Rabbit Update

Posted on July 2, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Last week we were gifted by a friend that was slowing down her rabbit breeding plans, a four hole grow out set up cage and a two hole mom with full nest box attached to each end set up.

The timing was excellent as I had grown out’s in an outside feeding tractor that needed to be sexed and moved apart (they will finish out this month for butchering timing) and I have right around 40 four, coming five-week old kits that are all eating and do well whose mother are more than ready to wean them.

So I have two does that are ready to pop kits this coming week, they went to the new doe cages with attached nest box’s and the one has declared it most excellent and has even been spotted with a hay mouthful as she is in fuss mode..

The second doe moved is giving me the eye.. she liked her bigger outdoor hutch I think but she will settle.. that big old 16 square feet hutch is being used as grow out hutch at the moment.

The four grow out hole wire hutch that is a hanging type that is now inside, the Croft (barn) has nice big getting there grow outs at three per pen (legally I can put five per pen, but no need for crowding) so three does in two and three bucks in the other and I have an outstanding doe in the one pen.. she is massive, her growth rate is off the charts, her whole litter is excellent but she is heavier than the bucks and is going to be like her mother.. HUGE..

I plan to keep her back and see how she continues to age out.. it was be a sad day if you butcher out a doe that has that kind of possibility in her genes for getting you whole litters and kits to butcher size up to a week earlier then what you currently have.. that add’s up to a whole lot of food in the freezer in the end and lot less time and food output to get there..

So today we re-bred the other three does..  ( I have a total of five does) for litters in a month and weaning a month after that.. which means that I have time to butcher the oldest, finish growing out the just weaned now before those new kits in two months will need to be moved to their grow out pens.

As I stood looking at quiet calm, eating, resting, grooming themselves rabbits, I Said to DH, well there is our chicken this year dear..

As it turned out, in our chick’s, we only have three roosters.. one that I will be keeping back, leaving me with just two chickens to butcher this year.. so truly for white meat.. rabbit is the white meat of 2017.

I expect that I will have one more breeding for the fall and then just put all the girls on a healthy but lean winter diet and put deep winter breeding on hold..  I have the boy’s in rabbit tractors but Dh and I are in agreement that we are going to design and built a two hole buck hutch for them. I like having two unrelated males, and five unrelated females at the moment. It gives me lots of room in my breeding programs.

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5 Ways to use Garlic Scapes!

Posted on July 1, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Ah, Garlic Scapes, those yummy green tops on the garlic that you are growing in your garden, or available from your favorite local garlic grower. When they reach over and start to curl into themselves.. its time for harvesting. I have been putting up between 15 to 30 pounds of these amazing scapes over the past years.. here is a round-up of my favorite ways to use them.

This is what they are going to look like freshly cut, some will be super thick and others will be smaller and thinner, some will have more of the flower bud and others will have less of one.

You will need to tip and tail each one of them as you are going to prepare them.. now I don’t mind that my hands smell of a mild garlic but if it bothers your hands, be aware that they will release a drop of garlic scape juice on the end of each cut when they are fresh and if this is an issue, I recommend that you were gloves.

This is pretty much a lovely done in pieces cut up average scape.. from here you can use them in stirfries, you can roast them, or you can pickle them or you can make them into a sauce at this point. A lot of people would take out the flower bud (second in from the left) but I personally don’t mind them.. they will be a softer bit in the pickles then the solid green.

Use #1 –Stirfry

So beautiful and such a wonderful way to add a outstanding mild version of a garlic to so many dishes. Add in half a cup of these fresh garlic Scrapes to your favorite stirfry blend.. these will also bag up and freeze and keep for a solid six months in correct freezer bags that are easy to open and take some out over the winter.

#2 Pickled Garlic Scapes

Use your basic Dill Pickle Brine

  • 4 cups of water
  • 4 cups of white vinegar
  • 3 tbsp. of pickling spice (in a cheese cloth bag)
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 half cup of canning salt

Mix together and bring to a boil.. use standard water bath canning process on jars, pack them with the cleaned, prepared scapes (you can see above some can be curled into them in rounds for serving in a tray.. most are done into bite size bit.) cover them with the brine, wipe the lip, seal and process for 15 min.

#3- Sweet Minted Scapes

  • 5 cups water
  • 3 and half cups of sugar
  • four cups worth of apple mint leaves.
  • Collect your leaves, wash, no stems, bruise them a bit to help release the mint flavour, and add them to a pot that has water and sugar on med heat, bring to a gentle simmer, turn down and simmer for five min, lets sit for another five, strain out the mint leaves.. bring back up to a boil for jarring up.
  • Tip and tail your garlic scapes, wash them well in cool water, then drain and cut them into two to four-inch pieces, this really does need to be a big flexible as size and curl affects the cutting.
  • Prep your jars, lids and your canning pot as per normal, when you remove the hot jar, put your three to five whole black pepper and two cloves per jar, one inch by one inch horse-radish, fill the jar with garlic scapes, fill to half an inch from top, then add the mint syrup to half an inch from the top, wipe your lip, lid and seal, into the hot water bath for ten min.
  • Out and onto the towel, allow to sit for a full 24 before moving, can be used within a week but ideally let it cure for at least a month, these are sweet, with a bit of heat, crunchy and awesome! Makes Five pints.

The minted Scapes are outstanding with darker heavier meats, like lamb, or wild game.. It’s quite different but it’s very good.

#4 Roasted or Grilled Scapes

Take a big handful or two of cleaned tipped and tailed garlic scapes, a drizzle of oil, sea salt or seasoning salt and into an over at 375 for 12 to 15 min.

Do consider watching carefully and letting them get quite brown and crispy for snacking on them or allowing them to cool and then breaking them up for use as a crunchy bite in a salad..  this will take another five to eight min of cooking time!

Both the lovely green baked kind and the crunchy baked kind are delightful!

#5 Garlic Scapes Fresh Pesto or Creamy Pesto Sauce..

This one is your choice.. please consider at least once making a fresh garlic Scape Pesto.. Its delightful

  • one cup of finely or coarsely chopped cleaned and prepped garlic scapes (I recommend not using the flower parts for this one)
  • 1/4th of a cup of pine nuts
  • Half a cup of Parm Cheese.
  • 1 tbsp. of lemon juice
  • half a cup of the best quality extra virgin olive oil
  • Fresh ground salt and black cracked pepper

Blend it all together and go! YUM!

Now for a different taste, mix in a few tablespoons of cream cheese.. so good..

 

 

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June Farm Overview- Tracking Year Stats

Posted on June 30, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Ok, I am wanting to track this down for this coming year..  June has been a good month, some heat, good amount of rain and lots of growth in the pasture, yard and gardens are all sprouting up.

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June is the half way point of the year and we are starting to move into the good.. we are continuing to watch the weather, watch the rains and watch our wet fields.. still no hay had come off.. we need four to five days of heat and dry.. everyone within two hours up and down the Ottawa valley on the farms have a concerned eye on the fields.. I have heard that a number of farmers are calling it an will be using their insurance as they have been unable to get their fields planted..   Here on the farm.. we are doing very well on a number of things but the heat lovers are slower to start putting on their growth.

We have had recorded breaking rain, hail, winds and we are 12 to 14 degree’s cooler then average.

Costs for June 2017

Hay-$100.00

Feed- $86.00

Straw- 8

Farm Output- Personal use only but local costs to replace if bought off the farm

  • Eggs: 7 dozen  at 5 per dozen as eating eggs- $35 dollars

    Manure: Finished composting down.. at least 140 dollars worth of compost produced this month.-  140

  • Bullwinkle – (340 pounds total return in all ways)- 2,870
  • 40 new rabbit kits- ( do not know how to figure them in, will do them at butcher time)
  • 2 Yearling Sheep- 46 (ten per pound 460) an 42 (420) plus dog food, meaty bones etc.

Farm loss’s in Feb

  • My smallest lamb was taken by the coy-wolf.. loss -200 (at that age)

Farm extra’s Costs

  • None this month.

Farm extra’s..

Ferrier – 150 (trims and Caleb shoes) – Both horse’s feet are looking great and Caleb is off the pain meds and has full movement again with his front shoes.
Vet- none this month!

 

Garden Overview June

Total Garden Costs -$ 0

Total Garden Return – $1,085

Total Out cost for June on for the farm -$ 194.00 output cash costs

Farm impute Value –

Total output of the farm in returns

  • Jan – In the hole –1,029
  • Feb – In the Hole –1,429
  • March-On the good side -$ 1,038
  • April -On the good side -$279
  • May -On the good side- 487.00
  • June-On the good side-5,010

Yearly total as of the six month mark in June-4,356 on the good side *

  • Most of my lamb’s are reserved at this time for fall butcher..

June was a good month in a number of way to the numbers!

Goals- No selling of anything off the farm is planned, the saving costs are what we would have to pay if we bought in the local free market to replace what the farm produces that improves our lives.

Its a tracking year..

and also I have had and seen a number of comments many times of folks saying, my 5 acres and under homestead needs to pay for itself.. well, I like to think mine does, I like to think that a well-run homestead can do just that! So lets see if I am right or not?

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Strawberry Pineapple Jam Recipe

Posted on June 30, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Well, I was thrilled to see that my local store had x-large fresh dole pineapples on sale for 1.50 each for Canada Sale.. now one of these typically makes me 1 and half pints each.. so I got 36 pineapples, I might pick up a few more yet but that was enough to give me a good start towards 48 pints of Canned Pineapple for our years use.

Most of the Pineapples need a bit of time, they are showing signs of green yet but wonderful healthy tops but there were four that are further along in terms of using them up. As it happens a big bowl of fresh strawberries came in and needed to be processed out as they had come in from the rain.

I decided to make a batch of Strawberry Pineapple Jam.. Its outstanding as a jam on its own but its also going to be used as a base to create a fruit based sweet and sour BBQ sauce for grilled fresh fryer sized rabbit (recipe and details coming on a later post)

Strawberry Pineapple Jam

  • 4 cups of freshly trimmed and quartered strawberries
  • one full fresh large or x-large pineapple (approx. three to four cups), peeled, cored and coarsely chopped.
  • Six cups of sugar
  • 1/8th of a cup of lemon juice
  • 1 box of powdered certo pectin

I added the sugar and let it sit for 20 min to pull juice out before starting my heat, bring to a simmering boil and cook for 8 to 10 min.. then take off heat, if you want chunky, mash the heck out of it but I wanted smooth as I knew I was wanting the BBQ so I hit it with the stick blender careful folks.. its hot!

Then I brought it back to a boil, added the certo and stirred in and then one more minute boil and jarred it up.. Its a medium in firmness. its not so soft that it’s runny, but its not so firm that it will be stiff.. it mounds nicely on the spoon. Water bath can for 15 min, made me four and half pints.

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June Garden Overview -2017 Tracking Year Data

Posted on June 29, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Hello Folks, I am going to do my best heading into 2017 to have a big old tracking year, I need to do this and I have the book, the paperwork and the plan..  I will make it happen..

So this is the first month of scales, daily writing of what is coming in.. O the fun.. (not) lol.. but if I can get into a daily habit, it will prove to be much easier.  I think that I will need to get my own little second book for this, its proving at times to take to much room in my current recording book.

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June  Costs- 0 dollars

Output Costs: 0 dollars

I did not buy a single thing this month.. no outcosts other then time and sweat!

An so it starts..  While I do have a soaping scale, I am going to round things into pounds or fractions of pounds just like I took everything into pints, regardless of the jar size itself..  so it can be a quarter of a pound, half a pound, a pound an so forth.  Yes, I know I am Canadian but I was raised with gallons and pounds, I am the crossover gen and it never stuck any more then it needed to.. give me feet, pounds and inches!

 

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Harvested in June (all dried herbs and such will go with Mountain Rose Herb costs per their site)

Beebalm Leaves -Two pounds worth- (o that lovely flavour of earl grey tea)- 20

Wild Violet Greens – 8 pounds for drying – 40

Plantain Greens- 10 pounds for drying-34

Strawberry leaves -2 pounds worth -10

20 bunches of green onions (this one is tricky, I have both green onions up and coming in but I also have a lot of just the greens of walking onions coming in, we had a price drop in stores and at the farmers market so I am reflecting that) 1.99 per bunch -40

Dried enough mint to fill three quart jars (forgot to weight it fresh) assume 2 pounds fresh per jar.. so six pounds of mints -18

174 pounds of rhubarb – 5 dollars a pound at the store (I have seen it as low as 4 at the market and 3.50 from a farm friend) but the average is still 4.99 per pound at the local stores.  -870

12 pounds of strawberries – 4 dollars a pound locally so 48 dollars worth.

1 pint haskap berries at 4.99 – 5

Total produced : $ 1, 085

  • Jan $161. 40
  • Feb $248
  • March $248
  • April 245.50
  • May -554.00
  • June -1,085

June $1,085

Minus – 0

June total to the good –1,085

Garden Output to date : In the good $ 2, 473.30

Now we are starting to see some nice numbers! All burdock, nettles and comfrey and other yard green harvested this month have been pushed into fodder for the animals.

I also harvested 6.5 pounds of Chaga (but it was off farm) at 35 per pound Canadian, that was a extra 227.50 that was processed on the farm but not farm harvested, if it had been in my local six acres of woods, I would have counted it but it was not..

PS, I know that I am doing this a day early, I have strawberries to weight, and make into jam or something, I have my eye on elderberry flowers that are just starting to reach their peak for picking but that last day will flip over to next month..

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Canning Round up for June – 2017

Posted on June 29, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

2017  Please note for ease of tracking, I will be rounding everything up or down into pints.. example, if I do 7 quarts of something, it will be written as 14 pints, if I do 8 80z jars it will be written as 4 pints..  you get the idea.. It will make my life so much easier when I am the math each month for a round up this year..  I will try? to keep the page updated on this on the blog directly but will only share this post at the end of the month. It will be both a monthly round up and a running count for the year.

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Total Pints to date for 2017- 272 Pints

  • Canning Running List.

    19 pints of Turkey Veggie Barley Soup

    9 pint of rabbit meat

    4 pints of raspberry-Ginger Jam

    6 pints of blood orange marmalade

    3 pints of kumquat marmalade

    4 pints of lime marmalade

    4 pints of Lemon Crown Royal Jelly

    4 pints of Pink Grapefruit and Rose Petal Marmalade

    6 pints of Seville Orange Marmalade

    9 pints of Beet Pickles

    18 pints of Canned Pork

  • 5 pints of plain sweet bread and butter Sunchoke pickles
  • 1 pint of Sweet Bread and Butter Sunchoke and Pepper Pickles
  • 4 pints of Dill Sunchoke Pickles
  • 9 pints of ham bean soup
  • 9 pints of rabbit stew
  • 5 pints of Rabbit Meat
  • 18 pints of lamb stew meat
  • 18 pints of lamb stew made with veggies and barley
  • 4 pints of lilac jelly (8 half pints plus one 4 oz)

 

Feb Update

No canning done in Feb – However I used a total of 47 pints from the pantry thoughout the month of Feb. Out of homemade Canned Corn

March Update

March was a lean canning month (which just makes sense when you don’t buy much off the farm)

-9 pints of Pickled Beets

18 pints of ground pork

April Update

May Update

  • 5 pints of Rabbit Meat
  • 18 pints of lamb stew meat
  • 18 pints of lamb stew made with veggies and barley
  • 4 pints of lilac jelly (8 half pints plus one 4 oz

 

June Update – 118 pints (not a bad month canning)

  • 14 pints of rhubarb Juice
  • 12 pints of rhubarb
  • 12 pints of rhubarb berry mix
  • 28 pints of tomato sauce
  • 16 pints of rhubarb-raspberry mix
  • 14 pints of strawberry rhubarb mix
  • 9 pints of rhubarb-cherry mix
  •  3 strawberry-kiwi-banana jam
  •  6 pints strawberry jam
  • 3 pints strawberry juice
  • 1 pint of haskap jam
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Canning up some Sweet Tea Concentrate

Posted on June 28, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Homemade Sweet Tea in summer is a delight but if you forget to do it in time or you think you have a jug in the fridge and company shows up and you reach for it, only to see that its been mostly drunk already..

Dang, if you start new, you know the issue.. that Sweet Tea either is sun tea which takes time or it starts out hot..  That is where putting up some Sweet Tea into your canning jars can be a awesome thing indeed.

Tea is a low ph, so you either need to add the sugar and lemon to make it safe to water bath can or you are going to need to pressure can it.

Sweet Tea Concentrate

  • 20 cups of water
  • 7 to 10 cups of sugar
  • 1 cup of lemon juice
  • 15 tea bags of your choice.

This is such a simple recipe.. measure out your water bring it to a boil, then add your tea bags, let it simmer for five min and then take off heat and steep 20 to 40 min. Strain out the tea bags (I find they often break and I need to strain the whole pot though one of my linen cloths, if yours stays together better, good for you.. if in doubt, wrap the tea bags in cheese cloth)

Bring the tea back up to a simmer-boil and add your sugar an lemon juice, stir till the sugar melts and then jar up into pints and water bath process for 15 min.

Hubby likes his strong and so he drinks it at 2 to 1, I personally like it less strong and I love it at a 3 to 1.  Just crack a jar, pour into your jug and add your cold water and ice and stir and go!

Its worth putting up a batch to have on hand, I still make my regular sweet tea for the fridge but to be able to grab a jar to pack for a picnic or for when friends show up..

PS, add a little kick to this mix and wow does it make really good hard ice tea 🙂

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Haskap -Slow going.. yeild for 2017

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

The answer on if these bushes are worth it is still out.. they are one of the first flowering and fruiting bushes in our zone 5. The first spring berry to be harvested on the farm. I had bought two small bushes a number of years ago and they did nothing.. I am guessing that the male that was to be cloned on them died.. Then they died..

I finally ordered in four different females and two males in bare root state to keep the costs down and I planted them into the fruiting hedge row and I have babied them.. they barely grow.. I would like them to be putting on a foot a year and I might get three to six inches in growth per plant.

I did modify their soil a bit more last year and I think it did make a difference.. twice they have grown pretty well and then had a lot of breakage in the winter, I am thinking I might have to snow fence them for drifting this winter and see if it make a difference for a few years to get them keeping that grow they are getting.

This year was a small harvest, but we did get a harvest, and its only year three and they said four to five years till first good quality harvest. Enough this year to make 2 8 0z jars of jam.  Which means that I have enough to use the jam in a few different ways to see how we like it..

So far we agree that its like a mix in flavour between blueberry, Saskatoon and cherry undertones..  but only two types produced this year.. so we will need to try each one on its own before deciding on the taste for sure. its certainly a bright tart but sweet and full blend of flavours I will give it that..

http://www.fruit.usask.ca/haskap.html

Do you Grow Haskap? If so, do you have a favorite kind for Zone 5? Do you have good growth on your bushes? what do you use to feed them?  What do you do with them.. Everyone that commented on my local group was using them in pancakes or loafs, I appeared to be the only one that has made jam with them.

Everyone talked about how nicely they hold up their shape in pancakes and loafs, that they don’t get wet like a blueberry would.. good to know!

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Lovage Harvest for 2017

Posted on June 26, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

Lovage is commonly known as a pot herb, it is a huge plant and those with limited space often remove this outstanding plant from their garden because of this.. I will be doing three collecting and harvests of this plant over the season.. One will be used for kitchen use for cooking, one will be for herbal use for salves or tea’s and one will be for use in my green mix for my winter use for livestock.

The most common thing that folks use Lovage for is a celery replacement in soups and stews, It is a very strong celery flavour, a little goes a long way. It’s leaves dry up nicely for storage and retain its flavour for the winter use till the plant is growing again the next year.

This is a tough garden plant.. it’s not fussy, its tough as nails and it gets big! mine is currently taller than my 5,10 hubby by at least a foot or so at the top. Its seeds can also be collected and used in cooking if you would like to do so.

However to me, that is the reason you should have lovage in your garden, (it’s a good enough reason) but it not THE reason..

It’s a well-studied plant and that means that its one of those lovely’s that has moved from “traditional use says” to the detailed studies say that this plant has “this chemical” and that it does this in the human body in this dose.

I adore plants that have both a traditional history but also a proven in the lab results! They just rock!

https://www.globalhealingcenter.com/natural-health/10-benefits-organic-lovage/

It got good info in it but more important, at the bottom of the page, its got all the links to the medical studies to support its proven information..

I use lovage in a number of my skin salves, I use lovage in my homegrown herbal tea blends and I have been known to powder it and put it into my animal health green mix.

This Pot Herb should be dried and available in your pantry for far more than its strong celery flavouring 🙂

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Strawberry Season has arrived – Strawberry Jam Recipe

Posted on June 25, 2017 by Just another day on the farm

You know how you can make soup and you use up what you had.. Well, today the strawberry jam ended up the same way but my o my did it turn out to be yummy.

Dear Hubby has the last bit of the hot fresh made jam over his favorite treat icecream, I laughed and said it was just one of the rewards for all his hard garden work! The local u-picks are selling fresh locally grown strawberries at 4 dollars a pound, they are no longer selling by the basket or bucket but by weight at the end of your picking.   They are selling 3 liter pre-picked strawberries at 12 to 14 a basket at the local farmer stands.

Strawberry-Kiwi-Banana Jam

  • 1 and half pounds of strawberries cleaned, cored and sliced
  • 2 kiwi, skinned and sliced
  • 2 banana’s peeled and sliced
  • 8 cups sugar
  • 1/8th cup of lemon juice
  • 1 box of pectin

Process your fruit, heat in a deep steel bottom pot, allowing to come up to a simmer, then mash them together, add sugar and bring up to a simmer, simmer together for five min, then add lemon juice and follow directions on the pectin box per its use.

Into 8 0z or pint jars and into the water bath process for 15 min.

 

Posted in Garden harvest | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments