Tomato Based Lamb Fall Stew..
1 pds of well trimmed lamb stew meat
20 to 25 roma style tomato’s fresh from the garden- Washed, cored and roughly diced, skins on
2 large onions- peeled and diced
2 cloves of garlic
1 small peice of fresh horseradish about 3 inches long by 1 inch or so thick, washed, peel and grated in.
Small sweet baby carrots (you know the ones, they take tiny little ones, roughy chopped)
Tiny potoato from the garden, the ones that need to be used up right away, washed, skins left on and quatered..
The first of the Brussel Sprouts that are ready, washed, and finely sliced (like finely sliced cabbage) at least a handful of them..
Fall ready radishes, washed, trimmed and cubed into tiny bits
One small acron sqaush or any other kind of sqaush that has a nick or soft spot that needs to be used up.. peel, dice into med size peices
Salt, pepper to taste with a handful of fresh diced basil or if you don’t have that, small young horse radish greens, with the stems removed.
A handful of fresh fall ready spinach greens..
Put a little olive oil in your nice big steel pot, and on med heat throw in your onions, galic and horseradish and cook till the onion is clear, then add lamb and brown it, your roughtly diced tomato’s, reduce your heat to allow this to simmer together for at least 45 to 60 mins, then add the rest of your veggies inlucding the sqaush but not the brussel sprouts or the spinach..
Cook another 30 to 40 min till the potato and carrots are done, take a big spoon and give most of the sqaush peices a mash, they will fall apart and melt into the sauce itself, adding lots of flavour and texture to the broth itself..
Then add your finely sliced brussel sprouts and greens and cook for another ten min, serve with our without a spoon of yogurt or sour cream in the middle..
Tonight, I took out a tarp, jacket, blanket, feed bag, rope, and a pilon cone.. As you can see we had lot of fun with proofing/bagging tonight..
Ever had one of those moments, where you are standing still, while in your mind, you are flying off in ten different directions, o admit it.. you know just what I am talking about..
I am feeling it.. I am living in the moment, with all that comes with it, fall has arrived with a thud and while typically it last for a good long while in our neck of the woods, I just have the urge to get things settled a bit more, almost like I am expecting a early snow fall or something..
Its like cold man winter is breathing down my neck.. despite the fact that the tree’s are barely turning, this morning, I watched the breath of the horse and cows steam up the air, and it yet again sent a shiver of unease in regards to the coming winter..
Am I the only one that thinks we might have a hard winter coming on? Are you expecting a easy winter with a earlier spring? or do you think we might have a long hard winter?
Well, I have often said over the years, boy I wish we had a extra pair of hands around the place now and again, and then Dh and I buckle down and try and work a little harder..
Every now and again you just need to ask for a bit of help, my basic farm rules are simple, the critters needs come first, then us, then the house, then the garden, then the barns, and last but not least, the yard..
Now I know that I am lucky that I live in the country, so if a) I don’t get to the mowing, its not that big of deal, as long as we keep control of certain weeds etc or b) I can stake out a critter to eat it down. Having said that, there are certain things that do need to be done..
A perfect example is that since getting Girl/Marty and now Brandy, there needs to be a regular poo pickup in the pasture..
Now if we were the typical small farm, we would have a quad, and a single peice of harrow to pull behind and I would go out once a month and drive back and forth breaking up the piles and allowing them to compost in place.. (and once I have brandy’s harness, the thought of rigging something like this is possabe) but as we don’t have a quad, and I don’t have a spare couple hundred for that harrow peice at the moment, I am doing it the old fashioned way..
Wheelbarrol and manure fork, its not hard work but it does suck up a bit of time each week and its important work! In case you didn’t know unlike my sheep/goat poo, which is lovely little pellets that just melt away in a couple rains, the cow and horse poo’s are big thick piles, they smuther the grass under them, and they give a huge boost to the weed seeds in that small general area and the horse and cow don’t/won’t eat right around them, now given the smaller size of my pastures, and how many poo’s they do in a day, if you didn’t pick up and compost them, it would be very clear, very fast that I would be losing X amount of grazing pasture per day, x per week, x per season.
Now as luck would have it, I happen to have a young gentleman who was interested in giving a helping hand, and I am thrilled with it, he will come over once a week and do a pickup for me, this helps him in regards to him being able to enjoy his “wants” and it helps me greatly in having one less thing on my own personal plate of things to do..
I am also looking at getting a few hours of extra hands help for finishing up the garden, building that new hugelculture bed and general fall cleanup, as well as some help for Dh in building my new horse Snow plow V style..
For those that can do video, here is the utube of the one we are going to make, and I love that he shows how he is using it to do the plowing itself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK-Y1LWMXPU
I think this is a great project for Dh to get to have a helping hand build, and that way it can be a one day project, and be ready for winter use, I can’t wait for myself or Dh to not have to hand shovel out the driveway and the paths to the barn this year, we will still have to do some shoveling for smaller paths but for the bigger ones, this will work perfect, and in turn I think that the sloop will work perfect for the small paths, we will see..
Well, let me tell you the saga of the Ferrier has been interesting, so when I got Brandy, I was told that she had her feet done by someone who does not really like doing large horse’s and that she had her feet ground and had been twitched (please don’t go all Ah, on me, I didn’t own her while this happened), now I have heard alot of negative things about twitching and read both sides and i still honestly don’t know how I feel about it, which is where I am going to leave that part at..
So when Farmer T booked a Ferrier to come for her own horses, I booked in to be in the loop, this was a new ferrier as T’s known gentleman had retired, and he was a younger gentleman, seemed very professional in terms of gear, and was only a bit late, however it had been very lightly raining earlier that morning, by this I mean, we had worked out in it, and the horses’s backs where wet, but not soaking wet, and it was not raining nor had been for a bit before he got there, he looked at the outside horses and checked the one that was not in need of new shoes and declared that he would come back in a week as he didn’t want to get “wet” (never heard of a coat to put over or chaps?) anyway, he never even made it over to see my girl, who 99 percent sure would have been hanging in the barn dry but whatever, he was to be back in our area in a week.. He was a no show and a no phone call return gent..
So Farmer T called and got the name of a relative to her old ferrier and we booked a time, and waited, and waited, no phone call, no show..at the time and an hour passed etc.. Then I notice that a truck with topper had pulled into my farm, but by the time I get over, he’s gone but then not ten min later, slowly driving down the road, anyway, long story short, we hoped in a truck and meet him coming back down the other way, lost and still doing his best to find us, he had been working not to far away, and they had kindly given him back road directions that got him quite lost 🙂
Older gentleman who has been doing horses for 40 years and is amazing with the horse’s, it was very interesting to me, I watched and help hold with T’s horses that got done, each one provided their own challange, and he handled them all with grace and calm, I really liked how he had the horse square itself off and then would gently check conformation, I know that to the causal eye it appears that he likes to pet and calm the horse but from a show eye, I watched his hand check out the lay of the bones and then he woud look to how the horse stands. He asked about what each horse was asked to do in terms of work, and after each one, he was open and honest about where the feet where at in regards to condition and if anything needed to be worked on etc.
He asked and talked about how our stange and hard/dry summer was effected their feet and gave solid idea’s on things we could do to help, what I really liked is that he had tailored answers to different horses and what and why do things a certain way and didn’t just say do this or that, but instead explained why he recommended something!
So over we came to my place and I went and got my girl, I was very interested to hear that he believes that she is a TB/Clyde cross, thankfully she is just short and small enough that he is comfortable working with her sizewise. She was to me a bit of a handful, in the sense that she gave him a challange in a few ways but I have to admit that some of it was what I expected, the front feet were the easiest to do, however I typically have issues with one back foot, and sometimes, we play the up and down game a few times before I get to do the “hold and clean” part, she never wins that battle, I always get what I want in the end, but compared to the front, the back are harder for sure.
Well she has her baby fit (did you know a horse can balance and throw herself forward on two legs only?)regardless she didn’t get what she wanted, she had moved forward and got him to drop the foot finally (balance reason’s to be honest) and I backed her right to the same spot and she kinda gave in at that point and the other rear foot was done with no issues..
He said she really needed them done, and took a good inch off, and boy do they look better from the filing ect but he asked a number of movement questions and she has no issues and then aferwards he pointed out that she is a “bump” in her one hoof, How! did I miss that in my grooming, foot picking and even hoof moisture treatment.. anyway, somehow I did, he filed it down just a bit, it does not seem to be bothering her at all, he says it could have been a injury at the time that it grew, anyway as it causes no pain, and no lameness, he said, just wait the six weeks and we will see how it grows out, I hate to admit this but the first words out of my mouth where a slightly panic of, should I call the vet? to have it looked at.. he explained in detail why he didn’t think that was neeed at this time, and once I heard the thought pattern, it made alot of sense to me..
So we will be keeping an eye on that, he does carry shoes in her size, but he wants to see how her feet grow and wear from the work I am asking from her and look at the time of the year in regards to shoes.
We are booked back into his loop in six weeks and I have to admit that I am thrilled to have someone who is both good with the horse, and also who is such a natural at being able to share his knowledge with the owner!
If this works out, I can tell you already, that someone will be getting a nice Christmas basket/bonus! A huge thank-you goes out to Farmer T for all her hard work in regard to finding us a good one!
The Aug planted fall crops are coming along nicely, the radishes, greens, onions and pea’s are all looking fab!
the fall root crops are all going strong, we have been digging out potatos from stage one and stage two plantings but not stage three plantings, the horseradish and the burdocks are all looking wonderful and will be greatly enjoyed in the house.
The fall tomato push is on, the plants are being pinched back and thinned out so that they will focus on the fruit instead of on growth, the amount of wild tomato plants found growing in the odd’s places on the farm this fall continue to amaze me.. we found some in a ditch line, and we are both stumped on how or why the seeds got there but none the less, the plant is a good three feet plus long and it has a number of tomato’s on it.
as always the non name “free cycle ” fall bearing rasberries are in full steam ahead, they give bumper crops towards the end of sept/most of oct and if the weather’s right, we were still getting fresh rasberries in the house in the first part of Nov last year..
So in the cooler wetter weather, what is doing well in your fall garden?
Well, I figured I had better do a Tootie update, as I got asked at least three times on the weekend, how is she doing 🙂 So she has successfully dug up over 60 percent of her pen to the point that I will move her next weekend, she outgrew her first little temp hut and now has her adult size outdoor hut, which is a huge thick blue water barrel on its side filled with lots of straw, this allows lots of fresh air, but stops rain, and wind from three sides, and then its faces a wall, so that there is room for her to get in and out but prevents any direct drafts on her, plus its a nice dark blue, which means it absorbs heat in the sun (can be moved into the shade in the heat of the summer) but for cooler fall mornings, she can sleep in her straw bedding, and have the extra warmth from the sun as well. She tends to sleep outside in the sun anyway.. but its still a good idea.
She is a very clean little piglet and has her bathroom corner she uses only… I normally clean out the bathroom corners in the barn so they stay clean but in her pen, she has lots of room and when we move her to her new space, I will rake out and spread her poo corner into the whole space..
She really likes those extra cracked or going tomato’s or the leftover bits, she likes the rest of the garden’s extra’s but so far, tomato’s are her favorite.. she likes her piggy chow and seems to be growing well, she seems to be getting her winter longer/thicker black hair on her body..
Just another Day on the Farm 