Sept Long Weekend!

Posted on September 5, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

Dear Hubby had taken both Friday and Tuesday off so that I could have a mini holiday with a dear friend of mine.  It was busy! but it was so good.. Long drive on my own, long enough to work my way though radio stations 🙂

Friday we took the quads and did a good bush trail, great country and even better mushroom hunting! It was a great time out!

Saturday we took a drive up to the Bancroft area an went rock hounding! I might have gotten a wee bit dirty while working some of those rocks out of the ground 🙂

It was a great afternoon at the site and everyone came home with some nice collectables.

On Sunday and Monday it was more about the water, lake, boats and fishing?

We got out on the lake and explored it from end to end over the time on there..

The time spent on the lake with friends in such amazing weather was so enjoyable.  Even if I had spent the time out there and never caught a single thing, it would have been a grand time indeed….. However…..

The bass were biting 🙂 Fresh fish fry was very yummy.. just deboned and skinned and then egg dipped and into a cracker breading with salt and pepper cooked in a crazy amount of butter 🙂

There were lots of laughs, fresh food from the garden, cooking on the BBQ because it was hot out.. got caught in the rain once while shore fishing.. it was still blue sky and sun shining around us but we got a nice rain.. it was fine to me.. just helped cool me off!

Hope you had a great Sept Long weekend.. and  fall is here.. o my gosh.. fall has arrived.. so much to do! Sometimes we need to remember to stop, take that time to go spend time with those we care about and to do things we love to do!

I do miss my bush time.. I love my farm but there is something about bush that makes my heart sing 🙂 Good thing that I have a forest just down the road from the farm..

 

Posted in At the kitchen table | 2 Comments

This and That Post

Posted on August 30, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

What a productive week.  Its been a steady week since I have been on the blog and there is just no way to split the past week into their own posts and for some reason I have been off my writing and have been reading instead.  The good news is that a lot of things I have been reading have got my thoughts and hands busy with things that I know will find their way to the blog in the future so I have to consider that a very good thing indeed.

Friday we went off the farm for a couple of hours after evening chores to go to a local fair.. it had a few fun redneck games including two that I will share here. Hubby rode the fake bull twice which was great fun.  It was the first time he had ever done this and I have to admit to being surprise that when I said.. o go on.. that he did LOL

Then we went on to the real reason I went, I wanted to check out the ax throwing area, they had brought in a company from the city, I have looked at the company and have often thought that it would be good to get their “teaching” as we have throwing ax’s here on the farm but I knew that they would be using a different type then what we have.

We got there very early and before the crowds and I was able to get a few questions in and some extra info.. without needing to head to the city to do it! perfect! For sure more practice is needed but that is true for most things 🙂

Saturday we worked on the farm. I am so pleased with the amount of yard clean up we have been able to get done. My new front pasture is responding very well to its growing out and extra seeding out. I have hopes for it to be a truly productive pasture for next year. We needed to go dig out some plants, cut down a few others and we will be seeding out some winter wheat by hand broad cast to do some extra spring fill for the first graze.

Sunday we had company on the farm and that pretty much takes the whole day when that happens, we do morning chores early and try to make the house tidy, we do the visit, which including horse back riding (a favorite for those that come) and then we work to get back on par and evening chores. It was a good visit.  We also had more chicks hatch that weekend.

Monday is normally my bake day but it turned into a garden Monday instead and Tuesday ended up being my baking day. Banana Bread was done on the weekend. I got a large amount of older banana’s on the sale rack and froze them so I will most likely be making a loaf a week for a while for Jason’s work breakfast and lunches

Our Dessert or stop for a bite to eat was a big old pan of a nice white cake with our home-grown mid-summer raspberry’s with a brown sugar baked in topping. I used the berries frozen to keep them from bleeding too much and I made the cake in a very large pan so it’s not very high at all but turned out just right 🙂

I had made a half-white/half-whole wheat bread last week and I was just not feeling it this week, so I made a batch of Cinnamon Raison Bread. I had to laugh, I have been using up the last of a yeast jar and its been working but not great.. which meant I was using a touch more yeast to get my lift. I opened a new jar for this batch and WOW.. I didn’t realize just how much rise I was going to get LOL

It turned out very nicely indeed but was a good reminder of the difference in how the bread goes between using sour dough, using older yeast and using fresh yeast.  Sometimes we just get used to using what we have and forget that a small change can have a huge difference in the results.

So lets talk about weather for a bit.. we had a high heat wave hit us again this week.. it was hot on the weekend but come Monday it really came on, Monday to Weds it was in low 30’s c but with humidex kicked in and it was 41 to 43c and it was that bad air like soup stuff.. that is when I get up early and work in the “cool” of the morning and hide in the afternoon.  We have new curtains in the kitchen and the foyer now that blocks heat and UV, I open them early in the day for the plants in the kitchen and close them up mid morning and they stay that way till the sun goes down.  Without my big tree’s the deck wood now gets so hot in the afternoon sun that you can not stand on it.. its to hot for my feet.

Weds however the radio sent off an alarm for tornado warning.. ok then. We did NOT get the notice on our phone, not that I am surprised by this to be honest, I have never gotten one yet.. So we headed out to the yard and did a fast round the farm just in case.  Then we watched the storm on in.

It was a good one and we both had to admit that it was a relief that the big old tree’s were down as we did not need to worry about them coming down.  We got a short hard storm, we got 1 and half inches of rain in 20 minutes, we got high winds and we got some really good cracks of lightning and thunder over top us but it would appear that the worst went past us, there was recorded 120 km hour wind or wind gusts at the local town, it took of bolted down decks to give you an idea.  There was a confirmed twister that took out two barns and there is reports of two more but it came down to an area that didn’t do damage to anything other than farmers fields.

I could tell you that I have a short video for you but nope.. because when it really started to get bad, we went to the basement for cover. I was really proud of how cool my farm hounds were but wee paris was not happy about it. Anyway it was here and it was gone.. Truly remarkably small amount of damage here on the farm.

While it might seem like a strange thing to say, it was good to see a couple of our systems being put to the challenge. Rain collection worked well and we put up just under 700 gallons.

Just as important to me was watching the water movement in our new yard and I can see where I need to put a dry creek for free flow, I was able to also track my drainage rate in the area that I want to put the rain garden system.

After the storm we did a big bean picking and today I am canning beans up along with regular house hold chores and farm work.  I am hoping to go mushroom hunting and fishing this weekend. I truly need some bush, River or lake time.. and ideally some riding time 🙂

 

Hope you have a great long weekend!

PS, I almost forgot.. That was something else that has been keeping me busy.. Paris went to the vet last Thursday so a week ago and she had her teeth cleaned and seven of her teeth needed to be pulled out..


 

Poor wee moppet.. This photo was taken just after she got out of the vets, she was still pretty druggy at the time. The vet gave me a week of antibodics for her and pain meds for five days and she has recovered so well. She looks great, her mouth is healing well and she is eating so much better 🙂  I am so pleased with how well she is doing and I know that this will improve her overall health for years to come.

Posted in Life moves on daily | 6 Comments

Corn Cob Syrup

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

I enjoy making Corn Cob Syrup to can up for future use over the year.. this is a homemade version of the store version of Corn Syrup to a point. There is a slightly different flavour to it but its quite close and can be used in baking or as a pancake type syrup. Sorry that I will not be able to give you a detailed recipe..

Its flexable in amounts.. but I will be able to tell you how to do each part and what to do with the information once you know how much corn liquid you have and once you start making the syrup 🙂

After you take off the corn (cut it off) to use for canning or other fresh uses, take your raw cleaned cobs and put them in a big pot and cover them well with water, bring to a boil and then drop it down to a simmer for a hour or an hour and half.

Take the cobs out (they can still be composted or used for pig fodder), strain the liquid though a cheese cloth or linen cloth to get the bits out. Measure the amount of liquid you have.  If you have ten cups of corn liquid, you will need a min of 5 cups of sugar or up to 10 cups of sugar. Its your choice.. both are safe  Some folks like it to be half and some like it to be 1 to 1

Put your liquid and sugar into a large flat bottomed steel pot if possible, stir with a wooden spoon ideally and bring it to a boil.. Boil it till reduced by 40 to 50 percent for a thicker syrup..  If you want a white style syrup, use only white sugar. If you want it more a golden corn syrup.. use half white and half brown sugar.

Do regular plate tests to see how thick it will set up.. Chill four or five small plates in the fridge and dribble a small amount of the syrup on the plate and check it by pushing though the syrup to see what its like once cooled.  If you are only making a small amount, it can be cooled and stored in the fridge (if you plan on storing it in the fridge, make a more fluid syrup so it will pour better for you). Otherwise, you can follow standard water bath process and put it into either 8oz or pint jars and water bath for ten min.  Will easily hold for a full year in cool storage.

This one was made with only white sugar. Do consider making Corn Cob Syrup the next time you have corn cobs looking for a job after they have made you creamed corn fresh this summer 🙂

 

Posted in Canning | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Mock Apple Crisp Aka Zapple Crisp

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


Topping.. this is as simple as it gets. You can double this recipe for a large pan, as you can see in the photo I made it in a smaller 8 by 8.

1 cups of all-purpose flour
1/2 cup of room temp butter
1/2 cup of packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp of salt

Mix together with pastry cutter or washed clean hands, its mixed together perfect when you can give the crumb a gentle squeeze and it will hold its shape but when touched gently break apart. Mound slightly higher in the middle of the pan then the edges.

Filling

  • 6 cups of prepared Zucchini
  • 1/2 cup of sugar
  • 1 tsp of flour
  • 1 tsp of cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp of ground ginger
  • a good pinch of salt (if you want)

Place the filling in your pan, cover with your topping and bake approx. 40 to 45 min at 350  please check the middle with a folk to make sure that the Zapples are cooked though, if needed do another 5 min.  Can be served hot with a bit of ice cream or served Cold as is or with a dollop of whipped cream.

Take a large overgrown zucchini  (but still green, no yellow on it yet) Peel it and take out the pith an seeds from the middle. Slice it into lines that have a curve to it and then slice that line into thinner slices that will look like the above. Do not cut them to thick or they can have trouble cooking all the way though. You want them just a touch thinner then you would for cooking apples as they will a touch firmer then a apple even when baked.

 

 

 

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What a find!

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

Last week my girlfriend said to me.. Got a hour? Lets head to church Basement (one of our local second hand shops) she was on the hunt for some working pants and a few other things on her list.

To be honest, I was not on the hunt for anything but I had my change purse and gave myself a limit of 5 dollars max and went with a smile on my face. Girlfriend time is important, that drive to town and back is when many fun, silly and or important things can get talked about.

I walked into the kitchen section (it’s own little narrow room, think a galley, shelves on both sides and at the end, with just enough room for two people across and to tell the truth, its one of my favorite places in the store but I am at that point of.. if I add it in, I need to remove something at the same time, unless its something on my wish list.

I spotted it on the floor, it had been pushed under the bottom shelf and was next to the wicker baskets. I blinked and picked it up and read the top and then flipped it over to read the bottom and into my arms it went.  LOL

As I set it down at the till I held my breath because I was not sure it would be under my five dollar self-given limit and I was trying hard to figure out what my limit would be if I need to raise it. I was pretty sure I had a good idea of what it was worth new (which is why I don’t own one, because  a new one is out my price range when I can use my cast iron that I already own 🙂

I tried to keep a smile on my face, when she said.. no tag on this one and I said nope.. I knew this because I had looked for one as well.. She said two dollars and I tried not to let to much of my “WHOOOOTTTT!” come out. Instead I said Thank you so much, you have made my day. I am really looking forward to using it.. and that it had been clearly well loved in its life..

The large version of a Romertoff Clay cooker! I am looking forward to learning how to use this pot for bread making, for cooking the tougher cuts of meat.

So any readers on the blog have one of these? Got any helpful hints? What is your favorite way to use it? How did you get yours?

Or on the flip side.. what is your best find in the past few weeks at the local garage sale or second hand shop or farm sale?

Posted in Bread | 13 Comments

RIP Marble

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

Ah, Sweet Baby Marble Purrpot. You are greatly missed on the farm. I love this photo so much because it has DH with his much loved kitties but even more so, it has Marble’s daddy cat Sunny.  Sunny was the father is Mable, Faith and Patrick. He gave us the most outstanding farm cats, friendly, cuddly but outstanding hunters.  Marbles mother did not hunt so Sunny took the task on to teach the kittens how to be hunters. I have never seen a more active father cat.   He was fixed at the same time as the kittens were, so those three will be the only sunny kittens we will have.

This picture shows why she was called marble.. I loved her markings from the moment she joined our world.

Hubby and Mable had a bond from the very start, Patrick was my boy and Faith willingly shares herself with both of us but Marble was not as outgoing so hubby took it on himself to make sure she got lots and lots of people time so she would come out sweet..  O yes, she was sweet

Got room for me dad??

Sadly Marble was hit and killed on our road. It does happen but normally by the time they are two years old, they are pretty careful. She was never much for leaving the farm, unlike some of the farm cats that cross the road daily to hunt in the woods. I was not home when it happened and I can tell you when we drove up and had just thought.. Home after a very long day, the last thing we expected to see was her on the side of the road.

Marble was only with us for 2 an half years but she takes a part of our hearts with her..

Posted in 31 Day Self Reliance Challange | 16 Comments

Frugal is as Frugal does.

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

It happens to all of us, that unexpectedly high car repair bill, you know the one.. the one where you are like this should cost 200 and you go, I have six hundred so if they find something else.. we are good! and then the bill is over a thousand and you blink hard.

Well, we have had a string of Blink Hards of the past six months and we have taken each one with a grunt and an moved forward (because really what else can you do) and then in the past six weeks, we have had a few more and they have been far bigger..  instead of it being a blink hard.. its a sit down and work it out. The Blinks have been all over the place to be honest, some are from the farm, some are from the vehicles, some has been vet care and some has been related to needed medical care.

So in order to both get a few things caught up and for putting away some for that rainy day fund which has been depleted some. we are needing to do some belt tightening. Being on the homestead, the first thing that goes is the outside food budget (it gets cut out or bare bones.  I say bare bones because you can’t miss out on sales. Its never a good idea to not get something that comes only once a year or once every three months or six months in the sale cycles)

The good news is if there ever a good time of the year to eat off your garden and land, summer is the time.. but the bad news on that is that its also the time to be putting up and some of those putting up things normally are gotten off the farm. While certain things are grown in amount for fresh eating and even a few months worth of eating some things are just not mature enough or had a bad year etc and normally those things are gotten in bulk from other local sources. I will need to figure out if that will continue to be the case because those sales and those bushels only come around once a year.

The second is off the farm trips, events or other ways to spend money. The question is what an where can you give and what do you need to spend on. Now I am NOT talking about your regular bills, they are a must and they are not the issue here.  They are just a given.

No the issue where does the “unclaimed” fund go.. that is much harder thing to figure out at times. I am still working on some things.

Examples

I really want to put in a rain garden in the new ripped up front yard, but that means renting equipment that can do the job.. in the long term.. this would be a good thing but is it a hold off and do it later fall but before freeze up?

I need to replant in the yards, but plants all cost money, so do I only use plants, bushes and wild dug babies to do what I want and then have to plan in and leave spaces for the “paid” for fruiting bushes and tree’s next year?

I need to bring in soil, bring in gravel, bring in more fence posts, buy new fencing.. but that’s a tricky one as well, because I don’t HAVE to do that. My old fence may be ugly and it may need to be replaced but it does keep the animals in..  New sheep fencing is costly but its one of the big 2018 projects and we have already got the posts in.. and sections are newly fenced off but there is still three lines that need to be redone.

In the house, there are a number of projects that are in the same boat.. which one needs to be done more then the other.  Getting the power lines and such fixed on the house so that we could get it signed off was spendy, it was pretty much a two month budget on work to be done in the house..

There are lots of things we don’t need anything from in the next month to three months. I figure we can get back to level one in three months (without to many new things happening, like I don’t know.. one of my main big living room windows breaking!) yes this just happened or I should say found today..

And six months to get back to the level that I prefer us to be at.

Posted in At the kitchen table | 15 Comments

Powdery Mildew and Treatment plan

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

Last week was filled with a number of things that kept us just one foot in front of the other.  I might get to the point where I will write about some of it.

However the garden is in full swing, making pots of pasta sauce, putting up corn and beans, and lots of zucchini. Eating it fresh, grating it and putting up small bags of it into the freezer for baking at a later point, and I did nine trays of grated dried for use in winter for soups and stews, I like to just put a handful into them. I found this big one hidden (you know it all happens, you think you got them all but nope) which I am going to make a mock apple pie or crumble with it.

Its aug though that means that like most gardens in our zone. Powdery Mildew is starting to show up on the squash plants. It has not hit the truly bad stage where the whole leaf is covered in the grey but its coming! you can see the infected spots on the leaves. Now is the time to try and get it under control as much as you can.

So this issue is common and there are three ways to work on helping your plants.

  •  Remove effected leaves and then either burn them or bag them up and send them off the property. DO NOT COMPOST THEM please.. or you will be adding to the issue 🙂
  • Air flow, this often happens in plants that have lots of big leaves that layer up on each other, taking out those effected leaves will open up the air flow but take a good look at your plant and see if there is a closed off layered area that is not effected yet.. Take out a few leaves to create better air flow in and around the plant itself.
  • Spray those leaves, there are a number of different mixes you can find on the net to spray them with but I am going to keep it basic and simple. Sometimes you just need to change the ph.
  • Mix 1/2tsp of baking soda with one quart of water. Shake it up till well blended and in a spray bottle, spray the leaves top and bottom and down the stems at least once a week or after each bigger rain.

 

 

Posted in Garden, Life moves on daily | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Project 2018-Stumps- Maple

Posted on August 9, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

We have a number of stumps left over from the work done and some of them are smaller, a few mid size and one that is considered large and two that are massive..

Today we are going to talk about the large size one that came from a old maple tree. It had a dead part on one side that got bigger over the years that was trimmed back on but the other side was great.. still it was rotting out.  Given that the equipment and men where all here on the farm, it made sense to ask them to come across the drive way and take down the big old maple tree at the same time.

It left me this stump..

As you can see its really rotted out inside the stump itself. I have made a little video for you so you can see it go live.. and I have taken photos for those that do not have the ban width to watch it 🙂

The inside wood just crumbled by hand into the most beautiful wood fluff, it will hold water like a dream and continue to rot down inside the stump itself.

its created a very interesting plant shape in the stump, I like it! I have pulled out a few large not as composted piece out and then backfilled the holes till its all level across the stump. there is around ten inches from the top of the wood fill till the top of the stump. That I will fill with a mix of soil/compost. After I get it ready, I will plant it and we will have a lovely permaculture garden stump 🙂

if it was your stump, what would you be planting in it, keep in mind it is First week of Aug 🙂

Posted in gardens | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Future planning-Yard Redo!

Posted on August 8, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

Well, we have had the farm for 14 years this spring and we have loved our big old willow tree’s (two of them) our huge very old crab apple and our very large maple tree. The willows are around 80 plus years old and the others are not that far behind.

They were old Grandfather tree’s but they have been warning us for a couple years now that they were at the edge and end of their natural life.. We have had a couple bigger limbs come down in the ice storms, the spring bad storms and then just this week.. we had a short but hard storm hit the farm..

Down came a huge limb and it damaged our power lines and so forth..  So we had to act quickly and get the work done so that we could get our power back on the farm.  It used to be that you could not see our home though the wall of green in levels along the house, you had to drive past the green wall to see the house..

Not anymore.. We had to take down the front small tree layer, the big tree’s and we have lost pretty much all our shade on the whole front of the house and deck..  lots and lots of clean up to do yet.. this photo was taken at the end of day one.. Massive difference and then some.

The stumps got cut down as well as the maple on the side on day two. I am sad that we had such a loss but I am excited about planning the new yard. I will look forward to sharing the planning and the work as it all comes together.

This is the new view from our kitchen window and boy is the kitchen so much brighter 🙂

I will get more photos later. but its safe to say that our whole front yard is going to be changing to a large point.  Now I could have taken less to be honest. Some things had to come down.. other things I said take down for a reason.

Honestly I said take them down to the effects I am seeing in regards to climate change.  We are having so many more storms.. hard fast brutal winds, Ice storms and crazy hard rain storms and so forth.  I believe that when we are done, we will have removed all the “storm danger” to the house trees.

The replanning and replanting will take these types of storms into effect.. including run off for heavy rains, wind breaks for the high wind storms, Shade factors and so much more.  Its both sad to see everything changing but exciting to plan and then work the plan for the coming future.

I am also so glad that we worked on planting out the front over the years because that is now my view and once its cleaned up.. its quite a nice one really 🙂 Spruce, and apple tree’s, hawthorn and a lovely smoke bush and so much more.

Still its a shock each time I look outside right now!

 

Posted in At the kitchen table | 3 Comments