Work Work WORK

Posted on June 2, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

I am making little moans every time I move lol.. Clearly off-loading fence post logs use muscles that regular chores, garden or mowing does not..   Thankful that the gentleman that brought them gave me a HUGE helping hand in getting these off the truck and stacked nicely to continue to dry. These are fresh cut this spring (they have been drying about a month or so) and they are still very heavy.

Got a great deal on somewhat local(within an hour) drive of the farm of cedar fence posts. One lots of 50 this spring with a fall order of another 50 coming. They were sold that some could be as small as six inches with the big being as much as 9 or ten inches, with the average being at least 7 inches across..

It would be fair to say that most are at least 8 inches across, there are two of the biggest 10 to 12 inches across on the very bottom, I am thinking of using them to create either a new cloths line or new cross tie posts for the horse’s.

Some of the posts are going to fix the current fencing, and some of it is planned to split the big pasture into two smaller pastures for rotation grazing.

I sure got these for a great deal compared to the cost of the same size posts at TSC even with tax and deliver, it was still savings of 4 dollars a post.. that’s just awesome. Turns out someone came to the place with truck and trailer and bought them out on the past weekend, he wanted my lot but the owner said, no those are pre-sold.. Its my understanding the guy tried to do .. I will pay  extra per post if I can get them.. Grateful that my seller kept his word and held my load 🙂 Great guy for sure.

Got the Big Garbage bin  its the  20 foot long back on the farm this spring, I have three weeks to fill it up with a combo of house purging, farm clean up and the last of the reno stuff that has been stored over the winter. I am so excited to get this piles out of my yards.. I have been working around the piles so that means that I have a lot less work once they are moved out.. its just a matter of cleaning up..  I have no doubt that we will be able to fully fill it up.. once those things out, I will give everything a deep clean and head count and look forward to re-doing everything so I KNOW what I have and wear it is at

After I get that done, I have booked loads of gravel to come in and touch up the lane and the yards. Gravel is great but it does tend to need to be re-done every so many years.

So far keeping on the gardening that must be done, but lots and lots more to do as always.. have a great Saturday folks!

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31 Day Self Reliance Challange Week Four Overview

Posted on May 31, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

 

Week Four Overview

O my time is flying by, the challenge is almost over.. and then I need to do the overview. The past week has been great.. but so busy! My husband was home for the week, a total of nine days on the farm. We pretty much worked in the gardens, yard or on the farm, or we went visiting friends or had friends in. It kept us hopping.. but was awesome. The heat however not so much! Way, WAY to hot for the end of may.. deep summer heat.. we have been at 30 to 36c so that is over 90F most of the week.

Things that we got done over the past week.

  • Got 9 more fruit bushes planted in the food hedges, brought in more high bush cranberries, 2 more Chokeberry and more blueberries
  • Created a new Sunchoke bed area. I have total of five kinds and this one is of my favorite kind.. very large.. Aster lane edibles in the Ottawa area sells them.. they are GREAT!
  • Started up a new freezer for more room.. Juno (My oldest female has been removed from my little herd and is no longer) I have her daughters Jada, Latte and Chino, so the blood line continues
  • We have had both chicks and ducklings hatch.. and we have seven more girls sitting, five hens and two more duck hens yet
  • We added in two more water barrels and we have had some rain, thankfully and the rain catchments are full.
  • Got the Been Teepee cleaned up and planted.
  • Got more gardens done and planted
  • Got 30 babies strawberry plants dug out and transplanted into pots till I can make a new strawberry bed

The bloggers in this challenge have been very busy! I am behind on my reading and I am trying to get caught back up.. They have at least a dozen or more new blog posts up over the past week.  They are covering all kinds of subjects, I really liked the post on how to save money on chick feed! (so worth the read)  I loved the frozen creamy treat recipe, hmmm it looked so cool an yummy. Someone might have a stuff burger that looks outstanding and so much more.

I am cheating this week.. I am not picking or pulling a link for you.. instead I am giving you teasers above so that if you have not followed out the blogs links, this might get you there..

The challenge is coming to a end today.. its been a great month.. so much as gotten done.. There is one thing that has been happening over the month that is directly related to this challenge and that is me getting in better shape and losing some weight. Both of these are very good things. Its been a work in progress for sure, but I am now 3 sizes smaller then I was at the same time last year.  This is a very good thing!

I had gotten the new smaller jeans on a amazing sale.. I finally had to cut a pair of them into shorts because my regular shorts from last year where just falling off me lol and that cute top.. got it in my new size at the second hand shop for a dollar.. o ya! Boy am I getting tan already for so early in the season.

Please check out this outstanding bloggers that are joining in the challenge. More might join as we go along.

Lisa Lynn – The Self Sufficient HomeAcre

Maria – Maria Zannini

Frank – My Green Terra

Shawnalee – Homegrown Self Reliance

Ashley – Practical Self Reliance 

Candy- Candy’s Farm House Party

Robin- A life in the wild

Kathi – Oak Hill Homestead

Nancy- Nancy on the Homefront

AnnMarie- 15 Acre Homestead

And myself.. Just another day on the farm 🙂

I will be writing new content for this challenge. However I am also going to bring out of off my most popular homesteading and related posts over the blogs seven plus years history. We are asked to do a one week round up and sharing of other blogs favorite posts, I am looking forward to getting to know these new bloggers. We never stop learning 🙂

 

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Canning Rhubarb Fruit in Bulk

Posted on May 31, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

I often can things in bulk form and that means that I do things more by weight then I do recipe. This is something that those that are putting up larger amounts do more often..

However this is a big challenge for those that are learning or new to canning.. they want those perfect recipes.. I get it! I really do, I love my recipes just as much. When I am doing a new recipe I ideally want all the details.

In total I put up 30 pints of two kinds of rhubarb fruit, when it comes to rhubarb, its approx. a pound a pint..  This rhubarb has a story to it. On my one local garden groups, a lady came on and said.. I just moved to this house and the owner has 2 rhubarb plants, I do not want them, they are big, she moved them from the farm when she came to town, if you want them come get them.. I was first in line and when I got there, I just stared.. each plant was massive.. and I was told that they had come over in last 1800’s from Germany and was on the family farm for many, many years till she moved to town.. and she brought her beloved rhubarb with her.. its not Canada ruby red, I call it my german pie as it matches it in many way but I should call it my german to be fair.

Each of those plants split into six plus a few little babies and its a massive producer, I picked a full laundry basket on four plants..

Once cleaned up and chopped up..

It was split into two portions. One that made a Rhubarb-peach blend and one that made a pinnapple-rhubarb blend. The big round pot holds 12 quarts when I make soup or stew and the big roaster can hold a 20 pound turkey no problem.

So how do you figure out what to use for sugar in recipes like this? It goes by weight.. The books say 1/2 cup of sugar per pound of rhubarb.. if your rhubarb is very sour, you can go up to 3/4 a cup but you should not go below the 1/2 cup for safety. The other fruits can go different syrup rates, I use what equals light syrup, which works out to 1 cup of sugar per pound of cleaned, chopped and weighted at the finished ready to go fruit.. (no pits, no peel, no core etc)

I cook them together till the rhubarb is broken into threads as the base and the other fruit is cooked till softened. Hot fruit mix blend into prepared hot jars and then process them for 15 min.

I make a number of different blends for the year for hubbies use.. he needs a min of 70 jars of rhubarb blends for his work lunches.

Farmgal tip of the day  If you want to make different fruits when the rhubarb is ready, you can buy the frozen fruit from the store and use it with the blend. Or you can prepare the rhubarb and bag it into big freezer bags and wait until the fruit is ready and pull them out and can it up then. In this case, I bought the frozen fruit to make these.

Posted in 31 Day Self Reliance Challange, gardens | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

This and That Post

Posted on May 29, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

What a week? Hubby took the full week off and we had lots of visiting.. two visiting friends off the farm, two visits on the farm.  It was nice to have the company and great to see our longer term friends and newer friends as well.

We worked on the gardens and the food forest none stop.. in many cases we were clearing land and mowing it down to prepare it for future use..  We got gardens planted and the big bean teepee cleaned out and planted out.

The Pea’s are up, the broad beans up, the first planted canning and fresh eating beans are up and now the hot weather crops are going in..

Yes this bed has been weeded for the moment (wait a week lol) and the first tieing up the tomato ask been done.. something snapped off one of my cherry tomato’s in the main garden (this is the gate garden and its only planted into roma’s) so its in a jar of water growing new roots. the pea’s in this garden are already up the fence by a solid six inches.

So there is one other thing, I don’t talk about it much here on the blog but on the other hand, I am sure that many folks have already guessed that our lifestyle fits into a number of titled groups.. Farm, Small holding, Homestead and what I do fits into many others, be it gardener, homesteader Prepper

I have been a member of the Canadian Prepper Board for many years now and I have been a mod for seven of them (wow time flies by) and I with the help of a dear friend or two and my hubby over the years have also hosted the big Ottawa and area .. but we have drawn folks to the event from both Ontario and Quebec for our full day event where we have presented all kind of homestead related events.  From making salves, soaps to making fresh cheese to making mock coffee out of Chicory and so much more.

Please note that the Canadian Prepper board is focused on main stream issues, we gently try and move the tin-foil hat folks off to different boards. In a way, we are on the lighter side of prepping, we believe in being prepared for power outages, storms, putting up from the gardens and being able to get by if things went bad due to one of the ever increasing extreme weather events, or the more personal down turn of job loss, health issues or down turn in the general area or country.  While sometimes folks do talk about some of the more “out there” topics its kept a eye on and locked down or removed to the fringe area.

I was asked to do a interview by a regular on the board for his own wild and crazy blog.. he is a fellow Canadian and he has a big personality 🙂  (consider yourself warned)

It was strange to be asked some of the questions he did but I answered them as honestly as I could. Perhaps a little to honestly for the net? Anyway if you want to check out my interview.. here is the link for you.

https://darkgreenmountainsurvivalresearchcentre.wordpress.com/2018/05/25/c5-presents-farmgal-farmgal-farmgal/

Consider his posts at a min PG 13 (please don’t have it open with the children around ok,) and some times he bumps it right into what I consider R rated. However other then the one f-word in my own post.. its pg rated.

However having said that, if you can get past  or enjoy his quirky sense of humor, there is really interesting things on his blog.. his wife is MrsDc5 and I love when she write on the blog as well. They have been traveling for her work into 3rd world counties and I have found many of these posts very interesting in terms of how they are getting things done with more man labour in a low oil world living.

I have also enjoyed his farm related posts, if there is one thing you can say about C5, he really will do those wild and crazy jobs on the farm and then come back a few years later and tell you what did or did not work out and why. I try hard to do that one my own blog and I find so many only post the positive. Nothing wrong with that, I like to post the positive as well but its nice to have a more overall truthful view of the fact that this can be a lot harder of a lifestyle them more think

Homesteading is hard work.. and yes if you made me pick a title I would say I am small land holder.. showing my English roots there

Well, I had better get back to canning my rhubarb mixed fruit for hubbies lunch’s for the year, I picked and am processing a full laundry baskets worth today

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Rhubarb BBQ Sauce

Posted on May 28, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

This sauce is listed as Victorian Barbecue Sauce by Bernardin, page 259

However it really should be called Rhubarb BBQ Sauce and its outstanding.. If you don’t have the bigger canning book from this company, I highly recommend it!

  • 8 cups of chopped rhubarb
  • 3 an half cups of packed brown sugar
  • 1 an half cups of chopped raisins
  • 1/2 cup of chopped onions
  • 1/2 cup of white vinaegar (standard canning)
  • 1 tsp ground allspice
  • 1 tsp ground cinnanmon
  • 1 tsp ground ginger
  • 1 tsp salt.

It will make four pints (500 ml jars) Cook your all the above it to a large steel pot at med heat.. Bring to a boil and make sure you stir lots, reduce the temp and simmer it down until it thickens, approx. 30 min but if your rhubarb is wetter it can take longer.

Leave a half inch head space and process for 15 min.

This recipe is very close to my own families rhubarb relish recipe to a point but the amount of onion is way off.. we use a lot more.. and no Raisins..

If you want a different Rhubarb Sauce.. check out the Orange Rhubarb Sauce post as well

 

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Rhubarb Scrub Drink

Posted on May 25, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

Ah Scrub’s, those old fashion vinegar based drinks, before pop there was the refreshing Scrub. It makes sense because it was a way to take fresh fruit that would spoil fast in the heat in a time when there was no fridge and make it last a lot longer.

In a nut shell, it’s a mix of fruit or herbs that are made into a juice, mixed with a sweet hit be that sugar or honey and combined with plain or flavoured vinegar.

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.

Today I very finely cut up 12 cups of rhubarb and then gave them a smash with potato masher and covered them in sugar and into the fridge for a cold process scrub. The cold process will produce a intense color and flavour in the juice that is pulled out of the fruit.

I will be heading out a bit later today to collect a number of lilac flowers and will be making a lilac version of this.. I also adore my elderflower in this drink!

A mint version is one of the most popular drinks on the farm in the early spring here on the farm. I do love a good mix of rhubarb and Nettle in a Shrub.. two of the earliest plants that tend to be ready at the same time.

Spring Rhubarb with Nettle Tea Shrub
4 cups of coarsely chopped Rhubarb stalks
1 cup of cleaned coarsely chopped Nettles Leaves
2 cup of sugar
Half a cup of White Wine Vinegar
Tiny pinch of Salt

Place above into a steel pot and add six cups of water, simmer gently till the rhubarb is cooked though, pour though a cheese cloth, straining it out, if you want a pure sweet color, do not squeeze the bag at all, or if you are like me and it matters not at all that is cloudy and might have bits in the bottom of the jar, get every last bit of goodness out of it.

Put in a clean jar or jug and chill till cold, work up a sweat in the garden or yard It is the most lovely pink color, almost like the fake pink lemonade from the store but so much more healthy for you!

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Gizzards

Posted on May 24, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

Its sunny, plus 25 and they say we have maybe rain for three days coming, I am in for lunch 🙂 and otherwise its a outside day.. So here is a older post but a good one talking about Gizzards.. I am bringing this out because I will be bringing out a new cheese recipe using fowl Gizzard as the rennet in the next few weeks.. have a great day folks!

Just another day on the farm's avatarJust another Day on the Farm

So when I was growing up, my mother was the queen of the gizzard, she loved to bake it besides the bird, along with the heart and neck to help flavour the stock, and it was the cook that got to eat them hot and O so flavourful in the kitchen with them never even making the table.. as a child and teen, I remember sometimes a tiny peice being cut off and being shared as a treat, so it was not until I moved out on my own that I was able to get to eat a gizzard.. Now heart was a different story, as you can buy packages of chicken hearts or livers and make whole meals of them..

In the last year, I have found out the hard way that when I say Gizzard, (and by such, I do mean the gizzard of a fowl, aka the…

View original post 386 more words

Posted in Life moves on daily | 3 Comments

Rhubarb Crisp

Posted on May 23, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

Rhubarb Crisp Recipe

Topping.. this is as simple as it gets.

  • 2 cups of all purpose flour
  • 1 cup of room temp butter
  • 1 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.

12 cups of washed, clean rhubarb that is med chopped, add 1 tbsp. of flour (2 if you want it thicker sauced) and 1 cup of sugar.. You know your rhubarb best.. one cup of sugar is pretty standard to Canada Ruby Red Rhubarb.. but I can use less sugar when I make it with German Green Pie..

In a bowl, mix the cut rhubarb pieces, flour and sugar and stir it together, coating each piece, then pour it into a 9 by 13 pan.

 

Over that top, put the crumble.. always make it just slightly higher in the middle with just a bit less on the edges.. Bake in a 350 for approx. 40 min, or until its top is golden brown and the sides are edged with bubbling rhubarb juice 🙂

Can be served hot with ice cream or cold plain or with whipped cream.

 

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31 Day Self Reliance Challange Week Three Overview

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

 

Week Three Overview

How did we get to week three already! Crazy how fast the time this month is flying by.. We finally got rain, and we really needed it. I got to try out our new small metal shed roof rain collection system.. working well, I will need to do some tree trimming. Otherwise, we have had very nice weather this week. Sunny, warm with a light winds.

Things that we got done over the past week.

  • Dried two jars worth of nettles for winter use
  • Planted our 4 Saskatoon tree’s, added in new Black Rasberry canes (new kind to the farm to go with the other two types I have) added in two more female and one more male Haskups, which were planted in between the current bushes.. think of them as in-fill.
  • Worked on three more permaculture guilds and put in more of the “bones” larger fruiting tree’s and bushes and canes into the being built Diamond garden.
  • Found and hauled all the rotting wood for the base of the new hugelbed, also added into five more wheel barrel’s to the outer ring for the same bed.

  • Took out a number of smaller baby tree’s.. Took out some bigger tree’s and cut some firewood from them
  • Had a clutch of new chicks hatched on the farm- moved them to the grow out pen
  • Made a natural dewormer for the flock out of nettle roots and treated everyone in a flavoured drinking water.
  • Made our first rhubarb Crisp (yum) of the year

  • Crazy amount of yard work, working it the main garden, and some fun with my horse’s.. perfect horse back riding weather.
  • Ferrier came for a visit and one morning was taken up with making sure my team’s feet are all ready for both riding season and for farm work.
  • Continuted to do purge in the house.. four more box’s of stuff that went to our local church run second hand shops.
  • Picked up my tomato and pepper plants, I have a smaller non-heated greenhouse on the farm, but I worked with a local who can start my plants in feb, which means even compared to my own early starts, it gives me another full two months head start..

Things I did not get to this week that I have moved over to this weeks list.. my shear my two wool sheep (thankfully the rest are hair sheep and shed out naturally), I need to do both sheep and goat feet trims.

Not planned.. lost 4 chickens to a fox.. a bold as brass fox that didn’t even feel the need to run a way while eating my livestock.. Not a good choice.. it will not be getting any more of my flock.

https://practicalselfreliance.com/edible-hostas/

A wonderful detailed post on a great spring edible that many people over look, the hosta.. Also at the end of this post, do take a peek at the other recipes listed.. her bacon wrapped hosta recipe looks so good! hmmmm Bacon..

https://www.mygreenterra.com/self-reliance-challenge-second-project/

I very much enjoyed reading franks post about the fruit tree cuttings, fruits that I would never be able to grow in my own zone but so interesting to read about.. Check out his post for detailed information on how he makes a drip water feeder for use in his greenhouse.

I enjoyed reading all the blogger post goals for the challenge and I look forward to sharing different bloggers posts that I liked reading over the coming weeks 🙂

We would love to have you join the challenge and share your own steps to self sufficiency . Follow us and share your self reliance methods, tips, goals, and dreams! Be sure to visit the other bloggers and read about their self reliance journey! You can follow along each members blog or other social mediums be it Facebook, twitter or more.

If you would like to join in this challenge, please go here to fill out the form on her site

Please check out this outstanding bloggers that are joining in the challenge. More might join as we go along.

Lisa Lynn – The Self Sufficient HomeAcre

Maria – Maria Zannini

Frank – My Green Terra

Shawnalee – Homegrown Self Reliance

Ashley – Practical Self Reliance 

Candy- Candy’s Farm House Party

Robin- A life in the wild

Kathi – Oak Hill Homestead

Nancy- Nancy on the Homefront

AnnMarie- 15 Acre Homestead

And myself.. Just another day on the farm 🙂

I will be writing new content for this challenge. However I am also going to bring out of off my most popular homesteading and related posts over the blogs seven plus years history. We are asked to do a one week round up and sharing of other blogs favorite posts, I am looking forward to getting to know these new bloggers. We never stop learning 🙂

 

Posted in 31 Day Self Reliance Challange | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Working with the local’s

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

While I admit that I can and have started my own starts many years.. if you look back on the site, you will see them in detail.. but some years it nice to let others do things for you..

In this case, when I had the chance to put in a tomato and pepper order for what I wanted for this years garden and get a four month head start on them due to the person have a full greenhouse and starting them in Feb, when my own “green house” is a deep freeze.

I took it.. boy am I happy with the results.. they huge, strong, amazing root systems and I will bury them up to the first node to give them even more sturdy start and will be able to set up their climbing cages as they go in.

24 Roma’s , 6 cherry and 6 fresh eating-slicers..  Can you believe that bare-root these guys were done at 2.50 and as I asked for them to potted up two weeks ahead.. they were a mear dollar more..

They where brushing the top of the vehicle..  3.50 each is outstanding!  I will be pruning in June, I am sure.. I expect I will be eating cherry tomato’s in june as well.. instead of my harvest being in late july.. push in aug and clean up huge on green tomato’s in sept.. I expect that I will be starting much earlier this year..  we will see..

The pepper plants are smaller but that is natural and good for me.. they look good but many of them are a foot and half and in bloom already! I ordered 24 peppers,  all of them are good for eating but mainly for canning uses in sauce etc

I am very glad to have given a order to fellow farmer and thrilled with the plants I got in my order 🙂

Posted in Garden | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments