Rustic Apple Tart

Posted on October 22, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

Apple tartlet with mixed dried fruit and pumpkin seeds.

Sometimes it just needs to be fast and easy. I have enough pie dough left over to do one crust and I have a bin full of fall apples. I rolled out the dough.

In a bowl, I put three sliced, cored and peeled apple slices, a handful of a fruit and nut trail mix, 1 tsp of brown sugar, 1 tsp of flour,  1 tsp cinnamon and half  tsp of ginger powder. I mixed them all together.. put this in the middle of your tartlet and then lift and pinch the dough to create the raised edged crust, this was baked on a cookie tray but you could do it in a pan with edges if you are worried about leaks. Made four servings

Just because I could, when it came hot out of the oven, I drizzled one tbsp. of dandelion honey over the apples in the middle for a added boost of flavour. it was served cold with a bit of ice cream

Posted in Baking | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Frugal Pasture Repair

Posted on October 21, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

Happy Sunday to my lovely readers..

We are having a very productive weekend, we are in repair mode on a project here on the farm.. We are in the final push on it today..  If we get it done fast enough (HAHa) we will be building a new Goose house.

We went last night till we were working with head lamps and we are back at it this morning.. Batteries are charged, New wood is ready to be cut and worked.. We will get this repair done before the snow flies and it will be a GRAND thing..

So today’s post is a easy and simple one.. How to use hay to re-seed your pasture.  Now everything you read is going to tell you that you should feed off the ground and in a feeder and I totally agree!

If you are feeding out hay that has the critters ringing around it, then for sure you need a hay feeder, we have a large round hay bale ring feeder and we have smaller hay feeders in the barn stalls.

Let your sheep or goats or? graze that part of the pasture right down, this will mean that the new seeds will have a good chance for sprouting and growing up with the other plants, it will not work as well if you have taller plants..  you can mow it if you are doing a smaller area. Use a mulching blade to put the plant material back on the pasture and then feed out. ON

Having said that there is nothing wrong with feeding hay on clean ground each time you feed it out.. and no matter how good they are at cleaning up the area, they will not get all the hay “seeds” which will be scattered over the feed out area which when done in fall means added to the fall seed bank for spring sprouting.

So in our small pasture, we have slowly but surely been feeding out load after load in a line and then do the next line.. by the time of freeze up and winter hits, we will have feed out over the whole pasture and the sheep’s feet will have helped press the seed into the soil as they eat the spread out hay. I do need to spread out the horse poo’s and or pick them up so that they do not hold those spaces as non-growth for 2019. I break up the hay into smaller bundles from the middle and touch them out in a small circle with the main drop in the middle.

The horse’s do more spreading by tossing the hay around and the sheep do the biggest of the clean up, they leave very little but enough that you can clearly see where each feed out has taken place for when you go to do the next one.  This does not work on trails, or main feed out area’s because they have worked the soil up to the point of dirt..

When you get to the point of dirt, you need to do a full proper seed out and a removal of the livestock to do a regrowth time allowed without hoof pressure.  The very reason that folks say do not use hay in your garden unless you have to because of the seed’s it will drop in your soil is why this very frugal method will work on your pastures.

Posted in frugal | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Corned Beef Hash

Posted on October 20, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

I have had a craving for old fashioned Corned Beef Hash, I will be starting some meats to corn them up..  I perfer homemade to the store..

I picked up a small can of corned beef.. it was from france.. it had Beef, Salt and Pink Salt.. that was it.. so I grated up some baking type potato.. and here is the important part.. Rince off your extra starch from the grated potato’s. To this in a big bowl, I put the potato’s, the hash, grated onion, Salt, Pepper and dried garlic powder. I would guess that for the 4 big potato, one small onion and half a tsp of the the spices.

In a large cast iron or other large non-stick pan, add a thin layer of oil and at med-heat, add the hash and cook till crisp golden brown, flip it and repeat on the other side..

Now unlike potato hashbrowns where you leave them whole, you chop this up, mixing the two layers and keep cooking it till at least 50 percent of the hash is or has some golden brown crispy bits to it..

Serve hot.. hubby likes his plain, I like mine with a bit of ketcup on them.. with fried dippy eggs.

Posted in Breakfasts | Tagged | 5 Comments

Friday Around the Kitchen Table

Posted on October 19, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

Its Friday already and its been a bit of a crazy week here on the homestead. Not because of the farm, it’s just steady as she goes there but because hubby is extra busy at work.. Once again he worked overtime hours on the weekend and during the evenings and he was on last bus a few times plus yesterday on Friday, he could not even make the bus, he had to get a taxi chit to get him to the commuter parking lot.  Add to this that it would appear that he will be traveling at some point this month for work as well.

It just means that I have more time alone on the farm (not a bad thing for getting things done really) but for things that require hubby’s help (two people jobs) we are having things happen slower than I would like while getting ready for winter.

So Hip Roof Barn did a post on the fact that its smoke alarm safety month, a reminder to check your smoke alarms, change your batteries and if your alarm is older than 10 years to replace them.

While my smoke alarms are working when tested, two of them are 14 years old, so I decided to do both 🙂 I have gotten a two pack of new ones (that have a 10 year warranty) to replace the oldest ones but I am not going to waste the older ones.  They just got moved to a new area in the house..  So I meet the challenge to replace over ten years in age, but I also did not add waste and will continue to use the older ones till they no longer test as working.

So I will ask my readers to do the same.. Please check your smoke alarms and if you can’t honestly say when was the last time you changed the battery, consider putting in a new one.

Ottawa Tornado (all SIX of them) hit one month ago and yesterday they said something on the news that caught my ear..  For those that had insurance (and lots of folks did not) it was the largest natural disaster that has to date been listed as costing the insurance companies 300,000 Million dollars. This is considered to be the most costly Climate “event” in Canada to date.

The province says they will give a certain amount of money to those that did not have private insurance. I am grateful for that current program so that everyone will get at lest something to give them a hand.  I think it just now starting to really sink in for many folks.. that it will not be done in a day, a few weeks or even a few months.. that it will be years for many if they even rebuild.  Some will move on to a new place, a new home, a new community..  many will not.. they will stay.. they will rebuild in place.

Either way it will not be the same.. It got me thinking a lot of “being prepared” and I am big on being prepared, having water stored, having a way to get more water, having a pantry, having a good amount of food in many ways put up, in having extra’s.. Extra fire wood, backups on ways to heat/cook, extra boots/extra jackets. Extra 2 by 4’s and extra sheets of plywood and so much more. Just in case.. Just in Case!

However all week-long I have been pulling at, worrying at something C5 has been talking about for a good while yet (there are others that have touched on it as well)

Adapt in place..  It hits a cord for me.. now don’t get me wrong.. we all need to be flexible enough to know when to fish or cut bait.. movement in life is critical. When you are told to get up and move.. MOVE.. be it fire, be it storm, be it a hundred other things..  Goodness knows I have moved enough in my life to understand that.

However no matter if you are staying or if you are dealing with the effects of moving.. you still need to adapt in place..  No matter if it’s just shrinking buying power or if its reduced work hours, or health related issues or XYZ..

At least so far, for most of us and I think for those that read this blog, we are still either treading water or we have our heads well above water. It’s about how you are going to deal with what is happening, all the little things that are adding up. Lets just stay with total basic’s right now.. Food Costs, Power costs, Heating Costs.  Have you noticed that the basics costs are having small but very real steady increase costs while the “extra’s” are so cheap, you can buy “distract items” at lower and lower costs.

I will warn now that I will be coming back to this idea..  But like always, I want to also keep it moving forward, keep it active..

So here is my question for you? What is the one thing you are feel you are working on right now that is helping you Adapt your life at the moment? Is there something you are changing to give you more flexibility in a different area?

Our focus this week has been about prepping the house for the coming cold, we are taking steps and investments to increase our ability to remove drafts/build more insurance in keeping the heat in our home.   The weekend will be spent on projects related directly to this.

So let me know one thing you do to help reduce your heating costs or one thing you do to the house or barns to help with keeping the cold out and the warmth in.

Posted in At the kitchen table | 13 Comments

Kitten Care – Introducing Food and Litter Box

Posted on October 18, 2018 by Just another day on the farm


This little fluffy girl will be four weeks old this week and she has in the last 24 hours started to give signs that she might like to try eating something besides just being a “drink milk” from mom girl..

I like to start my kittens (and puppies for that matter) on warm scrambled egg as their first meals. Here is the thing as soon as the wee ones start eating real food, the momma cat stops cleaning up bathroom wise.

So learning how to eat food and learning to use the litter box are tied hand in hand..   I was not planning on writing this post until something very sad crossed over my face book feed two days ago.

At one of our local farm/feral cat saving programs, wrote about the sad passing of a little white kitten due to impact as she was a young one, found hungry and some kind folks took her in without a lot of kitten knowledge and they gave her milk and a used their regular clumping litter and put her in a crate..

Sadly, she drank her milk, and being very hungry, she looked for what else she could eat and eat the clumping litter which of course was found at the vet after she was dropped off at the rescue and the impact was found at the vet.. they did what they could but she passed away within 48 hours.

That was hard enough but folks started writing not so nice things on the rescues page about how did this happen.. The folks who found her where trying to help and it certainly was not the rescues or the vets that let this kitten down.. it was however didn’t take care of momma cat and her kittens!

Then yesterday I went looking for non-clumping litter, prefer the kind that is pellet form to start the litter box training for Leeloo   I went though three stores and finally had to drive one town over to get to a “pet” store and there was only one kind.. wow. I had not idea how much harder it had gotten to get this..  I ended up with a new product to me, pellet form but based on walnut shells..

So when I sat down to write this morning and went what do I want to talk about today.. and kitten/litter box came to mind, I went.. no, come on.. recipes, garden, farm..life..

Nope.. my mind and my fingers went.. kittens..  So a little background on me when it comes to cats/kittens. I was raised on a farm and we had barn cats BUT my mother was a firm believer in that old (very wrong) myth that you should never touch newborn kittens or the mother cat will leave them, so we never really started playing with or working with the kittens till they were at least a few weeks old.. being kids and that we had a milk cow and feed out warm fresh milk, they got friendly pretty fast. or at least some of them did. we always had a few more “shadow” wilder cats on the farm.

Then as an adult, I did some foster work with both cats and kittens or expecting moms. I always wanted to breed and show cats and did for a few years (I was one of those that held the kittens for a few extra weeks and placed them already altered) so I have helped birth out and raise a lot of kittens between breeding and farm/rescue over the year.

I am very hands on. I am right in there during setting up the birthing box to getting the kittens nursing to  Weight check’s daily for the kittens.

Besides birth, the most at risk time in a safe in the house litter of kittens is that week of introducing food and litter boxes.  This is the time when any underlying health issues with solid food will show up, any issues with bowl will show up..

No matter how well fed a kitten is.. it explores its world by tasting it and chewing it.. when they are introduced to litter, they will try it.. it’s just totally normal kitten thing to do..

What we need to do is.. NOT have clumping litter in that box while they are learning what it’s for.  Once they are well settled on their wet/dry food and have used the litter box a few times.. you are good to go..

At that point you can slowly transfer them over to clumping..

Now let’s go back to food for a minute.. Please do buy a good quality kitten food, you do not need to buy wet food unless you want to.. for a frugal tip, just buy good kitten food and add the water yourself.

Place a small amount of kitten food.. 1 TBSP per kitten is a good starting amount, adjust as needed, and pour hot water over top of it. As you can see in the photo, just cover the kibble and let it sit for 15 to 20 minutes.

Normal Healthy kittens and puppies should be offered food 4x a day from the 4 to 8 or 9 week stage.. typically by the time they are 8 to 10 weeks and ready to be rehomed.. they are down to three times a day (I however when working with my own keep to the four times a day till 12 weeks)

Once the food has soaked and puffed.. you are good to go 🙂 to feed your kitten/kittens, but remember after they eat to take up any leftover wetted foods and either allow momma cat to clean it up or give to your hound or throw it away. otherwise the wet food at room temp will turn bad. Always use a new clean dish each time you make a new batch.

And please remember the most important thing of all..

 

Enjoy your kitten! Take lots of photos.. they are only small for a very short time!

 

 

Posted in Critters | 8 Comments

Savory Fall Venison Heart Stew

Posted on October 17, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

 

Venison Heart Fall Stew Recipe

This stew is made with a Venison Heart but it could be a young lamb or goat heart instead. Fall is hunting season and butcher season on the farms.  One of the things I have heard many times over the years is.. How do I use this?

When it comes to heart, if your family really does not like to eat it, the best trick I know is to wash it out well, trim it out and then grind it up and mix it with regular ground meat at up to a 20 per weight and use like normal.  Folks will tell you it’s very “rich” in flavour without knowing it comes from the heart.

In the books, the tradition is Stuffed Heart and its good but works much better in a larger heart like a Beef or Moose. Today however we are going to make a savory/slightly spicy fall stew.

Savory Fall Venison Heart Stew Recipe

  • 1 Venison Heart (well washed, trimmed and cut into small bite sized pieces
  • 1 diced onion
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 1 8 ox box of mushrooms or dried equal amount (pre-soaked)
  • 4 cups of beef or mushroom based broth
  • 3 large potato’s
  • 1 cup of Butternut Squash
  • 2 cups of finely diced greens (I used horseradish, but spinach will work just fine)
  • 1 tbsp. of fresh grated horseradish (or 1 tsp of prepared horseradish)
  • Salt, Pepper to taste.
  • 1 TBSP of oil for fry pan

Ps, hubby says add one peeled, cubed carrot to this dish 🙂

So this is not a fast recipe, it’s a take the afternoon to make recipe. First Age out your heart at least 24 to 48 hours if fresh in the fridge, Wash well in salted water, and then trim it out and slice into strips and then into cubes.

In a pan add a bit of oil and heat it up on med heat, add in your heart.. DO NOT STIR IT.. let it sit until it is half-cooked and shows a bit of browning to it.. then add your onion, garlic and mix it up.. Cook just till onion is clear and off it goes into the baking dish that is big enough to hold the whole meal.

Add a cup of the broth and deglaze your pan. Add all the broth on top of the meat, onions, garlic and add your mushrooms at this time. Into a slow over of 250 for two hours.. you want this to just barely simmer.

Take out and check to see if you need to add another cup of broth (I did not need to do so) At this point I added 1 cup of leftover mashed butternut squash, but you can add fresh at this point as well.. mine blended in to the sauce due to it being mashed but there is nothing wrong with bites of it. Add your Potato, Carrot if you are going to do so and your spices.. Bake into the oven for another hour at 350 (turn up the heat) and once everything is folk tender (mine took about 45 -55 min), add your greens, stir in and let sit for another five minutes and you are ready to serve.

I did have the thought of adding a dollop of sour cream to this dish, we didn’t but I think it would work.. I also thought about adding a can of sweet corn. Both are idea’s that I will consider in the future.

Want to try some of my other recipes?

Black Current Stuffed Baked Pork Heart Recipe

Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Lambs Heart Recipe

Breaded Lambs Heart with Ranch Dipping Sauce

Posted in Recipes from the Root Cellar | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Fall Round Up -Ground Cherry Mincemeat Tart Recipe

Posted on October 16, 2018 by Just another day on the farm


Apple-Ground Cherry Mincemeat Recipe

  • 6 cups of peeled, cored and coarsely chopped fresh fall apples (I used Spartan)
  • 2 cups of husk removed Ground Cherries
  • 2 cups of golden raisins
  • 1/8 of a cup of finely diced dried ginger
  • 1 cup of brown sugar
  • 1 tbsp. of Cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp of nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp of all spice
  • 2 Tbsp of water (just to start it off so it will not burn)

In a heavy bottomed steel pot, add everything together and on med heat (4) bring to boil, Cook till the apples are soft, give it a mash with your potato masher, you want bits left.. not smooth, so don’t mash too much but enough that it breaks the apples down some. At this point.. lower that heat to a barely there simmer.. Stir often..

Slow and steady will win the race.. cook it down till its thick, o the smell will heavenly in the house 🙂 This batch was enough that I put half cold and froze it for later tarts. It provided enough for 24 tarts.

Make your pie dough and make your tarts, fill about 3/4th way and then bake about 40 min or until golden brown.

Serve warm or cold as is or with a dollop of whipped cream.  I loved that both fruits are fall fruits. Apples and Ground Cherries are a delightful blend of flavours. The spices are fall. In and of themselves, in drinks, in pumpkin pies and of course that old traditional Mincemeat 🙂

Don’t like Mincemeat? Bonus.. here is a lovely Pumpkin Pie Recipe for you, that’s made in a cast iron fry pan.

This post is part of a Fall Round Up of Natural Bloggers. Some of them are homestead based, some are more green based and some are more on the eco side.. what they all have in common.. a love of the earth and living a life they believe is better for them and their families.

The posts are to be fall related.. as you can imagine that covers a lot of things 🙂 Some of them will be talking about how to get your homestead ready for fall, others will Recipes like myself and I am looking forward to checking them out.. I will be doing a follow-up on this after I get a chance to read though them and showcase a few of my favorites 🙂

Annie @ ​15 Acre Homestead
Julia @ ​Julias Daily Tips
Kristi @ ​The Stone Family Farmstead
Marla @ ​Organic 4 Green Livings
Frank @ ​My Green Terra
Candy @ ​Candys Farmhouse Pantry
Rosie @ ​A Green and Rosie Life
Chelsea @​ The Green Acre Homestead
Shawna @ ​Home Grown Self Reliance
Joyce @ ​Natural Bliss Podcast Blog
Joy @ ​Bean Post Farmstead

Kristi @ Stonefamilyfarmstead

Kathryn @ Farming my backyard

 

Posted in Garden, gardens, homestead | Tagged , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Corn Muffins with Currents

Posted on October 15, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

Corn Muffins with Black Currents by Linda Fickling

  • 1/3rd cup of butter (ok, it calls for shortening)
  • 1 cup of sugar ( I cut it in half and used 1/2 cup instead)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 and 1/4th cups of corn meal
  • 3/4th cup of flour
  • 2 tsp of baking powder
  • pinch of salt
  • 1/2 a cup of dried black currents
  • 1 cup of milk (I did half a cup of yogurt with half a cup of water mixed together)

Cream your butter/sugar, beat in eggs, place dry over top of, make a well in the center and then add your milk.. stir till just mixed.. do not over mix.  12 muffins in a grease tin at a hot oven of 375 for 25 min or until a toothpick comes out clean

Farmgal Tip.  While a trip down the baking row at the store will quickly show you that more common fruits prices are higher and continue to rise, Currents so far are one of those that has stayed at same price now for years, they are at least in my area (Ontario, Canada) a frugal fruit choice still.

They are easy to grow in your own garden, they are very easy to dry for home use.

Posted in Baking | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

F-it Friday Skunk and LeeLoo

Posted on October 15, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

I think this is going to end up being a two post day LOL

This post is going to be a  farm update post and then I had better do a recipe or garden or something else post later today 🙂

So first off, I wanted to say thank you for the outreach of support and comment in regards to my Friday post. It was great to hear from you and I am so glad that lots of folks really liked reading it. I would have most likely felt the need to write more about the subject matter anyway. However this gives me some positive feedback and I am so glad to see that others are thinking about it and working their own farms/homesteads/pantry’s and idea’s on how to help in their own lives.

This pretty girl had a passing run in with the skunk at 5 am this morning.. and the yard smells, in a eye watering way and nothing like bathing, scrubbing and then washing a load of cloths/towels etc before 6 am..  Thankfully it was not a full on hit, and after checking both of them.. no one had a scratch or bite on them.  While they are up to date on their rabies, wild animal bites are always something to watch for carefully.  Hopefully the skunk will move on, and the hounds will have learned a lesson.  (haha.. maybe)

A bit of a “sadder note” we have not seen our oldest farm cat Smegal for over a week.. he was around ten and was very much a yard/small barn cat.. He is altered and older, one of those that sits in the sun and is just always about.. he was our last shadow farm cat.. one of those lovely barn cats that you can get close by (can get his meds on him while eating wet food for worming etc if you use the shoulder kind) our fleas and ticks were bad this year.. so all cats and dogs were treated this year more then normal. Now he could show up, we have not found anything to say that something happened..  its that we have not seen him. I have a feeling we will never know for sure what happened.

However after ten years of being a very successful farm purrpot here on the farm.. he has never not been seen daily before.. seven days is just to long for me not to think something has happened.

On a more positive note, Henry is settling in on the farm, he is very shy on the farm, but very sweet with us..  he has taken on the further big barn as his main building/hunting zone. He gets along very well with the two other cats that like to hang out there and hunt as well.  I rarely see him, he just appears, gives total love, purrs, head butts and then gone again.  He looks good, putting the little bit of weight he lost in the first week or two after he arrived.  He has been seen interacting in a friendly way with the Big barn cats and being within a few feet of the other cats with no issues. I have heard no cat fights and he gets along with my hounds and does not run from them when they come up to say hi. He has also made friends with the horse’s.

We also had agreed to add Leeloo  (Leeloo Dallas Multipass) to the farm when she was born approx 4 weeks ago but I did not want to introduce her till she was a few weeks old. She is still a wee thing but she is doing great, friendly and so fluffy! She will be fixed as a young female before her first heat and she comes from a hunting farm cat momma and a unknown fly by night dad..   Because of the timing, she will be mostly a indoor kitten for the winter and will slowly learn the ropes of the farm in the spring.  I am looking forward to having her grow up to be a sweet, loving, indoor visiting/outdoor mostly hunting farm cat who I hope likes to give us a hand in the yard, gardens and buildings 🙂  While no new kitty or puppy ever replaces one you have lost, we were very sad to have lost Marble and we had room on the farm for a new kitty.

Moving on to getting my Monday started in a more productive way..  So glad I got that painting done yesterday as its to be a rain day today.. I am going to be having a mostly work in the house day, Its Monday so bread and baking day for the work week, I did get cookies made for hubby last night but need to make breakfast muffins

Posted in At the kitchen table | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Rolled Stuffed Roast

Posted on October 14, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

 

Rolled Stuffed Roast with Garlic Mashed and Gravy.. Its one of those “I love you babe” meals to my hubby..  This photo is of his plate.. No veggies required, just extra gravy please.

I have a few different things thawing out in the fridge in regards to our farms meat, one of them was a very small uneven roast.. Those pretty roasts you get at the store are all neatly trimmed, this cut of meat would have most likely ended up stew meat or thin quick cook steaks if gotten at the store.

I was trying to decide what to make with it, I already had a massive pot of potato ready to go, I wanted to put lots of cold cooked spuds in the fridge for later use. Saturday was a cooler day, it was a hunt for the goat morning, a supply run around in town and then a working afternoon with saws, hammers, ladders and screwdrivers.  I wanted to be able to put dinner in the oven and forget about it while I got a bit of late fall mowing in.  The plants had dropped their seeds and I could finally give that area a trim without effecting next years crop.

I went.. hmm stuffed rolled roast! out came the knife to slice it open, the meat whacker (I used the line side) and flattened it out as much as possible.. it gave me a very uneven piece of meat but I just kept working it till I knew it could come together if it was tightly wrapped in a piece of tinfoil for the baking.. This was not a pretty one that tieing off was going to get the job done.

Made the stuffing and rolled it up and into the tinfoil it went.. rolled tightly, and end side down and into a 375 oven..  It smelled awesome filling the house with this yummy scents. I took some of the potato’s and whipped them into a creamy garlic mashed and made a pot of beef gravy with a mix of the beef drippings/potato water with some bone broth.

Honestly, I should have added veggies to this, but it was late, I was tired and we were having fresh fruit for dessert.. sometimes you need to look at the whole day’s menu’s for balance.

Stuffed rolled roast is a easy way to create a meal that is going to make your meat eaters happy for a moist flavourful dish. Do give it a try!

 

Posted in Life moves on daily | 7 Comments