Just another Day on the Farm

Being Prepared

Posted on March 26, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

I was raised in a family that always had food storage, I thought it was totally normal to have fathers, and uncles that hunted each fall, aunties that all had gardens, and to be sent to the cellar to get Pickles, relishes and fruits raither then to the cupboard.

I was raised to believe that you should have a min of six to eight months of food in the house, It was based on the growing cycle for my climate, on good years, when we have bumper harvests, its always a wonderful idea and joy to be able to put up two years worth of goods, as an example would be tomato’s, I had a wonderful crop in 08, put away almost two full years worth, which turned out to be a very good thing, as we have a crop failure in 09 with blight, (as did many) and a good crop last year 10, where I again put away 2 years worth, just in case.

My father works hard but he choose a living that has boom and bust cycles, you make really good money when you work but there are times of the year you don’t work (spring Breakup) and there are times, there just is not enough work to go around, till the next job starts, I am aware that this has helped make me who I am, as I watched us often go from plenty to rationing in different ways, and while my DH works a steady regular job, I can’t seem to stop myself from prepping just in case.

This stocking up on food, and household goods, allows us to have a buffer and the wiggle room to wait for sales on goods, which in turn allows us to stretch our buying power just a little bit more.

Add in what I see happening in the world in terms of rising food prices, rising costs in power, rising costs in gas, and the fact that I believe that we are a climate change, which is effecting crops and countries (my heart goes out to so many of the area’s/countires/peaple that has had natural disaster happened in the past couple years and is still happening in Japan)

With our global network linked in regards to almost everything that touches our daily lives, we have a couple choices, Put our heads down and just keep plowing ahead, hoping for the best, or read, learn, panic and feel overwhelm, an plow ahead making no real changes, because how in heck can anything we do make a difference.

Or in my case, Read, learn, watch, listen and quietly step sidewise, grow alot of my own food, raise my own meat, have my own milk, my own fruit, make choices to spend my money on life style choices and in keeping with that comes the ability to choose to stock or prep now to help in regards to future needs covering as broad as base as possable.

What about you? How are you feeling about these issues? Are you taking some extra baby steps to get a few more things in the house? or are you taking big old leaps in regards to getting your things in order? or are you happy to stay the course with what you are currently doing or not doing?

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March 25th-Storing your Garden Produce

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

The different Methods used to store your garden produce include

Clamping
Freezing
Drying
Salting
Canning
Pickles and Chutney’s
Relishes, Ketchups and Sauces
Jams and Jellies
Fruit Butters
Fermenting.

Most folks in Canada would use a combo effect of the different methods listed above, I am unsure who lives in a zone good enough for Clamping to work but I am sure that it would in a mild enough climate. Just as Overwintering and Wintersowning are now choices to make, that were not really talked about at the time that list would have been made orginally.

Do you use all the methods listed? What is your favorite way of storing your extra’s? I use all the different methods listed above, it just depends on what its is and how my own family perfer’s it.

Wanted something crunchy, sweet and chocolately but at least a bit healthy if possable..

Enter chocolate Granola

1/2 cup dark bitter chocolate chips, poured enough sheep milk (which would be light table cream fat wise) in the bowl till it just covered the chips, and melted them together, stirring till I had a smooth chocolate paste.

4 cups of old fashioned oatmeal, 1 cup of dried cranberries, 1/2 cup of raw pumpkin seeds, 2 tbsp of poppy seeds, 2 tbsp of Chia Seed, poured the chocolate mix over top and stirred it all together, then spread out over a cookie sheet at low heat, and mixed it every five or so min till dried into clumbs and crumbs. Cool and enjoy, could be used as breakfast with cold milk or maybe pressed into a very well greased pan and then cut into bars. or dropped by spoonfulls and allowed to harden.

Breakfast-Eggs

Lunch -Hambuger, leftover mashed, and carrots.

Supper-Steak/onion Pizza with tomato base sauce.

Extra’s -Buns, Bread and Pizza dough, chocolate Granola

Drinks-Water, Tea

Posted in Life moves on daily | Leave a comment

Weigh in Week 12/11

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Love this photo of a double Sun Dog but also picked it as a way to say.. don’t you ladies just love how there are times of the month, that your weight is a reflection of the real thing.

I am up 1.4 pds but I don’t believe it, Wait a week and we will see if I can prove it 🙂

Goals for the pastweek

Walk 3 times this week -Yup, and even got in a extra one.
Workout 2x this week with the wii -Yup, plus had a massage on my back to help work on that very sore rib/hip area’s that I hurt when I fell, and it felt like I did a workout the day after.
Continue spring outside work -Massive, if you have not read about it, check out the hugelbeet, it was a full workout and half
Watch portion control -Excellent, I didn’t have any seconds, I used all my small plates, only on monday night did I blow it and over eat but I made up for it afterwards.
Eat something pickled daily -no, I eat a whole jar of beets, loved it and then the craving stopped.

Its been a good week, I have had energy and I have been up to being able to get back to working steady for hours at a time, but still am not up to my full self, its going to be a process in regards to healing my back.

Goals for this coming week.

post my report on time.
Walk at least 3 x this week
Train the baby oxen once this week
Continue working on the yard
Watch portions
Try and add in more fresh wild greens this week as possable.
Pick, move and haul bush/wood for the maple syrup fire.

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Natural Cleaning in the Kitchen

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Yesterday as I was doing my prep work to get the next rounds of Corn Beef, an then planning on the next step making Pastrami, As well as corning Tongue, and today I will do the prep work required to start Aprils Year of Meat Challange, Brined, and smoked Canadian Bacon, I decided that at some point soon, I should write about this subject near and dear to my heart.. When you are canning, and or working with meats or butchering, you must! be clean.

Now I am not a great housekeeper, I’m not bad and I do it alot but its rare that I can’t look around and think, geez I just did that, and its messy or dirty again.. being on a farm and with the four-footer critters means its a never ending battle, which I am sure that many out there feel the same way.

Which is why I NEVER trust that something is clean enough when I am going to bake, can or work with raw meat, everything gets a just done clean before I start. Here are a list of the most basic requirements IMHO

Salt
Vinegar
Baking Soda
Boiling Water
Scrub brush that is only used for this, have one for veggies and one for meat.
One cutting board just for meat
One cutting board for veggies
Fresh Washed Towels, dish cloths
A sink full of hot soapy water with a hanging towel to wipe your hands afterwards.

So no matter how clean your boards were when they got put away, then should be given a fresh scrub before they get used again, if its my wooden board, its scrubbed with salt, dry scrub first and then let to sit, then boiling water poured on and scrubbed again, and rinsed till water run’s clear. If its glass or marble, I will wash it off with fresh cloth in the hot soapy water, and then dry with clean cloth, then I will wipe it down with straight vinegar and i’m good to go, depending on the tools to be used, I will boil them for a min of ten minutes. Knife’s are well washed and put into a jar with either vinager an boiled water or a low percent of bleach/water between uses.

If I am butchering, cut your nails short, don’t butcher if you have any open cuts or sores on your hands, unless you can butcher with gloves on, I have never been good at that, I need the “touch” of bare hands to do a really good job, which means that I am washing my hands often.

When working outside in regards to butchering, the same rules apply, steel tables or glass table is best, again, wash well with hot soapy water, then rinse with fresh boiled hot water, then final rinse with either straight vinager or a water/bleach compo, have one area that is for “dirty work” and one area that is for clean work.

Example, if I am butchering a duck, I would want one bucket for feathers, as I use them to make a garden tea out of them and then compost the rest, the extra’s that are not for peaple use, go in a critter bucket, at that point the body would be put into clean ice cold salted water to rest, while I do the other birds, only once I am done that part, would I move to the clean meat area, or I might clean the whole work set up and then start with the chilled fresh salted carcasses to process them from there. Remember to change your apron or clean it or change your cloths between the first part of butcher to the clean part.

You are going to be working with care to make sure that the inner’ds are coming out as cleanly as you can get, and that the less any extra bits get on your main body of meat, but if something does happen, don’t put that in the ice bath, until you have rinse’s it with fresh cool water till it runs clear and is of course clean by your eye sight.

There are two main reason’s in my mind to self-butcher, first because I want the death of a animal I raised to be as stress-less as possable, and I can make that happen if its done right, but the second reason is that I can control how clean the butcher is.. there is none of the things I read or hear about in terms of what happens in those big huge slaughter houses. Just as the animal was treated with respect though its life, so is the meat afterwards, it has a very high value to me and I treat it as such.

Its up to you to follow the rules to be clean when you cook, process or make your own food from scratch, please take the extra time and steps to make sure that you are protecting the health of your loved ones.

Posted in farm, frugal, Real Life | Tagged Canning, Farm Life, Food Production and Recipes, Frugal | Leave a comment

I want a hambuger steak..

Posted on March 24, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

I am putting this craving for a burger on Chiots Run , since this amazing post on her homemade burgers, I have been dreaming about sinking teeth into my personally version of this but there is a issue, and its called March Challange.. I am all out of Beef hambuger, I am out of goat hambuger, and I am even out of lamb… What is a girl to do?

Well if you are farm gal, you thaw out meat, cut it up and grind your own 🙂

Then you take 2 big onions and all your old leftover bread and grind it up as well, add in two fresh eggs, salt, pepper, pinch of hot peppers, some dried and ground garlic, with a touch of basil.

Mix the above well, put in a your trusty cast iron and cook it up, serve with mashed (with the bits out of the pan for extra flavor and carrots with dill

This was a wonderful meal indeed, I did cook off my roast so will have it for tomorrow, and we have eight more patties cooked and ready for different uses, hmm, someone needs to make hamburger buns very soon..

Posted in 100 mile diet, March Challange | 2 Comments

Corned Tongue Anyone?- Part 1

Posted on March 24, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

I don’t know if it was all the raving reviews on the other Charcuterie sites or that I have been having the Nanny on as background noise to much lately but when I picked up the full size pork loin (don’t worry girls, it won’t be ready till after the March challange is done) to make into my smoked Canadian Bacon, and I left with a full size Beef Tongue.

DH swears he is not going to eat any, but I keep telling him that when I serve it, it won’t look anything like it does now! Then I got the sucker home and its not pretty like the other tongues on the net.. O no, mines all real looking.. (maybe they trimmed their before the photo was taken)

Noticed that at least half the sites said that the thicker part of the tongue could be hard to get corned all the way though, so I got out a new needle and put some of the brine directly in the meat..

So the really funny part was the first one I did, when I removed the needle the brine shot right back out of it.. made me laugh, so after that, I gave it a little wiggle before taking it out and that fixed the issue.. Then into its full brine and into the fridge, it should be ready in about a week or so.

So anyone want to send me their best corned beef tongue recipes? I’m open to idea’s.. I will share the results..

Posted in Charcuterie | 5 Comments

March 24th-Vinegar

Posted on March 24, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

So we covered soft fruit, and hard fruits and their many uses, which means that today’s subject fits in perfectly.. Vinegar’s. Malt (made of Barley Wine (Red or White) Apple Cider, Fruit Vinegar’s , Rice, and a number of other kinds I have never used in different cultures.. then come flavored vinegar’s, now this is something I do make an use at home, as its a great way to dress things up.

Vinegar is an acidic liquid produced from the fermentation of ethanol in a process that yields its key ingredient, acetic acid (ethanoic acid). It also may come in a diluted form. pH of table vinegar ranges from 2.4 to 3.4(higher if diluted). The acetic acid concentration typically ranges from 4% to 8% by volume for table vinegar^[2] and up to 18% for pickling.

I really liked the write up about making homemade vinegars on this site but the basic’s are all over the web, still I will give the one that I have done.. its way to dead simple..

I trade with a farmer down the road that makes his own homemade apple cider and I add some apple Cider with mother from Braggs, and put it into one of my crocks, cover with cheese cloth so air can pass though but keeps everything else out, and I let it do its thing, its ready in about four to six weeks.. then I bottle it up and I’m done for the year..

Last year I made a number of different flavored vinegars and really enjoyed them, this year I am going to try my hand a some different homemade fruit vinegars.

So do you make your own vinegar? if so what kind? What is your favorite kind for salads? Do you ever make herbal or citrus Vinegars?

Breakfast-Eggs/Bread

Lunch-Leftover Pasta

Supper- ~~Pork Roast~~-Hambuger Steaks, Mashed Potato with carrots

Drinks Water, Tea

Posted in March Challange | 1 Comment

March 23rd-Hard Fruits

Posted on March 24, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Even if you only have a small backyard, you can have some kind or kinds of Hard Fruits, they now sell draft fruiting tree’s that get no more then eight to ten feet in height.

Crabapples, Apple, Pear, Peach, Plums, Sweet and Sour Cherries all grace my ever growing orchard, in the bush area, there are Saskatoons, Elderberries, Black Chokeberries and High Bush Cranberries.

While I adore the sweet eating and canning fruits, like the Pears, Peaches and the Cherries, The sauces made by the plums are wonderful with my different meats, and as dipping sauces but the real hard workers of the group is without a doubt the crabapples and the apples.

The apples can keep till Jan if kept right and they dry beautfully an with the correct hand powered turn machine, making apple sauce has never been so easy, they help make apple Juice (a powerhouse for health), Apple Cider, and of more value to me, Apple Cider Vinager. They are used to fill out many old fashion recipes in terms of both bulks and free pectin.

But for flavor and pectin my crabapples win hands down, I love the amazing flavor that comes with adding in crabapple to many, many things. I keep small bags of frozen crabapple juice that can be used thoughtout the winter.

As a added bonus, you will have lots of fruit tree trimmings for smoking your own meats, peaple pay top dollar in the stores for fruit wood chips to smoke with, when you have your own tree’s, its free for your own use and plans.

So what is your favorite Hard Fruit, and do you have fruit tree’s in your yard.

Breakfast-Eggs and Breads

Lunch-DH-Pastie, FG-Pasta

Supper-Pasta with Greens, onion, and a diced chicken breast with a milk sauce.

Extra’s -cranberry lemon cookies

Drinks-Water, Tea

Posted in March Challange | Leave a comment

Bird Sale -Round Two

Posted on March 23, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

I’m a little late on this post, its busy around here..

Bird Sale #2 for the spring season, it was a little further away, but thanks to GPS, alot closer then any year before but boy was I backroading it to make it happen, and those spring roads are rough in places, the sale started at 9am and I was meeting a friend.

The parking lots was crazy full, in the end it they ended up parking well down both sides of the roads, the sale was busy!, I have been to sales at the building before and this was packed! As in Standing room only, the birds were good qaulity, and the prices were much lower across the board compared to the sale the weekend before.

I was once again grumpy at the lack of birds on my little list, the few that were in fact there that made my list, went above my marked high end price. I ended up coming home with four buys, two full size rabbit grow out cages, that can be used for rabbits, small birds or even as a safe place for a broody hen with young chicks. I got these for about 20 percent in cost compared to buying new, which makes it “the sale” of the day for me.

I also got reminded to pay attention, I thought I was bidding on the second cage, and ended up buying metal feeders, good price, can always use them and they go with the cages but not truly a “needed” item.

Then comes the only living critter that came home with me which is now called Honk, a plain old mixed breed gander born last year, I had hoped to buy his mate, but she flew past my price range and just kept on going higher and higher as two other battlied it out of her.

I can’t say that I was nearly as happy with this sale as I was with the first one, they didn’t seem nearly as clear on what they had for sale in calling it out, they don’t have the big light so you can see what is coming up, I do understand that when it gets that busy, that its harder to give that personal touch, but I enjoyed the first sale more.

I left early before the sale was finished by hours, having said that, nothing was coming that was on my list and as I had lots of work waiting for me at home on the farm, plus to honest, I had reached my limit of the crowds, I can handle being in a crowd but after a while, having peaple pushed in all around me, starts to get to me.. It was a pleasure to arrive home and have that fresh air, space around me, the big blue sky and different feel that comes with my land.

Posted in farm sales | 3 Comments

Road still closed do to spring flooding..

Posted on March 23, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

I belong to a truly wonderful girls night out group, which I call Pie, Wine and Knit night, this ladies are so amazing, I can’t express how much I enjoy my bit if time off the farm to have adult visits, and I have a back road way that cuts almost 20 min off driving the paved route but the spring floods have all the roads closed due to our flooding..

So I had to go round to the long! way but it gave me the chance to take a photo or two for you to see just how much flooding we get, so this is the back side of the road that leads to our farm..