Turkey Vulture “the clean up crew”

Posted on September 9, 2021 by Just another day on the farm

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We were heading to one of our local fishing spots just down the way when we came around a curve and up flew this Turkey Vulture and I saw that it was feeding on a raccoon as our car went by, it flew back down..  Its not often you get to maybe get a photo or two of them actively feeding.. 

“Adult turkey vultures are very large birds with long, broad wings, mostly dark brown feathers and sharply hooked white bills. They are named for their distinct red, bald heads, which look similar to that of a North American wild turkey.

Their bare head lets the birds stay germ-free when they are eating a carcass; otherwise their feathers would get dirty.

While they often feed near humans, turkey vultures prefer to roost and nest far from people in high secluded spots.”

I asked hubby to pull a 360 turn around and head back the other way to get to the curve in the road and park, this was really! pushing the very edge of the distance my good camera can do..  

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The bird settled and even feed but sadly the movement ones were all blur.. still it was amazing to get what I did, then with a push of wind, the rain just appeared from now where it seemed and it just sheeted down and the bird flew up and into the woods across the road for shelter.. 

We continued on to the river and just as sudden as the rain appear, it was gone..  

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King of the North Pepper Report

Posted on September 8, 2021 by Just another day on the farm

This big guy is the most picture perfect green (stage) King of the North Pepper, It was selected as our main seed saver for 2021. I might yet save from one more yet, I have my eye a different pepper plant and a huge delightful pepper. 

I started the King of the North Peppers in march of 2021 and they were moved outside and have been producing since mid july and still going strong coming into the fall season. I got the seed from West Coast Seeds and I have been very pleased with it. 

King of the North heirloom Pepper was featured on the cover of a 1934 Harris’ Seeds Catalog out of Coldwater, New York.

“Outstanding 1934 Introduction. Extremely Large, Early and Very Prolific. We put it mildly when we say that those who tested this new pepper last year were extremely pleased with it. The immense size, earliness and heavy yield make King of the North a variety that will give enormous yields of fine fruit even here in the North. The plants are medium size, branching and literally covered with fruit. The flesh is thick, mild and sweet.”

For me this is a short stocky plant, I grew it in a standard tomato cage for support but I expect you could just drive down a stick and tie it up and it would be just fine..  Full Sun but when possable< I put a little climber plant behind it for wind direction protection..  I find all peppers to be somewhat heavy feeders personally, and I recommend a solid 3 inches of well done compost in the soil and nettle tea extra feedings at least 2 or 3 times, you will really notice a leaf color change when it gets nettle tea.. and I personally find that the peppers are “just a touch sweeter”, I will even cut and drop young nettle leaves/tops around the base of my pepper plants. 

I have found the West Coast Seeds to be outstandingly easy to start for peppers, they do well in baggy method or heat mat or on the top of the fridge (warm spot in the house) but DO not start them to early, they are fast growers and they must! be kept short, if they get leggy, just bin them and start again and start them later next time..  pinch them back if you need to.. 

Once they are in the garden, they are a lovely surprise because while they will produce fast and can take the cooler temps, they can and will produce in warm temps.. mine loved my massive heat units this summer. 

If you live in a shorter season, if you live with cooler weather, if you like a blocky type pepper, a ideal stuffer, if you are always sad that your home grown pepper are thinner walled and much stronger in taste, I highely recommend the King of the North, its got a lovely sweetness and it for sure one of the thickest walled pepper I have had the pleasure of growing. 

I am happy to have put up at least a 3 year supply of home grown seed stock into my seed box. I look forward to growing it again in 2022

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Amish Nuttle Bean Review

Posted on September 7, 2021 by Just another day on the farm

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Amish Nuttle Bean Pbaseolus vulgaris is considered a Heritage Bean as well as being Slow Food’s Art of taste. Its said that it was grown and promoted by the Amish as early as 1802. 

However there is a bigger backstory on this bean..  It is said that the Seneca and Iroquois called it the Corn Hill Bean and the Seneca considered it one of their oldest beans.  It was said to be a ideal bean to be used in the three sisters system. “if anyone has more information on this bean in this regards, I would be more then willing to add it”

I got the seed stock for this bean many years ago now from Heritage Harvest Seeds, While I have read mixed information on their height on the net, they came to me listed as a pole bean and that is just what they grow as, I give them a 4 foot climbing set up, and I expect I could give them 5 feet as they are at times still reaching when settling down..  

What everyone agrees on is that they are a heavy producer and I will certainly agree with that,  Given they are a very fast dry bean on average 90 days from planting to harvesting dry use beans, they have a lovely med green good leaf cover with a crazy amount of flowers and they are just dripping with smaller pods..  the pods average 4 to 6 beans each.. 

The joy of these beans is that you only need to give that dried pod a twist and they crack right open to let the beans out.. I have other dried beans that are much harder to “shell” out in bulk.. where as these, once properly dried down can be done while watching a movie..  Twist, drop the seeds and move the pod over.. its pretty mindless and you can enjoy the show while keeping your hands working steadily.

For being a smaller bean, they are quite meaty.. not like a big bean can be meaty but its a nice firmer bean with great flavour and a good little bite to it..  While I am sure they are good as a pot of beans, they are used as a soup bean in our house and for that they are excellent. 

I have a lot of heritage beans and grow out both the bean and fresh bean stock every so many years of different kinds..  That is the case this year.. while a couple quart jars will be put up for soups, I will pick though the pile, running my hands though the beans and will select 50 seeds to go into seed storage.

 

 

 

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Victorio Food Strainer Sauce Maker Review

Posted on September 6, 2021 by Just another day on the farm

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My Sauce Maker has been getting a good work out, Apple sauce, Tomato sauce, Salsa, and yesterday Silky Smooth Peach Butter..  

As I was working my way though turning two bushels of peaches into sauce that by ends day was canned up and cooling on the counter, I gave the mental nod to my Victorio Food Strainer, I am pretty sure that most of my regular readers already own one of these and use it yearly but for anyone just starting out in gardening and at this moment have a flood of tomato’s and they are dipping them in boiling hot water, skinning them, deseeding them and then simmering for days it seems to thicken them up..   let me tell you.. there is a better way.. 

The Victorio comes with the tomato/apple sauce screen in the box and it means that you can just cut out blemishes (and yes you should still cut out blemishes) and you do need to cut the tomato to the size needed, that means half or quarters for most but if you grew Mortgage Lifter Tomato’s, you will need to cut it into 6 or even 8 peices to get it down that the feeding tube but o once they fit,, crank the handle and out the one end comes skins, seeds and cores.. and your chickens or ducks or pig will eat that will a smile..

Wait, are you super frugal?? I mean every little thing counts right now.. then take the time to core out the tomato when you are prepping them, so that only the skins and seeds come out and you can oven dry them and then grind them to a tomato powder to add to soups at a later point. 

Back at the machine, out the side is coming the tomato juice and pulp that makes up your tomato sauce, its truly beautiful and yes you can even throw down that 5 or 6 dozen extra cherry tomato’s if you want because how can you use them in time.. 

Now if you can that sauce as is, depending on the tomato’s you will get a range, if its a good roma/saucer tomato, 10 to 25% will be juice at the bottom and the rest sauce.. and that’s great, nothing wrong with that at all if you have lots of jars, space and you mainly use your sauce for soups, stews and you like to simmer it down in the winter when it will warm the house..  

Or you can simmer it down by 25% before canning and you will save jars and get a much thicker sauce..  if you are using slicers and you can do so.. make your sauce, then fridge it overnight, heck if you need to use your cooler and some ice and fridge it in huge pots/tubs whatever you want.. by morning, it will have naturally split and man, let me tell you the time saving of being able to pull the thicker from the juice is huge.. the energy costs are so worth that small extra step. 

But wait.. that is the tip of the iceburg..  you need to get the extra screens.. they are sold as their own set and while almost all hardware stores or feed stores or even canadian tire will have the Victorio Strainer in stock, the odds are you will need to order in the extras or buy them online.. but its worth that extra step.. 

It will give you

  • the Grape/Berry screen.. love black berry jam but hate the seeds.. its a dream to make with the berry screen..  one of the best things about the berry screen, the berrys are all so small that they never need precooking, just wash, clean up and away you go!.. (see the helpful hint, do consider drying the skins/seeds for both baking and even to add a pinch to your homemade tea blends for color and flavour.
  • Pumpkin/sqaush screen.. love pumpkin pie or squash soups and so on.. while you do need to cook the flesh, its still one of the fastest ways to get a perfect smooth sauce and it makes canning up any kind of these into a broth/soup quick and easy with no need to hit the blender to “cream” it
  • Salsa Screen – It works like a trick and then some.. it also works on Zuccihni for large amounts to be bagged up and is much easier then grating it by hand, plus no risk of knicks on your knuckles

This system gets a solid 4.8 out of me.. I love it! the only reason it gets that .2 less then a 5 star 

  1. it can be a touch tricky to get to fit together and there is nothing worse then that screen popping off.. but really its human error lol
  2.  I find when it full use and really going, you can get a tiny bit of leek at the rim where the fill topper meets the metal and at times you have to help hold it in place depending what you are working with.. again minor but real at the same time.

Now there are some things that I have multiples of in the house because the idea of one breaking down and leaving me without makes me go .. NOooo.. this is one of them.. 

First I love that I have two of them for when I am having a canning party, man can you process fast with both of these going..  (I also have a third one that was missing a single part that I picked up at the second hand shop for replacement parts) 

If you do not have one of these yet in your garden, pantry, canning kitchen.. I highly recommend you get one!  

 

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Grape Juice made with a steam juicer

Posted on September 5, 2021 by Just another day on the farm

I love my Lee Valley Steam Juicer made in Sweden.. it was and is worth every penny..  Its far more then just a juicer.. the bottom pot is used to make soups, syrups, jellies or jams.. the steamer basket is perfect for blanching or steam cooking veggies in bulk. 

This past week hubby headed out to the gardens and like magic appeared back in the house with my big 52 cup purple bowl filled with grape bunches and happily announced to me that this was tip of the grape harvest and that there was at least 5x more still out there that needed a little more time.. 

Other peaple on my local garden groups are always talking about how the wild birds are taking their grapes, and anything in reach of our chickens or ducks is snapped up like candy, however we never seen to have any real noticeable losses to the wild birds which flutter about everywhere on the farm.. 

Now normally I make all our grapes into Sweetened Grape Juice for winter use.. however this year I have been canning ALL my juices unsweetened and just pressure canning them for safety and storage, this allows me to use sugar, honey or even maple syrup at will for myself and for hubby to use his Stevia sweetener for his.. 

Not that he really drinks much juice in full.. but he does like a little bit added to his waters to give them a different flavour choice at times. 

However, we have grape juice left in the cellar pantry from last year and I have already put up another dozen more and each quart makes 3 quarts so that is a lot, given its not our only juice either.. 

I am thinking I am going to take the next big bowl and make it into homemade wine vinegar, now I have made apple vinegar and it turned out quite nice, I have made garlic flower vinegar and other herbal vinegar and so on but because I use it so little I have not made a batch of wine vinegar

Having said that, I have all the tools, and I intend to use the natural yeast on the grapes and I have cases of the bottles needed to rack it off.. so its will be a bit of a adventure and at the same time I have cross over skills that will help in this. 

Have you made wine vinegar, any advice? Helpful Hints..  recommend that I add wine yeast? instead of going all natural for flavour control? The main use that I tend to use wine vinegar is in salad dressings and stir fry sauce.. 

What is your favorite way to use it?

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Black Chokeberry (Aronia)

Posted on August 30, 2021 by Just another day on the farm

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What a amazing year for Black Chokeberry its been on the farm, I started pruning them in 2019 after being told for year that they did not need pruning and they are on fire! the production yield is double that unpruned bushes that I in the wild..

BUT not only are they more productive, they are huge! The biggest I have ever harvested, on average the clusters had 6 to 10 each which made picking easy for sure..

“aronia berries, among all other healthy benefits, provide good protection for our eyes. The super berries contain a large amount of carotene, which protects cells from damage and the eyes from cataract formation. They are also rich in flavonoid anti-oxidants such as luteins and zeaxanthins. Zeaxanthin has photo-filtering effects on UV rays and thus protects eyes from age related macular disease in the elderly (ARMD) and eye inflammation (uveitis). Researchers in Japan have been measuring the effects of aronia crude extract (ACE) on eye inflammation. The study was published in Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science several years ago.”

 

I normally steam juice these and then make the most amazing jelly and syrup but as we are on a huge no sugar, this year I steam juiced them, pressed the flesh out as much as possable and used the pressure canner to make it shelf stable.. Yes I made sure to make it the shortest time possable but still effective..  I also dried a good number of them.. to add them to a number of tea blends. 

I am hoping they will be helpful in regards to both of our health overall but in detail in regards to the above to help hubby in regards to his eye health/diabetic

I thought that I only had the local wild Black Chokeberry but hubby pointed out that I am wrong..  turns out two of the ones in the food forest where bought at the native plant center and are in fact “Viking”

If you have a huge patch you pick from and numbers are not a issue.. then keep on, keeping on.. but if you a certain amount of room in your garden or you want larger amounts of them, I highly recommend giving them a clean up/tidy prune every 2nd year..  

I can’t say that I find Viking to be any different in flavour then my wild ones or really that different in size this year however it does have larger clusters between 8 to 12 on a mature bush and I do find that its got some really amazing red fall color to add to your yard. 

On a pollinator note, both the wild and Viking are both spring bee magnets, covered!  I do think that its possable that Viking has a tiny bit more scent to it.. but it could be the placement as well, as the wild are more open and Viking is more sheltered, so perhaps I just notice it more so.. 

Farmgal Tip..  As the harvest time overlaps, do consider making a 50/50 blend of Black Chokeberry/Elderberry blend..  WOW does it work! Amazing!  

Want to have a rocking fruity tea, add a bit of this in a tea cup with your fruity berry tea and take it to a new level.. 

Having a girls night, forget the wine.. 1/3rd this blend mixed with a shot of good Vodka and ice and sip.. ohhhh, don’t do straight.. add a little gingerale and its next level cocktail!

Still eating Carbs, makes the most amazing pancake syrup! right up there with Chokecherry pancake syrup.. crazy good.. 

 

Posted in Life moves on daily | 8 Comments

RIP Marie

Posted on August 26, 2021 by Just another day on the farm

It is with a sad heart that I need to share that our wonderful Marie crossed over a few weeks ago. I needed to grieve quietly before posting.. I knew I would do a post in her honor.. She has popped up in photos so many times over the years..

Fitting that her last photo taken (without knowing it would be her last) had her hanging out in the shade of the garden wagon as we were working in the yard.. We had plenty of warning that she was aging rapidly, last fall of 2020 having been the last time she went on a longer away from the farm pack hike..

When it was time, her heart which was always huge and filled with love, was just tired.. She was given a special spot in the garden, where a little sitting area and garden will be created in her honor..

Its flowers are as lovely as she was.. she is missed..

Posted in Life moves on daily | 15 Comments

Harvesting Homestead Garlic

Posted on July 18, 2021 by Just another day on the farm

This is hard neck garlic which means this process started last fall in 2020, when we planted out the biggest garlic bulbs into Kitchen Garden Plot 3, and then bedded them down with a thick layer of straw over top.

Being a Zone 5 gardener(here in ontario canada) we are going to get some heavy duty winter weather including frost heaves and if you want your garlic to stay put and not get shifted around and thawed an then frozen again in the spring.. you need a good cover..

Now I know that you can do leaves if you really need to do but the gold standard is clean long cut straw (make sure it came from a crop that was not sprayed end of season to kill the crop for even drying) as there are way to many reports of this causing issues in garden use.. lucky the farmer I buy from is to cheap to spay any more then he has to, if he can get away with it, he will only spray 2x max for a field.. (I have to admit to being happy about this)

Then its a wait game..

Wait the winter

Wait the spring

Wait for the scapes to form and be cut back and off.. So many ways to use Garlic Scapes, here is a list of the top 5 ways I love to use them

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Then you are waiting for brown leaf edges on the bottom 3rd of the plant itself.. you want to ideally pick when you are seeing die backo nthe bottom three leaves, time to pull and dry them for future use..

garlic small cloves

The small ones are better off being processed quickly, I made them into dried garlic bits that can be used in soups/stews and or ground into spice blends or powder as needed.

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This springs weather has a hot spell and that meant that our garlic came out fast and that we ended up harvesting it a few weeks earlier then normal, so the best bulbs will need to hold for use as seed garlic to be planted in late sept to start the cycle over again.

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Training, Life Skills and Born that way- Farm Dogs

Posted on May 18, 2021 by Just another day on the farm

I have talked about my farm dogs before and shared photos over the years and of the new boys that joined the farm.. They are awesome and amazing and while its crazy hard work to raise two pups, its been a joy as well

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Uther the labX is a fetching, hauling fool, he is a rock solid build, and it will surprise no one that he loves life HUGE and it would be a toss up between his favorite person (hubby) and the pond..

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Remmi the purebred Catahoula is everything his breed standard says he should be, a loving family member, a stand offish dog to other peaple, crazy strong work ethic, natural guard dog, amazingly good herding genes, rat killer and as hard headed nose driven as I expected.

Both of the boys have turned one of the past while and they have gone from bigger goofy pups to raptor teenagers, that like quick silver move between showing me the dogs they are, the dogs they will be and the.. “make me” or.. “teenage” are you sure I should know what that means.. or ya.. I heard you but??

Now when it comes to farm dogs, some of the leeway that town dogs get, they do not.. when I give orders on the farm, 90 plus percent of the time, it needs to be followed and right Bleeping now..

One of the things we rarely talk about about is farm dogs are killers, ok.. I know we like to say hunters because it does not give us that same gut check.. we say.. they are protective.. but can we have a moment of gettin real..

When I say my dogs hunt the farm rats, what I mean is that Remmi includes hunting and rat killiing in his daily rounds on the farm, and there are times he shows up at the door with big old norway rat to offer up to me.. hey ma…

My Freyja was a mouse, mole, and rat killer, she also was my tree it or run it off coon girl.. Remmi will follow in her farm footsteps, I have full faith in it..

Then we say they guard.. but what do they guard for.. fox’s that are coming for a free chicken dinner, fisher that is after the rabbits, coywolves that are after lambs, Raccoons that are after eggs, and all small stock.. Rabbits that are wanting to eat in our gardens or food forests..

Now ideally, Marking, Barking and a chase off will solve the issues but not always.. sometimes it pushes to the next level, which is a fight and often that fight can end up with kill depending on what it is..

But at the same time as all the above is true, we expect our farm dogs to learn and undestand “ours/Mine” .. man we ask a lot..

Chase off the wild turkeys from the food forest/leave our turkeys alone, they live here

Chase off the wild birds/hawks, owls, eagles, turkey vultures but do not even think about looking cross eyed at the farm chickens.

Clear off the wild ducks on the pond, but leave the farm ducks in the yard and on the pond alone..

and so on and so on.. and above all.. never ever kill the baby farm animals..

This week however we found out we have a baby killer.. it was as fast as it was shocking.. I didn’t see it coming, I have reviewed it over and over in my head, its my job to set the dogs up to win on their training and I keeping reviewing it in my head.. could I have made different choices yes.. will I make difference choices in the future yes..

We had a clutch of ducklings hatched out by a sneaky momma duck and we were gathering them and moving them to a safe spot, I was on back guard with hubby in lead and I had told the dogs “off” (which means move back) stay off (stay back, we have this)..

One of the ducklings did a runner, which was my job to catch but a blur of brown came past me and had that baby faster then a blink and was gone with it.. the shock hit me, the gut clenching horror of what just happened..

The worst thing was other then snarling in mean mom voice I had to hold my spot and one of my boys was still in the “hold”, in fact he clearly was like.. what the hell just happened.. head down insance intent look but also a man, my brother is in DEEP SHIT.. and he was so freakin right..

After the rest of the babies were safely gathered from the open place they had been hatched at, we went to deal with the teen raptor who had his prize, a prize he did not want give up.. he was just making it worse by doing the keep away one foot ahead dance and not listening to the drop it..

Finally it broke though that we meant it, stand/stay and DROP IT.. he paused and gave.. but there was NO signs of .. I did wrong.. it was straight up.. ok.. you are higher ranked and you want my prize, ok.. you can have it..

Now, I bet you have in your head picked which one of the boys was the dash/grab/run and which was the hold??? hmmm

Well the duckling baby killer was uther.. where you expecting it to be uther?

I was not expecting it to be him, I am still shocked he did it.. Remmi is always thinking, always willing to use his head and he is crazy strong willed.. if I had been asked last week, which one of my teen boys was going to have a opps, grips/bite or a grabbed that chicken as it flew by and bite down.. it would be my hunting boy, my herding boy.. but nope.. he back up on command, held his place and then appeared as shocked and suprised as me and he wanted nothing to do with playing or chasing his brother.. he stayed on his stay and just watched.. like.. I didn’t do it and I am not taking any of the fall out dude..

Uther on the other hand, does not feel bad at all.. during or after.. nope.. not even the smallest bit.. so this means a few things will have to change, the biggest one is that more short leads will be deployed around the farm, so when needed, he can be clipped and held in place.. and then its all about a combo of setting him up and then training training training and also never trusting him again.

Now that I know he can and will, it means I know.. i mean its always possable but possable is not the same as knowing he is willing.. that’s different.. and he will not outgrow it, it can be directed, it can be trained for and around and in some ways he will age into more control but overall, its on us..

Let me be clearly, Uther has been outstanding to date on his livstock training and daily works around and in and though the bird flocks, the sheep flock, the horses and the so on.. he is aware of the stock, he sniffs butts and licks ears and so on.. he has shown over and over and over again that he understands that they are “ours” and leave it..

He was introduced to the lambs in our normal way and got it figured out quickly and he adores our bop bottle lamb, hense the what the ??? happened..

The key is train, train train.. but also when a dog or a person shows you who they are..

believe it..

Posted in Life moves on daily | 2 Comments

Spring Asparagus

Posted on May 10, 2021 by Just another day on the farm

It’s that time of year, when you can head out to the garden with a knife in hand just before supper and cut a enough fresh spears to make side dishes of fresh asparagus. The flavour that comes from just picked 5 minutes before use is amazing!

The meal above was blackened chicken with butter herbed veggie and fresh lemon asparagus.. A little butter, a little lemon juice a tiny hit of lemon pepper, a mear minute or two or med-high heat and its ready!

We started Asparagus from seed many years ago on the farm and we still have a few mature plants that made it though the loss of our main garden, and will will move the plants before they tear that whole area up to put in the new sepetic tanks and weeping fields.

Last year as part of my large bulk plant buy, I brought in a case of 500 plants, 150 plants stayed here on the farm, the rest were placed out to different folks for their gardens within my community.

The truth was that we planted them to close together, I know this and it means that I will need to manage that patch and feed it out heavily but it came up despite the drought of 2020, we watered it a number of times and was happy to see so many ferns up.. It got a major clean up this spring, I left it all as cover over the fall and winter..

and if you just thought? why did it get planted to close.. the answer was simple, we had prepared a very nice garden area and when the plants came in, they came in bare root and that was the space that was ready for them.. Its very possable that over the next few years we will take out some plants from the edges but more likely, I will just expand the sides and keep growing the bed /garden up in size.. Asparagus are one of those strange plants that needs to be covered but will grow its crowns up and out of the soil, so you can in fact increase the grow space height wise.

I have three beds with three rows per bed with reach over from the outside and two walking paths that are bedded down with straw cover.. Bed 1 is the one that we are picking from on almost every plant, they have at least one thick spear that is meeting my yes, pick that.. about 50 percent of bed 2 is being picked and I do not understand it but we are taking nothing this year from bed 3 as the spears while coming up are late and very thin indeed.

I knew that I would take no more then 1 spear per plant this year being as its year one on the farm, and year 3 for the plants themselves.. once they get their next picking or two, we will weed it out once again and then we are going to bed them down with a good portion of clean straw and let them fern up.

I have started a new tray of seeds that are being grown to be planted out in under layers in some of the food forest under plantings. They are not going to be active plants for the garden food but more as back up just in case plantings.. The ferns are very pretty as a plant on their own..

Do you go hunting for wild patches of Asparagus? Do you have a small or a big Asparagus patch in your garden? Do you start yours from seed or do you buy 2 year old crowns? Did you know that there are a number of places in canada that you can buy a box of 500 crowns at a time for a crazy heavy discount pricing and that if you can work with friends and fellow garden folks, it might be the best way for you to get a larger plot of them started.

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