PotterWatch's Peeps

Waiting on Blackberries

2011-08-17T16:29:00.000-07:00

I took the kids up the mountain today to see if the blackberries are ripe yet. The small bit that we have here at the house was done fruiting at least a month ago but the mountain berries always take longer since it isn't as hot up there. I had an idea that even if there weren't enough to make jam, I would make a little blackberry syrup to have on our pancakes in the morning.

We did get some, but they were mostly still green. The kids ended up eating all of what we did manage to find almost before I got the engine turned on to come home. I guess blackberry syrup and jam will have to wait another week or two. I'm just glad we didn't miss the harvest entirely!

Harvest picture

2011-07-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

I braved the heat (3 steps outside my front door), to pick some tomatoes yesterday. My tomatoes have done quite well so far. I can't say the same for my peppers. A few moments ago I picked the only four jalapenos that were anywhere near big enough. I hope they will be enough for some decent salsa. The zucchini is destined for bread and muffins. The pattypan squash will probably be grilled or sauteed alongside some chicken for dinner tonight. The pathetic onions are some of the only ones I managed to salvage from my sorely neglected back garden. The whole thing got so overgrown that we put about 30 meat chickens in there a couple evenings ago to hopefully eat some of it down (though I suspect they are more likely to just poop on everything really well). I pulled the brussels sprouts before letting the chickens loose so those will be dinner tonight as well.

My new Easter Egger girls finally started laying (well, at least two of them). Their eggs are a very nice medium green color. If they could just figure out to lay them in the nest box instead of the middle of the coop where I practically have to crawl in to get them.

Anyone want some zucchini? We have plenty of extra...

Lettuce Gutters

2011-07-25T13:22:00.000-07:00

I got this idea from a gardening forum I belong to. Someone had posted a picture of gutters that had been mounted on the side of a house and were being used to grow lettuces and other shallow-rooting plants. I thought it was a great idea that would fill a blank spot on the front wall of our house. We modified it to look a bit more decorative and keep the gutters from touching the house itself and therefore trapping water against the house and possibly causing a problem.

Here is the wall we wanted to put the gutters on.

Dave started by mounting two 4x4 posts to the wall.

Then put 2x4s going across to support the gutters.

Attached the gutters to the 2x4s.

We didn't put a gutter on the top row because it would have been too high to comfortably plant, water, and harvest. We didn't put holes in the bottom for drainage because we thought that it would dry out too much in the hot weather we get here but we should have. The first planting, things didn't sprout because underneath the very top layer of soil, the dirt stayed too wet. I will be planting pictures again once it is all sprouting but that will have to wait until fall since it is too hot to try and plant lettuce now.

Goats!

2011-01-08T21:51:00.000-08:00

I don't believe I have ever shared pictures of our goats on this blog other than the header photo. We had mini-LaManchas for a while and absolutely loved them. I have a thing for goats in general, but specifically for LaManchas. I even have an "I Love LaManchas" sticker on my car (which gets a lot of odd looks since we are smack dab in the middle of the suburbs where most people only see goats at the county fair and certainly don't know what a LaMancha is.) We loved having the goats and loved the milk we got but we finally decided that our property just isn't suited to goats. They spent almost all of their time hanging out on our patio, which meant that almost all their poop and peep ended up on our patio. Not to mention, I lived in constant fear of upsetting neighbors with the noise they made.

Before they left us, both of our lovely does had kids and that was undoubtedly the best part of having goats. The kids loved us and we loved them. They climbed in our laps to nap, they chewed our hair, and left little goaty footprints on all our clothes. The ran and jumped and hopped and in general were just adorable. When I went out to do milking, I had to braid my hair, put it down the back of my shirt, and then put on sweatshirt with the hood up to keep them from eating all of my hair while I was busy with milking. I would love to live where we could again have goats and hope to get that chance someday.

Bella was the queen of the herd and the mother (or grandmother) of all the goats we had. She definitely had the queen attitude. She made sure everyone knew their place; dogs, the other goats, even us. She was always the one who woke me up in the morning telling me as loudly as she could that it was time for me to get up, let her out into the yard, and get her some grain. She had the most evil stare I have ever seen on a goat when things weren't going her way. The first picture is an awful one but gives a good impression of that intimidating stare.

Fleur was one of Bella's kids and wasn't nearly as trusting of people. Bella knew exactly what people were for, to provide her with food and back scratches. Fleur had to be convinced that we weren't actually trying to eat her. Once we gained her trust, however, she was just as demanding of treats but could still do without most of the back scratches. When she thought we were up to something nefarious, she would scream like the devil was biting her butt. She was a fantastic milker, however.

Bella had three kids while she was with us. Triplets that were just the cutest little goats in existence. Lupin was the first one born and was the pig of the group. He was constantly whining that he was hungry and was always the first one to try and steal grain when I was concentrating on milking.

Sirius was the second-born and had only one thing on his mind from the moment he was born. Girls. All he ever thought about was trying to impress the girls, and since they were the only ones around, he concentrated that attention on his sisters Fleur and Tonks. When he went to a new home, no one was more glad than Fleur who had certainly had enough of him.

Tonks was the only girl born to our does and was secretly our favorite. She had a great personality, was very out-going and definitely the most attention-seeking of all the kids. She was probably the most active of all the kids and constantly entertained us with her antics.

Dobby was Fleur's first and only kid. He was cute but somewhat reserved like his mother. He certainly preferred to spend his time with the other goats rather than with the humans.

Goats are still one of my loves, just one I can't indulge at this time. Hopefully in the future, we will be able to move and have more lovely LaManchas. At least we have still have dogs and chickens to sustain us!

Winnowing is for the Birds

2011-01-03T22:08:00.000-08:00

We grew some Mammoth Russian Sunflowers this summer. My youngest really likes sunflowers and very much wanted to see them in the garden. I think part of it may have been due to a book I loved when I was a child and have read to my boys a few times when we have been at my folks house. My parents saved a number of wonderful books that I read when I was young and it's always fun to read them to my own children. This particular book is called The Sunflower Garden and is about a young native American girl who wants to plant some sunflower seeds that were given to her by a friend from another tribe. Her father didn't want to be bothered by what his daughter was doing when he was busy raising his sons but let her plant the seeds. She carefully tended her garden and in the end made her father proud of her with her efforts (and by saving her baby brother from a rattlesnake). I like to think that that story had some influence in my youngest's decision to plant sunflowers.

Luckily, they were very easy to grow and required very little room. Here they are before they were in glorious full bloom (please pay no attention to the weeds!).

I, of course, neglected to get pictures of them in their glory days; all I have are pre-bloom and post-death.

When I thought about getting sunflower seeds, I thought it would be a fairly simple process. Well, it is simple in that there aren't that many steps, but it is certainly tedious! We cut the heads off the stalks when the petals had died back, the heads were curling backwards, and the backs of the flowers were turning brown. We hung them in our side yard where they were protected from sun and moisture but they got plenty of fresh air to help dry them out further. Then I promptly forgot about them. I don't go into the side yard very often, just to get out my scooter to take the dogs mushing and usually when I go in the get my scooter my mind isn't thinking about gardening. When we hung up the sunflowers, I found some garlic that I had put there earlier in the summer to cure and had also forgotten about. Hmmm, maybe I should go out there now to see what else I left lying around...

Anyway, when I finally remembered the sunflowers, we pulled them down, brushed off the spiderwebs and started removing the seeds. This was more difficult than I had anticipated. First of all, the seeds weren't all that anxious to be removed. They were packed in there pretty tightly! I found that working from the outside in worked fairly well but there were lots of sharp edges and prickly things that kept making the process slightly painful. I enlisted the help of my boys who didn't do too bad but probably got as much chaff as they did seeds in the bucket.

We did get a healthy amount of seeds, but there was a lot of chaff that needed to be winnowed out. I put the bucket in the garage (really play/storage room), and again, forgot about it.

A week or so ago, Dave and the boys were out for the evening and I decided it would be a good idea to tackle the bucket of seeds and just get it done. I had even more effective help this time.

I ended up with the bucket and two bowls in front of me. One bowl for the chaff, and the other for the cleaned seeds. As I took out the chaff, I also checked for seeds that hadn't formed properly and were just empty hulls.

After an hour or so, I had about 1.5 cups of seeds and it didn't even look like I had made a dent into the mess in the bucket. It was not fun and didn't really feel at all rewarding as some chores that aren't fun but have a good result do. I put the bucket with the rest of the seeds and chaff back on the shelf in the garage. It's still there a week later. The seeds are good, but I'm thinking of just tossing what's left into the chicken run and letting the chickens sort it out. I think next year, the heads will be given directly to the chickens as a treat and forgo keeping any for myself.

Chicken Clipping

2010-12-28T13:15:00.000-08:00

We spent a few minutes clipping wings this morning. It is an insurance measure since we have been letting the girls out to forage in the yard after our big rain storm hit and they had been spending so much time standing around in the mud. Since they love foraging out in the yard, I worry that they might try to get back in there even when they are closed in the run. The vast majority of the roof of the run is covered in chicken wire but there are a few small spaces where the young ones might be able to get out. Just in case, we clipped all of their wings except the girls who are still in molt.

I have posted a link on how to clip wings previously but this time we had the 10 year old take pictures. This is something that can be done by one person but since Dave was available, I had him do the holding while I did the clipping. It is easiest to do while sitting as your legs can support the chicken underneath while your hands can restrain the rest of the body.

Dave holding Hedwig.

Gabrielle.

Gabrielle's wing extended. You can see the primary flight feathers are easy to distinguish. They are those first six or so long feathers.

Simply trim the primary flight feathers back using a sharp pair of scissors. This doesn't hurt the chicken at all. Some people only clip one wing but I clip both as I have had birds figure out how to deal with only having one side clipped but none of them have been able to fly well with both sides clipped.

The finished wing.

When the bird is sitting or standing as they normally do with their wings folded, you can't tell that they have been clipped. You only see the clipped feathers when they have their wings extended.

I feel that clipping wings makes our girls safer since they won't be able to fly out into the yard where the dogs would be waiting to eat them. If your birds free-range, clipping wings may not be a great idea as you want them to be able to get away from any predators that they may encounter and having clipped wings will impeded their ability to get away.

Where is winter?

2010-12-12T16:35:00.000-08:00

I know some of world is currently under siege by a massive storm but here in southern California we are having a heat wave. It was already 74 at 9:30 this morning. Truly depressing. After living in Alaska, Wisconsin, and even northern Arizona, I really don't care for these California "winters". We don't ever really get winter, just some brief periods of cooler weather. Last year, my kids never even changed from wearing shorts to wearing pants unless we were on vacation somewhere it actually got cold. The only thing I really like about all this warm weather is that I can garden year-round without ever having to do anything special to baby my plants. Of course, sometimes my cool-weather plants don't get enough cool weather to fully mature. Last year, my brussels sprouts started flowering before the sprouts even got to be eating size. I'm hoping not to have a repeat of that this year though with the current weather, I'm not holding my breath!

I've still only planted half the garden. I am hoping to find the inspiration to get the rest of the back garden planted this week.

My tall raised bed is currently hosting spinach and red onion.

One of the brussels sprouts plants that I am currently pinning all my hopes on (they are my very favorite veggie!)

I planted twice as much broccoli this year as we went through it very quickly last year.

The garlic came up much more quickly than last year and I planted it earlier in the season as well.

A flower from the trumpet vine that covers the top of the chicken run.

Just for fun, some gratuitous chicken pictures!

This Delaware is the only adult hen I have who has finished molting for the year. She still isn't laying again though. I am getting exactly zero eggs a day right now. I hope they are resting up and will start again soon!

My other Delaware that is finishing with her molt and looks mostly normal:

One of the young pullets I got a month or so ago (this one is an Ancona).

The young girls hanging out on the roosting bar in the run with my Rhode Island Red who currently has a lot of bare patches from her molt.

Next post will be on trying to figure out how to winnow chaff from sunflower seeds.

Pomegranates Galore!

2010-12-08T18:58:00.000-08:00

I love pomegranates. Their sweet, tart taste is fabulous. I like them on salads, plain, and especially as jelly. This year, I was able to pick up just over a dozen at a decent price from a local source. Making them into jelly was a long, involved process, but it was worth it!

The first thing I did was quarter them and soak them in water. I have been told that this helps to pop out the seeds easily.

The next step was setting up my work area. I clipped some cheesecloth (doubled over once), to a large bowl and put my food mill on top.

As I got the seeds out of the bitter pith, I just dropped them into the food mill. When I had a decent amount in the mill, I just cranked it for a while until all of the juice had drained down through the cheesecloth and into the bowl (the boys liked helping with this part).

The resulting juice, while not completely clear, was perfectly good for making jelly.

I set up my jelly making area just like normal. Water bath canner on one burner, jelly pot on another; and the lids steaming in the back. I had a cloth spread over the counter to make cleanup a breeze and put all my utensils on that.

The jelly didn't set as hard as most of my other jams and jellies this year, but it is still firm enough and it tastes great!

Giving Thanks

2010-12-07T11:14:00.000-08:00

We had a belated Thanksgiving this year as Dave was sick over Thanksgiving weekend. The boys and I did go to Arizona and had a lovely time with my parents but Dave ended up staying at home and missing out on all the food (and good company!) We decided to do Thanksgiving at our house this last Sunday, Dec. 5th. We have been patiently waiting for our turkey at the farm to be ready for processing. Finally, the Monday before Thanksgiving, we were ready to process. There were 13 turkeys to be done and the majority of people waiting for the turkeys were on hand to help with processing. There was an area all set up at the farm that made it nice and easy to get it all done, and having so many people there was a great help. Many hands make light work! Dave and the boys were still camping so I went to the farm armed with a cooler, some trash bags, and a sharp knife. I really wish I had gotten some pictures of it before and after we cooked it, but I totally forgot. The best I have is some of the meat on a platter on our table. It was good though! I will definitely be buying another one next year. The dark meat really stood out, much darker than the meat from a commercial bird, and very flavorful.

The rest of our meal consisted of roasted brussels sprouts and broccoli, crescent rolls (I think the best I have made in many years), stuffing, mashed potatoes, the ubiquitous jellied cranberry sauce (I couldn't bring myself to give it up this year), and a pecan pie. Pretty much a normal Thanksgiving meal but I was mighty proud of that local, farm-raised bird from Amy's Farm .

The only picture I remembered to take of the turkey (a Bourbon Red):

Various other pictures. It was the fifth night of Chanukah when we had our Thanksgiving so the boys are wearing their kippot and our chanukiot are all set up and ready to light.

Random Animal Pictures

2010-11-29T22:07:00.000-08:00

We will be having a belated Thanksgiving here at our house this coming Sunday. The boys and I did spend a very nice Thanksgiving with my parents in Arizona, but Dave had to stay home due (mostly), to illness. In the mean time, I would like to share some pictures that were taken this summer when Dave and the boys took a road trip up to Oregon and Washington.

At one point, they stopped at a wild animal park and got to interact with many different animals. When they were feeding and playing with the lion cubs, one of the cubs lunged up at our youngest son and very gently bit him on the jaw. When I posted it on Facebook, I got a lesson on how things don't always translate over the internet. I thought I had posted a funny, tongue-in-cheek post about it, but it ended up making many people concerned and we did get a few phone calls from family members. I know better than to post something like that on Facebook again!

Here they are petting the cub as it is being given a bottle.

It had a favorite stuffed toy, but it liked our kid a little better!

We think it's kind of cool. How many other kids can say that they've been bitten by a lion? He didn't hold any grudges anyway and spent some more time playing with the cubs.

All in all, everyone had a fun time.

Some other random pictures of animals at the park. I really love some of the peacock pictures.

The Farm on the News

2010-11-18T15:22:00.000-08:00

The farm where our steer and turkey was/is being raised and where our milk cow lives was on the news this morning. They talk a little bit about the meat/cow shares that are available and you can see our cow Guinevere (we are one of the 14 families mentioned, though I think there are really only 13 of us). Anyone who lives in the Southern California (Inland Empire) area, I highly suggest going to Amy's Farm and taking a tour or checking out their herd share programs if you have an interest in getting locally, humanely raised meat. We will be picking up our 1/3 of a steer any day now and I am helping to process turkeys on Monday.

The news spots are all similar but fairly short if you want to watch all of them. You have to be willing to put up with inane chatter from the news people though. It reminded me why I don't watch the news anymore...

The 5am spot

The 6am spot

The 7am spot

Hurray for local farms!

Apples Galore!

2010-11-11T08:52:00.000-08:00

I did manage to put up most of the apples we picked a couple weeks ago. Some went as apple butter, some as applesauce, some in butternut squash soup, and the rest were just great eating apples.

Some apples washed and ready to be made into apple butter.

My wonderful apple peeler, corer, slicer. Without this, I don't know if I would have been willing to make all this apple stuff.

In action!

All the resulting slices in the crockpot with sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, and a bit of salt.

I loved making this in the crockpot since I could let it cook overnight and then get up in the morning to a great smell. All I needed to do at this point was mash it a bit with my potato masher, put it in jars, and waterbath the jars. I was done with plenty of time to get to Disneyland just after opening.

Finished jars.

I do like how the apple butter turned out, but I think I will cut down on the sugar next time. It is a little too sweet for my taste. I also made some applesauce, but that is basically the same thing, only with almost no sugar (I used a quarter cup with about 4lbs of apples), and some cinnamon. I love applesauce, so I didn't bother to jar it. I just put individual amounts in freezer containers and froze them. That way, I can pull one out and pop it in the fridge in the morning and have applesauce with lunch. I do still have some apples left and should use them within the next couple days. I think tonight will feature apple crumble for dessert!

New Chickens

2010-11-06T20:24:00.000-07:00

After the disaster that happened with the chickens while we were out of town, my chicken run was feeling lonely. My solution... more chickens! I found someone locally who had a couple of the breeds I was interested in and went to check them out. They were kept nicely and were a good size. They are big enough to take care of themselves and get out of the way of the big girls, but small enough that the big hens don't bother them too much.

Two of them are Anconas which are black with white spots when they are grown and will lay white eggs. It's been some time since we had any white egg layers so that will be a change.

The other two are Silver Laced Wyandottes which will lay brown eggs and have white feathers edged in black once their adult plumage comes in.

They aren't entirely sure about hanging out with the big hens yet, but everyone is getting along as well as can be expected.

A Kaleidoscope of Butterflies

2010-10-31T15:30:00.000-07:00

We love butterflies in our family. If there is a chance to go to a butterfly house at a zoo or museum, we will go in a heartbeat. Last year we found a fantastic looking caterpillar on a vine we had in a pot on the front porch. We watched as it got bigger and turned into a chrysalis, then finally, a butterfly. We looked up the caterpillar online and found that it was a gulf fritillary and that they feed exclusively on passion flower vines such as the one we had. Here is a picture of the butterfly that emerged last year:

When we decided to put up lattice with vines on it as a privacy barrier this year, we looked for passion flower vines to give the butterflies a habitat in the backyard. Now that the vines have started to take off, we have had butterflies around all summer long. They have been very active. Today, we went searching in the vines and found dozens of caterpillars in all different sizes, several chrysalises, and several butterflies. It is amazing to see all the butterfly activity in our backyard. The next thing we are going to try and identify are eggs. I know what they should look like, but we didn't see any today. I took some pictures of the different sizes of caterpillars, some of the chrysalises, and one of the butterflies.

A teeny, tiny caterpillar. I can't believe how small they start out!

This one was about half an inch long.

About one inch.

One of the biggest ones at about 1.5 inches when it is all stretched out.

A few of the different chrysalises.

Finally, the one decent picture I managed to get of a butterfly.

Caramelized Onion Jam

2010-10-28T07:38:00.000-07:00

I decided to try a recipe a while ago that I got off the blog of someone on my list and she got it from Taste of Home. I wasn't quite sure what I would think about it, but I wanted to branch out a bit from fruit jams. It took a long time to make but it was worth it! It works very well as a marinade or glaze. I just scoop some out of the jar, melt it in the microwave and pour it over whatever meat I am using. The meat has fantastic flavor and the resulting sauce is excellent.

Caramelized Onion Jam

4 whole garlic bulbs
1 teaspoon canola oil
5 cups chopped sweet onions (1-1/2 pounds)
1/4 cup butter, cubed
3/4 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup bottled lemon juice
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1-1/2 teaspoons ground mustard
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
6 cups sugar
1 pouch (3 ounces) liquid fruit pectin

Remove papery outer skin from garlic (do not peel or separate cloves). Cut top off garlic bulbs; brush with oil. Wrap each bulb in heavy-duty foil. Bake at 425° for 30-35 minutes or until softened. Cool for 10-15 minutes.

In a Dutch oven, saute onions in butter for 30-40 minutes or until lightly browned. Squeeze softened garlic into pan. Stir in the cider vinegar, lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, mustard, salt, pepper, ginger and cloves. Bring to a rolling boil. Gradually add sugar, stirring constantly. Return to a boil for 3 minutes.

Add pectin; bring to a full rolling boil. Boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat; let stand for 3 minutes. Skim off foam. Pour hot mixture into hot jars, leaving 1/4-in. headspace. Adjust caps. Process for 10 minutes in a boiling-water bath.

I don't have a dutch oven that I can use on the stovetop so I just used my regular stock pot. It did have a pretty firm set. I think I will use slightly less pectin the next time I make it as it is a little hard to scoop out of the jar once I have opened it the first time and put it in the fridge.

The house smelled amazing while this was cooking. Especially the four bulbs of roasted garlic. I love garlic!

I have a very hard time chopping onions by hand. My eyes are super sensitive to onion to the point that for years, I would only use frozen chopped onion. Now that I am trying to eat more local food, buying frozen onion at the store isn't an option. Using my food processor really helps though.

The onions cooked down and starting to caramelize.

I was worried this would be too sweet, but it really isn't once you cook with it. When I tasted it alone during the cooking, it was very sweet but it does mellow out when you use it.

The finished jars. I will definitely be making this again next year!

Chicken Losses

2010-10-25T19:08:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, my family went to a family reunion of sorts in Texas. We stayed for five days and really had a very good time... except for the call we got on Friday from the person who was feeding the dogs and collecting eggs from the chicken coop. Apparently some of the chickens got out (I won't get into how it happened), and the dogs killed them. At first it was only two. Then when she came back the next day, she found another. It must have been hiding when she was there and tried to get back in the run later. This has left me with only four chickens. Not only were almost half my chickens dead, but my dogs caused some minor injuries to each other; most likely while fighting over the dead chickens.

We have doctored the dogs and they will be fine, but nothing can bring back the chickens. It took me two years to get chickens to laying age that laid green eggs and now they are both gone (the first Easter Eggers I had laid cream colored eggs). All of the chickens were at prime laying age. I can't even start over with chicks right now because it will soon be too cold to brood them outside and I don't like having chicks in the house. We just got rid of our brooder box anyway so I will end up having to make another one in the spring. I probably won't be able to give eggs to friends and neighbors throughout the winter as two of the girls who are left are starting to molt and aren't breeds that lay well over the winter anyway. All around, it just stinks.

Goodbye girls, sorry you had such rotten end.

Apple Picking and Cider Pressing

2010-10-24T20:17:00.000-07:00

I have been incredibly busy with work lately. I don't usually have to work very much, not more than ten hours a week, but twice a year for about two months each time, I am really busy. That time is going on right now. I hope to be able to post more starting in December when I am back to my normal schedule. I haven't been finding much time to squeeze in projects but there are definitely things I need to catch up on. I have more jam and jelly making to do, a couple gardens that need to be tilled under and restarted for the fall season, and some crafts to complete before the holidays. It's a good thing work will slow down again in about a month.

I did manage to take the boys apple picking today. I have been wanting to go since apple season started and decided that if I didn't do it today, the season would be over before I got another chance to go. We went to Oak Glen ; specifically to the Willowbrook Apple Farm. I was a little disappointed that they aren't an organic farm, but we had a good time anyway. The farmer did mention another farm not too far away that doesn't use pesticides so we will probably try that farm next year.

The boys and I each picked a bag of apples. We are very efficient. I think we had our bags full within five minutes (granted, they weren't very big bags...).

The boys shared Dave's jacket that happened to be in the truck as I am a bad mother and didn't even think to bring jackets or even long sleeve shirts for them. At one point while waiting to press apples into cider, they zipped both of them into the jacket and insisted they were one person just with two heads and four legs.

I think the highlight of the day was pressing the apples into cider. We waited for a very long time, having gotten in line just behind a group of people from a Russian school in Orange County. They had lots of kids, were getting lots of cider, and the kids didn't want any help from any adults. In case you have never tried one of the machines they use to crush the apples and then press them, it takes a fair amount of strength. It took four 8-10 year old girls about twenty minutes to make one gallon of cider; and that was with the guy who worked there finally taking over near the end of the crushing part. Multiply that by the twenty kids the group had with them and we really waited a long time for that cider. I told the boys they had better really enjoy it!

Each gallon of cider takes about twenty pounds of apples. They crusher is turned while apples are loaded into the top. The crushed apple falls into a barrel-like thing underneath that is lined with some kind of filtering fabric to keep the biggest bits in. We all took a turn cranking the crusher.

Once all the apples were crushed, they moved the container to the end of the platform, laid the fabric over the top of the apple pulp, put a round board on top on the fabric, then had the boys turn a huge screw to press the board down onto the pulp, thereby squeezing out the juice. It was collected in a large bowl, then poured through a funnel with a screen on it to make sure no large chunks or bugs got through. It was collected in a gallon jug, capped, then given to us to take home. Yum!

I hope to make some apple cider jelly... I have no idea when I will get the time to do it though. I just need to keep the kids from drinking it all before I get around to making the jelly. I also plan on turning some of the apples into apple butter and possibly caramel apple jam. Here's hoping.

Fair Cookies

2010-09-05T10:16:00.000-07:00

My youngest decided to enter some cookies into the chocolate chip cookie contest at the county fair this year. He chose one of his favorite cookies, a chocolate chip-pumpkin cookie that also has golden raisins. He was very excited and counted down the days until baking day arrived. After looking over the recipe, he gathered all his ingredients (including some pumpkin from our back garden).

Mixed the recipe together.

Time for quality control!

He was thrilled to get a blue ribbon for his cookies!

There were three judges, two kids and one adult. The adult told him that his were her favorite! Both the boys also entered some vegetables in the "smallest vegetable" category (red currant tomatoes and fingerling potatoes), and we are waiting to see how the judging comes out on those. This is the first year the boys have entered anything in the fair and they have had a lot of fun deciding what to enter and taking their stuff in. I'm sure they will enter even more next year!

Here is the recipe for anyone who would like to try it:

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies

1 C packed brown sugar
1 C pumpkin
1/2 C oil
1 tsp. vanilla
2 C flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
3/4 C golden raisins
1 C chocolate chips (if you use non-dairy or vegan chocolate chips, this is a vegan recipe)

In a large mixing bowl, beat together sugar, pumpkin, oil, and vanilla. Sift together dry ingredients and add to pumpkin mixture and stir until smooth. Blend in raisins and chocolate chips. Drop by tablespoons on a greased or non-stick baking sheet. Bake at 350° for 12-15 minutes.

Berry Picking

2010-08-29T13:55:00.000-07:00

We went blackberry picking a couple weeks ago and got about a gallon, but it was obviously a little early in the season. The ripe berries were a bit hard to find and we got a fair amount that weren't completely ripe , but we did alright. We decided to go back this weekend figuring that the season should be in full swing. It definitely was! There were lots of berries even though we could tell that there had been people there picking the day before most likely. If I had a good, high pair of waterproof boots, we would have gotten much more. The farm boots I have would have been too short for the level of the creek. As it was, we probably got about two gallons (minus what the boys ate while picking). We sure had a lot of fun!

The boys (all three of them), with their berry buckets.

Demonstrating how they tested the quality of the berries.

Hmmm, maybe this is why their buckets weren't very full...

When we got home, we made some blackberry lemonade using the delicious berries from today and some of the lemon juice from the big bag full of lemons that I juiced and saved earlier this summer.

Now I just have to figure out what I want to do with them. I may make some blackberry syrup and/or jelly. The syrup sounds extremely good to me right now. Yum!

Hit and Run Chicken

2010-08-26T07:54:00.000-07:00

A few evenings ago, my husband was sitting in the living room and all of a sudden called the rest of us over and said we needed to look outside. Looking out the window, we saw a small brown chicken talking with our girls. She doesn't belong to us and I have no idea where she came from. I know there are other people around my neighborhood who have chickens, I hear roosters crowing on nearby streets if I am out walking in the morning. None of our bordering neighbors have chickens though. Our walls are all 6ft or higher and you can't see through them (no chain link, just wood slats or blocks). This little hen must have heard my girls cackling and decided to pay them a visit. I'm glad the dogs weren't out when she came calling.

She walked right into our run and up the ramp to the coop. She didn't eat any of the pellets we had out, but she did take a short dust bath. She seemed to really like being up on the roosting bar in the run. Boy was she a talker! I don't think she ever closed her beak for more than a few seconds at a time. My husband picked her up and she was extremely nice. Definitely belonged to someone at some point. Frankly, she was nicer than a few of my girls. I was hoping she would want to stick around. I thought maybe she would follow my girls into the coop for the night, but she chose the neighbor's lemon tree instead.

The next morning, she was still in the lemon tree, singing her little heart out. She made sure everyone was up and around, then she took off. We haven't seen her since. I hope she finds a nice place to stay and maybe a rooster to keep her company.

*I know that in the interests of bio-security, we don't want strange chickens mixing with ours unless they have been quarantined but by the time we saw she was there, she had already been interacting with our hens. Hopefully she was just as healthy as my girls and we won't be cursing her in the coming weeks.

Saucy Tomatoes

2010-08-24T21:37:00.000-07:00

This post is, as I'm sure you guessed, going to be about making tomato sauce. Before I get to that however, I have to put in a plug for the caramelized onion jam I made a couple weeks ago. I found the recipe here on this blog . The smell as it was cooking was amazing! I did take pictures of the process, but that was before I realized I don't currently have a way to move pictures from my camera to my computer so I can't show them to you right now. Without smell-a-vision, they wouldn't do it justice anyway. I used some of this great jam for the first time tonight. I wanted a quick meal since I had just gotten home from work and the boys were coming home from swimming at a friend's house and were ravenous. I heated some olive oil in a pan, threw in some chicken I seasoned fairly lightly with salt and pepper and browned it on both sides. Then I tossed in a couple big spoonfuls of this jam and let it melt in the pan. I turned the heat down and finished cooking the chicken in the jam. It was fantastic! I have to be honest; when I tasted the jam as I was making it, I thought it was going to be too sweet. The sweetness really mellowed as it cooked with the chicken and it ended up being just the right amount of sweet with a ton of flavor. If you are looking for a slightly unusual jam, try this one. Yummy!

Alright, so on to tomato sauce. I did plant a couple paste tomato plants this year, the first time I have tried those varieties. I planted one Roma and one San Marzano. They have both done decently well. I think I prefer the San Marzano simply because the fruit is more uniform in size and the plant grew a little better for me. The Roma had fruit that varied from the size of grapes up to the size you normally get from a paste tomato in the grocery store. I just wasn't that thrilled with it. Either way though, I didn't plant enough paste tomatoes. I think that to fulfill my yearly sauce needs, I will need at least a dozen paste tomato plants. I'm not sure I will ever have that kind of space. Luckily, I can find local, organically grown tomatoes at my farmers market. This week, I saw that one vendor had paste tomatoes for sale and I asked if they would give me a deal on what they had left. She gave me a decent price and I took somewhere around 5-7lbs of tomatoes home.

I have already canned some of my homegrown tomatoes this year. I have a couple quarts of hot pack tomatoes and a couple quarts of raw packed. I really needed some sauce that I could just pull out of the pantry, heat up and add minimal ingredients before serving. I made the sauce while I was working on the pickles from the previous post. Luckily tomato sauce doesn't require too much attention. All I did was wash the tomatoes, cut them into halves or quarters and chuck them into a large stock pot to cook.

After they cooked for a while, I ran them through my food mill to remove the skins and the majority of the seeds. I love my food mill. It has made my life much easier. After the skins and seeds were removed, I cut up some onion and added it to the pot along with some garlic, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. I let that cook for a while longer and then hit it with my stick blender. We don't care for a lot of chunks in our sauce so the result is a nice smooth sauce that is ready to be used in a variety of ways.

When I use it for spaghetti, I will probably pour it in a pot, add a few other spices and let it simmer while I get the rest of the meal made and the table set. That should be all it will need. If I use it on pizza, it will need even less since I won't be simmering it before use. The only things that went into the sauce that weren't local were the salt and pepper. I love that it tastes great and I don't feel like I am doing a tongue-twister just to pronounce the ingredients!

Pickles!

2010-08-22T22:03:00.000-07:00

I have no talent for growing cucumbers. I have tried numerous times now with the same results each time. I get a few oddly shaped ones in the beginning of the season, then the vines wither and seem like they are going to die. They manage to struggle back to life and flower but none of the flowers get fertilized and the little baby cukes just shrivel up and die on the vine (yes I know I could hand pollinate them, but I'm too lazy for that). So I end up buying my cucumbers from the farmers market. It's not exactly what I hope for, but at least I know where they come from. I found some decent looking cukes today and decided to make pickles. I also picked up a bunch of jalapenos since the five plants I currently have in the garden are acting like freeloaders and only putting out small peppers on a very irregular basis. It has only recently gotten hot enough for them to even start growing, let alone produce fruit so I'm letting them slide for now. I was glad to find things to pickle and declared today to be pickling day in our house!

Cucumbers in ice water for a couple hours before slicing and packing them in jars.

Sliced and ready to go. I lopped off the ends to make them fit into pint jars and then sliced the ends to make a pint of sliced pickles as well.

Jalapenos also sliced and ready (remember to wear gloves when working with hot peppers!).

My prep station for the cucumbers. I made basic dill pickles and put some slivers of jalapeno in a few jars since I like my pickles with a little kick. The main ingredients are vinegar, water, salt, garlic, dill weed, and dill seed. I also used some pickle crisp (the white stuff in the jar) since I have heard good things about it from other people. I'm hoping it will do a good job of keeping my pickles crisp and tasty.

The jalapenos didn't need a prep station. I just mixed all the ingredients in a pot, brought it to a boil, the poured it over the jalapenos that I packed in the jars. The ingredients for the jalapenos were vinegar, water, salt, olive oil, and pickling spice. Super easy.

Finished jars. I got five pints of dills and four and a half pints of jalapenos. I can't wait to see how they turn out!

I swear that one of the these days I will get some decent pictures up here. I have my camera back, but since our computer was stolen when my husband's truck got broken into while on vacation, I can't transfer the pictures. The computer I am currently using doesn't have a handy little place to plug in the memory card and we can't find the cord for the camera. Someday I will remember to pick up a new cord so that people will be able to see that I can actually get a subject in focus when I'm not stuck using my phone for a camera.

Jammin!

2010-08-15T19:15:00.000-07:00

I have gone on a jam making frenzy this year, though not nearly as much as I wanted to at the start of summer. So far I have made plum, rhubarb, lemon marmalade, and blackberry-fig. With the exception of the rhubarb, all the fruit came from sources within 15mins of our house. The rhubarb was still a US product, but I'm not sure how far it had to travel to get to me. The plums came from a friend's tree. The lemons from a lady who posted on freecycle that her lemon tree needed to be picked. The blackberries were wild ones that we went and picked up on the mountain a couple days ago, and the fig was a gift from a neighbor's tree. If only I had a local source for sugar...

We are going blackberry picking again in a week or so and I hope to get enough to make a batch of plain blackberry jam. We have some blueberry bushes in the backyard that are doing well so maybe next year we will have blueberry jam as well. I am trying to think of what other fruits I can easily get locally to make some more flavors. I'll have to see if I can trade finished jam for fruit with friends who have different trees next year.

Some of this year's jam. From left to right there is: blackberry-fig, rhubarb, plum, and lemon marmalade.

Building towers and friendships

2010-08-09T08:24:00.000-07:00

My boys and I spent this weekend at a homeschool expo that is held every year about 10 minutes from where we live. This was the first year I decided to bring the kids with me. My Mom was nice enough to come help out when I was busy with sessions and couldn't be with the kids and my husband kindly brought things to us that we had forgotten as we were staying at the hotel. As usual, I had a great time and got some great ideas for things to do in the coming years. There were a few sessions on gardening with your children and the couple of those sessions I made it to were definitely my favorite.

The boys met some new people, made some new friends and just generally enjoyed themselves. They did go to a few sessions but I think the thing they liked the most was the huge supply of Keva planks they had for the kids to play with. They spent the majority of their time in the Family Village area building towers and other such things. The one they were most proud of was a circular tower they managed to get about 8 feet tall. They had a great time building it and then took out some planks at the bottom and watched the whole thing collapse. Great fun!

When it was finished, they had to pose for a picture as if they were going to knock it down with their fists.

Yogurt

2010-08-01T10:18:00.000-07:00

Making yogurt can be very simple if you use a store bought yogurt as your starter. All it takes is a good sized dollop of yogurt with active cultures. Make sure you choose one that doesn't have any sweetener or fruit mixed in, just plain yogurt. Choose a variety that you already like because the resulting yogurt will take its flavor from what you use as a starter. This was my first attempt at making yogurt. It came out well but I think next time I will use a little less milk so that I end up with a slightly thicker end product.

As with the vinegar cheese, I started with two quarts of fresh, raw milk. I added 2/3 C of powdered milk to mine to help thicken it. I started by heating the milk slowly until it reached 185 F. I then allowed it to cool down to 110 F. I just let mine sit and cool on the counter while I stirred it occasionally but if you want to cool it faster, you can put the pot in a sink of ice water. Just keep a close eye on it because it will cool down very quickly if done that way.

After it was cooled to the correct temperature, I added a few heaping spoonfuls of the plain yogurt I was using as a starter.

I have a yogurt maker, so after the plain yogurt was stirred in, I simply poured the milk into my yogurt maker, put the lid on, and left it to sit on the counter. I have heard of electric yogurt makers, but the one I have isn't. It is like a mini cooler. It has a removable plastic bucket where you pour in the milk and the bucket sits inside a styrofoam housing. All it does is keep the milk at the correct temperature for the yogurt cultures to incubate and turn all the milk to yogurt.

The mixture sits in the yogurt maker for 7-10 hours. When it is done, I simply spoon the yogurt into the container of my choice. Very easy and delicious!

You can easily make yogurt without a yogurt maker though I have not done it this way. These directions are taken from a thread at backyardchickens.com and are not written by me:

Pour the mixture into a quart sized jar. Wrap in a dishtowel to insulate.

Using a second jar, fill it with boiling water. Wrap it in a dish towel to insulate.

Place both jars in a small cooler that you have heated with hot water***. Allow the yogurt to cure for 10 - 12 hours. When the milk is set to a solid it is ready. Refrigerate and serve cold.

***Do not leave water in the cooler. Fill the cool with hot water while you are preparing everything then pour it out. You simply want a warm place to incubate your yogurt cultures.

Easy Cheese

2010-07-31T17:12:00.001-07:00

Vinegar cheese is the easiest cheese you can make. All it takes is milk, vinegar (you can use lime or lemon juice but the results are more predictable with vinegar), a thermometer, cheesecloth (can be purchased at just about any grocery store) or butter muslin to strain it with, and a pot to heat it in ( you can also add salt if you choose). It is a versatile product that can be used in a wide range of ways. It is a little rubbery and doesn't melt. It can be used rather like tofu since it will take on the flavor of what it is cooked with. I like sprinkling it over pinto beans cooked in the crockpot or on tacos. It can also be pressed into a more solid mass and sliced into cubes. If you have ever had queso blanco or paneer, this is the same thing just under a different name.

I started with two quarts of fresh raw milk though you can use milk purchased at the store. Avoid ultra-pasturized milk as it will not always separate as needed in cheese making due to the extremely high temperatures used during the pasturization process. I have read that the labeling required to show milk is UP can be very small and is not always noticed by the buyer, so check your labels carefully.

I heated the milk to a temperature of 185 F and then turned the heat down to the lowest setting to maintain that temperature while I got the vinegar and measured out 1/4C. I used regular white vinegar though you can also use cider vinegar, lime, or lemon juice. I haven't tried cider vinegar myself as I heard that the white vinegar keeps the flavor nice and neutral. I get more consistent results with the vinegar than when I have tried lemon juice. I have never tried using lime juice myself but I know it is supposed to work just like lemon juice (all you are really using it for is the acid which causes the curds to separate from the whey).

Once the vinegar is added and stirred in, the curds and whey separate immediately.

I used regular cheesecloth which I purchased from my local grocery store but since the weave is very loose, I doubled it over a couple times so I didn't lose too much of the curd when I strained it.

After I poured it into the cloth (with a strainer under the cloth for support), I pulled the corners of the cloth up and secured it with a rubber band. I attatched it with the same rubber band to my sink faucet and placed a cup underneath to catch any remaining whey. I let it sit there for an hour or so.

When it stopped dripping, I opened the cheesecloth and broke up the curds with my fingers since I was using it as a topping. If you want to press it together for slicing, you can do that at this time. I transferred it to a bowl and then to the fridge. I had some on that night's tacos and beans. Yum!

Do not throw away the whey! It can be used in several different ways. It can be used to make some types of cheese. You can use it in baking and cooking. It can be given to pets and plants. I will do a post on whey shortly, but for now just know that it has it's uses. Look up "uses for whey" and you will be pleasantly surprised at what you can do with it.

*Again, sorry for the poor quality of the photos. These are still pictures I took with my phone while my husband and kids were gone camping.

Overloaded with lemons!

2010-07-28T12:23:00.000-07:00

I responded to a freecycle ad placed by a woman who lives near me and has a wonderful lemon tree with more lemons than she could handle. I went to her house and picked as many as I felt I could use and didn't even make a dent in the supply! I made lemon curd and lemonade. I juiced a bunch and froze it. I sliced many of them thinly and packed them in quart freezer containers and froze them for future use. I zested them before juicing and froze the zest. I made candied zest. I also made, for the first time, lemon marmalade. Why not, right?

Lovely lemons waiting to be put to good use.

Zested and waiting to be sliced.

I have a couple different zesters that make different sized zest. For this, I wanted a medium zest, not too thick but also not teensy, tiny strings. I think the resulting zest was perfect.

I removed the white pith from the zested lemons, sliced them and put them in with the zest.

The mixture then was stirred with water and put in the fridge for several hours to soak. When I took it out of the fridge, I put it on the stove to start cooking.

As the mixture cooked and was eventually mixed with sugar and cooked some more, it turned a much darker color.

I transfered the hot mixture to prepared jars, put on lids and rings, and they went into the water bath.

I didn't want to fill up my large water bath canner for only three pint jars, so I used my stock pot that has a removable basket for boiling pasta. It worked great as a water bath canner. It kept the jars from touching the bottom of the pot and it was super easy to lift them in and out of the boiling water.

All that work resulted in three jars of lemon marmalade. The recipe was decent, but I think next time I will look for something a little less labor intensive and time consuming. It was a lot of work for three jars!

*I want to apologize for the picture quality in this and a few future posts. My husband took the kids on an extended camping trip and so had the camera with them. These pictures are taken with the camera in my phone.

Post hiatus

2010-07-15T14:13:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to let you know that while I have pictures of some recent projects waiting to be posted they will have to wait a little while. I have internet access on my phone but I don't currently have a computer to transfer those pictures to this blog. Keep your eyes open for upcoming posts and pictures on what I did with too many lemons and an excess of milk. I will be doing another hive inspection soon as well and will post pictures as soon as possible!

Harvest

2010-07-09T19:14:00.000-07:00

I haven't taken pictures of everything I have gotten from the garden this year, but I do try to take pictures every once in a while, especially if I have a fairly diverse bunch of veggies in one day. Here are a few of the pictures I have taken so far this season.

Beans (some that I have allowed to dry on the vine to use for next season's seeds), sugar pie pumpkin, garlic (teeny ones), cherry and fireworks tomatoes, and some carrots.

Eggs (I get those every day of course, I just thought they looked nice included in this picture), a couple little jalepenos, several different kinds of tomatoes, beans, and zucchini.

Zucchini, cucumber, turnips, tri-color beans, carrots, fingerling potatoes, and some cherry tomatoes.

Just for fun, a "snow"man made of pumpkin.

Tomatoes on the brain and in the garden.

2010-07-03T23:35:00.000-07:00

I have found myself fascinated with heirloom tomatoes this year... well just tomatoes in general have captured my attention, but heirlooms that much more. I think my interest in heirlooms started while I was browsing through the online catalog at Seed Savers Exchange . They are all about preserving diversity in our food supply and promoting the saving and sharing of heirloom seeds. Much of the seed I have bought in the last year has been from them with even more seeds on my wish list for the future.

Why I have become interested in tomatoes, I'm not sure. I don't even like eating tomatoes raw, just in things like sauce and salsa. Last year I had only one tomato plant and I don't even know what variety it was as my husband brought it home from some big box store in a large pot. It stayed in that large pot and produced enough tomatoes for some salsa, but I didn't do anything else with it. I really, really liked the fresh salsa I was able to make however, and decided to plant more tomatoes this year.

I started out with a couple Early Girls and a Sweet Millions (both hybrids), then moved on to The Garden , a local organic nursery that suffered a devestating fire last year and was hosting a tomato mania as a way to celebrate their re-opening. I took my youngest boy with me and he helped me pick out several varieties. We got Sweet 100, Red Currant, Brandywine, San Marzano, and Fireworks. Shortly after those went in the ground, there was a thread on a gardening forum I belong to that asked about what kind of heirloom tomatoes everyone was growing this year. I had no idea if I had heirloom tomatoes or not so I looked it up and found that my heirlooms were Red Currant (picked by my son), Brandywine, San Marzano, and Fireworks. I had picked these tomatoes willy-nilly as I had no thought for flavor or use beyond knowing that the San Marzano is a paste tomato. I started having day dreams about jars of homeade spaghetti sauce gracing my pantry shelves. I think this is when I started to get a bit out of control. If I saw an heirloom variety while shopping at the nursery (usually for tomato cages for the plants I bought the week before), I would get one. I just couldn't stop myself.

I added more plants until I reached the count as it stands today: two Early Girl, Sweet Millions, Sweet 100, two Roma, four Mortgage Lifter, Yellow Pear, Black Krim, Green Zebra, Pineapple, and Fireworks (the first three on the list are hybrids, the rest are heirlooms). That is fifteen tomato plants for a family of people who don't eat tomatoes other than in the forms of salsa, sauce, or ketchup (the Brandywine I had at one point suffered an early demise before setting any fruit). My boys do sometimes eat cherry or yellow pear tomatoes like I eat M&Ms, but I imagine after a week of having a bowl of them on the counter, they will forget they like them (I wish that would happen with the me and the M&Ms). It always seems to happen that way with my kids. They eat yogurt every day for a week and so I break down and get a bunch of yogurt only to find the rush on yogurt has passed. Darn kids.

So, what to do with all these tomatoes? I guess I will find out when they all start ripening. So far I have been getting Early Girl, Fireworks, Sweet Million and Sweet 100. The first of the Roma and San Marzano are just about ripe and the rest have a while to go.

Today's garden harvest included all the varieties of tomatoes that have started producing ripe fruit, tri-color beans, zuchini, and a couple teeny jalepenos.

The Sweet Million and Sweet 100 look exactly the same. So far though, the Sweet Million is the only one living up to its name, though the 100 is producing a little bit.

The Fireworks are producing the most out of all the larger tomatoes. I have had a couple people ask how they taste but I really don't know because, well, I just don't care for tomatoes... I will try a piece of one eventually when I have other kinds to compare it to, but for now they make great salsa!

The Roma has quite a bit of fruit on it, but most of them are quite small. These are some of the only decent sized ones, I'm not impressed so far.

The San Marzano is doing much better than the Roma. I'll have to have more next year if I ever hope to put up more than one jar of sauce.

These baby red currant tomatoes are about the size of a pea and won't get any bigger.

The Yellow Pear is doing well, I planted this one specifically for my oldest son since my Mom said he loved them when he was at her house recently.

A few Early Girls. They have lived up to their name being the first of my tomatoes to set fruit.

This is a baby Pineapple. Before about a month ago, I had no idea there were so many kinds of tomatoes, let alone one called a Pineapple.

A baby Green Zebra. Since these stay green in color, I'm not sure how I will tell when they are ripe.

Flowers from the Black Krim. I am really looking forward to this tomato, if nothing else than for the interesting color it will give to anything I make with it.

A Mortgage Lifter flower. I have no idea why I bought these (and in a four-pack no less!), other than I just wanted to be able to say I had another heirloom. It is supposed to be a great slicing tomato, so of course it's a great buy for someone who doesn't eat sliced tomatoes.

I have tried telling myself and others that I bought all these different varieties to see if there might be one I actually like to eat on sandwiches and such. I'm hoping that is true. If not... anyone want some tomatoes?

Good garden food!

2010-06-28T16:28:00.000-07:00

I am trying to keep up with the produce we have been getting from the garden. A few days ago, I spent some time preparing and freezing corn and beans. A couple nights ago, I used some of the produce from the garden to make a really great pizza. Today my youngest and I spent some time making pickles and plum jam.

The jam I have done before, but the pickles are new to me. I never seemed to have enough cucumbers at one time to make anything with them. This year, I planted a couple more cucumber plants so I had just enough cukes to make some sliced pickles.

Cukes, onion, and garlic getting ready for jars.

Jars full and ready for pickling liquid.

My helper measuring out ingredients and cooking the pickling liquid.

Finished product, hopefully they will taste good!

The jam is made from plums that a friend gave us in exchange for some eggs. We do have a plum tree, but it is still too young to produce fruit for us to keep. We knocked off almost all the young fruit this year so that the tree wouldn't have to work so hard to make fruit. I was very glad to get some great plums from our friend.

Pitting plums is messy work. I wish I knew an easier way.

Cooking the jam.

My set up for making jam. I have the pot with the jam cooking, then a water bath canner heating up next to the jam pot. The counter next to the stove has a towel where I will put the jars as I am filling them and where they will rest and cool after being processed. On that towel, I also have a small pan that holds the lids in very hot water. I heat the jars in the oven and then put them in the microwave to stay warm after I take the jam off the stove. I have found the microwave to be the perfect place because the empty jars aren't getting in the way but are very easy to get to.

Filled jars ready for their water bath.

Finished jars of delicious plum jam!

My next project will be to make some cheese. I'm not sure what kind I will be making, but watch for pictures sometime within the next month!

Butter me up!

2010-06-24T20:56:00.001-07:00

I am lucky enough to get to milk a cow twice a week and therefore have fresh, raw milk at my fingertips. We tend to drink a lot of milk in our house. I think my love of milk came from drinking Milk Maid instead of fresh milk when I was growing up in Alaska. I know we had fresh milk sometimes, but I mostly remember the pitcher of Milk Maid we seemed to always have in the fridge. If you aren't familiar with Milk Maid, it was a powdered milk that you would mix with water to create a product that was supposed to taste like milk. I remember it being not horrible, but not great either. When we moved to the lower 48, we always had fresh milk and I think the vast difference made me a milk lover forever.

I use our raw milk in everything from pancakes to yogurt, but I really like making butter. It is a fair amount of work for not much final product, but it sure tastes great on roasted fingerling potatoes! If you have never made butter, it's worth doing at least once just for the experience. The process is simple. Here is a little picture tutorial for you:

Start with several quarts of non-homogenized, whole milk (if you don't have this kind of milk available, you can just buy some heavy or whipping cream from the grocery store, it will work just as well).

You can see the cream that has risen to the top of this jar.

Use a turkey baster to skim the cream off the top of the jars.

Put the skimmed cream into a clean jar and make sure you cap it tightly!

Sit down in front of the TV or something else to keep your mind off how long this next step takes. Shake the jar... a lot.

This step takes around 15-20mins. In my family, I do this alone, but if you can get someone to take turns with you, it will be much easier. The milk will seem to grow in volume due to air being mixed in. If you open the jar after shaking for a bit, you will see a lot of froth.

Once your arms feel like they are about to fall off, you will be almost done. Just keep it up! Look at the side of the jar. If it looks kind of lumpy, you probably have butter! Shake for another minute just to be sure. Open the jar to see if it looks like this:

Dump your butter out into a strainer (make sure there is a bowl or something underneath!).

Use a spoon or, if you have it, a butter paddle to press the buttermilk out of the butter. This is an important step. If there is a lot of buttermilk left in the butter, it will taste a little off and spoil much more quickly.

After you have pressed out the buttermilk (making sure to scrape the butter off the underside of the strainer that got squeezed through with the buttermilk), put your butter into a bowl and add salt if you desire. You can taste your butter to see how much salt you want it to have.

You can keep your butter in the fridge, but I keep mine in a butter bell. It keeps the butter fresh but at room temperature so that it is soft when I want to spread it on something.

Butter bells are filled partway with water so that when you lower the lid which contains the butter, the butter is surrounded with cool water that keeps it from going rancid. Plus, I just think they look neat. As I said earlier in this post, my favorite way to use fresh butter is on roasted fingerling potatoes with a little salt and pepper. Nothing better!

*Don't throw away the leftover buttermilk. It isn't like the buttermilk you can buy at the store as it hasn't fermented at all. I use the leftover milk in things like pancakes and biscuits just like any other milk.

Various garden pictures.

2010-06-23T16:12:00.001-07:00

Some random pictures I took out in the gardens yesterday.

Baby yellow pear tomatoes:

Teeny jalepenos:

Fireworks tomatoes that are interesting as they produce good sized fruit all in bunches rather like a cherry tomato does:

Ripening sugar pie pumpkin:

Some purple bush beans that I am letting to mature and dry on the vine so that I have seeds for next year's crop (they were labeled as bush beans, but they have climed all over the place):

Cucumbers that I'm not sure when to pick:

Sunflowers that my youngest desperately wanted to plant and have done fabulously so far:

Baby acorn squash (I think... it started out looking exactly like an acorn squash but has gotten suspiciously round):

A flower on the top of a carnival carrot stalk:

Corn worm, and other, woes.

2010-06-23T15:26:00.000-07:00

Last year, we had corn on either side of our front walk and it did very well. We had about 12 plants and probably got around 18 ears of corn by the time we pulled them out. This year, I wanted to go bigger as we really love fresh corn on the cob. I planted a three sisters garden. Basically it is just planting corn, beans, and squash in the same area. We planted ours by making mounds and planting the corn in the middle of the mounds. The beans were planted about halfway down the mound on either side of the corn. The squash was planted on the flat ground in between the corn mounds. The idea is that the beans provide nutrients which the corn needs, the beans are able to use the corn to climb on, and the squash gets the water that flows down the mounds as well as providing ground cover to keep the weeds down. What a great idea right?

My little helper:

What the three sisters garden looked like when we first planted the corn:

A few weeks later (still looking pretty good!):

Today (taken from the opposite side of the garden):

While we are getting some good produce from this garden, a few things went wrong. The beans just got to be too much for the corn and has pulled over about half the stalks. The corn still was fertilized fairly well before the stalks were pulled over, but it does make for some difficulty in harvesting both the corn and the beans. I'm sure the squash (in this case, pumpkin and acorn squash), would have done fine as a weed preventative had I kept up with the weeding all along. Unfortunately, we were away on vacation for a couple weeks and the weeds took full advantage. When we came back, there was so much grass in there that was so thick, that I just couldn't keep up with it. I am trying to pull some of it each day and now that the squash vines cover more, the grass doesn't come back right away, but it's hard to maneuver in there without stepping on squash vines.

All said, I would plant a garden like this again, but I would make a few changes. I would start my squash plants inside so that they didn't have to start all the way from seed when I put the corn in. I would also stake the corn somewhat to prevent the beans from pulling them over.

The biggest problem we had with the corn was corn worms. Grrrrr. I had been keeping an eye out for them but they seemed to pop up and eat my crop within a day. I found one about a week ago and started looking through all the ears only to find that they had decimated about half my corn crop. I went through and pulled all the ears that were ready, gave the worm-eaten parts to the chickens and kept the rest. We got about a dozen half-ears once we broke off the wormy parts. At least the corn we did get is very tasty!

It's the bees knees!

2010-06-16T18:20:00.000-07:00

I inspected a hive today. It is from a swarm that I captured a couple months ago and is doing very well. Almost all of the bottom box is full of comb, brood, and honey. The second, and currently top, box has a good start on comb. Here are some pictures from the inspection:

Some facts about bees you may not know:

All worker bees are female. Despite what you may have seen in The Bee Movie, the male bees (called drones) are actually pretty lazy freeloaders for the most part. Their job is to mate with the queen and that's it. When a swarm gets ready to leave a hive to look for a new place to live, the first thing the ladies do is start kicking out the drones so that they aren't wasting honey on bees who don't do any work.

The smoke that is used on hives during hive inspections is just to fool the bees into thinking there is a fire. The bees gorge themselves on honey in preparation for leaving the hive to look for a new place to live (the honey goes into a special honey stomach). The honey makes them docile and therefore easier to deal with during the inspection. Once the inspection is over and the hive is still intact, the bees disgorge the honey back into the honey cells and life goes on like normal.

Bees keep their hive sanitary with something called propolis which they gather from trees. They use the propolis to glue things together in the hive. In the case of a Langstroth hive that is the most common hive used, they glue the top down, the frames together, pretty much everywhere they see any kind of opening, they glue it shut with propolis. They also use the propolis to cover anything that invades the hive but is too big for them to take outside. If a mouse or something like that gets in the hive, they sting it to death and then cover its body with propolis to keep it from rotting and letting bad bacteria into the hive. Propolis is thought to have many medicinal benefits for people as well.

More bee facts to come!

Funky Chickens

2010-06-13T17:48:00.000-07:00

Just thought I would post some of my favorite chicken pictures I have taken over the years as well as answer some of the most common chicken questions I get.

Here is Luna, an Easter Egger pullet we got as a week old chick in 2008. Pullet generally refers to a young female chicken. Some people refer to any girl chicken under a year of age as a pullet. I tend to call them pullets until they lay at around six to eight months old, then I call them hens.

We only have hens on our property since roosters aren't allowed in our area. Roosters are nice to have around as they look after the hens, protecting them as well as showing them the best places to lay and the choicest bits of food to scratch up. It is not necessary to have a rooster to get eggs, hens will lay eggs even if there is no rooster around.

There is a pecking order in every flock. This California Gray hen, Ginny, was the flock leader at our place for quite a while:

As you can see from the picture above, hens can have large combs (the red part on the top of the head), and wattles (the red parts under the beak), just as roosters do. Some people think only roosters have large, red combs and wattles, but the size and shape of the comb depends on the breed. Ginny, above, has a single comb and it is flopping over a bit at the top as is common for her breed. There are other types of combs, but a single comb is by far the most common. Luna, the Easter Egger in the first picture has a pea comb. Sprout, a Light Brahma, also has a pea comb (she is the white bird with the striking black feathers around her neck in this picture).

Chickens can fly a little bit, just not much. They can fly enough to get out of their run if there isn't anything to stop them. If left without a coop or roost to retire to in the evenings, chickens will roost in trees.

Chickens are social creatures. They like having other chickens around them. However, they will sometimes pick on a chicken they decide they don't like. We had two little Rhode Island Red chicks named Fred and George who just didn't fit in with the bigger girls when we got them. We ended up having two separate coops to house them in since they couldn't get along in the same one. Sadly, Fred was killed by (we suspect), a feral cat one night and George was quite lonely without her. In order to keep her from getting pecked by the big girls but still provide her with some company, we got two little Australorp chicks (Katie and Angelina) who adopted her as their mother. They would follow her around and copy her. She didn't mind their company and she and Katie are now the lead hens in our flock.

Chickens are ominvores and pretty much eat anything that crosses their path, including small rodents, frogs, each other *yuck! I try to give them lots of different treats to keep them healthy and busy. Yogurt is always a flock favorite.

Chickens and other animals can coexist fairly peacefully as long as your other animals don't see your chickens as prey.

Everyone enjoys a bowl of raisin bran. Had I been quicker with the camera, you would be seeing a couple dogs with their heads in the bowl as well.

Braids and Bees

2010-06-13T15:43:00.000-07:00

I have gotten into beekeeping a little bit. I have some equipment and I go help friends with their hives when they need an extra hand. Yesterday I was helping a friend add another box to her hive. I had gone to get a couple inches cut off my hair in the morning so I got to her house and was ready to open her hive around 1pm. Everything went very well. We didn't do a full inspection since it was cloudy and not terribly warm out. It only took us a few minutes and the bees were very well behaved.

After we finished, we were standing around in the yard shedding our gear; just white long-sleeve shirts, hats with veils, and gloves (I don't like wearing the gloves since you can't feel what you are doing very well, but I'm too chicken to go without at this point). I was starting to walk towards the house when I heard a bee around the back of my head. I walked away a little farther thinking that it would fly away once I got further away from the hive but it didn't. It sounded almost like it was caught in my hair. I could tell it was in/around my braid but I, of course, couldn't see it. My husband looked and found a very ticked off bee vigorously stinging my braid. He ended up having to flick it to the ground and then accidentely stepped on it. Poor bee. Thinking that was the end of it, I turned to talk to my friend again and another bee went for my braid. Same as before, I could hear it around my braid and it didn't sound pleased. My friend and my husband managed to get it out and I went straight into the house. I figured that the hairdresser must have used something on my hair that the bees didn't like.

This morning before I went out to work in the garden, I took a shower and washed my hair with all the normal stuff just to make sure I didn't attract any unwanted bee attention again. My husband made another raised box for my garden the other day and I had put it in place yesterday but hadn't had time to fill it in and plant anything in it. When I went out today, I filled it with dirt and started planting. I had three jalepenos and several different tomatoes to put in and started at the end of the box with the jalepenos.

I got one put in and was working on the second when the bee showed up. It was making itself very clear, it didn't like me being there and if I knew what was good for me, I had better clear out. I stood up and walked away and the bee was left behind. As soon as I went back in, the bee was back! What the heck! I walked away again and went to change into a white shirt just in case the bright red one I had been wearing wasn't helping my cause. Came back with my white shirt and that bee was all over me again. This time it followed me all the way to the house! I left the rest of the planting for later today after the bees go to bed. Maybe I need to change my shampoo...

Our Garden From Last Summer

2010-06-12T21:15:00.000-07:00

I have become increasingly interested in gardening in the last couple years. I had a garden plot in the backyard last summer and also utilized the space on either side of the front walkway for corn. This is the space we started with for the backyard garden:

The first year, I put in melons, cucumber, zuchini, jalapenos, bush beans, and pole beans. There wasn't much planning in how it was all planted and the melons pretty much took over by the end of the summer. We put up a fence around the garden to keep the goats, chickens, and dogs out.

The corn was planted in the front and did pretty well.

I also had one tomato plant in a large pot that did decently, but didn't produce nearly enough for our needs. I don't know what kind it was as Dave bought it as a fairly large plant and it wasn't labeled with the type.

We had an apple tree out back that had about a dozen apples, but we didn't end up getting any of them. Some of the apples were sunburned and not usable because the plant simply didn't have enough leaves to provide shade for the fruit. One of the dogs took off some of the other branches and fruit so we never got anything that was ripe.

We put in a couple bare root trees in the front at some point during the summer. One nectarine that flowered with one single flower and therefore didn't set any fruit, and a plum that did set a couple fruits, two of which made it to ripeness. We didn't expect any from them that first summer anyway since they were so young.

Some of the harvest from last summer:

I learned a lot from the garden last year and hope that this year goes even better!

Clipping wings

2009-12-15T08:18:00.001-08:00

One of our delawares has flown the coop, literally... several times a day. This practice is hazardous to her health considering we have dogs that are fully capable of killing a chicken in the yard. There used to be mesh covering the run to keep the chickens in and airborne predators out, but we removed it and put on wood slats instead to help a vine grow up there for shade. Somehow, she is getting out through the wood slats. There was a fairly big gap when Dave first put up the slats, but we added a couple more thinking that would solve the problem. It didn't. Our next trick is to try clipping the offender's wings. We did her right wing yesterday to see if that works. If she gets out again, we will clip the other one. If that doesn't work, we may have to staple the mesh to the underside of the slats, though I would like to avoid that since it will make it harder for the vine to grow there. Hopefully one wing clipping will be all it takes!

For directions on how to clip a chicken's wing, go here .

*It's really very easy!

Urban Mushing

2009-11-30T19:46:00.000-08:00

I have done some dog scootering, or urban mushing, with my dogs since early this year. Well, actually I started bikjoring with Chewie our two year-old Swissy mix and then after the summer ended, started taking out our one year-old. At first I took them one at a time as I didn't have the proper setup for two dogs, or two harnesses for that matter. As soon as I got the right gear and a great new scooter (thanks honey!), I started the two of them in harness together. It has gone surprisingly well. Not one fight between the two of them so far.

They compliment each other very well. Chewie never wanted to take the lead before, he always wanted someone next to or in front of him. If he got out in the front and was unable to see anyone else, he would stop. However, when he gets going, he is wicked fast! Skippy will go just because I tell him to, but he is much slower than Chewie. So when they are together, Skippy keeps Chewie moving forward when there is no one else around and Chewie makes Skippy move a bit faster (though I still have to slow Chewie down a little).

I got started doing this when we took Chewie out sometime early this last spring. We took our bikes and thought that Chewie would just run alongside my bike. Well, he didn't want to run alongside... he wanted to pull! I have never seen natural instinct kick in like it did that day. He pulled my bike for about six miles and seemed to love every minute of it. We didn't waste much time ordering a proper harness and figuring out how to hitch him to my bike.

When we got Skippy, I was really hoping he would be a good team member for Chewie. The first time I took him out, he did very well. He doesn't have as much natural pulling instinct as Chewie, but he always has a lot of fun. He is still building up his stamina, so he can't go for as long as Chewie, but he'll get there.

The biggest challenge in this sport is teaching the dogs to obey voice commands. You don't have much physical control over them when you are back on the scooter. I can put on the brakes to make them stop moving forward if I need to, but they have lots of leeway on which direction they go or if they choose to go at all. I still have trouble getting my dogs to go the side of the trail I want when we are passing someone, but they follow my direction commands about which trail to go down fairly consistently. We all still have a lot of training to do, but it sure is going to be fun doing it!

Chick coop

2009-11-27T15:00:00.000-08:00

Today was supposed to include putting together a coop/brooder in the main run for the 10 buff orpington chicks who are currently residing in my garage and a friend's run. I took three of them to a radio show on chickens I did day before yesterday so they are in the garage in a tote. I am anxious to get them into a better space (and to remove the chick smell from the garage). We have two previously built coops in the backyard. One has firewood stacked in it, but the other would probably be fairly easy to take it into the main run for the chicks. The hard part is putting wire around it so that they can get outside of that little coop without the big chickens being able to get to them. I wonder if we will get to it tomorrow...?

Coop construction

2009-11-25T10:48:00.000-08:00

My husband built our current coop and run with help from myself (ok, so I wasn't that much help...), and our two boys. It houses 10 chickens comfortably and keeps them safe from the dogs. It may not be the most beautiful coop around, but the chickens don't know the difference!

It is attatched to the side of our shed for ease of construction.

Ready to be painted.

Adding the run.

The finished product! The fan is there because I took this picture during the heat of summer and the fan helps keep the girls nice and cool as they are dustbathing.

Though there are coops built with more fancy stuff than we have, all your coop really needs is sufficient space for your birds (chickens should have 2-3sq. ft. per bird in the coop and 4-5sq. ft. per bird in the run at a minimum), a roosting bar that will fit all your birds (we just use a plain old 2x4), and nest boxes (ours are milk crates). We keep their food and water underneath the coop so that they don't take up space inside. Our girls are able to come and go as they please so they always have access to their food and water.

Order of the Poultry

2009-11-25T10:23:00.000-08:00

Meet some of our chickens! All our birds have Harry Potter names since I am a huge HP nerd. My husband goes along with it just to make me happy.

We currently have a laying flock of 10 and we have 10 chicks in the brooder from our first hatching project. Our birds are:

George, a two year old rhode island red.

Katie, a two year old australorp.

Hermes, Pavarti, and Padma; easter eggers that hatched this spring.

Gabrielle, Hedwig, and Pigwidgeon; delawares that hatched at the same time as the EEs.

Sprout and Poppy, a light brahma and a black sex link that hatched late spring.

All these different breeds give us a very colorful basket of eggs.