Its your birthday today.
a time for warm thoughts
and fond memories a time for snuggles and cuddles
from the four footed purr pots
for expressing
the feelings and words
that often go unspoken,
for letting you
know that you are loved
and appreciated.
Happy Birthday Ma
I read this comment over at different blog, she just touched on it very briefly, in passing that she was going to plant a raised bed of something just for canning that year.. and it got me thinking about this post.
If you are really into trying to grow your own food and preserving it, that can include, drying it, freezing it, canning it or fermenting it, you have to look at the idea of not just a fresh eating garden but a well thought out and planned “Canning Garden”
If you want to grow and produce some garden products to help off-set the cost of critter feed(and with the rise in prices we are seeing on general crops) you can bet your booties that I do, that means another area that needs to be given over to gardening.
So how would you figure this out, well the first thing to do would be to figure out what your own family uses on a regular base’s, so while this might seem like a bit of work, consider having a list, and jotting down what you are using for a week, two weeks or even better a normal month.. Do you typically eat corn, or is it pea’s, do you tend to use tomato sauce for almost everything, are you a potato family or are you more into veggie stirfries..
A good example, some folks love pickles, so if you are already buying one big pickle jar per week or every two weeks, then growing and making pickles makes total sense, but if you family does not typically eat pickles, what is the point of growing, picking, cleaning and putting up 40 jars of something that is just going to sit there.
For myself, its swiss chard, I know, I know its good for you, and I love my spinach and my different greens, some spicy, some zesty, even some bitter.. hmmm so good but I don’t like Chard, I have tried different colors, kinds and different ways to cook and serve them, I almost always end up feeding it to the critters, not a bad thing, given that it grows like a weed and its really good for them.. but if I am being honest with myself, Chard should count as a) giveaway item to take to friends or b) part of the critter garden.
So think carefully about what and how much you want to plant of something, on the flip side.. we can’t seem to ever grow enough beans, Every year we plant more beans, we extend the bean growing season, the bean growing rows and still somehow despite my best efforts to grow enough beans that we can freeze a good amount.. nope.. they just get eaten.. I have seen my DH sit with a big bowl of beans and just eat them fresh as a snacks.. now this is not a bad thing, but it does not get those beans into my freezer. Going to add another 30 or 50 foot row of Canning Garden only.
So what things do I know right now that I should plan a extra couple rows for the Canning Garden.
If you were planting a Canning Garden what do you think you would need to plant extra of?
This is not your store bought Pork Rinds, these are the homemade kind that you chew and chew and if you like pork rinds your mouth just waters at the flavor and texture of these babies. Anyway you cut it, these are in limited supply, which just makes them all the more special. So in this case, I got a fresh pork belly with hide on and made bacon, after the bacon was ready but not cured yet, I used it as fresh bacon. It went into the oven at 350, the first thing you will notice is that the rind is going to change color, it will go from a dark pink to a soft tan color, it will lighten somehow in tone from a dark warm to a cooler light..
At that point, you want to sneak out, cool it down just enough to work with it, and cut it off the bacon itself, I try and leave about 1/4 inch of fat on it, if you have bacon (meat attached) you can leave it on to cook for a bit longer but you are going to need to pull it off as it cooks, you just wan the hide and fat left..
Now you cook it.. if you see this.. its not ready, if that fat is still bubbling out.. keep baking that baby..
What you want to see is this..
Once you it, you get it out of the pan and cut it into stripes before it has a chance to cool and get all crispy, at which point it will become very hard to cut, some folks like to cut the stripes into cubes, I like to pick up a piece and give it a chew to get peices off, but if you like it more tidy by all means feel free to cut it down in size. Its worth noting that this was clearly a pink pig, and that my black skinned pigs would give a light black rind.
The Bacon is ready, at least if you want to eat it fresh, which we did a few peices, the rest is now hanging to cure and be used in a number of wonderful ways.
Given that I had homemade fresh Bacon in the house, I wanted needed to make Baked Beans, so first I put the navy beans out to soak overnight (if you don’t want to soak, just boil them in fresh water, changing it twice and rinsing to cut down your time) but for a energy saver, soak the beans overnight, then bring them to a boil in a large pot and gentle simmer till just tender.
At the same time as this I was cooking bacon and making Pork Rinds (that is another post and coming soon), I put the peice of bacon with rind on in the oven at 350, and let it go for a good 15 min till the rind changed color, at that point I pulled it out, and very carefully sliced(with my skinning knife but any small very sharp narrow blade will do) the rind off and put in back in the pan to cook, same with the bacon.. cooked another 15 to 20 mins or so till done.. Pulled the bacon out and let it cool, pulled out the bacon rind, and quickly cut it into stripes before it had a chance to cool down and get all crunchy.
Then I took my cooked beans, drain them and put them in that cast iron pan full of hot bacon fat, and drippings, added one qts of homecanned crushed tomato’s, a pint of homemade Chili sauce, 1/4 a cup of molassies, some black pepper and some keens hot dried mustard powder to the mix, at this point the bacon was cool enough to handle and I cut it into small peices and stirred it in, covered and baked, I would guess that it would be about another hour or hour an half at a slow simmer in the oven till close to done, at which point, I uncovered it and gave it alittle extra brown time for another 15 min or so.. and then I eat two bowls piping hot from the oven.. it was fabulous.
Now lets try that for folks that don’t home can
Follow the directions listed above in the order and how to put it together.. Add a bit more tomato juice if you want more sauce. Now if you are wondering about the difference, my homemade Chili has the onion, brown sugar, spices in it already.
Ok, here is my report, So made a list, worked the list, fiddled around with the list and away we went today..
So that’s my report ladies..
As anyone who lives in a area with snow knows that there is a reason that we have snowshoes and snow ski’s because both of these allow us to stay on top of the snow, instead of needing to break or keep trail.
I think that most folks who don’t live on the farm or spend any great time in the woods, would have a hard time grasping just how much extra energy it takes to break trail..Most folks today are just to used to firing up the tractor or the snow plow and within a short time having a new clean path to walk on.. but for the sake of this post.. try and think what it would be like if you didn’t have that choice. Even those that get out to the cross country trails need to remember that these trails are groomed for your use.
Check out the new snowshoes, they are so small, light weight and easy to use compared to the only fashion ones, which have their own charm and uses in certain conditions. The new ones are great for every day use.
I have read it in books and have done it myself and I have to admit that it works well, and its a real energy saver, here is one of my helpers..
This sweetheart has broken many a trail for us over the years, in many different conditions but as you can see from the white on her face, she is starting to get up there in years, she is always game in heart but there are times now, where the body needs a break.
Want a extra good workout.. break trail in snow, it will leave your heart pumping, your lungs puffing and your legs burning in short order!
That they are talking about the rising costs of food across the globe and the effects its having in regards to some of the riots we are seeing, they are qouting the fact that for the past seven months that we have seen increase’ if you want to read more details, check out this article
I am interested to see how soon some of those costs will also show up in my critter feed costs? I know last year was the first time in six years that wheat was growing in the different farms around us, and I noted that to a few of the different folks in passing, and they all said the same thing.. Wheat was a “up” crop last year.. it replaced a great deal of the fields around here of soybean.. want to bet that you see that trend stay in place this coming year?
So are you seeing a increase in your area for the basics? Are you planning on gardening this year to help reduce your costs? or perhaps increase your gardens in size? Are you finding your food budget not going as far as before? If so, care to share what you are in fact cutting out, or are you spending more to maintain your current level? and if so, got an idea of how much? 5%, 10% or more?
For myself, I am seeing it, the big one that I notice is flour, sugar, rice and oatmeal.. I am also really seeing the rising costs in the fresh food department, driving me more towards my own home canning and frozen fruits and veggies.
The cost of frozen veggies is one thing I have really noticed this winter, the prices around here at least are not good on this product, the most reasonable bags are 2 kg so 4.4 pds worth of veggies and they are running right around 5 dollars plus tax, which means over 2 dollars per pds, when last year, I could get the same bags on sale for less then a dollar per pound, they have not gone on sale at all this year, and these are not top of the line-these are the store brands, hit green giant and you are looking at over 3 dollars per pd..
So let me know how it is goes in your neck of the woods…
So FF and Puff Daddy are doing great, Puff has totally got this figured out and is now able to walk down and back from the barn, his only issue is that he a brat and thinks that everyone “must” love him, he has started really well on his hay and is way to cute to watch him chew his cud on his ever changing old towel bed, he now has a old bucket stuffed with fresh hay in one corner of his area.
Hay Baby and Spot continue to do very well, Hay Baby is also spoiled to the ends, as Woolie who lost her baby has adopted Hay Baby an so the mom’s share her, and she freely nurses on which ever mom she would perfer at that moment
Bubbles just had a lovely set of twins on Ground Hog Day, they are colorful and smaller then the singles as twins should be but both are up and nursing well and mom is very bonded with both of them..
Carmel has bagged up today at check in and is waddling like nobodies business so she is now jugged up as I don’t believe she will be long before she has her little ones, she seemed happy to go into the jug and very much giving me the “look” that says.. soon..soon..
A Goal for this year.. to camp more.. A warm hello to “red” in the photo, do you remember the summer of the bears?? That lovely view is by Yellowknife NWT.
Goals for the past week
So here is my weigh in for the week and it came as a surprise, I expected that I would have gained or maybe lost a little bit.. so I was amazed when I was down 2.6 pds this week.. so a total of 46.8 pds. I will believe the scale but I don’t feel less, I feel heavy and tired to be honest, but I guess its more mental. Thankfully the sun is shining for the first time in days.
Goals for this coming week, lets keep it simple..
….as I was sitting down to write my weigh in post, I saw something that caught my eye out the window, high up in the tree where my turkeys roost was a large brown and white bird, O No was my first thought (owl, hawk, dang Turkey Vulture) nope, it was one of my ducks and she flew out of the tree, past the house and over the house in blink, so out I went to find her.. after tromping around in the knee high snow plus difts and no sign of her.. finally came back around the other side and there she was out in the snow, with a grumpy look on her face.. took a bit but got her back in the safety of the little barn, now just need DH’s help to get her caught and back in the duck pen. Silly! Bird. Would love to know how she got that high up in that tree.. someone needs a wing’s feathers trimmed. If you trim on wing’s worth of feathers off, it makes the bird uneven and they can’t fly well until they get a new set of feathers in and then you need to do it again.
Just another Day on the Farm 