Foraging in February Garden Zone 5a

Posted on February 4, 2025 by Just another day on the farm

With Winter having a very firm grip on us with loads of fresh snow, there is not a lot of forage available right now, in the “hunger months”

A single serving of raw High Bush Cranberries (100 grams) contains 25 grams of carbs, 1 gram of fat, and 0.4 grams of protein. It is also rich in micronutrients such as Vitamin C, Vitamin K, and Potassium, and antioxidants such as Anthocyanins and Flavonols.

The lean months are coming, we have held the feasts of yule, we are though the first month of the new year but the dreams of fresh forage and greens is months away yet.. Lets focus on what we can do over the next weeks to months!

Still there are things to be found, perhaps you picked enough of these after the hard frosts and you are good.. or perhaps you are new to forage right now and looking outside to that frozen world, new to local foods, new to forage.

As i drive around, i see them frozen in clumps all over our local Ottawa valley, bright spots of red in the landscape and they are used for landscaping, and most folks think of them as bird food. Do leave the high ones up for the birds but you are welcome to pick and bring home enough to make a small batch or two of high bush cranberry syrup for use in foraged tea, use on your pancakes or waffles, or perhaps you would like to try it as a local meat glaze.

As long as its made with Canadian Produced Beet Sugar, its full Canadian sourced indeed or with pure cane sugar (which you can easily trace where it grew and where it was processed).

Want to learn more about this plant? Here is a overview i had written a number of years ago here on the blog.

The high-bush Cranberry grows to a height of about 4 meters and bears large red acid fruits in drooping terminal clusters. There are at least eight speices of related bushes across canada, some of the common names include squashberry, hobblebush, moosewood, nannyberry, sheepberry.

For me personally, I am after the high bush cranberry, and leave the other’s alone, I don’t find them to be worth the time but feel free to try them and make up your own mind on if they appeal to your taste buds.

If you are hunting for them, look to edges of woods, and around ditch’s or edging swampy area, they seem to like moist areas, they can be found thoughtout the southern part of canada from Newfoundland to central B.C. Their relative Squashberry is more northern, liking boreal forests, and grows from Alaska to Labrador.

The fruits are quite juicy but are very acid (think pucker your whole mouth), when first mature, they are hard, crisp and very sour, but after getting a good hard frost, they become soft and quite palatable even raw but will still be tart.. they are best when cooked as either a sauce or Jelly.. (farm gal note, they have way to big of a seed to be used straight in a sauce, but if you put it the though the food mill, you will lose the seed, but get more flesh then if you make juice.

If you have a steam juicer, that will make the most juice and give the best color

High-Bush Cranberry Jelly.

  • 8 cups of washed and de-stemmed high bush cranberries
  • 1 cup of water

Place the berries and the water in a steel pot and simmer for about ten min. Drain threw a jelly bag or double layered cheesecloth.

Measure your juice and boil for at least five min, use six cups of sugar for each 4 cups of juice.

Stir till sugar dissolved, then bring in to a boil and cook, stirring constantly, until jelly sets on the plate test, the recipe uses open kettle canning on these, so it says pour into hot sterilized glasses jars, store in a cool place, if you want to waterbath, I would say ten min would do the trick, This makes a tangy dark red jelly.

These berries were used by the native peaple of Canada, in B.C. they were so valued that berry patches was owned by certain families and were passed on from generation to generation. The berries were perserved in oil or water in tall cedarwood boxes and were eaten at feasts. The boxes of berries were also used as gifts or as trade goods. Among the Kwakiutl of Norhtern Vancouver Island a box of berries was considered equal in value to two pairs of blankets.

Moving over to Europe, the Norwegians and Swedes eat high bush cranberries cooked with flour and honey and also distill a spirit from them, They were also a favorite in Maine by the lumbermen of old, who used to eat them with molasses..

All ready do the basic syrup or jelly, take it to the next level.. here is the most amazing High Bush Cranberry BBQ sauce, this can be used on meats of all kinds and can also be used in sandwiches as a dressing.

High Bush Cranberry BBQ Sauce

  • 8 cups of late fall harvested after at least one or two good frosts softened High Bush Cranberry * (see note)
  • 2 cups sugar or 1 1/2  cups honey
  • 1 cup of vinegar (If you are water bath canning, if pressure canning, the berries are acid enough, leave it out)
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp ground black pepper
  • 1 tsp keens hot mustard powder
  • 1 tsp of ground cinnamon
  • 2 TSBP onion powder (not salt)
  • 2 TBSP Garlic powder (not salt)
  • 1/2 tsp all spice 
  • 1/4 tsp or a pinch of ground cloves

High Bush Cranberry Note* Pick the berries, wash the berries, into a pot just covered with water, simmer them 5 to 10 min at med heat and then give them a mash with a potato masher as they are cooking as you want as much of the fiber as well as the juice for this recipe..  cook with some stirring and mash again if needed till all are popped for another 5 min.. 

Strain into a screen or a seed remover, and stir with a clean big spoon until you have the juice and all the pulp in the bottom bowl and the seeds and the few bits of skin that did not soften and get small enough to throw out.. 

Put that back into a clean pot (med heat) add all the rest, stir well, bring to a simmering boil, turn down if needed and cook slow and low to thicken it to your desired thickness.. if you want it more like a HP type BBQ you will want it a bit thinner then I did it, I wanted thick.. so I simmered down till I have lines when I ran the whisk in it..  you can see how thick it settled out after being canned

This is a smaller batch 4 or 5 small jars only.. water bath can for 15 min

Its got good fruit undertones while clearly being in the BBQ sauce family.. delightful!

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Cara Cara Orange Marmalade Recipe

Posted on February 3, 2025 by Just another day on the farm

Last Week Dear hubby sent me a message that at the store in the city where i normally get my Seville oranges for marmalade didn’t have any..

However they had my Blood Oranges and they had wonderful looking and Cara Cara oranges on sale for 2.77 a pound. I knew these oranges have a thinner skin with a lovely flavor.

A three pound bag of oranges made me 7 full 8oz jars and a bit left for fresh eating. They were indeed beautiful oranges, I washed them, trimmed the ends off, cut them in half to take out the middle pith and then cut them into quarters and into my food processor they went on the chop/pulse mode till they were cut up into bits but not blended by any means.

Into the bottom pot for my Steam Juicer Set (the bottom pot makes the best jam/jelly pot) went the diced orange and measured out 7 cups of sugar, 1 tsp of salt. Bring to a simmer boil and away it goes, it took me 50 minutes at the simmer boil to get it to the thickness i wanted.

If you like a loose style set, i would say it was reached around 40 minutes, that i got my first wrinkle on the cold plate but i wanted a full wrinkle line with very little fall back or spread, which for me took 50 min.

Remember to scrape down your sides and to stir often, this is a putter in the kitchen close by time, not a walk away and leave it, it will seem to simmer, simmer but once it goes, it will go quickly!

These were water bath canned for 15 to finish them, This was a hot to hot process, I took each hot jar out of the water bath, filled it with the jam, new lid, reused ring and right back into the water bath and only after all were back in the water bath pot did i start my count once i was back to a full boil.

All sealed and will be washed down, rings off and off they will go to the canning pantry.

Lets break down my costs as much as possible.

3 pounds of Cara Cara oranges = 8.31

Sugar 7 cups =3.20 (Canadian Sugar Beet)

Salt- = 05

Canning lids = 1.19

Canning jars (these are older heavy ball jars and they are at least ten plus years old, so at this point, i am going to say) =.25 cents but i expect its even less

Power : 2.00

Giving me a total of 15 dollars plus my time

That brings each jar to 2.14

The average of a Top quality small marmalade jars in the store is 8.99 and we can only expect the prices to climb over the next year.

That’s a savings of 6.85 cents per jar for a total savings on this batch $47.95

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Trade War or Economic warfare

Posted on February 2, 2025 by Just another day on the farm

If you had asked me, if the odds were that i would see a war in my life time, i would have always said it was possible. I mean i am a Cold War Child in her early 50’s

Having said that, if you had told me that it would be with the USA, i would have given you side eye and a deep frown. I have a huge amount of respect, friends and family in the USA, my family who served in the Military, served along side the US forces.

Today, while those things still hold true, I am faced with the fact that we now entering into economic war between our countries. I truly believe that things can be settled in the end as adults, and i am well aware that there are many factors at play in this.

I am not using that word war lightly.. While there are layers to a war, put any doubt to the side, this is Economic Warfare. What does that mean?

“Economic warfare or economic war is an economic strategy used by states with the goal of weakening the economy of other states.”

There is one thing that has become very clear in the past 24 hours, and that is this had united Canadians Coast to Coast and that the great white bear is starting to growl.

This is going to be a long three days, a even longer three weeks and its possible it will be a VERY long four years coming at us. This will hurt in terms of our dollars value combined with everything costing more everywhere.

What does that mean in the day to day? It means Support Canadian, Buy Canadian or Canadian Allies Products, it means creating list of where we need to buy our gas from, where we can buy our coffee from, where we can stop to eat, where our cloths come from, it means what hardware store and more

It means going into those hardware stores and grocery stores and reading labels, it means telling the staff, i will pay more if need to support and buy Canadian.

More directly for me, it means growing more food for my local community, it means more skill sharing, it means make more soaps, salves and planting an growing more basic for seed saving. It means supporting those that support us regardless of where they live.

In many ways we have already made a point of local, local meat, local grains, local dairy and so on, these things will not change.

I am hopeful that things will be sorted quickly but i am also hunkering down because i think its going to be a long bitter fight coming..

Time as always will give the answer

Grolar Bear, A true north wild and free.. We will find a way!

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Little Things Challenge Feb 2025

Posted on February 1, 2025 by Just another day on the farm

I have been mulling and starting posts and then putting them into drafts, the world is always amazing, beautiful and a little bit tilted. When we can find a flower that lifts our spirit or where we can sit in awe of watching a bee collecting nectar, where the sunrise or sunset can just make you pause in awe.

At the same as those magic moments in the outer world, we have our family and friend world, and there are the laughs, hugs, tears, sharing of food, dreams, hard work and more.

Then there is the made world, not the connected day to day work with food, soil, plants, animals, crafting or making but the hard man made world of mind work, bills to be paid, the parts of our life that is controlled by so many outside forces.

Its February, the month of love.. and yet that outside world is very much on edge, change is in the air and things will be moving fast and slow at the same time. Canada and globally, things are in motion with more balls in the air then ever.

So after giving it a good think, I have made a few choices for the coming month, i am setting myself the goal of three posts a week (if i do more great).

One Farmgal type post, recipe, book review, product review, sharing of farm life related something, garden and so on.

One “Little Things” post, Beautiful Photography, notes of sweetness, kindness, love and relationship and community!

One Friday Ramble, this will be more political, Cranky, and at times a bit snarky as i grumble at actions being taken and their effects on my life or my community or my country.

I hope you will join me on working this month to see the Little Things! Each week i will give a idea!

This week find time to get outside by a fire, head to the local skate park, join a friend for some outdoor time with a fire, sit by the wood or gas stove, or at the very least sit by a flickering candle warm in side with a cuppa, there is something about the crackle of fire. Can’t get out, can’t have a fire, draw picture of a fire with friends, can’t draw, go online and find a photo of fire that calls to you! Watch a video of a live fire, close your eyes and listen..

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Feeding Times effects lambing or Kidding timing

Posted on January 31, 2025 by Just another day on the farm

I have noticed that this post is getting a good amount of views and for good reason, when you do your feeding times has been well studied on how it effects when your momma’s will lamb, kid or calf out.

This is a very good thing for those that work from the farm as they can bring far more babies being born in the first part of the day and get better sleeps or flipping it, you can with correct feeding work towards having your birthing happen at night when you are home if you are working off the farm on regular full time hours.

Its all a matter of when you feed out your hay, if you want 6am morning, feed after 6pm. This does not work if you are feeding round bales and they are on full access 24/7, but it works wonderfully if you are feeding out twice a day.

Do you want your Lambs or Kids to be birthed in daytime hours?
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Frugal Feb 2025

Posted on January 29, 2025 by Just another day on the farm

For so many years, I have done a no buy feb, but we faithfully did a no buy Nov and i am honestly not in the mood for it this Feb. We have a few things planned for the month to try and bring a little travel and adventure into our world while the gardens are sleeping and before the spring arrival of new babies and so on.

What i will continue to do is turn to the freezers, Pantry and Canning Cellar for items to use and find ways to stretch them. Above was a small end package of beef ribs from the 2023. It was a small row of six only, not really enough for a “feed” of ribs but enough to make a perfect two person supper with other fixings.

I oven baked it with lots of seasoning and did a long slow cook at 300, pulled the meat and left the bones, adding in a good amount of water, and put it onto the wood stove, then carefully made sure all the browning bits were scarped into my beef ” bone broth”.

This was the base for both a soup and a cup was added to a pot of rice for extra boost of flavour, yum! It even had a bit of left over rice after the main meal which i turned into a fast lunch by adding a little grated cheese blend and diced up Cured Beef Tongue

One of the things I started doing a few years ago was turning more of my fruit into sauce and then pressure canning it so i could make it self stable without the same amount of sugar needed to do so in waterbath canning. I had high hopes at the time that it would work well for us in our homemade yogurt but members of the household find the homemade yogurt not sweet enough as is, never mind adding in unsweetened fruit.

Muffins to the Rescue! I am almost at the point of being willing to write up this new recipes, just a bit more trying with other fruits, dried greens and spices and different baking trays/sizes for timings and it will be ready to come out here on the blog.

This was a Carrot Pineapple Oatmeal Loaf Muffin, so far i have tried it with apple sauce, peach sauce, Apricot sauce, fresh ginger, ground ginger, with just dried nettle greens, with mixed dried ground spring green blend. I am working to make each muffin either have or be very close to having a fruit and veggie serving, along with the oatmeal and bran bonus.

Some sprouts, some growing fresh and fast greens, radishes and so on, along with frozen, canned and dried goods means that we should be able to help keep the monthly shopping costs down. We will find out Feb 1st if there is in fact if 25% tariffs come into effect and the ripple effect that will have.

Storm update: the wind did some minor roof damage on the croft barn, branches down and so on, otherwise we got some drifts and need walk the pasture fence lines to make sure the hot line is good and in effect for the horses, otherwise, we never lost power and stayed warm and well fed here on the farm and i was truly grateful that hubby was able to make it a work from home day, he got his hours in and switched his in office day to a much safer day to drive in.

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Wind Storm Prep

Posted on January 27, 2025 by Just another day on the farm

We have a massive winter wind storm coming in, they are saying it could be like the winter wind storms of Christmas 2022, that storm took down a huge number of trees, power outages and drifting snow upwards of 10 to 15 feet depending on where you were located.

Our area looks to be in the middle, with wind to be between 50 to 80 km a hour, where as the worst areas are looking at up to 100 km a hour along with the snow that will happening at the same time.

Today the wind is coming in on our standard winter directions, which is a very good thing for us, it means our both our big spruce tree hedgerow (further from the house) and the closer shorter/dense bush hedgerow will do their jobs in terms of both lifting the wind up and over and helping cut it and hold the snow drifting in.

The shorter thick hedge row has a built in swale in front of it to help catch and hold the snow on that side of the hedgerow away from the house, this means that we will get min drifting in the frontage area between that hedgerow and the kitchen garden to the walkway and the front of the house.

You can see some of what is happening from the photo from my winter wind direction side of the front yard, behind the spruce lines, is in fact a second short line of a combo of native spruce/maple/lilac. Here is that view from a spring/summer photo.

Don’t let the back end view from the higher up photo from the living room fool you on just how much coverage that second shorter/thicker closer hedge row is! This is a direct summer look from the ground level, and you can just see the photo i took the photo out of in the warmth of my house.

The willows help cut the wind some but not at all like the hedgerows do..

This one shows the smaller rose /fruit tree row one of the inbetween the spruce and the house hedgerow..

Did you buy a house that had windrow plantings down to help cut down storm winds/winter winds or drifting? Or did you like me, need to plant them yourself? The winter wind drift side is now triple rowed out and the winter solar sun is kept fully open and allowed to pour in.

If local, stay safe and safe warm, have a good one folks and if you do not already have hedgerows to help protect your home, outbuildings or barns, do consider them, they are worth the work!

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Corned Beef Tongue -Waste Not, Want Not

Posted on January 23, 2025 by Just another day on the farm

While i used to raise my own beef, I was lucky enough to find someone who raises the most amazing grass fed beef just down the road for me, i gave my calf’s the best life i could but i was always aware that i was using bagged milk to get them started.

So when i was able to find a family farm that i could see the momma’s and the babies in the fields that grow all their own hay/bedding that sold by the whole or Half, it was a perfect choice and switch for me.

I believe this year was the 6th year of buying my bulk beef from them and i always ask for everything i can get, including the odd bits that most do not ask for. I have shanks, tail, heart and liver as well as the whole tongue.

Tongue for me is a odd bit of the beef, it can be tough and its chewy, i am not fond of it as is.. for me, it must be cured into Corned Beef. It needs a long slow cure time, no rushing this one, a solid few weeks in the cold part of the fridge in the brine will get the job done.

Then the slowest (just a simmer) cook time for hours in a fresh spiced broth, and finally peeled, sliced, *you could also smoke it if you wanted and ready to go.

My favorite way to use it is to dice it up into bits and make a Corned Beef Hash to be served for breakfast or dinner for breakfast with fresh dippy eggs!

Served in these bits, honestly, its like a version of beef bacon, its got a lovely beef flavor to it, but that bit of crisp bit with a touch of chew is very bacon bit like. These can be cooked ahead and used just like you would bacon bits.

In todays higher prices of protein, a lot of folks will be looking to buy direct from the ranchers and farmers and buy a quarter or a whole animals, if you have always gotten your meat from the store, it can be a challenge to figure out how to use some the bits and bobs of unfamiliar cuts, this one is a bit more extreme then trying to figure out how to use a flank steak but its a good two pounds of finished meat and that is a good amount of meals when used correctly.

I will be sharing one more recipe using this meat in the near future. While you do need a bit of space in the fridge or cold cellar to do the cure time, its a amazing way to get the family on board when it comes to eating a different cut.

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Peach Babies and more

Posted on January 21, 2025 by Just another day on the farm

Trays and rows of peach babies are all popping up, remember to plant the tail side down when potting them up, i have held them as long as i could and i have them on a 10 on and 14 hours off as i am working hard to limit their growth due to how early in the year it is, once they all get potted up into their own pots, they are going to be taking up a huge amount of room and right now i am just using the air movement from the furnace but will add in a fan soon enough. 

I am thrilled that last year more then a two dozen plus hard fruit trees came into production in the combined food forests, while everything will not be in full force until another three to five years, there will be peaches!  Local fall fresh peaches indeed! 

Our Little Miss Fancy turned one year old 

Its crazy how fast time is moving the Big Boys are coming five and they are very much who they will be for the rest of their lives.  Fancy is turning out to be a excellent small farm dog and the cold does not seem to be a issue with her at all, she is very determined that she must come out and do chores. 

We are in the middle of a cold snap in our neck of the woods, it a deep wide spread cold and i know that a lot of folks are current hunkered down? How is your temps at the moment, be it winter or summer in your neck of the woods?

I am dreaming and craving fresh veggies from the garden, that joy of heading out with bowls to pick things to be brought in and used moments later

Seed Displays are arriving in the local big greenhouses and seed catalogs have all arrived to the house, a few things to get yet but mostly we are good, having ordered in most of my seeds before the new year even came. 

If you are looking to buy locally, Seedy Saturdays will be coming over the next few months all over the place, but at least locally here, all the Seed Displays are from Canadian Seed Houses.  

I expect that we will see a lot of folks growing more or adding in a few extra food plants or garden box this year, a very good choice indeed.  

 

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Chick Order Time 2025

Posted on January 20, 2025 by Just another day on the farm

The last couple years i have been ordering in six ready to lay hens and keeping my bird flock very small indeed. It was strange because for the other 17 years on the farm, i always have a mixed flock with breeding hens and roos.

The overall health issues of the past few years has made it better to just buy the ready to lay, and the breed i have chosen lays light blue eggs, its a crossbred and its small and barely eats anything all things considered. Called the Azure Blue by Frey’s, they have been proven to be just delightful to keep.

However with all the issues currently happening in terms of Bird Flu in general and that the farm is naturally on a spring and fall flight path and i fully expect we will have related issues. It was time to switch back to a lovely breed i have owned and loved before.

We will be bringing back to the farm the dual purpose Ivory chicken breed, i am bringing in a set amount of female/male chicks as this breed is able to be feather sexed as day olds

While nothing beats the White Rocks on terms of feed to meat and age rates, as a dual purpose the Ivory is a fine choice, with the hens laying on average light brown large eggs in the 275 range per year of heavy production and the males coming in at a lovely little 4 pound fryer at 12 weeks.

I have gotten them from Frey’s Hatchery before and that is where i am ordering them from again this time.  The hens have lovely small combs for our brutal winters an while the males do have larger, its not bad overall compared to other breeds. In keeping with lighting, they are mostly white or light body’s which helps in our deep winter.  Darker feathered birds need more light in winter compared to white or light colored. 

It is possible that i might also cross out a few of my best producing Azure Blue with a select Ivory roo for a lighter body weight laying hen, we will see

I feel the need to go back to having a dual purpose small flock so that i can if needed do a “closed flock” here on the farm for a couple years with the ability to raise my own meat chicks and replace layers.  

One of the perks of the Ivory is that on their second year of life, many of them will go broody and sit a fine clutch of chicks to raise, averaging here on the farm around 12 to 14 per clutch in the past. 

This year we also added in a small group of white rock meat birds to raise and 10 mini classic turkeys for a mix of fryer, rooster and canning and more.  

Have you ordered in your chicks yet? Are you looking to adjust things with the current state of the bird flu? Are you ordering in more layers as sales will be up for small farmers who do end of driveway sales?

 

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