Daily Life in the Summer

Clothes on the line, giant hydrangea, and healthy back field.

Tarahumara Sunflowers.

Sensations Cosmos.

Tashkent Marigold.

The babies - almost 2 months old!

Wordless Wednesday

Lush Green World

Almost four inches since this morning.

Despite what the news said (clocked us around an inch of rain for today), we've had almost four inches of rain in the last twelve hours. We also had the same last Sunday. It's been great for the growing of things! Including mosquitoes!

Purple and white flowers on field peas.

Red and yellow new potatoes. Made a tasty potato salad.

Really though, it's been wonderful. Our back field is thriving. We thought we might need to irrigate it - contemplated accessing the stream at the back of the property, rain barrel etc. But no need for that. Most of potato plants are already done flowering, aside from those planted late and those hit by the farmer's weed spray. *sigh*

The field peas have been doing fabulous. They are beautiful, and are also
smothering a lot of weeds, as we hoped. We still have to figure out something for harvest in a couple months. It might be me and my scythe, ha. Or with hubby's weed whip. Time to make friends with more farmers!

Strawberry harvest seems to have ended for my June-bearing berries. July has brought on the ripening of our wild blackberries though. They are tasty, but tiny and full of thorns and one must battle the legions of mosquitoes to get to them. This morning was nice and cool, so I could suit up and venture into the middle of the blackberry patch in relative safety. We won't turn down free fruit!

The garden has been growing great. This is my first year planting peas and cabbage, and they are both doing spectacular. I made a pea and mint salad yesterday that was so-so. I think eating the peas fresh is the absolute best - you can't top that sweetness. I made a slaw with half of the red cabbage for dinner tonight - very tasty and also quite sweet. Home grown is really worth it for health and flavor. And no worries about chemical types here. The white cover cloth has worked well for keeping most of the cabbage moths/ caterpillars from our crop. They were my main fear in planting cabbages, but so far, so good.

Turnips, red cabbage, zucchini, peas, lettuce, calendula and chamomile flowers.

Pea row, with volunteer sunflower, lettuce and other greens.

Under-cover cabbage, zucchini, flowering parsnip, tomatoes and sunflowers.

Beautiful volunteer Mayo Indian amaranth. Almost as tall as the sunflowers this year! 

Baby chicks in the outside "playpen" next to the garden.

Spring time photos

Iris putting on a show in May.

The potatoes are growing up!

Thanksgiving dinner walking through our yard.

Double rainbow after a sunny day rainstorm. Note also our amazing doors to nowhere!

Golf ball sized hail this morning!

Luckily the garden was fine. Strawberries, lettuce, rhubarb, turnips, and herbs.

Chicken Family Update

Momma Maran with one of her tiny babies poking out.

Well, a lot has happened in chicken land this spring.

Two hens went broody in April. That is, they took up residence in the nesting areas, but stopped laying. I moved one momma and a clutch of eggs to our other shed, and strongly "encouraged" the other to get back to normal life.

Momma chicken proceeded to sit on the eggs (some hers, most laid by others) for twenty-two days. At day twenty-one, with much excitement, hubby lifted her up and found three littles under her. One more baby hatched the following day. It was a bummer that only four out of twelve eggs hatched, but as a new mother, I think she did well enough.

Momma chicken would continue to sit and keep her babies warm, but after a few days, they were out and about in the warmer weather, and we let them out of the shed to experience the green grass. This was pretty much the cutest thing imaginable - momma with her four littles around, pecking and digging in the dirt and grass.

Things were quite lovely until the chicks were just a little over a week old.

Then one morning as hubby and I were getting ready for work, I looked out the window to see a neighbor dog next to the coop.
I blasted out of the house, but half of our flock was already dead, with their necks broken by this failed duck hunting dog.

Momma chicken, her sister Maran, the two Easter Eggers and our handsome and valiant rooster were all gone.

It was utterly heartbreaking to listen to our four little orphans peep and cheep away, calling for a mother that could never come to them again.

We alerted the neighbor, who had only moved in a few months earlier, and she and her daughter helped to round up the dog. They were also able to see the damage their pet had done to ours.
Luckily for us, the neighbor did feel awful about the situation (I have heard that this is not a given) and brought us some chicks breeds similar to those that we had lost.

So, a bittersweet result of the day was that we had ten baby chicks to watch grow up. They are all doing well, despite their traumatic early days.

Our four originals, and their new friends.

We knew free ranging chickens was a bit of a gamble, and tried desperately to think of a good solution to our predicament. The neighbor said that they would mind their dogs better, but we are also much more careful about when we let our chickens out. It is very hard to fence and cage chickens that know life as a free-range chicken. We are working on this balance now.

Farm life is sunshine and roses quite frequently, but there are also some major reality check moments like these.

Spring time, the beginning of busy season!

Ground cherry pie, with a juicy blueberry pie in the background

Things have been going well around here. Spring came early - average last frost is May 17th, and I think we got our last one around April 20 this year. That's a-ok, since things were late last year! 

I've been doing a lot of early spring clean up, both outside and inside (in the freezer). After making pies for Easter, I've been making them regularly again. This coconut oil and butter crust is absolutely fabulous for fruit pies.

Overwintered parnips

Out of all the plants I tried to overwinter, the parsnips did by far the best. I also got some leeks and green onions, but the kale and collard greens did not make it. 

My strawberry patch is doing okay, as long as I keep it weeded. Some of my fruit trees didn't make it through the winter, and that is a major bummer, but most of them are alive and well.

The two big old apple trees were in bloom around May 1st. I didn't get my first spraying done until May 9th, which is not ideal at all, but I just sprayed the trunk, so hopefully things should be okay. 

   

Potatoes planted in the lovely black dirt in our back field

We've been doing a bit of planting on our back acreage this year. A neighbor farmer has planted it in corn for the last many years, and this year I bought field peas to put in on a few of the acres. So far they seem to be doing well. We need to get some tractor implements to do more field work though!

I've hand planted small sections of potatoes, hull-less oats, buckwheat, amaranth, sweet corn, flint corn, popcorn, melons and squash.The neighbor farmer also planted most of the remaining acreage in field corn, slightly to our surprise, but at least that gives us more time to figure out bigger plans for back there. 

One of the Maran hens has been sitting on a clutch of eggs - hopefully there will be some babies next week! A couple others have tried to go broody, but only this one has been allowed to continue. The others were not nearly as dedicated as Mama Maran.

Mister the rooster and some of his ladies in the lilacs

Wordless Wednesday

Fat Tuesday

Happy Mardi Gras! This is not usually a holiday we celebrate up here in the cold north, but a holiday with such a yummy cake needs to be remembered!

King Cake with powdered sugar and crunchy sprinkles.

 I made this recipe and it turned out fantastic. 

We shared it at work, and now many more people in Minnesota appreciate King Cake.

Feb 15-21 Meal Plan

Delicious egg white souffle with blue cheese

Roast beef, baked potato, stewed tomatoes

Beef and cabbage soup (slow cooker)

Sausage, kale and squash soup (slow cooker)

Chicken Bread pudding (slow cooker)

Sourdough rye crepes

Sourdough crepes - used 3 eggs

Egg souffle with blue cheese - 8 egg whites
Yum! Great use of leftover egg whites.

Chocolate Pudding - used 2 egg yolks

Sourdough pound cake - used 5 eggs

Chocolate pudding made with arrowroot

Chicken Feed Calculation

Bags and buckets of ingredients.

Since one week after the chicks arrived here last March, I have been making their feed.

Now this requires several bags of bulk grain to be stored at any given time, but it has provided much freedom in what my chickens are fed. I typically mix up 50 pounds of feed (equivalent to most pre-prepared feed bags) every 2 weeks. 

I am only over-wintering 10 chickens - 9 hens and 1 rooster. 

Antique coffee grinder works hard (and creates lots of dust).

I follow the idea of Harvey Ussery, found in his book, The Small-Scale Poultry Flock, or also his amazing website. 

Over this past (almost) year, I mixed my organic whole grains, knowing that I was feeding my chickens the freshest and best possible feeds. 

I also listened to my husband's comments on the regular purchases of expensive materials. I know that there are certainly cheaper feed options out there, but in keeping chickens for food, I want to raise them to be as high-quality as possible. 

I thought that I was spending a lot more on my prepared feed, but compared to a popular organic feed, my mix is actually less expensive. 

That made me happy.

Ingredients, price per pound and amounts of protein.

The table shows that my feed is about $60 per 100 pounds. To compare it to Scratch and Peck, which comes in 40 pound bags, mine is about $24 while theirs is $28, when discounted. I did not expect that! 

If things change and I no longer have the time to mix feeds, I'm sure I will switch to Scratch and Peck, but in the meantime, my feed is certainly more fresh, and apparently slightly less expensive. Yay!

Fermented feed with a side of stale bread crusts.

I will also continue to tweak the feed, and enjoy having that freedom. 

I recently started fermenting some of the feed, which is supposed to help lessen anti-nutrients along with increase absorption, just as it does for people food. 

One day I will try sprouting grains as well, but I have barely gotten around to that for us, so the chickens will have to wait a bit for that.

Feb 8-14 Meal Plan

Sourdough Rye bread - soured for 2 days - nice and sour!

Chile (grass-fed beef, half of a beef heart and a sliver of liver all ground) with black beans, jalapenos and bell peppers. Slow cooker.

Cheesy chicken and bean tortilla casserole (used up leftover homemade corn tortillas, and chicken from making stock)

Lamb, black beans, peas and rice. Slow cooker.

Corned beef, marrow on toast, green beans

Frittata cups (eggs, mozzarella and cream cheese, kale and bell peppers) baked in 1/2 pint mason jars for at-work snacks

Grass-fed T-bone steaks, baked potatoes, maple glazed carrots. Delicious Valentine's dinner at our warm home, in our pjs!

Wordless Wednesday

Jan 31- Feb 7 Meal Plan

Tuna Pot Pie

Turkey, squash and tomato soup (Slow cooker)

Pork chops, rice and broccoli (Slow cooker)

Beef, corn, peppers and rice soup (Slow cooker)

Corned beef and cabbage

Wordless Wednesday

Surviving winter post-holidays

Recent batch of healthful chicken stock

 Well, the holidays were nice, but post holidays meant being out of commission for a while.

Throw a little stress, poor eating habits for a couple weeks (Christmas cookies and candies - who can resist?!?) and cold weather together to get a nice bit of sickness.

Lots of soup, tea, sleep, and now warm weather to feel better.

We got up into the forties recently, after a few weeks of of temps hovering around zero earlier this month.

Chickens visiting their favorite snack station.

 The chickens were up to their usual antics - checking to see what dropped from the bird feeders. It's warm enough now for them to dig around for grass as well.

I think they are turning a corner in their egg laying. Most of the hens have been molting for a month or so, and we've only had an egg or two a day. Yesterday there were three eggs in the nest, so I'll take it.

Mr. Joe cat enjoying sunshine on a warmer winter day.

 Both myself and Joe cat also spent a lot of time outside the last few days.

The sun is up longer and longer these days that is gives ones hope that spring will be here soon!

I've been surveying my seed stock and prepping seeds saved from last year. I hope to save more and more each year.

I do love perusing the seed catalogs, but it is so easy to spend too much with them.

Winter weeds, iced over pond and farm field.

This depressing field is the site of current dreams and future plans of cover crops and grain.

Beyond the pond is several acres that have been farmed by a neighbor for years and years. We recently chatted with said farmer and are going to try to get something other than corn on the back property.

I have dreams of oats and straw for the chickens, so we shall see where that goes this year.

Jan 24-30 Meal Plan

BBQ Lamb Ribs

Roasted lamb ribs with butternut squash and tallow roasted potatoes


Steak and Kidney pie. (Beef steak, lamb kidney and tallow crust)
Kidney prep -cut ureters completely out, then  soak in vinegar water for 30 minutes, then drain. Then cook, and drain. Cover in wine and drain. Much better this time. Also added sage and thyme.

Chicken Dumpling Soup

Chicken and corn soup with dumplings

Lamb and sweet potato stew (slow cooker)

Steak and Kidney Pie

Jan 17-23 Meal plan

Salmon and Potato Chowder (slow cooker)

Sloppy Joes (slow cooker) with tallow roasted potatoes

Turkey noodle soup (slow cooker)

Sourdough pasta with spicy sausage and kale

Lentil and root veggie soup (slow cooker)