Just another Day on the Farm

Extra Thick and Tangy Sheep Milk Yogurt

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

O my, got this really cool greek yogurt culture and so I made a half gallon of sheep milk into yogurt, planning on draining half of it into soft cheese and half as extra thick yogurt.. well it set up perfectly in my shuttle chef, and it was firm enough that the bottom half came out in clumps that had to have breaklines done, that’s awesome.. but the taste. wow, its very very tangy, almost pushing the line on sour cream in both taste and thickness, I was expecting my regular sweet rich sheep milk yogurt and I have a half gallon of pretty much sour cream.. Idea’s? on how to use it up welcome.

Posted in raw milk | Tagged Sheep Milk Greek yogurt | 6 Comments

Making Mother-Vinager Mother that is.

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Ok, so I read this really interesting post about fermenting grains, now I have been soaking, sprouting and making fodder but let me tell ya, fodder needs alot of space, so the idea of being able to ferment some of the grains in a big old 55 gallon drum in a full bag at a time sounds so easy compared to the work involved in some of the ones above

Now the issue I am really having with this is that, its old timer knowledge and so I can find lots of folks online talking about it but what I can’t find is some really rock solid studies to back some of the claims being made, the one that I really want to track down is the idea that a fermented grain is higher in protein then just soaked or sprouted grains are.

Having said that, ferment grain does make sense to me, the research does seem to very much support the idea of increasing digestable, overall increase in health and it is no surprise to me at all that they are talking about a “bloom of health” and in much less proven terms upward of up to ten percent increase in growth..

I question how many folks split a litter or two or ten into two groups, raised them out with tracking involved to really see this but none the less, anything that can increase growth and overall health is something that I am interested in learning if its true or not.

So the way in a nut shell you need whole or cracked grains, a big old tub/barrel or bucket, water and mother.. now the top ones are easy enough to get, and normally I would tell you getting mother would be fairly easy as well but its late winter, and almost all my homemade vinagers are done and there is little to no fresh fruits, so making vinager has not been on my mind..

No problem right, Braggs all natural vinager to the rescue, love LOVE this apple cider vinager, had some in the cupboard but for the volume I would need, I went shopping and I am stunned to see that after hitting every single store for days, I can find all kinds of vinager but not my wonderful Braggs, I have one last place to check locally before I need to pick it up in the city (which is nuts, I should not have to drive an hour to get this!)

So today I said, hmmm, fresh fruit to make homemade vinager.. well I have a huge ripe mango, that will do. nice little crock of mango, water and mother added together and placed on the top of the fridge to get the right warm temps for her to grow and grow..

A second batch going into grain itself, because once you get the grain started, you should be able to get the mother from the grain buckets if you do it right..

Do you ferment grain and if so, do you make your own homemade mother starter or do you always buy and use something like Braggs? And second, anyone else notice the lack of braggs in their local food stores? I really don’t understand it, there was every kind of dead vinager you can get, but none with live culture..

What did you have for lunch today?

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

I had a mix of greens, drizzled with a homemade garlic and black olive oil dressing, with fresh red pepper, diced apple, spiced pork pieces with a tiny sprinkle of herbed dried and grated sheep milk cheese.. Heavenly!

Posted in Life moves on daily | 2 Comments

Spring time Pork Stew!

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Now the really funnything about this stew is that while I made it in honor of the first day of spring, it used things from the freezer or the pantry..

I got out big freezer bag of whole frozen smaller tomoato’s from the garden last year, and about 3 cups of chopped frozen pinnapple, and a 3ish pd of pork roast along with two large onions, and I put them all frozen into a big roaster and put it in a slow oven..

When the roast was cooked though, I mashed the tomato’s and add in a jar of corn, half a cup of pearl barley, and cut the meat into stew cubes, salt and pepper to taste and back into the oven for another couple hours to finish with this yummy bright and colorful stew..

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged Pinnapple Pork Stew | Leave a comment

Rabbit Shepards Pie

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Take Two rabbbit legs, thaw them out and bake them off in the oven with a bed of onion/garlic to help create a awesome flavoured broth.. Roast or slow cook them till its fall off the bone tender, pull the meat, mash the onion/garlic and deglaze the pan to get all the bits, set aside.

In a med size pot, peel and cook off a good pot full of potato’s, you are going to turn these into fluffy mashed, if you have leftovers, no worries, it can be used in a many, many other ways..

Carrots, turnip, onion, garlic, and canned corn is going to make up your veggies, but you can of course play around with this to suit your own families needs..

In a cast iron pan, add two chopped onions, and 3 cloves of garlic, add a bit of oil to the pan and cook on med heat till clear, finely peel and dice up your carrots/turnips and add them into the pan along with your canned corn, add your rabbit juices, and then cover just enough with any white bone broth or a veggie broth and slow simmer for at least 20 to 30 min till the veggies are tender but still firm, taste your broth, add in salt, pepper, basil or horseradish greens or keens mustard depending on how hot you want it to be..

Preheat your oven to 350, and then cover the top of your rabbit stew with a thick topping of mashed spuds ( make your spuds nice and creamy with some butter or yogurt or sour cream, and if you want beat in a egg into your mashed) and into the oven to heat though and get a nice brown crust on the top of the mashed..

Take out of oven and let sit for just a min or two before dishes up and serving.. You can use any white meat if you don’t have rabbit, chicken legs and thighs, or turkey or even pork with bone in.

Posted in Food Production and Recipes, Life moves on daily | Tagged rabbit pie, Rabbit shepards pie recipe, ways to stretch rabbit meat | Leave a comment

The First Day of spring and yet..

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

and I have over another foot of more snow! Are you under a new snow blanket or can you find signs of spring in your world…

Posted in Life moves on daily | 5 Comments

Rabbit Goulash Recipe

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

I baked off Rabbit legs with onion and garlic cloves till fall off the bone tender, one is going to make a lovely Rabbit Pot Pie and the other went to make this lovely four person Rabbit Goulash Dish

1 quart jar of tomato based sauce, (can be just plain blended an spiced or can be as fancy as you want it to be)

1 med peeled and diced onion

3 cloves of peeled and minced garlic

1/4th of a large turnip or parsnip- peeled and diced

1 stack of celery- diced

Quarter of a winter hard cabbage, peeled and cored and sliced into stripes.

One baked rabbit legs, deboned and diced into cubes.

2 potato’s cut into cubes

Salt, pepper, basil, horseradish greens, stinging nettle greens and a bit of keens dry mustard as spices.

Big dollop of yogurt or sour cream or even a drizzle of heavy cream.

Take a heavy steel bottomed pot and put in a drizzle of oil oil or about a spot of lard the size of a walnut and melt it out on med heat, cook your onion, garlic till clear, add your tomato, veggies and simmer till either just done or till well done.. At the end add your cooked diced rabbit to heat though and serve with the yogurt or sour cream on top.

I have a picture but it will not upload today, will add it when I can.. will put it up on the facebook page.. so strange..

Posted in Life moves on daily | Leave a comment

Mealworm Update..

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

Well, my mealworms are coming right along, i have had dozens of them now hatch into beetles and I have everything from just hatched white ones to black ones now in the bedding, I think i am surprised at how quickly they are able to drain out their water sources, I have mixed it up a bit on that, they have had banana peel, carrot ends, celery ends and potato slices.. they seem to like them all, none of them have molded at all, and none of them lasted near as long as I thought they would given the limited number of worms in the bin.. which leads me to think either a) the oatmeal is part of the issue compared to using bran? or b) I will need to be prepare to change these out more often as the breeding group grows.

I have to admit that I was a bit worried about sharing house space with worms and bugs but they have proven themselves to be very polite and steady guests. the worms are slow moving and are dry to the touch and don’t wig me, and the beetles are much the same, they are slower moving, they seem to do everything with the plod of a turtle (at least the turtles in the books, because little bright eyes can book it!)

They can grip on to your fingers but they don’t bite and again if you just lower your hand down, they will step off ever so gently, they don’t have any smell that I can tell of at this time, it smells like oatmeal.

My oldest beetles are at the stage they should be able to start breeding and egg laying over the next two to three weeks and hopefully by the end of the month, I will have thousand of eggs in that bedding.. at least I sure hope so..

Posted in Critters | Tagged Mealworms, raising mealworms, raising mealworms for chickens | 4 Comments

Growing up, and good chow! The piglets are gilts now!

Posted on March 17, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

So little Kermit says , I really enjoyed my chow, its very interesting, its got white bits and orange bits and it tastes so good.. (that would be chopped hard boiled farm fresh egg and raw whole sheep milk), he was not as sure what the interest was in the hay or the green bits but he will learn about it soon enough..

Tooties is such a polite pig with him, she is pretty much full grown and while I want him to have a friend and a sleeping mate, I might have to figure out a way to do a swing split gate or a creep feed for him, as he needs to eat as much as he wants, and she is forever on a diet, I swear she breaths and she is porky!

As for the piglets, they are big enough, that I really need to start calling them the gilts, they are to big to be piglets and they have blown right past weaner pig size and are now into gilt size.. Still not able to get good photos in the barn yet, but will find a nice melting day and take the herd out to play (hopefully they will in fact come out now, as for the coldest part of the winter, they would go out, shiver and run back in to their beddding and pens, wimps!

Posted in Life moves on daily | 3 Comments

Kermit the hog came home today..

Posted on March 17, 2013 by Just another day on the farm

The alarm went off this morning and I was up and rolling though chores and milking as I needed to be in town at the local tims for a nine oclock meet to pick up Kermit, now normally I would go to the farm and I do have a invite to do so, but as fate would have it, the breeder of Kermit was heading out this way and he could meet me halfway and with the price of gas, i would be a fool to say no to that..

I have been impressed with this gentleman since I found him on kijji, often when I see piglets on there I don’t think they look healthy or well feed or well bedded and I just head the other way but this gentleman had a number of pictures and I liked what I saw, so I emailed and he was very good about replying and when I said I wanted to wait for a certain cross and a certain this or that, and wanted this in temperment, while he did tell me what he had currently for sale, he didn’t try and sell me on something else.. just put me down on the waiting list and he was excellent, when they were born, got me photos, kept in touch and let me know that he was doing well etc..

But when I watched him reach into the crate with fresh straw and pick up Kermit without a scream or a fuss, and hold him to show me, I was thrilled, when he handled his ears, feet and body showing him to me, I was even more pleased, when I checked kermit over for health, he was just what I had hoped for, and when I took him in my arms for the first time, he lifted his head and smell me and snuggled in..

He was a soft grunting talking piglet on the trip home and I was able to easily pick him up and get the photos you see below before I carried him wrapped in my jacket with his head poking out down to his new pen, and he is rooming with tootie as she is the perfect size, he was polite in his greeting and gentle and respectful to her, and they are already friends, he went looking right away for food and water, and he let me pet him a couple times and came looking for it..

To say that I am always a bit shocked at how young they are sold as weaners would be safe (miss piggy was the same) but to say I am thrilled at what I have seen so far in regards to his temperment would be very very true.

Now, I am not saying that Angelo was a bad pig and I did buy him as a almost six month old but trust me when I say, that from the moment we say him, looking at us with a tough eye in the horse trailer that had taken an hour plus to get him into, and then it took four adults to get him into his travel crate safely and we had to slide him down and unload him into his pen, it took us months of training to get him to follow and gentle to the degree that he did, but I never felt I could trust him like I do Miss Piggy..

I have high hope that by buying a weaner and training from piglet age, like I did with miss piggy that I will have a very easy going, well trained pig.. he is going to help earn his keep this spring/summer by working with tootie as the piggy plow or as we are calling them, the garden pigs.

I think this time I got a lover, instead of a fighter.. and that’s just fine with me..