Just another Day on the Farm

Gardening, Compost and Small Farms

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Its a long slow process of putting the garden to bed, still got very slow growing green covers in places, some things are still giving to the kitchen, was able to bring in sage and different kinds of mints for drying yet, need to do the culling and bedding down of strawberry rows, digging up of bulbs to bring in for the winter, and I still need to dig out and transplant at least six to eight black berry canes that popped up in a area I had moved them out of, and they came back from the roots, I really do want that area blackberry cane free, so they will have to be moved and put into the new row. I have a number of small two or three feet high elderberry starts that need to be moved, and watered in.

Having said that, the main thing that needs to be going on is adding in layers of compost, because we live in Zone 5a, we have a good solid winter, with a number of freeze/thaw cycles that will do alot of the breakdown work for me. This means that its a good time to combine fall cleanup with mixing and put out things on the garden..

Now currently on the farm, I have the choice of compost available to me

3 year old mixed goat/sheep compost pile
2 year old mixed Bird/Rabbit/Sheep/Goat compost pile
1 year old mixed bird/garden scraps/rabbit poo pile
Current compost piles from this year, including,
Sheep/Goat compost
Pig Compost
Rabbit Compost
Mixed Bird Compost
Cow pie Compost

Because I have a mixed critter small farm, it does allow me pick and choose what composts I want to use for what area of the garden, this means that you can choose the best critter poo compost and or a mix of critter poo compost for certain area’s of the garden depending on what you are planning on planting in that area in the next year.

Now don’t get me wrong, if you are starting a garden and working to improve your soil, any and all compost added will help the whole garden! The Complete Compost Gardening Guide which has wonderful info on what type of critter compost works for what plants or groupings of plantings, but Gardening when it counts, was the book that started me on the path of making what I heard called “gourmet poo mix’s” when I was posting about this on a different site.

If you have access to one or more critter manure, are you composting it all together, or are you making custom mix’s for different plants or planting area’s in your garden?

This is part of the Homestead Preparedness Challange in the Sustainable Living, what goes into your garden makes a huge difference on the quality of food that comes out!

Posted in gardening | Tagged Chickens, compost, Ducks, Farm Life, Garden, manure, Veggies | 8 Comments

Breaded Duck Steak with Sweet Acorn Sqaush

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Dh always thinks our duck tastes very much like Beef, so I created this recipe..

Duck Breast Fried Steak.. Its so easy but O so good.. Take a nice large duck breast and carefully slice it open and into two equal pieces, now this breast was allowed to sit in a salt bath for at least 48 hours after butcher to mellow in the fridge, if you are worried about it still being a bit thick, give it a wack and thin it out..

Then I dipped it into some thick greek yogurt, and then into a mixed oatmeal/finely ground cornmeal, with black pepper, seasoning salt, garlic powder, Onion powder and a little hot pepper as well, into a med-high cast iron pan, make sure your oil is hot before adding your breaded breasts.

I wanted it to be a nice med-well, I cooked it about 3 to 4 min each side, till crispy brown, and the juices were just pink, allowed to rest for a min or two and it was tender, moist with just a hint of pink left, I love this the sweetness of mashed Acorn Sqaush as a side.

Got someone that “swears” they don’t like duck, had it once, roasted and it was such a “strong” game taste to it, this would be a good recipe to try to bring them around, or just don’t tell them its duck and see if you can fool them into thinking they are eating beef.. I’ve done it..

Posted in Food Production and Recipes | Tagged Ducks, Food Production and Recipes | 2 Comments

Morning Chores

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

While our days are still mostly warm with a cold wind, the mornings are now getting cold, the wool socks, the heavier boots, the toque and the farm jacket goes over the cloths these days. You can move a little slow in the house, getting the purrpots and hounds their morning breakfasts, water and make a cuppa tea. Once you step outside, within your first couple breath’s you are awake..

My morning chores lists keeps getting bigger, with fall now in full effect, I am feeding all the hay the barn critters would want, plus what they are still finding in their wandering on the pastures, the pond has dried up, which means that the winter hauling of water has started, the sheep flock get their water hauled to by the big round bale hay feeder, so its fairly close to the little barn, but the hand pumping at the big barn has gotten really hard, it can still happen but time wise, its just faster and easier to do the switch to the hauling at this time of the year, so we are hauling water to the barn.

So a few barn updates:

Chickens, my new frey’s heavy meat cross’s are growing like mad, the males are almost ready to be sent to freezer camp, this will certainly be save me in feed costs, they are ready almost two months faster then my normal dual purpose brown egg layers, I have been most impressed with temperment and growth rate and overall health, I have not lost a single one to date.

Girl is doing much better already, she is still favoring her foot and I can still see the area that is slightly swollen compared to normal, but yesterday she wanted to come out of her box stall (the day before, she perferred to stay in, eating her hay in the barn and while up and down lots, she clearly wanted to rest), she took her time but walked up to the big hay bale, and spent the day taking turns eating, and then laying on the bedding, chewing cud out in the fresh air and afternoon of sunshine, she laid down behind the white pens that is around the other round bales, so she was in the sunshine but out of the wind, smart girl.

Smarty got his first meal last night, and I was surprised at how big he is already when I measured him out, he has been getting his fresh whole raw milk at the dairy he was born at, so last night was the first time he got calf milk replacer, now I buy the good stuff but still it tastes different, and some calfs don’t like the switch, not smarty, he took a tiny bit figuring out the new bucket and then had his dinner right down, but this morning I was out bright and early not just to bring breakfast but to find and check his poo’s, they will tell me if he is having trouble digesting his new milk, and if I need to adjust strength or meal size to give him the best start.. Overeating or to strong can both cause loose stools, but nope, he meet me bright, active and ready for his morning feeding, and he then went looking for his matching baby grain mix. I buy the same mix from the same feed deal as Farmer R so that at least tastes right to him. I have yet to see him nibble on any of the fresh hay I have out, but I will start sprouting for him and the fresh green will appeal to him and get him started.

Now the one thing I didn’t expect was that Girl would smell the fresh baby milk and go wild for it, she is so excited to see it, but so sad that its not for her LOL, she goes right to her milk pail place and does her head dance waiting for it.. big baby! I had to call her over for her morning rations, she liked it well enough but she is giving me the eye about the milk going to the new little guy.

Have your morning routine changed with the season? Have you been able to have less morning chores? or more morning chores?

Posted in Critters | 2 Comments

Inroducing “Smarty” Pants the Baby Beef Bull Calf

Posted on November 13, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Now, I am thrilled that Girl will be old enough to be breed in the next few months, depending on her size, we will go by size more then age per say, either way, she won’t be having a calf to raise and butcher out for the coming year, and have you seen the price of Beef!

So I asked Farmer R who we got Girl from if he could let me know when he had another little beef calf available for me, but this time make sure it was a boy.. Well we got the call that our calf was ready and waiting for us to come get this weekend, so we did a shuffle in the barn and got the calf stall all ready and extra clean and new bedding etc and this morning we went to pick him up, I had thought to name him bruce but he came with a name on his tag, he is called Smarty, as in Smarty Pants as the daughter says he was really bright and very eager to learn. I got to pick, I could have Smarty (who is holstein/limousin
) or the most stunning buff colored little heifer(Holstien/Charolais) a week younger, both were just lovely! and that buff little girl was just as pretty as can be, but I’m taking no chances this time, its a boy for sure, so we loaded him up and drove the little way home.

Let me tell you, he may look like Girl but he already has his own temperment, he is much bigger then she was at the same age, and he is much stronger to, it will be interesting to teach him all his baby mannors.

Watch for lots of updates on this handsome young man, I am going to enjoy raising him and training him and make sure he has the best cow life possable before he is old enough to head off to freezer camp. I think Girl will be thrilled to have another cow join her little herd, her sheep will be happy to rejoin the flock.

So what do you think, Pretty Boy yes?

Posted in Critters | Tagged Cows, Oxen, Raising Beef Calf | 10 Comments

Got Sheep or Goats? Routine Foot Care

Posted on November 12, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Well its that time of year, the frosts are here, the main lambing season is only two months away, and just as in spring, fall rountine foot care was required. Now my pastures are soft on the feet, not alot of rocks or rough ground, even worse as they are mainly river loam, when it rains it can get quite wet to boot.

Now you can go online and see some really overgrown hoof photos, Thankfully I don’t have anything like that at my place, however some sheep seem to just have better feet, and strangely enough, you can have two or three good ones and one long or overgrown on the same animal. So if you do one foot, and think.. its looks good, don’t assume that the other three are the same, you need to check them all.

I am going to show a typical foot and its trim in photos, and then show one of my own personal overgrown foot and its trim, I think you will be able to see the difference in the photo’s I have taken.

So the first thing is to pick a pen to move the flock into, you want it big enough that the flock has room to be calm on one side, big enough that you have a work space area to two adults plus a sheep, and yet small enough that you don’t have to waste alot of energy trying to catch your sheep, now maybe you have hundreds of dollars to thousands of dollars to spend on the proper equipment and if you do.. that awesome and it will make your life easier, but this one is for those that want to do it as cheaply as possable..

So lead your sheep in with grain to keep everyone as calm as possable, we don’t want to stress expecting mothers any more then we have to, put your rope over their head and once caught, have your second person straddle them if they are a little wild or just hold and talk to them if they have been though this a few times and understand that it won’t hurt them. The trimmer is going to pull the marker and add the war paint to the sheeps head, so that you know who is done and who is not done at a glance.

Now the trimmer is going to lift the foot up and back, you have to help hold the sheep in balance, kind of lean into the sheep to help keep them stable and also to help the holder, most of the feet will look like this.. As you can see in the photo keep the foot close to the sheep’s body, if you try and pull it outwards, the sheep will fight more, as they feel unbalanced.

Now you take your trimmers closed and run it up the middle of one of each side to clean it out, can’t see anything and be able to judge how much to trim until you get it cleaned out, it can be packed in there fairly good, other times its in there lightly, so start gentle and work your way up in power on the push out.

Now ideally once you have cleaned out the center, you will see that the sides have a lift on them, you can see this very clearly on the above photo, its the rise above the level part of the hoof itself, you slide the one blade on the inside, one on the outside and if at all possable, you want one smooth cut down each side, now if you have to do more then one cut per side, so be it but one is the ideal, so there should be four cuts like the one shown above, the outside’s are always longer then the inside, the inside cut typically is half to even a quarter in length to the outside.

Now you can take off the top tip off, on a good hoof, you will be rounding it off more then anything, typically one snip on the bottom to level it, and then one or two on the top to round it off. however some of the hoof’s will have more narrow ends and will be tipped off instead of rounded.

So here is our finished foot, its been leveled, cleaned and tipped.. this is a naturally good looking hoof and it just needed some basic trim.. so next lets look at a sheep’s foot that is not naturally as good, and who’s is a little overgrown.

I figured this was the perfect foot to show the most two common issues you will see if you are doing regular care, on the left side, you have a overgrowth from the side and on the right side, a deeply narrow pointed top. Before you can clean out the hoof, you need to remove the overgrowth, you slide the one blade under and cut it off, then clean out and trim as on the normal foot above.. You can see the finished trim below, it looks a bit different from the one above, you can tell at a glance who needed more work and shaping.

Now just repeat on all four feet, and X amount of times till everyone is done, do your spring lambs just to give their feet a look over and mark their condition and conformation down in your farm book.

This is a Homestead Blog Hop Post

Posted in Critters | Tagged Farm Life, sheep | 1 Comment

Stepped on a nail!

Posted on November 12, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

I know, I know, you are thinking it was me, cuz I’ve done that twice this year, once in the barn and once in the yard, and yes, I know that it would be just better to a point to burn the wood and then collect the nails but the issue with that is most of the wood has been in good enough shape to be reused, however those piles of used boards with nails still on them, need to be flipped down, so that there are no nails up facing.

However this time it was all a certain moo cow’s fault, but I am ahead of myself, so this morning when we went down to get Girl from her open box stall to bring her out to the field to have access to the big pasture and the round bale hay feeder (she has a small hay feeder in her stall as well) she was lame on her left foot.. she followed Dh up half way as he came to get me.

So first grab the hoof care trimmers and to clean out her foot, not alot of cleaning needed really, and I am so glad that I have trained her to “give” her feet since she was a few weeks old, so I am giving warning, that unless you have a well trained cow, please don’t walk up to your cow in a pasture and expect to be able to lift their foot and work on it.

So she gave her hoof, let me massage and check her shoulders, leg and hock, no swelling, no sore spots, she was nice and calm, she let me clean the tiny bit on the hoof itself, no swelling, a little bit of heat from just above it, the other legs are all good no issues, but there was once it was cleaned up a small tiny dark spot on the underside of her hoof.. HUH..

So checked her stall, silly cow had pushed off a 2 by 4 and flipped it down on the ground and had clearly stepped on the board and driven the nail into her foot, now the good news was that the nail was very short, so it could not have gone to deeply into the hoof itself, the bad news is that a old nail in cows hoof according to my cow book almost always gets infected without treatment.

So her foot was bathed, treated, and extra three loads of bedding put down in her bedding area, checked to make sure she was eating her hay-check, eating her morning feed-check, drinking her water-check, she did her business-all normal check, able to get up and down easily-check, laying normally-check.

So per the cattle health book, we also gave her a long acting pro-active shot of antibodics, I don’t like to just jump to antibodics, and I will continue to soak and clean her hoof, and provide all kinds of extra checks and care to make sure she recovers fully. However when the book and vet tec both agree that when it comes to this kind of wound, as I can’t clean it deeply enough that its better to give the shot, then to wait and see if, and then risk having to have the vet come and do more aggessive treatment.

So had to measure her out to get the most up to date info on her weight for correct dose, she was more interested in her cuddles from Dh then what I was doing. Spent the next twenty min with her in the barn, just doing chores but keeping an eye on her. Reactions are rare and I have the correct meds to give in case it did happen.

Thankfully, no reaction, has been either standing eating hay or laying down chewing cud when I have been checking in on her, can you believe that this is the first health issue we have with girl since she had a light touch of sours the first couple days we got her home..

Let me tell you its times like this that I am so glad that she is such a calm cow with a great temperment and that we worked as hard as we did and do on her training, so that when you need to touch her all over, or lift a foot, or give a shot you can do it safely for both yourself and the cow.

Now its just a matter of time and followup care and we should see improvement within the next 48 hours.

Ps, I wrote that post yesterday, so this mornings update, swelling down, putting about 10 to 20 percent more pressure on foot/leg, still in good spirits, gave her a shoulder/leg massage, cool compress and overall happy with the progress.

Posted in Critters | Tagged Family Milk Cow | 3 Comments

Fowl or Gallino Rennet for cheese making

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

I have recipe, its basic, but its 2 dried gizzards to 3 pints of fresh warm milk.. Take your clean dried salted gizzard membrenes(not the meat part, just the dried lining), pour hot water on it, let sit (they seem to flex between four to eight hours) and then heat milk, add and follow all other normal cheese making, says it give a wonderful soft curd compared to calf or lamb rennet. Read more from a part one of this journey

So here was my first attempt, I poured my very hot water on the dried salted gizzard skin (note, it does not smell that great when the hot water hits it)I let it sit for six hours before straining it for use. I used three pints of whole milk, I heated it, added my culture, and then the gizzard water rennet, I got alot of good size curds on the top of the milk much more quickly then I expected, now it was a waiting game, it said to wait two to three hours in most of the recipes I could find.

This made a much firmer cheese curd then I expected given what I had read, however it didn’t turn all the milk (I will make Riccotta next with what is leftover).

I did get a good amount of cheese, just not as much I felt I should have, I was able to make one soft white cheese ball for cooking use, and one herbed/spiced soft cheese log.

The basic soft white cheese it made was smooth with a nice silky texture, I would like to play around with cultures to see how it effects flavour, this would work wonderful in many different pasta dishes.

The cheese log blended wonderfully and will sit in the fridge for a while allowing the flavors to meld,.

So while I would like to do some tweeks, play with heat temps, figure out what cultures work best, overall this was for sure a success!

This is a Homestead Barn Blog Hop Post

Posted in Food Production and Recipes | Tagged 100 mile food challange, Food Production and Recipes, Herbs, Sheep Milk | 7 Comments

The Monument by DH -Least we forget-PG Rating

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

11 November 1908: North of Manaus, Amazonas del Sur“Passing through?”, the homesteader asked, his rifle resting in his arms.”Yes”, the traveller replied, his rifle dangling off his right shoulder on a strap. “I was told there was a veteran building a monument around these parts. I thought I’d go see it.”

“You’d be talking about Oscar”, the homesteader confirmed, his stance relaxing somewhat.

“I don’t know his name – just that he’s around here somewhere. I’d appreciate directions if you can provide them”, the traveller replied.

“I can do that”, the homesteader replied, kicking an uprooted sapling towards a brushpile. “You a vet?”

“Yes. You?”

“Yeah”, the homesteader confirmed. “Oscar’s about three miles that way. You can’t miss his dogs.”

“Everybody’s got dogs”, the traveller observed.

“Everybody’s dogs aren’t the same as Oscar’s dogs”, the homesteader replied. “Just keep in mind that Oscar’s still in the jungle.”

The traveller nodded. He’d heard the expression a fair bit in the past two weeks. Vets scarred or broken by the experience of fighting skilled fanatics amidst the humid heat of the towering, predatory rain forest were still in the jungle, even if the trees around them had been felled by settlers carving out fields for crops or grazing. “I appreciate the advice. Have yourself a good day.”

The homesteader nodded back. “Safe travels.”

The traveller continued on his way, rifle dangling, revolver in unclipped holster, knife in unclipped sheath. The Anahuac had been vanquished, but not wholly exterminated, after their defeat three years earlier. Every few months, it seemed, a pack of them erupted out of the greenery to slaughter whomever they could find before the local militia tracked them down. Any traveller with a hint of common sense went armed, if only to assure himself the quick, painless death that the Anahuac would deny him.

The trail was two yards wide, nothing more than flattened grasses and saplings broken by the wheels of carts and the hooves of horses and oxen. The traveller assumed, correctly, that it was one of the old trails broken by the army in order to move supplies up to the frontlines. Nowadays, settlers and homesteaders used it as a highway of sorts. He’d already passed several fortified villages along the way, and knew of two or three more further on, and had indeed passed a few wary locals along the way.

Perhaps two hours passed before Oscar’s dogs revealed themselves. The traveller had assumed from the homesteader’s remarks that Oscar’s dogs were larger and more formidable than most. They were, in fact, six or seven tiny moppets that raised an irritating, high-pitched racket as soon as they heard his footfalls. “Okay, yes, I see him”, a man’s voice called out from a stand of brush. The yipping continued. “Yes, I see him. Thank you. That’s good.” The mongrels, perhaps half the size of a house cat, continued their assault on the ears. “God in Heaven, enough!”

In the ensuing silence, their owner appeared, wiping his forehead with a filthy rag. “Hello. Can I help you?”

“I hope so. I’m looking for Oscar”, the traveller replied.

“That’s me”, Oscar confirmed. “What can I do for you?” He was, like so many in these parts, polite and respectful, but wary – logical behaviour given that virtually everybody carried at least one gun on them at all times.

“I heard you’re building a monument. I was hoping I could visit it.”

“Well, it’s not really a monument”, Oscar replied, as the tiny dogs pranced around his feet. “But you’re welcome to have a look. Don’t mind these little buggers. They’ll jump all over your knees, but they’re all bark and no bite.”

“I believe it”, the traveller stated with a slight smile.

“Come on, it’s back there”, Oscar said, beckoning past a log shack and adjacent shed. “You must be a vet. Civvies don’t come out here to see me.”

“I was based in Manaus during the war”, the traveller replied, falling into stride beside his host. “Didn’t get out of it often.”

“I’ll try not to hold that against you”, Oscar replied humorlessly. “I marched through it once and never saw it again.”

“Never?”

“No interest.”

“How about San Sylvestre?”, the traveller asked.

“El Dorado, you mean. It’ll always be El Dorado. No way am I going back there again.”

“Fair enough”, the traveller replied. “Can’t say I really want to either.”

A cross came into sight: two rusty wagon axles, chained at right angles. “Didn’t have any trees around after we burned the bush”, Oscar commented. “We had to improvise.”Noting a small glass jar filled with metal tags at the base of the cross, the traveller asked, “How many are here?””Seventy-three of my mates. Out of a hundred and six that started out.” The traveller swore quietly. Oscar grunted in response. “Yeah, it was a rough week. Word came down from Brigade that the savages had established a strong point on a small rock ridge out here – which is funny, if you think about it, there’s not a lot of rock around here. Just red clay. Anyway, the Eye was using it to run raids on our supply train, and it was really cocking things up. So the old man told our captain to clear the place out.

“We tried to burn them out. Set fires when the wind was right. It worked, at first – they bugged out when things got too hot around the ridge. Soon as we had a route that weren’t burning, we went over and took the ridge. About two hours later, they started dropping arty on us. Guess they’d zeroed in the ridge as a precaution. There was no cover, and we couldn’t dig in at all, so we pulled out.”

The traveller noted that, by the standards of the Amazon, the trees were relatively small around here, not more than three or four years old.

“We went back the next day, but the bastards were back on the ridge already, with a machine gun. Waited until we were out in a skirmish line in the burn before they opened up. Those of us weren’t cut down by the rounds just dropped where we were – which didn’t help so much considering we’d burnt most of the cover the previous day. I spent the whole damn day curled up behind a stump, making sure my head and my ass weren’t sticking out.” Oscar pointed out a streak of white hair along his left temple. “Didn’t quite manage that. Still, I scampered back to our start line come nightfall, which was damned lucky, as they went out and caught two of our boys that had stayed put too long. Had ’em screaming all night and into the next morning.”

The traveller winced knowingly. It had been established very early in the war that it was better to die fighting than to be captured, considering what would come afterward. The traveller had issued the order himself more than once.

“We worked through the brush to the north two days later; they had an ambush waiting for us. We fought through it, but it cost us the day and the captain.”

Oscar’s little pack of toy dogs scampered past them, heading down the trail at what was, for them, break-neck speed. “Not your typical Amazon dogs”, the traveller ventured.

“I found the bitch and the stud while we were going house-to-house in El Dorado. I reckon a French ex-pat must’ve brought them in. Can’t imagine how they managed not to get eaten”, Oscar replied. “They’ve had two litters since; four pups have made it.

“So, I was saying, we regrouped that day while senior platoon commander took over the the company, trading fire here and there with any Anahuac that would show themselves. We’d lost a lot of guys, and the CO was concerned about the company routing. He collapsed us down to two platoons, since there was just one other lieutenant left, and we pushed on. It was like basic training all over again – advance a few feet, take cover, provide cover for your mate while he did the same.

“The Anahuac figured out that we were split in two, and raided the other platoon that night. We joined in on the melee soon as we could. Total pandemonium. Spearpoint to bayonet in total darkness – stabbing at smells, sounds, movements of air. I jabbed somebody, somebody else nicked me. Eventually, our CO just shouted for us all to stay still, shut the hell up, and kill anything that moved.”

They’d arrived at the ridge, Oscar and the traveller. About eighty feet long, twelve or so feet high, it was a pitted grey, covered in fungus. “Come dawn, we found that there were still thirty or so us left. We were over there, to the north, about one hundred feet away. We didn’t see anybody over here, and there were enough of them lying around to believe we’d gotten them all, but I think we were all too damned scared to confirm it. Wasn’t until mid-afternoon that Corporal Rodriguez got impatient and made his way over. He found one wounded Anahuac, shot him dead, poked around a while, and called the rest of us over.”

“So you took the ridge”, the traveller said.

“Yeah. And a few days later, the Anahuac pulled back to another line of defence anyway. We went back to the rear and got merged with another company that had been cut up. Kept fighting.”

“Afterward?”

“I took up the cantonment offer soon as I heard of it”, Oscar said. The army had come up with the initiative to encourage settlement – self-defending settlement – of the central Amazon post-war; several thousand veterans had accepted it. “Wandered a bit, and found myself back here. Cleaned around the grave, repaired the cross, and decided to built this.”

Before them, at the foot of the ridge, was a small pile of rocks, perhaps two feet high.”I’ve got a little book in a tin can in the foot of the pile. Any time a vet stops by, I invite him to sign it. Would you like to?”, Oscar asked.”I would”, the traveller replied. Oscar dropped to his knees, popped the lid off a rusty biscuit tin, and pulled out a small notepad and pencil. He reached up to hand them to the traveller, who flipped the notepad open. Sixteen names were listed on the first page. The traveller grunted, put pencil to paper, and wrote:

Geolog, Santos Soublette; Commanding Officer; Army of the Amazon

He closed the notepad and handed it and the pencil back to Oscar, who secured them in the tin. “Thanks.”

“Thank you”, Geolog, the traveller, responded.

Oscar shrugged, got back to his feet. “I know it’s not much yet”, he explained, “But I’m adding to it everytime I find another rock on the property. I’ve got lots of time, and I’m not going anywhere. Join me for some eggs?”

“I’d be honored”, Geolog said.

Two hours later, Geolog spied the homesteader, leaning on a shovel while the brushpile smouldered and streamed white smoke into the thick jungle air. He waved; the homesteader nodded back. “Back so soon?”, he called out.

“Yes. You were right about the dogs.”

“Like I said, no missing them”, the homesteader remarked. “How was the monument?”

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Really? It was just a little pile of rocks when I was there.”

In his mind, Geolog could see Oscar tending to his friends’ grave and cross, could hear him telling a perfect stranger about the most horrifying week of his life. After a moment, he replied, “My friend, if you just saw the rock pile, you didn’t see the monument.”

Posted in Family | Tagged Family, Writing | Leave a comment

Food Storage Friday-Eat out of your Pantry -Week 6

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

This has been a great week of eat out of your pantry, all my proteins for the week was 0 mile, we had pressure canned chicken, from the freezer lamb, and lots of fresh duck in different ways served up, add in fresh eggs and we eat like very well indeed.

I was in the mood for different this week when it came to side dishes, some were just fall veggie stirfry’s, some where rice pilifs, some were oven baked winter sqaush’s, and on one meal it was dumplings, I didn’t bake this week (much to hubby’s saddness) but I did have lots of canned and dried fruits available, plus I made tapico lemon pudding.

I have been craving sweet and sour combo’s, pickles are my go to snack at the moment with pickled cabbage or pickled turnip mix not far behind, that burst of complex flavours is wonderful this time of year.

I am thinking that my food storage friday’s might evolve a little into including what I think is my best recipe that used something from my home canned goods or from the freezer etc, its great to put up all spring/summer/fall but its also good to get idea’s and thoughts on how to put them into use in meal making, or baking.

Dark Day’s challange is coming, and I am greatly looking forward to it, I planned and put up things for this challange, so now I get to have some fun figuring out how to use these things in the meals themselves.

So what did you eat out of your puttin up pantry this week?

Posted in Food Storage | Tagged Canning, Farm Fresh Eggs, Food Production and Recipes, Garden, Veggies | Leave a comment

Fowl or Gallino Rennet -Part 1

Posted on November 10, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

By now you have most likely figured out that I like to try things in book and see if they work, I also am huge on finding and learning ways to use everything that the farm produces and to reduce my need to go off-farm and buy to do so. Rennet at the moment is something that I do buy and I would like to find ways to get around this if I needed to..

So in a book I have on simple living skills, it has this advice..

“Take a giblet from a fowl next time you butcher, slit it around, remove the bits of gravel and grain, peel the skin off of it, Wash the skin well, rub with salt and rinse and hang up to dry and use the same as calf rennet.

Take a peice of the rennet, pour some boiling water over it and leave it for at least six hours, then use the water to turn the milk, it will take about two or three hours to curd up”

Another books says to pound or grind up the dried giblet before adding the boiling water..

Traditionally the linings, of whatever type, were salted and dried, which allowed them to retain their effect for several months

So far I have peel and clean the Giblet or depending on where you live, Gizzard lining, dried it, ground it, and will soon be trying to see if it will indeed work with the milk.

Do you see the issue? No where does it say how much to use with how much milk.. its a guessing game and when you are taking the time to make cheese, you don’t want to have it go wrong, and if you use to much rennet, you can ruin the cheese just as easily as if you don’t use enough..

Google is an amazing thing, but you have to have the right key’s words, I was able to find the same basic’s as above a couple times but no details, then I found it, in a 1852 cookbook , they gave a part on using rennet for cheesemaking and said in a nut shell, “gallino” means Fowl Rennet cheese in Italy.. JACKPOT.

Now to see if it will indeed work, watch for part 2 coming soon.