Its the time of year where i am poking my head into the cellar, the freezer and the pantry, I have my yearly full beef order coming in this week as well as planning out the coming meat chick order and planning out the protein plans for 2024 and that means rotations, moving the older stuff up different freezers and putting the new in.
In keeping with that, i had one package of beef shanks left from last years order, it slow roasted them to get some nice browning on the bones and burnt edges, i tagged teamed it with a baked oatmeal/fruit. I used up 4 cups of frozen farm grown raspberries and used up some softening /wrinkled storage apples.
Farmgal Tip, If you are going to run the oven, use if for more then one thing at the same time, make that energy use count.
Once they were browned up a bit, i put them and the deglazed liquid in to the big cast iron pot to which i added two full onions (skins off as it adds a bitterness i do not like) 4 bay leaves and in the tea ball i have a mix of mustard seeds (yellow/brown/black) black peppercorns and a few clove buds and salt to taste. Added enough water to cover the bones.
This was brought up to a boil and then placed on the cooking wood stove an allowed to simmer away for hours. Six or so hours later, i took it off the simmer, took out the bay leaves, and the spice ball, removed the fall apart tender meat, i diced the meat back up after pulling it off the bones, hit the onion and broth with the stick blender to make it smooth
I added in diced celery, six cups of cooked diced beets that had been oven roasted for sweetness then cooled diced and frozen into my freezer tubs and one cup of pearl barley plus the diced beef. To this i added salt, pepper and beef bouillon to taste. Simmer for another 45 minutes till all cooked, i like my barley well cooked. It was tender enough for eating at the 25 to 30 minute mark but i like it just a bit longer..
This is slow food, it took all day to make but it was quick and easy in bits and bobs and as i was running the wood stove all day for heating it was making use of energy that was available. This is using a cut or part that is different and turning it into a lovely supper dish that is rich and filling.
What is something you have taken out of your freezer that is just a touch different then normal and using your winter pantry made, are you using your wood stove to help keep your kettle warm, or for cooking your soups/stews on?
I am excited to have partnered up with Laura Moses to host some coming events here on the farm. I have worked with her in the past on different gatherings and lectures over the years.
It is the first time i have offered up to host here on the farm itself the first weekend of April , and i am pleased to say that the choies she will have for her class will be vast and many. The yard rebuild included a huge number of fruit trees of different types all coming into their fifth year here on the farm and are ready to get their corrective pruning started combined with a great selection of older fruit trees as well.
I will have a outdoor fire going and will provide hot tea/coffee and after the class if folks want to stay and visit, i will have hot soup and buns on offer at no extra cost, just as a warm up and thank you. IF the weather is good, we will be mostly outside but if its very cold, i will make sure to have the house and the wood stove ready to help warm you up. (please note that if you have dog or cat allergies, you will have issues within my home, so either take meds ahead or perhaps choose one of her other dates)
Do not live close to me, but still interested, please check out the flyer an her website as she is fully booked in the month of march and is offering this course in a number of areas.
The event is capped out at a max of 15 as i want to make sure everyone has a time to ask questions and get a good spot to see the process. Many folks worked with me on a huge plant order that included a great number of fruit trees and its certainly time for them to be getting their shaping and pruning done.
This class will help you if you have gotten a property with older fruit trees badly in need of pruning to get them back to producing fruit, or if you have younger trees just starting out. Whatever stage you are at, there is helpful and useful training to be had.
A group I belong to asked for a vision board for 2024 and I have certainly done a few of these for different projects over the years but it was just not calling to me in the right way, I started putting down notes on things i would want on my board.. and stewed
and stewed some more… like for two weeks lol
I have decided that its going to be more of a guide then a board and its all about balance for me.. 2024 is not really about massive growth or change.. its not about huge projects, its about small shifts.
Its about micro goals and clearer views on projects i am already years or decades or more deep on. Its about polish! Its about depth on subjects, its about reps and repeats till its not just can you do it or can you do it well.. its about doing it quietly but with clarity
Its not about a list of I will do this..
Its I already do all these things.. now do them just a little bit better in all areas of my life. Be a better wife, Be a better friend, Be a better homesteader, Be a better Gardner, Be a better writer, be a better blogger, Be a better photographer, Be a better community member Be Better at living in the moment
The weather this year as been very odd indeed, but I am beyond grateful that we did the huge second fall plantings. It was a strange garden year for us, the second year of gardening in the new big enclosed park garden.
We started the year of with great difficulty, first it wet, and then it went dry with summer type heat, causing both a rotting of seeds/movement of seeds and then bolting or kill off of tiny little seedlings that could not take the heat despite us being regular on our watering.
The park garden has far more sand then any other place we plant in other then one small area in the food forest and it just eats compost like its candy, which is kind of crazy really, I picked this spot for a number of reason’s but one of them was the fact that i had two winters worth of hay/sheep poo blend over the area that was allowed to rot in and be turned in before we even started.
This year we added in massive amounts of well done compost and then layered the walkways with even more, its shocking to me how fast its being taken down in this area compared to my river loam garden areas that enjoy the feeding but they can take a good layer and feeding every two or three years.
The new gardens will need to be heavily feed yearly for, well I am not sure how long but i am going to be happy that my horses are such good producers and this year I will reach out to a friend and add in a load or two of spent barley from beer making for all my small new tree/hedge rows to be.
While almost all of my baby trees made the spring, many did not make the spring/heat/dry, despite our help on watering, they made the winter, leafed out and then went down in the spring heat and drought.
Somethings required up to three rounds of plantings to get full rows up but once they were up, they thrived and yields were excellent.
By the time I was doing my last plantings I was using some of my shortest season and determinate seeds so many produced heavy and then were ready to be pulled out and replaced in time for the fall plantings time of the last week of july or the first week of aug, which this year was pushed to aug 10th. I figured I would get something but not sure what..
what I didn’t count on that was month late first frost date, we didn’t get our first frosts till late oct and while we had some snow/freezing in nov, it was minor..
For the first time ever, on the week of christmas, beets, carrots and dried beans were harvested.. now it would not be surprising to do covered carrots and even maybe covered beets but theses were bare in the ground, no row cover, no protection and that is just wow!
Same with the dried beans, I had harvested the fresh up to frost and then we have a number of personal things come up so I just was like.. leave it, if I have to i will get it in the spring.. but the day or so before i left on my trip, we were walking in the pasture and passed the garden and I popped off a dried pop, cracked it open and poured 8 perfect grey goose seeds into my hand and went huh..
Showed hubby and then picked a different kind, again, dried and ready to be shelled.. and off on the trip I went, Dear hubby was the one that picked and prepared all the beets/carrots and bowl after bowl of beans..
He made sure to dry them that they could be used for seed as well as for cooking, which is great as one of them was a older bean that I grew just a few plants to see if it was still viable and I will have enough this year to do a full row and grow the seed from.
While I am used to having a green christmas a few times since we moved to the farm, we have never still be harvesting from the garden on Dec 24th without row covers or having moved things into the house, from the root cellar yes, from the garden.. no.
It was a good year for fruit overall but the one thing that I had that many did not was the native bees, so many native bees that at times my garden spaces hummed and buzzed as you walked by
This coming year will be year three in the new main park garden which will be expanded again plus all the side smaller gardens and while I love having so much in the space, I will be taking out the tomato’s and some of the space hogs and adding them into different guilds in the forest gardens.
The big challenge for 2024 will be the Japanese beetles which for some reason exploded last year and will have to managed far more this coming year or they will be overwhelming on some things.
The seed catalogs are coming in, but I am just not ready to be thinking garden yet, strange but true, I am still thinking wood and snow with winter formost in my mind, spring seems so far off yet I know its not true.. only time will tell if its a early spring or later start to the year..
Its a tracking year for 2024, not something I enjoy in some ways and like in others, it can be struggle to always track an weight everything but we have so many things that are hitting their six year from the big rebuild that started producing last year, small amounts to be sure but enough for taste testing that should be producing this year and with the garden coming into its third year, we should get a good overall picture of yields within the new systems.
Are you looking forward to the turn of the wheel and the bringing back of spring and the gardens or are you still in tucked down mode waiting out the cold or for many of us, the current snow storm.
10 000 plus km, 26 days on the road, 5 provinces and so many visits with family and friends along the way! Thank you so much to those that opened their homes to us and grateful for hotels that sheltered us.
So many memories made, time spent with Ravens and Wolves, magic!
O the mountains, an those amazing Hot springs, the soaking of the bones with winter cold outside, snowing down with cold noses and steaming water rising up.
So much family time, even got to meet a long term fellow blogger, have a lovely lunch with Hip Roof Barn! Happy Holiday’s to you all, Hope yours was a good one!
Its so nice when you get feedback on older posts! Thank you so much for letting me know you tried this recipe as a way to use your fall lamb hearts. While one of the best ways to use hearts for those that do not care for organ meat or most likely do not like the look of it. Is to grind and add a portion to regular minced meat at 20 or 30 percent and they will just love the rich flavour and never know why.
“Thanks for the recipe! We saved our lamb hearts after the slaughter a few days ago and I was wondering what to do with them. I’ve only cooked chicken hearts before. These turned out delicious!”
But for those bold enough to try something just a touch different but with that familiar breading and shape and size, this recipe is outstanding
Krampus, in central European popular legend, a half-goat, half-demon monster that punishes misbehaving children at Christmastime. He is the devilish companion of
St. Nicholas. Krampus is believed to have originated in Germany, and his name derives from the German word Krampen, which means “claw.”
Krampus was thought to have been part of pagan rituals for the winter solstice. According to legend, he is the son of Hel, the Norse god of the underworld. With the spread of Christianity, Krampus became associated with Christmas—despite efforts by the Catholic church to ban him. The creature and St. Nicholas are said to arrive on the evening of December 5 (Krampusnacht; “Krampus Night”). While St. Nicholas rewards nice children by leaving presents, Krampus beats those who are naughty with branches and sticks. In some cases, he is said to eat them or take them to hell. On December 6, St. Nicholas Day, children awaken to find their gifts or nurse their injuries.
I have a amazing Krampus Cosplay Photography Session with model Melysa Parent at a event hosted by ottawa photo meet up.
I am heading to visit family in Alberta for the holidays this year, I can no longer really say I am heading home, the farm and my community here truly feels like home.
Having said that alberta, the land, the mountains and my family are calling me back and I am truly blessed to be able to answer the call. Like the picture my current and my past are side by side and touching and intertwined in such a delightful way.. while my farm and life here is front and center, the connection to who I was and how I became that person is just as important.
So first off, I am shocked at the cost of plane tickets right now, second I am not getting on a plane lol Nope, I am driving home. Hot Peppa, myself and introducing my right hand on the trip.. Miss R, she is not shy so expect photos of her to be shared on the way are packing up mid dec and hitting the road.
I did book the hotel spots on the way over and for our time in the mountains but I am so far playing it loose and fast for the return trip home. We are going to gone for close to just shy of a month all total, we are taking our time on the road one because I want to drive in mostly daylight and two Miss R has never been to any the country we are driving though or heading to and I want to have extra time for lots of fun pit stops and mini side trips.
I will be having Christmas with my mom, and then having a family Christmas gathering a little later in the week, plus lots of side visiting and then my niece will join us for the trip over to Banff, into BC and back down to Jasper run to end in the Edmonton area.
I will most certainly be missing this gentleman the most! I am packing my camera, my computer and of course will have my phone so we will be in touch in many ways but we are missing our 24th wedding anniversary.. I am so excited that we will mark out 25th year in 2024.
There to be some holiday baking of family favorites once we get home, so I am planning on sharing them recipe and photo wise as while they are not what I would call modern or healthy, they are very yummy and as I intend to make them into small tins of assorted as gifts and guest trays they will be shared out in small doses..
I hope you are welcoming in December with light and hope for what the month will bring. May you be blessed with warmth, good food, friendships and family and if you so choose the love a good dog or purrpot! or maybe a bit bigger lol
I turned 51 in October after crazy wild year of ups, downs and lots of just get it done days in-between.
Myself and two amazing women in my life, Cousin in laws all have our birthdays within two weeks of each other and we decided we needed some girls time. Now I know that most ladies would hit a spa or go out to a fancy hotel and eat out or take in a pool side time
We however pooled together to rent a night spent at the Omaga park in a cabin on the hillside backed on to the younger wolf pack with two bears in the mix. We packed in all our own food, made amazing meals and did the whole park two days with multiple rounds, we feed out around 150 pounds of carrots lol
You can rent a single story or a two story, we went with the second floor because it gave me a outdoor Balcony to sit with my camera and my best long distance lens on and freeze for a couple hours as the dawn broke and came up over the tree lines.
As the wolves and bears are free to roam the area, it took a lot of waiting to get them to come in a spot that was a) in my zoom area and boy did I push that b) was in a clear enough spot that it was not blocked by trees or they were moving on the second or third ridge which I could see them go into and pop up and down on but could not get photos of them.
Almost at the end of the morning after a couple hours, these two magic moments of backlight of this wolf appeared, snap and then they were gone.. only to appear on the lope coming out of water that I didn’t even know was there behind that ridge. I got one single photo in the time it took him to come up, out and gone..
So so worth the numb fingers..
There were many highlights on the trip to be sure but for today, enjoy the photos of the Grey Wolves
Thankful for the hot coffee my darling friend brought me, I was just watching the whole area and saw the Cinnamon bear come up and behind to the water fall area, sadly I was not able to use the waterfall area for photography as my angle was wrong but it would be worth if I was going to do it again to try and pick which condo for certain spots that they clearly use a touch more then others.
Anyway, I looked over to movement on my right and saw the wolves in clear ambush mode, I have watched my sheep dogs enough to understand that lowered body, that slink, that eye and that they were working together, then came out so slow and quiet as they crossed the backside of the open area using the second ridge..
Looking to the left I could see that the bear was on to them and was alert and watching, suddenly he started to move off though the trees and I thought, I have one chance at this.. there is only one tree that I can get a clear pushed to the edge of my lens range of, if he goes up, I will be ready, if he used a different trees I will miss it.
Not only did I get him going up the tree but I caught this snap of the wolf who came around the other side and looked up at him
I will need to head back at some point over winter in deeper snow with just the wolves and a big old snow suit lol and see what I can get once again.
I am sorry to have this rant, I might not even post this.. I most likely will and I am sure I will lose a reader or two.. but I have to write this.. If you live in an apartment or a tiny condo in the city, you can be many things.. You can be […]
Ok, its just going on record that we are going to be “in just in time mode” on most things this year. Let me give a example.. we have pulled at least a hundred or two wild parsnips but then we needed to focus on this or that.. and suddenly this week, we are like.. […]
Just another Day on the Farm 