Just another Day on the Farm

Homemade Super Soft and Frugal In House Dog Collars.

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

My old Girl is being kind enough to be the model to show off some of the new super soft yet amazingly strong knitted (lucet style) slip on in house dog collars. This blue one is a simple two strand of the same wool measured, cut and done into a eight cord. The typical lucet cord will give you a four stand cord, and they are very strong on their own but for the puppise, I wanted them to a little bigger, wider and stronger, so I doubled it. They have a fair amount of give to them, so they slip over the head. I made a much more bling one with different strings, and colors, this one is made with four different cords/strings all measured out and done together at the same time.

I got the wool on sale for three dollars for a ball and used maybe? five cents worth, but with tax, and the cost of the lucets plus my time.. what the heck, call them my ultra frugal homemade dog collars made for a cost of ten cents.

I am not going to recommend these for out of house/off farm use, one, because there is no place for your tag to attached and two, because I would want a sturdy place to attach the lead, but my next one is to see if I can make a whole peice, both collar and lead with a loop handle for a nice slip on lead.

Posted in frugal | Tagged Dogs, Frugal, Hobbies | 5 Comments

Ah, Shoot, when did you move in?

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Soft little woofs coming from the little guard hound, and then I looked and saw that a couple of my quieter shadow cats were up on the fence all on edge, and looked out an there was a new short hair tabby cat slinking in the front yard/driveway, my first thought was lost? From one of the farms near by? or dropped off? Then I watched it creep over to where the outside cats fresh drinking water is put out, have a good drink and then head down the path getting more comfortable as doing so, cut though the sheep fence, relax as it looked at the sheep, and then trot down the sheep path to the barn.

Clearly it has the farm figured out, and the house/yard is still scary but it knows where the fresh water is to be had, and clearly its found the barn feed and settled in. It’s done a good job being a ghost kitty when we are down working in the barn, as I have not seen it before today..

Here is hoping that its a male (no kittens) and that its friendly and can be handled at least to the point of shots and wormings being given, and maybe, just maybe it will be friendly enough that I might be able to rehome it, because I sure don’t need another farm cat.. Its in great shape, very healthy looking.

I guess I had better pop over to the closest farms this weekend and check to see if anyone is missing a very pretty adult short hair orange cat..

Posted in Life moves on daily | Leave a comment

Food Storage Friday 02-03-2012

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Friday already, this week has been flying by and yet nothing much seems to be getting done, other the regular basic’s, I did get out for a wonderful pot-luck lunch out for girls afternoon off the farm.

Given that this the start of my $10 dollar a week feb challange food challange, I guess, I had better share what I currently have in the house that is fresh. I figure I will in the overview combine the first couple days of the month with the last couple days of the week to make it a 4 week in total.. hope that makes sense.

I currently have 8 apples left in a 3 pds bag of ontario apples, one bag of 3pd ontario regular yellow onions plus 1, 5 large Ontario carrots left in their 3 pds bag, 1 full head of Ontario cabbage and 1/4 of one left, 3 oranges, 2 large locally produced mushrooms an 3/4 of a large turnip.

That’s it, everything else is coming from the pantry, freezers or the farm itself, which is very limiting given that we are in the deep freeze of winter. Point in fact, the only things availlable to me from the farm right now is sheep milk, Chicken eggs(its possable that the duck hens might? start laying before the end of the month) and fresh meat in terms of small critter butcher in terms of rabbit, chicken, duck or turkey.

So I am throwing it out to my dear readers, I know alot of you have food storage as well, got something that is just sitting there on the shelf? Drop me a line on the item and I will hit my cookbooks and put on my thinking cap and see if I can come up with a tasty but frugal way to use it!?

Posted in Food Storage | Tagged Farm Life, Frugal | 3 Comments

Heart Kebab’s on a Bed of Green Recipe

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Trim and then Cut up your Lamb Heart into cubes, and then in a bowl put a good pinch of sea salt, some fresh ground black pepper, some fresh grated ginger or horseradish, one clove of garlic some red wine vinager and some olive oil, allow to marinate for at least four hours but overnight is better..

Preheat your grill to high and then put your meat on your wooden sticks, you can mix it up with mushrooms or pepper peices if you like, grill for at least 4 min, about 2 min or so each side.. I served it on a bed of mixed greens with some fresh sheep feta..Wonderful flavour combo.

This is my offical Dark Day Meal for this week, The lamb heart is from the farm, the cheese was from our milking sheep and made by me on the farm, the mushrooms are from less then 12 miles away, and some of the greens are from my own pots but some are from the outside my range but at least they are from within the province itself. I went with the red wine vinager as I wanted to stick with the recipe, which took me off one step again, as I could have used my homemade apple cider vinager (remind me to make some red wine from this coming year, I have the grapes on the farm) and same with using the recommend olive oil, instead of using a farm produced fat.. I still made my 50% qouta of on-farm grown or produced goal.

Posted in Food Production and Recipes | Tagged Food Production and Recipes, Frugal, Greens, Health, Lamb Recipes | 3 Comments

Lamb Heart Stirfry with Coucous

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

This is a lovely way to serve heart, this is quick fry thinly sliced prepped heart

Lamb Heart Stirfry

Lamb Heart- 1 Whole Trimmed and sliced heart (or about 6 to 8 Chicken Hearts or 1/4th of a beef heart)
1 med Onion, peeled and sliced into stripes
2 cloves of garlic-peeled and diced
1 large carrot-Peeled, sliced in four and then itno narrow stripes
1 whole head of broccoli, including peeled and diced stem
1 red pepper -Diced with seeds removed

Sauce- You can use any of your favorites that you get from the store or are homemade, I went very simple, I used a little red wine vinager, Soya Sauce and that’s it. Make Coucous per the instructions, I used a lamb bone broth for the water for adding matching flavour.

Add a tbsp of so of lard or oil into your pan, fry your onion, garlic and the heart, allow to cook till clear and the meat is browned, then add the rest of the veggies, heat up but still allow to be crunchy and crisp, add a little vinager and soya sauce, just enough to pull up the browned flavoured bits, and serve over your coucous, rice or pasta.

For me this was one of my few meals lately that is not a good 100 mile meal, the coucous was organic and certainly not local, the onion and carrot are ontario grown, the red pepper is frozen from my garden and the frozen garlic is locally grown, and of course the lamb heart is from the farm but that wonderful brocolli, it was so! on sale this past week, two full heads for 67 cents.. came from South America.. I am sure that it cost more in airline fuel, then I paid for them. I was blocking traffic for a min or two just standing there looking at them, and then I caved.

Posted in Real Life | Tagged Food Production and Recipes, Lamb Recipes, Soups and Stews | Leave a comment

Weigh In 02-2-1202

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Stepped on the scale and down 1.4 pds this week, not great but at least it was a move in the right direction, I really need to cool it on those amazing sunflower seeds, so tasty but so high in calories!

Currently a total of 19.9 out of my 50 pd goal and a total of 14.6 on the family spring weight loss challange

Goals for this Past week..

Journal and take my calories plus make sure I get my water drank!-Yes but still need to add more water in daily..

One longer outdoor walk, one barn stall workout, one weight workout with hubby-No, I did get to spend a lovely weekend with DH but we didn’t go walking in the freezing rain and when we did get a good afternoon, it was all spent hauling bedding, hay and puttering around the farm.

Going to spend at least 10 min on stretches and balance work daily-Yes

Do at least two one hour extra housework workouts-Wash Walls, or cupboards or ? -I got a few things done but not nearly as heavy duty as I would have liked.

If possable eat more greens this week, I have a number of pots coming, break down and just harvest some as micro-greens and plant more pots.-Yes, I still want more greens, going to dig out and bring in a number of bags of greens from the freezer.

This coming week is going to be a simple one

Journel everything that goes into my mouth!
Drink at least eight glass of water daily.
I will spend at least a few min each day outside beyond doing chores
I will focus all my energy and effort on a house cleaning and so not only will get some required movement but will have a cleaner home for it!

Posted in Life moves on daily | Leave a comment

This and That Post..

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

I thought about breaking this post up into each part and then to be honest thought No, because I would end up putting up three or four posts and I just don’t have that writing feeling or energy today to fill out the posts to the level I like to do so.

So first for those of you that are willing to pray for others, could you please add my mother to your daily prayer list, she went into the hospital two days ago with what appears to be heart attack like things, and while its not sure what is happening, but lots of tests over the last two days and many more to come are planned to try and figure out what is happening, so I am open to prayer for general well-being, I would ask that you also consider adding in that the right test or the right doctor cross’s her path to give her the help that she needs, please an thanks!

Today is a Ground Hog Day and that means the offical slide towards spring and I am happy for the longer daylight and the fact that the weather will get better all month but today is also a sad day for me, as its my dearly departed daughter Maeve’s birthdate, some years are better then others, and I am having a slightly sad feeling of the day but overall, I am going to have a better day, because I have already decided that I am not openning her box this year. Some year’s I do and some year’s I don’t, it just depends on what I need. You see in her box are her little hand and foot prints, her lock of hair, baby cloths, her little stuffies and many other things from her very special few days with us.

For those of you that have little ones, give them a extra hug and kiss today, take a few min to reflect on just how lucky you are and for those that have lost children or grandchilden, my heart goes out to you and may you find a way to spend time with something that comfort’s your soul, be it prayer, time with your purrpot in your lap or a full body snuggle with your hound or watching new lambs bop and leap with joy.

Posted in Family | 6 Comments

January in Review 2012

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

So Jan was a low spend month in regards to Food Storage Fridays, We did end up going out this past saturday and spent 38 on food storage items- Seeds (sunflower, walnuts, almonds) and a couple bags of popcorn. We also spent 26 on household pantry items that were on sale- Main one being pinesol, along with picking up 3 box’s of wooden strike anywhere matches. For food we spent 11.29 on fresh stuff-Oranges, Banana’s, Brocolli, and a bag of onions, cabbage and a turnip. So for a total of 46.13 spent on food last month.

We had a total of 6 shopping/spending trips out of a possable 31 days in Jan.. not bad, but it would be great to get that number down if possable this month.

This month is a offical $10 spend or less per week for groceries for the household, join in if you would like, will be doing my weekly updates on Food Storage Fridays, but others will be doing it on their own chosen day during the week.

So lets talk about Marty for a second, he is going very well, in fact he is huge compared to girl at the same age, I am surprised at just how much bigger he is, he has always been a big hay baby, I think its because he joins in eating when girl does just on the other side of the feeder, and the same with his sheep buddy, she eats, he eats.. He will be weaned when this last bag of milk is done, he will be approx 16 weeks at that time, which means that he will have had a full ten weeks of extra milk over and above the typical amount done for a bottle baby and it certainly shows in regards to his total costs to date. Now I would be worrying that this was very high, but! I was on Kijji and they have six week old bottle half beef bull calvies on and they are asking for 550 each, they also had little girls of the same age for a hundred less.. so given that he is much bigger, much better started, I am still ahead of the game, plus the costs will now start slowing down, once the milk is done and while it seems odd to say it in feb but its not that long before fresh green grass will be here.

To date Marty cost’s are $496 Jan 2012

Marty-$150.00 **
Milk replacer-$320.00 *
Feed-$14.00
Baking Soda- $2
Hay-$5
Bedding-$5

Extra above and beyond costs or buying in the month of Jan included my new second hand stove and then comes my van, You see when I was gone, DH told me that he went to start my van and it did a odd, click click..die, the way he said it sounds like my starter had gone, not a good thing, but the truck was running and so it got put on the back burner, Snow, freezing rain and sleet was keeping me from wanting to go poke around it, finally went out and gave it a try, and I could see right away that the battery needed a charge, so again had to wait for a break in the weather, which took a good long while, but finally this weekend, we had a six hour window to get the battery charger out and on and sure enough my van started up and got going.. great! but only one problem.. it was frozen in, it was sitting in a dip for each tire on ice.. we rocked it, we did a number of tricks, it was not coming out.. so the choice left was, attach it to the truck and pull it out or call CAA and have them come and pull me out.

I pay very good money for that card (over 120 per year, as I have the gold membership with moterhome coverage) and so i made the call and we have a gent out from down the road here within 20 min and five min later, it was out and all good to go, alot safer to have it done properly. So given a typical call out is a charge of $80 locally, my card only needs to earn another 60 this year to earn its way..

Now I have really enjoyed reading Cheap, Fast and Good’s posts on How does your Garden Grow, she track’s how much she put out, vs what is being brought in, I have my own doubts that I can be as good as she is on keeping her information up, but I’m going to try and make monday’s a day where I post something in regards to the gardens or wild forage or sprouting etc depending on the time of the year.. As always I do better if its a regular weekly event then a monthly event, so we will see if I can get in a habit about posting on the garden on monday’s, give me a helping hand ladies, if I miss it, give me a poke ok..

I will be keeping to her rules of ” I am only tallying expenditures that get “used up.” Capital improvements, like new fencing or tools, will count as household improvements and not be in our accounting”

January FarmGal-How does your garden grow.

Total output : 2.55 for a bag of potting soil (because I forgot to bring some in, and they are all frozen under snow/ice and I don’t want to rip the bags trying to get them up and out.. BAD farmgal..

Impute’s : Sprouts $6 dollars worth, I read the packages at the store for weights on the packages and then the cost of the radish sprouts, and then roughly tried to figure out how many has been used and sprouted.

Micro-greens- 3 dollars worth I will measure more carefully this coming month, right now all I can say is a bowls worth of them, or about the size of a small box from the store.

Total = + 6.45

Speaking of Gardening, I was delighted to get a letter from Lynn who was kind enough to send me a little package of Vinson Watt Tomato seeds.. So Thank you! It also had a little surprise in that she also included some lovely rovering from a cormo sheep.

I am really looking forward to trying to grow this tomato and see how it does in our climate, I will update on how it goes..

Last but not least I was able to keep myself under control in regards to my book buying and only got one this month (which is really good for me) Its heavy enough and big enough to be used as a weapon in a pillowcase LOL Its called Forgotten Skill of Cooking, the time honored ways are the best over 700 recipes show you why by Darina Allen, the so called Julia Child of Ireland..

Let me tell you there are some good looking recipes in there, along with some very odd and old fashion idea.. I will no doubt be trying a number of things but let me give you just one that I will be trying.. Make your marmalade as normal, and then pour a covering of melted rendered lamb fat on top and let it set, then when you want some jam, crack off the fat, take out your jam, wash the fat, remelt it and pour over to seal again.. Its like using wax like they did when I was a child, but they are using lamb fat instead.. something you can produce yourself on the farm… Let me tell you the whole section on perserving would send anyone who follows the USDA guidelines today into a fainting spell..

As they say.. On with the show!

Posted in farm, Goals | 6 Comments

Super Rich and Chewy Heart Barley Stew

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Now, that pile of bits of meat with the tough peices of fat that I cut off, you can add them to the grind for hamburger, 1/4th heart to 3/4 of main muscle meat, or you can use them to delight your four footed friend.

However if you already enjoy the moist flavourful bursts of chewy meaty goodness of chicken heart, then give this super rich stew a try..

3 trimming from lamb hearts-Or trimming from any other heart
1 small diced onion
1 diced garlic
1/2 cup of dried mixed mushrooms
6 cups of lamb stock
1 cup of mixed bitter greens
1/4 cup of barley
Spices- Jamacian Jerk Spices -Going to give you a kick! to this dish..

Put a little goood oil in the bottom of your pan, add your heart, onion and garlic and cook till brown bits show and onions are clear, then add the stock, barley and dried mushrooms, and spices, simmer till reduced by at min half, or for very rich, down to 1/4, then add one cup of mixed bitter greens and serve..

This will make two moderate servings perfect to go with fresh southern cornbread(the unsweet kind) or in a pinch, the northern sweet version.

More Family Friendly : Consider using trimmed heart meat for a more tender, less chewy bowl, don’t allow to reduce past half way point, Consider using more mild baby spinach, instead of bitter greens, consider using montreal steak spice, raither then the hotter jerk Spice blend. Increase your broth by another 2 cups and use more barley and add a diced carrot or turnip for more color and a slight sweetness to the dish, more suited for childrens taste buds.

Posted in Food Production and Recipes | 1 Comment

Have a Heart? Heart shaped Box of Chocolates.. nope..

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

How about a whole host of yummy hearts recipes.. In this case, lamb maybe a few chicken or duck heart recipes thrown in.

So I have four to six planned recipes over the next week or two that are going to involve using hearts in your meals, so lets talk about the heart itself for a bit.. Traditionally within our family, heart was eaten, I still have very fond memories of stuffed moose heart, not just good the first time around but so amazing cold sliced thin and used in a sandwhich.

The second way we often got heart was chicken or turkey heart, which tended to be slow roasted and eaten whole.. every now and again, my mom would or myself in my twenties would buy a whole package of chicken hearts, simmer them with onions, garlic, sauce and enjoy them that way..

Most cultures have a story about heart being the food of the warriors or hunters, but really when it comes to cooking, there are few things to remember.

a) Cook it fast or Cook it Slow both will give your excellent results, the middle will give you some very tough meat indeed.

b) Clean your hearts up, remove the silver skin, and the tough outer fat for most dishes

c) Got family or guests that are little ah about the idea of eating heart, don’t serve whole, slice and dice and they will enjoy it much more.

d) Grind it and use it in hamburgers, or other soups, stews or meatballs etc, if grinding it up, still remove the sliver skin but you can leave the fat on the outside as it will blend in.

Tradionally if you are buying your hearts, they will be split open, this is because they must be inspected, and that is the case with my lamb hearts. These have been frozen now for a few months so much duller and darker in color then a fresh heart would be.

First things first if there are any valves left, trim them out and throw them away..

So when you look at the heart, you have the “strings” to remove, and you will have thinner and thicker peices of meat, the thin peices like the one I am holding can be used for stew bits or for ground meat bits.

In the end, between the three lamb hearts I was able to create a number of different meat cuts, on the top left, I have the meaty bits with fat that will go to make my Rich Heart Barley Stew Recipe, the front smaller peices is shown below sliced super thin for use in a fresh veggie Stirfry over a bed of coucous.

The bigger peices is going to be used to make a lovely stuffed peice of heart. On the bottom right side, we have lots of cleaned chopped bits, which will either be made into a stew or used to make heart/Lamb Ground burgers, and on the right top, is lovely cubed heart for a spicy shish kabob.