Happy Easter Round Two with photos :)

Posted on April 1, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

So I did get some photo’s for you today.. they are not the greatest, the lambs are not ready to come outside to the muddy, cold wind world yet (well they could but why should they?) so that means that I have very poor lighting in most of the barn and even worse in the corner jug where I needed to use the flash.

Come on, I had to use the bunny photo today 🙂

Not that you can see it but the sibling is nursing on the other side at the same time

Despite more then a dozen photo’s taken, this is the only useable baby goat photos

The sunset yesterday was lovely! Everyone have a great evening!

 

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Happy Easter “Lambs”

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

Happy Easter from our little farm to you and yours! I hope that regardless of your beliefs that you will enjoy time with your family and friends on this long weekend.

The past week has been busy, we finally are lambing, Toffee had our first set of twins it was a mix, one ewe and one ram.. Ram is the bigger lamb with ewe being second and smaller. Both a mix of chocolate dark brown with lots of white flashing (white head markings, white socks and white tails).  They are out of the jug now and in the baby pen

Champagne had a huge single ewe lamb (which is fine as she is just two herself) and did a outstanding job in delivery, cleanup and bonding. I have my eye on her daughter.  She is a bubbles granddaughter. She is the same as the twins being a rick dark brown main body color with lots of white crome  They are out of the jug now and in the baby pen

Woolie has a lovely set of twin ram lambs, pure white both of them. The biggest is doing great, the youngest is a little bit weaker and its getting a extra nursing and being made sure its nursing well. I will do a weight check on the littlest one for the next couple days, they are safely jugged up and hopefully with the much smaller space, the wee one will pick up just a touch more.

We have two more ewe’s to go yet and we clearly have a missed year with spot.. no lambs from her this year.

Hubby is slowly and carefully recovering from his torn muscles and broken bones, he finds to very hard that he can hear the broken bones move back and forth.. click click and he is not happy to be on the side lines but he must take the time off and heal. He did try to go to work for one day last week but wisely decided to take the rest of the week off.

I am grateful for the warmer weather in the sense it has allowed me to get out the hoses and now I can do the watering without hauling around buckets. However the warmer weather also means that we have mud.. so much mud and I have already had one minor slip and one true fall, thankfully I am just a bit bruised up.

We enjoyed some wonderful time at a dear friends on good Friday and we having a quiet stay at home weekend otherwise with just us on the farm. We have lots to do and at the same time, I am having a bit of a quieter couple days as well.

We have two new rabbit litters and one chicken sitting that is due to hatch this coming week if we have our timing right..  spring is here and so are the babies!

 

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Pantry Challange 2018 – Day 13 Falling!

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

I did take photos of the fridge and will get them uploaded and on a different post that will be pending yet.

So hubby came down around 5 am ish to ask for help, he has slipped in the tub and fallen into side of the tub, he was certainly hurting and so off to the walk-in that sent us to the ER and two doctors later and its a cracked rib or two an or torn muscles.

Meds, pain killers and six to eight weeks of healing, with No lifting and care required. Needless to say, I have been a little busy the last few days between regular house stuff, taking over hubbies chores on the farm and reno stuff still going on.

Tonight is the first time where I have everything done and have time to sit down and get a post up to let you all know what is been going on.

I have three ewe’s that are bagged up now but still no new lambs, on the other hand the goat babies are a hoot.. they are strong, healthy and full of themselves. I will see if I can put up a wee little video of them at some point..  I have taken a few cuz.. come on baby goat bouncing!

The weather has been cold and they say its finally going to start warming up in the day times above 0, which is great.  It will make things very nice in some ways but it also will slow me down in others as its starting to be the mud season. Right now I can sled down the water buckets to the big barn on the snow yet, it will be a lot harder to sled them in mud.. and I am so out of shape..

WOW, am I out of shape after x months off the hauling of water and hay/feed and such due to my lungs, I also have to wear a mask when I am working these days, but its so worth it. My body will get stronger for it, and that can only be a good thing.

Also wanted to send out a RIP note to our Boo Cat, she would have turned 14 this spring and has always been a great barn purrpot, she was fixed as a young female and was a good hunter. It’s always sad to lose one of the older ones.  (this photo was taken in 2014) but its one of my favorites 🙂

 

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Pantry Challange 2018 Day 12 Pie

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

Pie might seem like a odd thing on the pantry challenge but there is a reason that pies were so popular back in the day, its a way to take flour, fat, water and salt and turn it into a crust that can be used to hold pretty much anything.. its also easy enough to make a hand held pie.. This can of course be done with bread dough as well..

Its quite amazing how you can take bits of this or that, make a sauce and wrap it in dough and you have a meal.  While in a ideal world you have lots of potato’s and such in the cold pantry, the truth is that at this time of the year, its getting lower and its also starting to sprout (or at least mine and what appears to be every gardener in my next of the woods that I am friends with on facebook)

I have a number of little pullets that have started laying most of them are laying the off cream eggs that show their Salmon Faverolle or Icelandic background but two appear to have a bit of americain in them as they are laying light green eggs.

I might need to encourage a few more brown egg layers in the flock in this coming season, it would appear that the youngest clutch all came from brown eggs so any pullets from it will be brown or green egg layers. The pullet eggs have so much yolk and so little white yet and they are just so cute!

It was the day of pii this week and while I might be a bit late, I did get one made in its honor..

Eggs to Date -74

 

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Striving for Victory – The Battle for Fuel: a letter from Lily

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

I am really enjoying reading along with the Hip Roof Barn War Challenge.. Check it out if you have not already done so.

craftytadpole's avatarhip roof barn

In March of 1942, fuel, clothing, and food were all subject to rationing and everyone who could, was called upon to help with march towards Victory.  This month, we are starting to reduce our consumption of valuable fuel so that there will be more for the war effort.  Here is a letter from Lily describing her war experience so far.

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Pantry Challange 2018 Day 11 Freezer Meats

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

The young green onion bulbs are finally starting to sprout, but they sure took their sweet time. Hopefully the pea sprouts will be moving along faster as they come up.

I had truly hoped that by this time I would have a small spot in the front flower bed that I could put one of my spring heat covers and I had dug out some pots of soil that I made up last year and put a few extra’s in.. a couple have dormant horse radish roots, some have dormant nettle roots and two of them are winter sown with pigweed seeds..

Given they are made up with outside soil and all the natural bugs that come with it, I do not want to move them into the house. I am sure like you when it comes to spring and seed starting, you are staring with clean soil, clean pots etc.

However the snow will not stop.. We have had some melting every day at the highest temps but even with that, I have a extra foot and half of snow everywhere then I did last week and the temps are going down right now.. not up. We were to have a nice plus 3 or 4 and now they say we are going to have -13 brrr

This freezer right now is pretty empty looking at this point but it was sure full when I had done both my beef and pork for the year back in 2015 when this photo was taken.

Today’s topic is freezer meats, aka what most people consider “fresh meat” but as we will at some point get to me bringing fresh meat from the farm.. I do not consider it fresh.. its freezer meat but it is raw meat.

Hubby pulled out a package of beef for me to use, which was a good hint that maybe I had been using to much canned meats. Fair enough, there is a difference in taste and texture with canned meats. Plus I made hamburger steaks with BBQ sauce.. very yum.

Do you keep a goodly amount of meat in the freezer? or are you more of the can the meat and keep the freezers for veggies or fruit? I know enough folks that pretty much only have meat in the freezer and can or dry the veggies and fruits or I know a couple ladies that are totally the other way round.. all their meat is processed in some way and its nothing but a veggie feast in their freezers.

I am normally a mix.. I put away fruit and veggies in the one freezer though the harvest season but I slowly process or use it up and by the time butcher season comes around, its used as a meat freezer most of the winter.

My freezers at the moment are both getting lower just based on the time of the year and will get even more so with the challenge.

How are your freezers looking.. still full and going strong or starting to show the time of year as well? Even if you are seasonally buy a quarter or half a beef or pork, its interesting to see it reflected in what is in the freezers at this time.

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Pantry Challange 2018 Day 10 Jello

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

Yesterday we talked about Pudding (haha or should I say on Day 9) Today we are going to talk about Jello

Its a total follow up to the same idea but its even cheaper to stock as it goes on better sales, comes in more flavours and its ok on its own but its outstanding as a extender.  The same amount of fruit in a bowl will serve one maybe.. but used in a jello can jump to four servings for sure.

It turns out that between the fact that my hard fruits have been flower frost killed for the past two years, leaving me pretty much only soft fruit to put up, combined with a reno year last year that lead to very little canning compared to a normal year, along with poor price sales on canned fruit in the stores.

Hubby adores his rhubarb fruits and applesauce for work and that has been outstanding in terms of being a staple for his work lunches for the last year, which means its getting low.. thankfully fresh rhubarb season will start again in April-May. We still have a good supply of canned pineapple

But otherwise, unless I want to use dried, I am far lower on fruit then I expected I would be.. however I happen to have lots of fruit jams in my cold storage. This means I have sweet burst of fruit flavour.

You do not want to eat jam as a fruit, but it can be used in a number of ways in the menu planning. I consider this lack of canned fruits to be my first big “pantry gap” find and I will need to step up my fruit put up this year. I will not just be needing to can for a year, I need to plan for canning for a min of a 18 months worth of fruit putting up.

How is your fruit in your pantry looking? Do you have lots still after your winters of eating? Have you been effected by weather in terms of your growing patterns or results in production? Have you also noticed that the sales on canned fruit has become fewer and further between?

 

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Pantry Challange 2018 Day 9 Pudding!

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

Dang I need stop writing double post days but life is busy and I am get tired. I am loving the work that is getting done. I truly am.

So first and foremost Wow.. have we had snow! not just a bit of snow.. six inches here and five inches here and another six inches and another 8 here.. wow! go march, just let that lion roar Baby!!! SNOW on..

However the temps are nice enough, 0 to plus 3 for daytime highs and very mild lows minus 3 to minus 5 ish so its been great indoor and outdoor working temps that’s for sure.

The Green onions didn’t seem to care at all that there was very little sun, just grey sky’s.. they have grown really well this week and I am looking forward to doing some trimming of them for fresh toppings on a couple of dishes.

So today lets talk about pudding.. There is a reason that you will see a lot of pudding recipes in the older cookbooks, in the wartime books, in the dirty 30’s cookbooks. Its a way to provide a dessert or more depending on how you use it.

Its something that lots of people clearly buy in little cups per what I see if the store. I keep a good supply of both the instant and cooked box’s that go on sale at the store.  I also keep a good number of big box’s of custard powder and I keep the basic’s for homemade pudding making as well..  or tapioca pudding traditional or made with Sheep Milk Tapioca

When you have fresh milk coming in the house from the barn and you have eggs, you have custard and that is a great thing to have in the house. But not everyone is going to have that, however keeping a good supply of puddings in your pantry is a great idea for all.

Pick the flavours your family will like and watch for the sales. Puddings can be fancied up with just a touch of canned fruit on top, or even a dollop of jam. It can be made into pudding pie with canned or frozen fruit used on top in a thin layer.

Do you stock puddings or custards in your pantry, with either a dairy animal on the farm, or dried or canned milk if its not instant kind?

Egg Count to date -64

 

 

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Pantry Challange 2018 Day 8 Overview Monday

Posted on March 12, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

Well, the week has gone well enough, we have been using up our fresh stuff and working to create more balanced meals and for sure using eggs in at least one or even two meals per day as they are our renewable at this time.

We have raided the freezer for some bread, butter and meats of course as well as a bit of veggie.. The fridge is much emptier compared to last week, a lot more jars of food in use things brought up from the canning pantry. Here is last weeks again, so you do not need to find the post.

ps, the top left corner of the fridge is holding the paint brushes and rollers in case you where like what the heck is in those bags

Here is the close up of the crisper.. The apples and carrots on the right are for the little pigs and the horse’s for treats, which leaves me the purple cabbage, the small bag of pea’s and some older turnips in the left one to use yet.

The sprouts are so ready and will be moved into the fridge today and more started.

Still no fresh milk it the house yet.. but we will start very soon on that one.  Nothing is growing outside at this point, still too much snow cover to even dig for chokes yet.. I am going to cover a few things this week and see if I can start pushing them along outside in a forcing them with our march sun.. when we get some.

The fruit bowl is empty and will stay that way till the end of the challenge.. if you want fruit it has to be canned or dried or rehydrated

This week will be more of a challenge for me to be sure.. first things first, I need to bake again today.  If there is one thing you figure out when eating out of your pantry, if you want something for you to grab.. you need to bake.. if you want a treat.. popcorn is your best friend if you like it.

Everyone have a great one..

 

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Pantry Challange 2018 Day 7 Rest Day

Posted on March 12, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

Well Day 7 was Sunday and it was not a rest day in terms of getting work done. However it was a rest day in terms of cooking as hubby cooked a pre-made frozen pizza (our one and only till I make more to put away from the freezer 🙂

Breakfast was cold for hubby and eggs for me, lunch was hot soup and we were busy the rest of the time.. Hubby had spice loaf for snacks and I drank lots of water and a cup of canned pineapple.

I worked on painting some wooden items to match for going into the front porch.  Its getting some new work done in there and these will match nicely, we also spent a goodly amount of time working outside in both the outside and the buildings, Its that time of year that you start cleaning up a winters worth of bedding, poo and such.

Miss Marie was quite content to keep a close eye on the work being done in the living room and enjoyed her couch time while Sunny Cat and Mom’s little girl Paris enjoy the huge dog bed LOL

We are still waiting on that ewe to go in the barn, but the twin’s goats kids are doing outstanding.. we even had a mini half baby bop out of them.

That was the day.. it flew by. Hope you had a great Sunday yourself

Farm Eggs -6

Total Eggs to date -41

 

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