Ah Scrub’s, those old fashion vinegar based drinks. In a time before fridges and pop, there was the Scrub.
What is a Scrub Drink? It’s a mix of either Fruit or Herb Juice that is mixed with both sweetness and the bit of an acid. It is easy to take this drink and punch it up with a bit of vodka if you want to serve it as a fancy Christmas drink 🙂
The mix between fruit and sugar can be as equal are 50-50 or it can be as low as 75% fruit with 25% sugar and that finished fruit or herb syrup is blended at 2/3rd fruit syrup to 1/3rd of a vinegar.
Now you can use a touch less vinegar to start with if you find it a touch much, but you want to create a mix of sweet and sour to the drink.
Blueberry Scrub Recipe
2 cups of frozen blueberries
1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of red wine vinegar
I took my frozen blueberries and put them in a quart jar with the sugar and shook them, into the fridge they went for 3 days, each day I would take the blueberries out in their jar and shake it well and put it back.
After three days, I strained out the blueberries from the sweetened blueberry cold process juice, the blueberries went into baking and then I measured out my juice and added my vinegar.
Use 1/3rd Scrub blend in your glass with water or if you want to make it a hard drink, do a mix of vodka/water for a crazy good hard blueberry drink!
For a Saturday that alarm went off, and after the dogs were done, they went to back to bed with Hubby and I was off the farm by 7am.. I was heading to the city to meet a cousin from hubbies side and we were off to a ladies spa day!
We drove to Quebec, it was cold, it was snowing.. the wind would freeze your hair stiff with white frosting! What a place, this only show some of it.. no camera allowed inside. so I will have to show you with their video..
There are hot pools, cold pools, bubble pools, places you can talk, places you can whisper and places you are silent in, there are steam baths and hot sauna’s. So much more! We arrived just after 9 am and left around 7:30pm that evening approx.
Wow, other than my bad legs, the rest of me was so relaxed and boneless, it was an amazing however my mind was the very opposite, I meet those most interesting lady’s and one hubby. So many interesting chats, laughs and a lovely fancy lunch with platters of this and that. I really liked the pate and the one dip..
I will find a way to get back there with my hubby for a couples day at some point.. I have to admit that I never knew that we even had something like this within an hour and half or so depending on traffic from the farm. I didn’t get home till close to 11pm.
Dec 9th
Hubby had slipped and fallen earlier in the week and was really feeling it so I did two massage sessions of close to hour each. the rest of the day was pretty slow and steady.
Faith kitty like her brother Patrick are in need of regular grooming in their full winter fluffy coats, she is looking might fine. The Canada post mail lady delivered my new camera in a surprise to me on a sunday
Tried out a few things but have read manual twice and will need to do so again.
Snagged a fast selfie to show you my new glasses as promised. They are messing with my depth and giving me bad headache but I am wearing them steady none the less. I am getting the old glasses redone with the new glasses, so I will have two pair.
Dec 10th
Morning folks, Could you give me a helping hand please?
I will be working with a group of bloggers for a self-sufficiency month in jan of 2019 and I am starting on a list on blog ideas, if you are willing, share with me some ideas that you would like to see addressed on this subject, I can not say I will use them all but it would be possible I might 🙂
Got an update on the chocolate I had ordered from a friend’s daughter, I am excited about it coming in as most of it will be going back out as Christmas presents, I often make my own chocolates but I took that off this year and ordered to give a helping hand in sales needed.
The big high light of the day was sun! Honestly it was.. the sun poured in from bright blue sky’s. I turned off the heat in that part of the house, and enjoyed the warmth of solar heat! I watched critters chase the sun around the room with this look of AH, and I totally understood, I even laid down on the couch at the right time for 20 sun therapy for myself.
Sunlight in the darkest part of winter means so much when the rest of the days are grey overcast!
The rest of the day was spent just doing normal Monday putter things and it was game night on Monday evening. Always enjoy getting to spend that time with friends.
Dec 11th
In the night with the covers drawn and deep in sleep my hubby called out my name in pain.. He was having muscle spasm’s and they were ripping across his back, I was up in a stumbling mess with lights on.. I worked on his back for around 30 minutes between hand on and machine massage heat and meds.
Poor guy, he is working from home today and I have been on the phone this morning , tracking down and getting him in to see a physiotherapist. I have also put a call in to SIL as she does this kind of work to hold us over.
If he does not get it under control, he will be going to emerg, which he is fighting me on, he says I am helping enough.. Its always so hard to see someone you love in pain!
I have been able to get him booked in very early next week for a full checkup and start of a program on healing, and I will do my best to hold him steady in place till we can get some answers. Some of it is covered by our insurance, but I do not really care.. I would pay full price if I needed to do so.
Because he is home today, I had to change up the normal teli-work day later in the week and call and rebook other plans, that’s fine. I got it all sorted out and this snowy grey day is now calming down and should be steady as she goes, I hope!
Well, you will have to wait till the next mini-chapter of Farmgal’s Christmas Journal to find out how the rest of the day goes. You all have a good day yourself!
The biggest issue with growing beans for protein is that you are having to give up a lot of space in the garden from seed planted till plant die off and or till you pull up the plants and can hang them to finish drying.
While its possible you might? live in a place that could give you a very short second crop after the beans are pulled, it also means that you must have that big of a hanging space and that is something we are going to talk about this year here on the farm.
It’s a area that I am lacking and its on my hit list this coming year, I need to create a better drying/hanging places that let the air in but still protects from critters. I have a good idea how I want this to happen. The question is if I can take that idea and turn it into a real thing, we will see.
Our average grow season is 158 days per the paperwork but my own tracking shows us at around 140 to 145, the shortest season beans I can find are 90 to 95 days the average are around 110 to 120 and there are a few that are in the 120 plus days.
That is a very long time to be giving up that space in the your gardens, its pretty much the whole season, with a very short window for that space to be used for a 30 to 45 day crop maybe?
Thank goodness you can climb them upward so you only need to lose a narrow strip of soil.
I would recommend splitting your fresh/canning/storage whole beans vs your dried beans.
Given the crazy weather we are having, I am moving over to bush beans in dense plantings for the fresh eating/storage beans. I want the beans to be planted just far enough that we can walk to pick but otherwise, close enough that they are providing their own shade for that summer heat/drought, but I am going to be using free form hilling on them to create mini-swells for when it does rain hard.
The dried beans are all climbers and they will be going up, up and up.. they are going to get cover crops down and round their roots with a crazy amount of compost/cover 🙂
Its only once you have grown dried beans that you realize just how much space and time they take for such little return. I love my beans but once I get them all done, I have a great respect for them because I know how much it took to get those pounds of home-grown beans.
However the price of beans is going up locally in the stores. Have the prices gone up in your area as well.. What used to be a 1.29 to a 1.99 bag of beans is now currently in my store 3.99 to 4.69.
Now I do understand that is still far under the cost of other kinds of protein per pound. However the effort is enough that you would never see me using my dried beans for critter food.
The Dried beans grown on our homestead are for people use only. This is area that we will be expanding this year. It may not do anything to make this more pretty 🙂 but I have decided if I have a spot of vertical growing available, I will do my best to get pea’s or beans into that space in 2019.
Making different kinds of Chocolate bark is so easy for the holidays, good for snack tray or a small bag made up for a stocking stuffer, or as part of a host gift. or you can make a favorite and leave it bar form for the kids to break apart in the bag themselves!
White chocolate melting chips were gotten at the bulk barn, one of the best places to get all your kinds of melting chocolate chips from as well as a huge selection of choices to make your bark with. in this case crushed candy cane.
It seemed fitting to make a dried Cherry and Almond bark next, this one is very popular, also can use cranberries instead of cherry to cut the cost some.
Simple and easy to make, can even send your guest home with a little gift bag of a mix of white, milk and dark chocolate barks.
I used a serving tray with different sizes, I made the candy cane one long and thin bark and I made the other two loaded with dried cherries and almonds and made it twice as thick. Pick your tray be it a loaf pan, a pie pan or if push come shove, just make a mold out of your tin foil as long as it’s on a pick up board, plate.
The joy of making your own bark is you pick the kind of chocolate, you pick the filling, and you pick the thickness of the end product.. it’s all about what you like..
Melt your chocolate in a pot, bowl over top a pot of water or if you microwave, slow short bursts of heat and then stir till it’s all melted.. Please remember to get melting chocolate for this type of project, it just makes your life so much easier.
Pour over top.. shake your tin to settle the chocolate and then put in the freezer or fridge, in my case I put it out into a snow bank on one of my lawn chairs to freeze up.. Once its cooled and hardened back up, it will peel off the edges and be ready to just turn over.. Then you can cut it.. I like to cut it in half or thirds and then into triangles, it will break off uneven but give your nice looking pieces.
This is a great kids project as they can help pick out the type of chocolate an what goes in it 🙂
Woke up to a sunny day. It was a cold one with a nasty wind if you were out in it.. but in the house, the warm sunlight poured in the windows. The horse’s parked themselves on the non-wind sun side of the barn and basked in the warmth.
Paris was down right frisky today, she seemed to love the sun big time! For such a little package she sure can express herself!
The mail lady pulled in and gave me a box which when opened was from Big Brother and Family in our house to house gift swaps. The girls are enjoying their Jelly Bean Advent gift but I have been told that they are not doing well on the sharing of them. Its my understanding that they helped pick out the gifts, which is so sweet and I am excited to see what we got when we open the gift box.
Worked on my soup, its one of those two day soups.. make the bone broth/slow simmer the smoke hock for hours and soak and then simmer the navy beans.. I will cool and remove a good amount of the fat from the soup before starting on part 2 tomorrow.
Baked a upside down Chocolate Pear Cake to give hubby something to take to work and snack on.
I keep looking at my fish tank and wondering if I could throw a few plants on the top of that water and grow some food.. lol I have seeds sprouting, I have trays of greens and more growing. If nothing else, when I do the water changes, I can use the fish water to feed the plants to give them a boost that way.
Today was 12 days after surgery for Miss Sofie so we took her stitches out.. she was good girl and purred while hubby petted her and I had it done in under a min or less. She is healing nicely, I know she will be very excited to get to come and go outside more. It was sure easier then the trip to and back from the vets. I am so glad that my vet trusts me to do some of these little things.
Dec 5th
Good morning, Its lightly snowing again, its not to cold but the wind is bitter today. I got busy on the house stuff, did bundle up and did extra dog run/training for the farm hounds.
Made a loaf of bread with enough extra to do something with it.. just not sure what I am going to make with it yet. More snow and move shoveling.. did a practise video or 4 trying to work on my speaking on camera. Practised some self care and gave my hair a egg yolk treatment after some outside work did the dishes I had saved so I could heat up my hands in the warm soapy water 🙂 You know winter has arrived when you get excited about doing the dishes lol
I am on day three of five of a “free” mini course challenge and so far I hate it.. well maybe hate is to strong of word.. While I am sure the lady doing the challenge is nice in real life, she rubs me wrong like a cat being pet backwards LOL Honestly if she talked in real life in the same way, I honestly would not be able to be more then a smile, nod and run like heck.
Now that does not mean that I am slacking.. I am doing the work, I am writing it out, I am working it, I am listening to her talking, giving up a crazy amount of my very limited data to listen to her prattle on in most cases. Its a lot of fluff and not nearly much grit..
However I will admit that the every now and again, I jot something down on my paperwork that I do think could be useful in the future. Given her goal is to make me want to hire her and pay a good amount of money, she has already failed with me.. I would never hire her.. but I will work the last two days and see what else I can glean.. No quitting now!
Dec 6th
Snow baby Snow.. Shovel Farmgal Shovel lol
I got my soup finished and canned up. Needed to put a new ring in the canner but the old one certainly earned its way. I worked on the farm, got a delivery from Canada Post, my new kitchen wallpaper border arrived as did the new kitchen door handles. Sometimes a bit of new paint, a new border and handles is just what you need to update the look. We had done a lot of new stuff in the kitchen but the last time I painted the cupboards was four years ago and they needed a fresh coat and I decided there was to much brown.. so I added a big pop of color..
Sorry, you are going to have to wait till its done 🙂
Got two coats of paint on some and only one on others and I will need three to finish the job.
Dec 7th
What a grand day, got busy in the morning on regular chores and such.. I had headed to bed early and hubby had left the eggs for me.. Look what was waiting for me. Two new little wee pullet hens are starting to lay.. one is a green and one is light brown..
I had company arrive for lunch, I had made a lovely pork stew with dumplings and she arrived with fresh bread and yummy homemade bread crumbs. We had one of those awesome power girl days, where the idea’s flowed.
Picked up my new glasses, I will grab a photo in daylight for you soon. Had to drive all the way into the city to get to a shop that has a bathing suit in my size, cuz I am having a spa day soon! I have never been to a spa like this and I am quite excited to be honest!
WOW have the costs of bathing suits gone up.. I had to pay full price because the store removed the sales racks until after boxing day week! You could have knocked me over with a feather, all the sale items are boxed up and in the back.. they will have NO SALES RACKS for the Christmas season sales.
I have never seen a store do that and you can bet your bottom dollar that I will be writing them. So I did get a cute suit and I will find ways to wear the heck out it over the next couple years at that cost!
So excited despite the -2o plus weather we finally have clear sky’s tonight and we are having our first viewing on hubby’s new telescope. I hope that the view is worth the freeze LOL
So come on in and grab hot coffee.. it’s a loaded campfire coffee this morning, that means very strong coffee with lots of sugar and milk in it. The cold came back last night and burr out there today and even colder tonight.
The news has certainly given me way to much to ramble about this, but how to choose between them.. I swear today you could throw a dart blindfolded and hit something that makes you go WHAT?
Lets go with a hot topic this week! Baby its Cold outside!
So this song was written in a very different time then we live in, it was a time when a good girl could not stay even if she wanted to.. It was written by a husband and wife team who sang it back and forth at parties.
This week it was banned from the airwaves by all three major media networks in Canada, effectively removing it from the Canadian radio. The reason for this ban, it’s not longer a song that can be on air due to the Metoo movement.
Now the big issue that I keep hearing about is What’s in this Drink and No, No, No
What’s in this drink? At that time in history, saying what’s in this drink was NOT asking if they put something in the drink! it meant.. Whoo.. this drink is hitting me now..
it was a common saying at the time in 40’s that meaning has changed in our times. If you listen to the song, she says to him.. well, just another half drink and he says put on the music babe.
Compare that to where we now!
Having girls getting plastic slips over their drinks to protect them from someone slipping something in. Date rape is not something to be causal about! I think like most of us who are women, if we are being honest. Almost all of us have had a hand where we didn’t want it, a come on that was to pushy, and for a lot of us, at least one time or two times where things got ugly.
I get it, I do.. I read the song with fresh 2018 Me too eyes and I am not going to hide it.. I expect it would be fair to say that there could be trigger’s there for some.
If we took out everyone’s triggers, when it comes to the arts in all forms it would be a sad world we live in. I was reading one of my favorite authors new book and the scene where she takes out her wee babies box and hold’s her little shoes and tells the new loves of her life about the loss of her daughter triggered me so hard, I was a wreck..
I finally had to go get my own box’s out and hold cloths, shoes, look at little hands and feet pressed in plaster and cry it out..
Triggers are nasty, messy things and they can just be waiting to pop up and turn us on our heads. So I say again, I respect that this song COULD be an issue for some.
The slippery slope comes in when the powers that be “protect” us from choice.. after 40 years, nope, we will ban that song from the radio waves to protect you..
Wait!! WTF
That’s not protecting us!
That’s taking away our choice, that is taking away our voice to choose.. I have songs I will not listen to..(have you heard some of the things in rap, metal or even some of the new country songs these days) I can turn the radio off, I can choose to not own or play that CD, I can choose to change the channel.
When you remove it, you are removing my ability to choose!
This is a music example of a book banning!
O don’t worry folks, it’s still available, it’s just banned from the public space! I remember fighting AGAINST this in the 80’s.. when they banned this book or that book from the school, from the public library. Its available but not in a public space.. sounds way to close to me!
Here is what I say.. STOP IT!
They wonder why we are up in arms over this choice, they wonder why we are fighting back, they wonder why we are making a big deal out of it..
Its pretty simple.. YOU DO NOT GET TO MAKE THAT CHOICE FOR ME!
I will continue to listen to this song on my Christmas CD’s I counted and I have ten of them that have this song on it.. It’s a catchy song when listen to with half an ear, I still think it’s of a romance song going back and forth between two willing people who want to be together where its only what “outside” people thoughts or gossip is the only thing that stops them from coming right out and just having a fun night. (it was the 40’s folks.. a good girl did NOT spend the night with her boyfriend alone)
I worry that this is only the tip of the iceberg, what will be the next painting, book, movie or song that will be “white washed/removed/blocked/banned” to protect us from our history.
Our History books show time and again, that this type of thing is a VERY slippery slope and it tends to lead to far more issues than it cures.
So I am going to keep an open mind here, I promise to really think about anyone answers, do you think that items that are considered part of the “arts” should be hidden if they no longer match our “current” views?
So according to the company you should change your rings out yearly.. They are easy enough to get, just order them in for your size, they come with a new pressure plug as well. Most home hardware stores will order them in for you. Canadian Tire will locally for me and of course you can get them direct from the company itself off amazon.
Farmgal Tip of the Day
Keep as many extra’s as you have canners in storage. This way in the middle of canning season you will not be caught short waiting for something to arrive when you need it NOW!
Ok so I have to give a warning on this.. the canning police are going to hate me for what I am about to tell you..
This is my 8 Year old pressure canning ring and its just getting changed out for the first time since I got this pressure canner.
I am a big waste not, want not kind of gal, why should I change out something that is working perfectly fine. I use a weight on my pressure canners, I know they are holding pressure, I know that the food it safely canned
On my last canning with this canner, I noticed it didn’t come up to pressure quite as fast as normal, I pretty much have this down, so I did wonder if the stove was acting up but it came up to pressure and I locked it in.. it rocked but not perfectly.. or I should say, it rocked but not perfectly for what I KNOW and so I was really now giving it the eye and I started checking and sure enough.. there on the one spot was a tiny droplet of water coming out and down the side..
Now I have to admit that I was worried about it, but the pressure was holding and I was doing a fast 25 min canning load, so I let it run its course. However I knew it was time to order in new rings because 2 is 1 and 1 is none!
I had someone once says to me, you must not do much canning if your rings last a long time, haha.. I can about 1200 to 1500 jars a year and at least half of them are pressure canned, with the rest being water bathed. Even if you want to round that up to 600 jars, that’s around 33 loads a year. I think most folks will agree that is putting my pressure canner a good run for the money each year. That means on average.. this ring has done around 264 loads over its 8 year run!
I do have a few things I always do, I do add a tiny bit of vinegar to the water (I use it to help with minerals in the water) but just as important in case of fat, it cuts it as well, this is very important in terms of gumming things up.
I always check this by holding it up to see the light though it and if I think there is anything at all, I will run a toothpick though it a few times and then blow though it and check it again.
I take the ring out and wash it, and I wash the lid but then I always put the ring back into the lid, if its longer term storage, it can get a light oiling but most of the time I use it enough that I don’t do anything other then give it a good wash/rinse (I always rinse this) and air dry it and in it goes.
If your canner will not hold pressure, clearly at that point you need to stop, let it finish coming down and then put in your new one and redo your batch. I was lucky that my ring gave me a warning that it was done but it didn’t fail per say.
So tell me, do you change yours yearly? Do you keep a spare or two? Do you keep using yours until it needs to be replaced and if so, what was the longest you got out of a ring?
or are you one of those lucky ones that spent the extra money and got the all American and rings are not a issue for you 🙂
Dang its hard to figure out a new name that ideally will stick around for a awhile. One of my new projects for the coming year is to do short once a week vlogs..
I can see that this will take some practice and planning to get better at but hey that part of the fun right!
On with the show, let me know how I did on my first test one, I know I need to do better on lighting and not having the fan go round. its harder then you think to do a straight no edit 3 to 5 minute talk. I can see why it will be important to edit at times but I also like the truth in a single take.
Now this will not work if you have your dogs on grain free diet but if they can eat grains without issues.. this is a simple 3 ingredient homemade dog cookie that my guys all love to get as a treat.
One cup of pure pumpkin (not spiced)
One and half cup whole wheat flour
One large egg
That’s it folks.. Blend it together until if forms a ball, I split it into two to work on the roll out and cutting the cookies. you will need more flour to dust your cutting board and your dough while you roll it out..
Use a small cookie cutter of your choice or if you want squares, use a pizza cutter to make lines
Place on a ungreased cookie tray. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes at 350. For a softer Dog cookie, remove from oven and cool on wire racks, for harder dog treats, allow to cool in the oven and let them set for at least a couple hours.
These are fresh cookies and they will not hold for that long in a cupboard, my dogs eat them pretty fast, but they will last 7 to 10 days in the fridge easily.. I run out of them before I have kept them to long.
Today is officially World Soil Day! Its only the fourth such day, I find that amazing that it was only in 2014 that we as a collective around the world decided that soil was important enough that it needed its own UN program, countries to sign on during the paris accord and to get it own “day”
I find this both amusing and SAD, I can assure you that soil has been important for thousands of years.. and that we as humans have been able to grasp that for as long as we have been connected to our food growing systems.
That of course is the very issue right there! While most 3rd world countries are still far more connected directly to their food supply.. most of us in first world countries that is sadly not the case.
Even those that buy directly from farms in CSA baskets, or those that shop at the local farmers market, or those that buy organic good food boxes are all still missing this critical piece of the puzzle..
Soil is life.. and life in many ways is soil *1
Most people understand the loss of top soil, they can grasp this easily enough, drive by an empty turned farmers field when the wind is blowing and you can SEE the top soil moving.
Look at water movement and you can see the top soil being moved, shifted and washed away. Peaple sweep their sideways or other hard surfaces and they understand that the soil they are sweeping is top soil.
What is harder for people to grasp is that soil can die. It’s such a strange thing to say but soil can in fact die, it can be poisoned, it can be soured, it can be salted and it can be reduced to inorganic matter. *2
All of them mean the same thing, it means that time in space it is in effect died to the point that it does not produce even on a micro level in a way that supports life.
I hope that you take a moment to really think about that.. in war at one time in history, they would salt the ground to prevent them from being able to grow crops as they knew that without live active soil.. they could destroy the people who lived in that area.
We treat soil today very poorly indeed. So this step up that countries are signing on and starting to understand that it’s not just the cash crops that have value but point in fact the soil and its health matter as well.
Of course it appears to have taken the science proven on the fact that done properly that soil can be a carbon capture in regards to helping deal with climate change before they were willing to make this change.
Just writing that statement makes me want to shake my head and fist to the sky and moan..
Sadly I must admit that not all soil can be saved quickly, not all soil’s can just be fixed in our lifetimes but at least we can all take comfort in the fact that the odds are that time will be able to do what we can not.. soil will live on long after we have crossed over.
So lets flip this around a bit shall we.. While nature will when given a chance create new top soil. If you want it to happen a lot faster.. it’s on us!
You know that we can in fact grow soil, that we can in fact make soil come alive again, that we are taking compost that is thriving and teeming with life and move it over to restart poorly treated soil.
A friend of mine and I were talking one day about something to do with soil/adding compost and we talked about grabbing shovels of good soil to intermix into the new bed to give it a boost to its start.
So how do we go about fixing our soil? Well that is a lot more in-depth knowledge needed then this post is going to go into but it has got me thinking.. I am starting a whole new area in my yard and I will be doing a lot of different things to make that area ready.
Without seeing this world soil day and then doing a bit of reading on it, I would have done it without even thinking about share those needed but “plain” steps. This day and writing this post has made me decide that I should in fact share it in far more detail.
I am not sure how many single posts/video’s it will lead to overall. I will figure out a way to create a collector post that brings them back all together.
*1 Yes, I am aware that you can grow using hydroponic processes.
*2 While “dirt” is made up of many things, not all of it is living or organic which is why I wanted to point out that we can in fact have mass while not having life.
I am not sure what I want to ask as my question on todays post, so lets just go simple, have you heard of world soil day? What does it mean to you?
I am sorry to have this rant, I might not even post this.. I most likely will and I am sure I will lose a reader or two.. but I have to write this.. If you live in an apartment or a tiny condo in the city, you can be many things.. You can be […]
Ok, its just going on record that we are going to be “in just in time mode” on most things this year. Let me give a example.. we have pulled at least a hundred or two wild parsnips but then we needed to focus on this or that.. and suddenly this week, we are like.. […]
Just another Day on the Farm 