Weight Goals- Nov 10/11

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

Wow, a whole week has come and gone, and I dreaded getting on the scale, I feel all ahh and bloated this morning (and I am pretty sure I know why), sure enough I got on the scale and was up .6 pds over my last weigh in..  so that puts me at 2.6 pd loss of my goal of 50 pds..

Now I would like to tell you that I feel really bad about this an I do a little but not really, I had good week and I think it will be reflected at some point on the weigh in, I did well on my food choices overall,  but where I really rocked it was on my workouts.

I like my wii, and my workout programs but I found the wii workout camera on sale and snapped it up, so now I get to see myself on the tv while I work out, this means that you can see just how high that arm is, just how fast you are in fact moving, and it means that the computer does so as well, and you get scored by what you do.. I can honestly say that I can see why its a great idea to be able to see yourself do the excerises with the model showing you how to do it and then correcting you if you need help and telling when you do it right, thankfully my Dh does not mind if I turn the air blue snarling back at the TV at times, I like to trash talk my way though my workouts LOL

I faithfully did five workouts on the wii, three walks long walks in the woods with some hounds, and my daily hand weights 3 times this past week and 4 stretch band upper body workouts. now do you see why I am ehhh about what the scale has to say..

When you KNOW you have worked out at that level, and you know that you have eaten well, you feel great!  Ok, sometimes I have been sore and tired but that’s what stretches and going to bed early is for..

Goals for the coming week.

  • 5 wii workouts
  • 3 walks
  • Tummy crunches daily till you feel the burn!
  • Daily fall cleaning chores on the farm for a extra cleaning workout.
  • Track my water drinking more and make sure I get my full daily amount
  • Add in daily dose of apple cider vinager each day to help flush my system

Now lets see how I did on my goals from last week..

Eat breakfast within the first hour I am up.-yup, even if its just a apple
No seconds on anything-yes other then salad
Only three desserts for the week-No desserts
Eat a little more protein and a little less carbs on the dinner meals.- 5 out of 7 meals
One extra cleaning project per day for extra workout-yes
One small upper weight workout per day-yes- see report above on details.

Not bad, Not bad at all.. Now I want to see both a better weight loss next week on the scale but for me at least, I want to keep the ball rolling on my workouts, and time spent out walking with the hounds. 

So ladies how was your week? Did you get out and enjoy some times outside? Did you get any formal workouts done this week? Do you spring and fall clean?

Posted in Goals | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

The Dehydrator Bible Book Review

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Well, I have been a drying fool, I have had my dehydrator going since I got it, and I now have jar after jar of amazing dried goodies, I know how to use them by adding to soups/stews, make stewed fruit, use them in baking etc.

I got in the habit of using dried veggies and fruit from when we lived in the artic, when shipping is based on weight, you learn how to bring that cost down by ordering alot of dried foods, why pay for water weight!

I”ve made Jerky for years, and since being on the farm, I have dried alot of herbs and greens for winter use, more so then ever before, Now I had not made alot of fruit leathers, which has been a good learning curve but both of us are enjoying them, the only issue is that you can eat alot of fruit in a very short time, and fruit is to be a extra or a sweet, right now Dh is back up to eating at least a pint of fruit daily at work..

So I wanted to get a book on how to use those foods in a much wider way, so I ordered the Dehydrator bible, which includes over 400 recipes, I have been reading it, the recipes look good, the choices in recipes for all the main meals plus snacks is excellent. There is even a section on how to make crafts and or dog or cat treats.. I will have to give those a try, I can see a bag of them being used as a xmas gift to a few of my critter loving friends.

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I do find the first couple chapters to be very much a repeat to the book that came with the dehydrator, they do have a few thing that the other one did not but overall the information is the same, that is a good thing, I like it when books agree with each other on the basics.

The only downside of the book that I can see is the amount of recipes that only make one serving, HUH? How often do you make a meal that serves one, now I think? that the idea is that this can be pre-made and then stored so that folks can just add water, cook and wham, bam, supper on..

I can see how this would be a great, I love the idea of having at least 10 days worth of meals for breakfast, lunch, or supper for days that you just run out of time and or for when I leave Dh home alone.. I’m going to do a little challange on this, and will do a post on what meals I picked, why and how it went putting them together and showing the final results. I will also try share and review recipe per month for awhile to see how good they turn out.

I am not sure it would replace my liking to be able to say to Dh’s, just go get a jar of home canned soup, stew or chili, but on the other hand, I like the idea of dumping pre-made dried soup or stew or dinner into the crock pot, add the water and go work on the farm and come in to a hot meal.

So while I certainly need to make some of these recipes to prove them out, I have to say that reading the book has been great, they cover all the area’s that I can think of on reason’s why you would want to consider making and using meals based on dried foods, it gets a solid 4 and half out of five, losing half a point for all those single serving meals that mean I will have to attach cards and write out the portions for 4 to 6 portion meals.

Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

5th Annual Dark Day’s Challange -Sign up has started!

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Here is all the info on the coming Dark Day Challanges, this was the first challange I took on when I started to blog, and I have been making 100 mile meals all year after sourcing out foods for this challange last year. I made things and planned things this year to have more flexablity in what would be available for this challange, just like last year, I am going to work as hard as possable to have at least 50% of my meals be zero mile foods from the farm. I am thrilled that the ladies from Not Dabbling in Normal are going to be involved this year! I know them a couple different ways and am a regular reader on their site, they are just awesome!

http://urbanhennery.com/2011/11/darkdays

“I’m very pleased to announce that there will be a 5th annual Dark Days challenge. The wonderful writers at Not Dabbling in Normal have graciously volunteered to help me organize and run it this year. What does that mean to you? It means that you’ll use the form below to join by December 4th, and I’ll post announcements and help with recaps, but recaps will be done by the Not Dabbling contributers and will appear on the Not Dabbling in Normal blog. With all this fresh enthusiasm (and help!) we’re going to recruit far and wide and try to make this the biggest and best year of the challenge to date! We’re still finalizing all the details, but there are likely to be THEME WEEKS and PRIZES and a whole lot of other reasons that this will be the best challenge ever.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up! Join in! Cook the winter blahs away with fabulous local food all winter! But seriously, I hope you’ll join us in eating locally, sustainably and fantastically well this year! Dates The challenge runs from Sunday, November 27th, 2011 to Saturday, March 31st, 2012.

What’s the Challenge? Cook one meal each week featuring SOLE (sustainable, organic, local, ethical) ingredients, write about it on your blog and email your happy recapper a link to your post. It’s really that simple, but at the same time, it can really be that hard. Need more details?

 See the links in the right side bar to the past Challenges. What does local mean? Traditionally, local food challenges call for a 100 mile radius. Winter time is more difficult in many climates, especially if you’re new to eating locally, so my default winter definition is 150 miles. You can choose to make your radius smaller or slightly larger as you need.

Typical exceptions to the local requirement are oils, coffee, chocolate and spices. If you’re making fewer or more exceptions, please note that on your first post. What if I can’t find every ingredient locally? That’s why this is called a challenge! If you can’t find every ingredient, or heck even most ingredients, please still write about your attempts. This is just as much about what we learn, the obstacles we find, and the decisions we make as it is about cooking with SOLE ingredients. What if I don’t have a ‘good’ camera or I’m not a great photographer? Take pictures with what you’ve got and do your best – for this challenge, taste and creativity are what counts, not looks. If you don’t have a camera, no worries, just tell us the story and we’ll use our imaginations.

What if I don’t have a blog? You are still welcome to play along, you just won’t be included in the weekly recaps. Instead, we ask that you come by each week and add your meal/experiences as a comment to one of the recap posts. Are there deadlines for posts?

When will recaps go up? We haven’t yet decided if there will be weekly or bi-weekly recaps – it depends largely on how many participants we get. But generally, you’ll need to have your posts up by Sunday evening and recaps will go up Monday or Tuesday. Full details will be emailed to participants as soon as we figure it out. How do I sign up? Use the form below to join – please do give at least a state as your location. We plan to group participants into regional groups for the recaps.

Posted in Winter Eating Challange | Leave a comment

Duck Breakfast Sausage Patties or Meatball Recipe

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

One duck breast is melding away in its wonderful salt bath, but this morning, I deboned out the legs/thighs for both ducks, took out the grinder, ground the meat, along with half a white onion, one clove of a garlic and about half a cup worth of dry stale old rye breadcrumbs. Duck meat is very soft, so either start with it very cold or mostly frozen or be sure to mix the meat with some dry bread crumbs to help push it though and get a better mouth feel on the finished product.

 To which I added 1 tsp of course salt, 1 tsp of ground coriander, 1 tsp of paprika , 1 tsp of ground ginger, 1/2 tsp of black pepper, 1/4 tsp of fresh grated nutmeg, well mixed in to make six lovely breakfast sausage patties, and a dozen sausage meatballs. Into the freezer they went, and went firm, I will pop them off, layer them with wax paper or put them in a small freezer container and use as wanted!

 

Posted in Food Production and Recipes | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Is the current news giving you a nudge?

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

I love my CBC, I like to keep up on the news, I still read my artic newpaper each day daily online, current events are a regular topic at our dinner table in my house, most of the time it a very polite thing between hubby and I but there are times where we both get alot more heated on certain subjects.

Dh and I do not always see eye to eye on a few things, we are both active in our own ways, we both vote, (boy do we vote differently and our reason’s for our choices are night and day), we are both active in letting the parties know what we think, DH has even taken a day off work a couple years ago to protest on the hill, it was when the goverment was on hold and his statement was simple, the peaple voted, now get to work!

So it would be safe to say that both of us have been watching the current debt issues in our own country, what has been happening with our largest trading partner just across the border, and for months now, we have been read, watching and listening in regards to what has been happening in Europe..

I am very much a glass is half full kind of gal, I perfer to live my life in the moment when it comes to allowing myself to be happy with all the small things that are excellent in my world, the simple pleasure of a good cuppa, amazing healthy fresh food, the soft silkyness of a hounds ear, the sound of a kitty purring, the glory of a sunrise, a hug from my man.

Having said that, I am the one of the two of us, that is also the most proactive when it comes to preparing for possable coming bad times, I want to enjoy the good times but I was raised in a feast and famine family, my dad worked pipeline (still does) and at our house we were either flush or we were lean, I don’t really remember much middle ground really, and once I got out on my own, there was some very lean times indeed.. So I perfer to be ahead of the game in as many ways as possable, you can’t prepare for everything but you can make choices that will get you ahead of the game most of the time.

My Dh is on board in the sense of owning our own land, growing our own food, preparing for any and all the different things nature can throw your way, snow storms, ice storms. He is on board when it comes to getting ahead of the game because you just never know about a job loss etc

However he is the one in our relationship that is the postive on the world, he thinks that while we “could” have a personal crisis, and or a slow decline in our quality of life, he is not the one that see’s doom around the corner, like I can.. (example, crap honey, do you see that X Y, and Z all lost their rice crop this year.. better buy another 100 pds now before the price goes up).

So when he looked at me and said, honey, run me over where we are at right now in regards to the big picture cuz I think we are going to feel alot of ripples on what is about to happen in Europe over the next months to a few years, I did a double take..hmm, when my Dh asks me to step it up on certain fronts, I will do so..

So how about you and yours? Have you been keeping an eye on the news? Are you trying to add just a little more to your stores, or are you focused on paying off debt? Is the European Debt Crisis something that you have on your personal radar?

 

Posted in Life moves on daily | 7 Comments

Duck Heart Curry Recipe

Posted on November 7, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

I’m going to come right out and say it, you will either really like this recipe or you will hate it, I don’t think you can have a middle ground on this one.. so that’s my warning 🙂

  • 1/2 a onion finely diced
  • 1 stack celery with green, finely diced
  • 1 clove of garlic finely diced
  • 1 inch peice of fresh ginger -grated
  • 2 duck hearts -diced into tiny meat cubes
  • 1 small grated carrot or grated sweet Potato or winter sqaush
  • 1 cup of greek style yogurt
  • 1/2 cup of buttermilk if available -fresh or powdered made up
  • 1/2 cup of shedded coconut
  • 1/2 cup of roasted salted sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds
  • Salt, pepper, Tia Bazil,
  • for super mild curry -1 tsbp, regular curry- 2 tbsp, want it zippy-3 tbsp of hot curry powder..

Every mouthful is different, wonderful after taste in the mouth, with lots of textures in this dish.. and I promise if they like it, no one will know or care that they are eating heart.. If its available, a tiny bit of fresh chopped garlic chives to go with the tiny bit of sunflower seeds on top are a lovely touch..

 

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

Duck Liver Pate Recipe

Posted on November 7, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Well, I made my Duck Liver Pate for my breakfast, YUM.. In my cast Iron Pan over med heat, I melted the first tbsp of butter, added the onion, garlic and the liver.. Cook them till the livers are just done, add your spices and your sherry, simmer them together. Take them off the heat, pour into your blender add another tbsp of butter and blend, you can blend it course, med or smooth.  I choose course today, but if you blend it to smooth, it will be almost fluffy whipped in texture, sometimes that’s nice, other times , you just want it to be a bit more meaty. Scrape out of your blender and into a bowl to set, I could not wait for it to get cold, I have my first taste while it was still warm.

  • 1 Tbsp of butter to melt to start the pan
  • 1/2 a cup of finely minced onion
  • 1 tsp of finely minced garlic
  • Half a cup of fresh duck livers chopped into small pieces
  • 1 tsp of ground dried red pepper
  • 1 tsp of  dried Basil
  • 1/4 tsp of salt
  • 1/4 tsp of pepper
  • 1/4 tsp of ginger
  • 1/2 tsp of keens hot mustard
  • 1/4 cup of good Sherry
  • 1 tbsp of butter to finish.

So as it was my breakfast, I toasted Sour Rye Break and sliced up a dill pickle, it was so flavourful and the blend of flavours is one of my favorites.

Posted in Food Production and Recipes | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Duck, Duck, Goose..

Posted on November 6, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Nope, just duck! Lots and Lots of duck LOL Hold on fellew bloggers and my wonderful readers, the coming next series of post are all about how to butcher out your duck and then take all those parts and process them and or giving idea’s or recipes for each part.

As I wanted to do a cornucopia of things (don’t you just love that word LOL), I butchered out two ducks, one big Muscovy drake and one Muscovy/Swedish Cross Hen. I skinned them out, and deboned the breasts, cut the legs and thighs as one peice, and took the backs/necks for broth making. Kept back the livers, the hearts, the gizzards, and all the fat trimming that I could get off, including cutting off stripes off the skin itself.

Livers to be made into Pate, The hearts are going into a yummy Curry Dish, the gizzards are going to be used in a stew dish, the skin off the gizzards is being dried, will be ground into a powder and I am going to try a old idea I found in a book that say it will work as rennet for cheese making, we will see if it does or not!

So far, I have rendered out the duck fat, they gave me over two cups and I would have alot mroe if I had been willing to pluck instead of skin, which I will do on a future butcher outs, The cracklings are like little bacon bits left over in the fat, and I have set it aside to use egg dish.

The neck and backs are currently being simmered down into wonderful broth, which will be pressure canned up and be available for later use.- Made a total of 4 quarts of full strength broth.

The legs and Thighs are going to be de-boned and I will be making Spiced Duck patty sauage or meatballs from them..

One of the breasts will be made into Duck Prosciutto, one breast is planned to be made into Glazed Duck Breast with Current/High Bush Cranberry gravy with barley/wild rice side dish.  Then comes Stuffed Duck Breast with Apple-Cinnamon Glaze, and last but not least is Duck with Blueberry and roasted fall veggies..

Boy writing it all out makes me hungry already, if anyone has something that they would like made instead, write and let me know about a recipe and I will give it a try! Each recipe will be broken down into its own post, I’ve learned when I lump them together, even Ican’t find them after awhile on the blog, this will allow me to link them up to this post and put them in the new recipe page.

I noticed that many duck recipes either called for Red Current, Cranberry or High Bush Cranberry jelly, and so today I pulled out pre-done juice and made a duck jelly, its a 50/50 mix of red current and High bush Cranberry and its so good! wow, I am going to make that combo again even if its not for duck use. If you have the chance to mix those two together, do give it a try, both are good on their own but together, they just bring out the best in a combo!

Posted in Critters | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Happy Birthday Blog

Posted on November 5, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Can you believe it, my blog is one year old, 597 posts, 53 follows, over 1500 hundred comments, over 50, 000 views.. Its amazing really!

I have got to say that when I started this blog, I was not sure at all what I would find about it, I thought it would be fun to have a place for friends and family to check out what I was doing on the farm across the country.

I honestly didn’t think that a year later, I would have these amazing ladies and gents from across the world that would be regular readers, so let me give you a HUGE thank you.. 

Without you, it just would not be the same at all! Its been a interesting year that for sure, and here is hoping that the coming year will be as much fun as this one has been..

Posted in Life moves on daily | 9 Comments

Farm Kids- you got to love them!

Posted on November 5, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Well my day was planned until a knock on the door that came bright and early this morning followed by the belling of the hounds..ahh.. so out the door I went to be greeted by Farmer T’s oldest boy, and friend in tow..

Mom had sent him over to give a helping hand on the farm (and to keep him out of her hair today perhaps?) needless to say, when two eager young lads ask if they could please rake up your yard and give a hand on the daily chores, what can you do other then say yes..

What a interesting day its been, I so rarely get to spend time with teens these days, my girlfriends little ones range from six and under, so lots and lots of babies but not many teens, so rakes where handed out, gloves were given out to the friend who didn’t have any with him, wheelbarrel, water jug and we began our day..  I think they were surpised to have me working with and around them most of the time.

The morning was spent hauling downed branches to the bush pile, raking the whole front lawn, cleaning up the small hugelbeet, which got topped with rabbit poo and many loads of fall leaves..

At which point I snuck in and made a batch of lemon almond cranberry cookies along with some fresh apple and grape juice, the thank you, and wow, these cookies are still warm from the oven, where as kind and polite as possable.

.They started on the side yard, at which point Dh came up from where he had been working in the barn, and sent them home for lunch, with a welcome to come back afterwards, the oldest said, we will just finish to the tree’s and then come back..

Sure enough right after lunch they were back at it, they cleaned out my chicken pen, hauled it to be compost pile, and then put 12 wheelbarrel loads of leaves into the pen for the birds, then they cleaned the small chicken pen, 8 loads of leaves and then they cleaned the duck pen, another 13 loads, the birds are happy as clams, all my outside pens are cleaned and re-bedded down.

I cleaned out garden beds, put away things and did a general yard tidy while checking on them, they wanted to meet the critters so they petted the cow, were totally stunned of the size of the pig and at how very sweet she was.. were amazed to be mobbed by the sheep and the friend was in awe when he felt the lamb move 🙂

They watched chicks playing, ducks bathing and petted rabbits.. now both boys were hard working and as honest as they come, but it was so funny to see how Farmer T’s boy went behind and fixed his friends work at times, or how he would take the lead on how you stack that wood, or move slow now, don’t scare those birds, spread out that pile, needs another load or two, that corner is still bare..

Afterwards they cleaned the tools and hung everything up, washed out the wheelbarrel, flipped it up to dry, and brought everything neatly to the step for me to bring inside.

I figured that it was only fair to offer them a little something  as a reward, now I offered X amount (think our typical min wage per hour), and that is what I gave them, their heads went together and whispers where heard sort of, and they came back and said, it was to much! That they did this kind of work at home for free, and they had not work near hard enough for this, so they gave me back X amount till they figured it was fair. 

Wow, I have to say I enjoy the day, Dh got a whole pen cleaned in the barn, I got the whole planned weekends yard work and pen work done, and more important, I enjoyed the time with the boys, I enjoyed the quiet talking and the questions ask..

Farmer T’s boy asked if after he comes back from moose hunting with dad and deer hunting with grandpa, if maybe he could come over again and spend some time helping with something, and I said that would be just fine, he was quite excited about the hunting trip, and his football team and there was a girl that likes him but he is not sure about that yet, mom says he is still a bit young.. LOL

Was not the day I had planned, I was going to farm sale, but its a day that just fell into my lap and I am so glad that it did! Hope you had a blessed day on your homestead and feel free to share it with me!

This is a homestead Barn Hop Blogs Post

Posted in farm | Tagged | 1 Comment