot steel moveable pen over her, so that when she hatches, she and the chicks can’t leave till we can round them up and move them to safety.

My one sitting hen hatched out two little ones yesterday, we left the farm for a brunch and last visit with cousin, and was so sad to see that when we came home the pretty black an yellow chick had passed away, no idea why, but I made the choice and dh helped put it into plan, to move her, the clutch and the living chick to a different spot, there was no way to get the chick food and water in the place it was, we made a new nest, moved the eggs and chick and the hen, didn’t approve of the nest but she carefully rolled her whole nest over and under her and made her own, she is eat/drinking well and so is the chick this morning, and she is still sitting tight, but didn’t see any pips, but I will let her sit as long as she wants to, as long as the living chick is eating, drinking and snuggled under momma.

Brandy is has been on the mend since her run in with the buggy and she is feeling just fine, so that is good and I am looking forward to her going riding a couple times this week, think I will have her saddle up for when Dh comes home at some point this week, otherwise, we are going to be going back to working for one hour per day for this week, its booked on the schedule and I am looking forward it.

Girl is doing excellent, I have finally seemed to find a excellent balance in rations to keep her at a weight that we are both happy with, I would like her to have bit more flesh, I hate to see her hip bones at all, but she appears to milk off there, and the rest of her looks great, so you have to give at some point and let her find her natural place in how she looks as a milking cow.. Glenda is awesome, she is getting more brave and friendly with age, perhaps a bit to friendly with her rubs and playfulness, she will be getting some manner lessions this week, what is cute now, will be dangerous when she is a eight month old calf, and we can’t have that.. the difference in a momma raised calf vs a bucket calf has never been more clear to me, the joy and pleasure of having a share calf/cow is also a dream come true, I get all the fresh milk I want, but if you want time off, you just let the calf stay momma, would not work of course for a dairy that wants max production but for our little farm and family, this is just ideal!

The rabbits, o my the rabbits, I did loss one little one in one litter but the other 22 are growing by leaps and bounds, I have some very pretty buns in there, I appear to have a lilac, never had that before.. ever single one that I have liked and considered keeping has turned out to be buck(of course)

The garden, o my, the garden.. where the heck do I start.. well lets see, the main area is being overrun and planned weeding is on the list each day for a good while, and things are starting to come in, which is great, some crops are just rocking along.. others not so much.. (bad pepper year so far)

The newly planted in the past two weeks for a fall garden harvest is coming along well, mainly root veggies and beans, its just bursting out between the rains and the mild heat we are having, the golden child of the gardens this year is the squash beds, the cucmbers are now producing, the zucchini is doing its thing and the winter squashs are overflowing, they are huge, and producing like a house on fire.. love it!

Well, I had better get back to my day, I need to make a new batch of laundry soap, and I need to get busy on making soap for a swap and I have new little flower molds that I want to try out, plus, plus, plus LOL