Several Year Catch Up!

 Well, it is nice to look back at this blog and see how some things have changed. We have moved to Minnesota, and purchased a hobby farm.

Nine spoiled hens and one lucky rooster (back left).

We got chicks this past spring. They were housed in the shed on the property until a couple of weeks ago, when they moved into their own sunny shed.

We butchered fifteen roosters and now have one rooster and nine hens to overwinter. We also have a decent amount of meat in the freezer and quite a bit of tasty chicken stock. 

We were getting around six eggs a day at the beginning of the month, but now it is two eggs a day. 

LOTS of designing and hard work from hubby.

Chickens are a fun reason to go outside in the winter. Oh wait, it's still fall! The weather could have fooled me.

 We spent a great deal of time on this chicken shed this past year. It is based on Fresh-Air Poultry Houses, which have been successful as far north as Canada for a century, so it seemed like a good design for our birds as well.

Clearly it is not completely done, but the chickens don't seem to mind too much. Next year we will add the siding, chicken door and fancy details (like paint, ha).

Herb and vegetable garden tucked in under mulch and snow.

Any other free time I had was spent implementing and bettering a garden. There is a lot of lawn on our acreage, and while I learned to mow it, less is definitely better. Turning lawn into a food-producing garden has been a great exercise program. We have a vegetable garden, as well as an asparagus bed, a strawberry bed and an herb garden.

Our garden soil leaves much to be desired, with lots of packed clay and rocks. I have added some mulch, compost and manure, and plan to add much more over time.

Red Prairie Spy apple tree ready for winter.

There are currently some veggies sleeping under that snowy mulch in the picture. Under a blanket of leaves and straw are parsnips, carrots, leeks, green onions, parsley and kale (lots of kale). It got above freezing last weekend and I was able to go out and harvest all of the above, as well as turnips and fall radishes. I can't say we are feeding ourselves only from the garden, but it is nice to have fresh produce from your backyard for a number of months.


I also spent many days planting fruit trees and bushes. Tender young plants are like candy to deer and mice, so trees need to live in cages to make it past the critters. Hopefully all the hard work will pay off in a couple of years, with lots of tasty results!

I planted three apple trees, two pear, a sweet cherry, a tart cherry and a peach tree. All are hardy to our Zone Four weather, with most of the stock coming from a nursery in Wisconsin, so I am optimistic. There are also blueberry, gooseberry, current, raspberry and blackberry plants.

Many frozen apples left for the deer.

There are two apple trees on the property from the previous owner. He is a big bow hunter, so the trees are well-placed for deer access, and not so much for people. Consequently, they saw minimal care before we got here.

We pruned the trees early this year, and also gave them several holistic sprays, based on this lovely book. We harvested a great deal more apples this year than last year because of these sprays.
There is still a lot of work to be done, but I have at least identified some of the problems to address. Judging by the harvested apples, we deal with apple maggots, coddling moths, plum curculio and a couple types of fungus.

It's pretty easy to see why apples are among the heaviest sprayed produce!

Veggies, fruit and stock.

Throughout the growing season, I've been working on putting up as much produce as possible. The applesauce is from our trees, and that fact alone is thrilling to me.

A lot of things were still purchased in bulk from the farmer's market, to have a large amount to can at one time. The bunnies really hit my beans and beets hard before we got the fence around the garden.

It is easier to buy a can of veggies from the store, but it is nice to look at the cupboard and feel a sense of pride in its food.

We have a decently full freezer right now, and soon to be quite full, after we get our quarter of beef. We purchased our first quarter in February from HD Beef Works. The meat is grass-fed and delicious. I look forward to more options when shopping from the freezer!

Allis Chalmers tractor

Our most recent exciting development on the farm is that we got a tractor. It is older than both of us, but is the right color for my husband's family, and will be a lot of help around here. It also means I can call where we live a farm, right?

The day we brought it home, we used it to haul chicken bedding from the big shed in to the garden, as we were relocating the chickens to their new home.

The plan is to also use it for snow removal, as it seems like we will have a harsh winter, similar to last year.

The plans a tractor opens up for the future previously seemed like dreams, and are now just an attachment away! I'm sure someone used that as a sales pitch at some point.

It is so easy to give into the winter blues at this time of year, so it is very nice to look back fondly at a very productive year. I love looking back at the previous blog posts and seeing many of those dreams fulfilled. It makes one very optimistic for the future, and for the fact that dreams do come true! With an awesome husband and a lot of work, that is. ;-)

The Beauty of Spring, and Idealist Dreams

It's a little funny that in the past month, we have gone from Winter to Spring, in a big way. I've got peas and radishes going nuts in the raised bed, and my snapdragons are about to go back into crazy blooms. Spring fever is in full-swing, and it's really hard not to go out and turn the whole yard into a garden every time the sun is shining.
I have my hot weather seedlings chugging along nicely under a grow light in the dining room. I have an interesting array of heirloom tomatoes, as well as a purple tomatillo, ground cherry and miniature pepper plants. It's fun to think of them looking like their seed catalogue cousins in just a few months!
As there isn't too much more I can do outside at the moment, I've found a lot of interesting hobbies for indoor time. Every winter I manage to re-learn knitting, with it getting easier each year. This year I am determined to continue it even after the warmer weather comes, though I usually just go running outside instead. I'm almost done with a classy wool scarf for hubby, and I'm working on my first sock. We'll see if I get as far as making its friend, but here's to hoping!
I also sewed a simple skirt last weekend. I haven't made one since high school, and that one looks okay from a distance - if anyone who has half an idea about sewing looks at it closely, however, it's pretty scary. Patience is something I'm working on, and did not have much of in high school. My recently completed skirt does have lovely french seams and an elastic waistband to make its bold 70's pattern quite flattering.
I've been glued to a lot of books recently - thanks to the library and Amazon!

• Sewing in a Straight Line - has the skirt pattern I used. Listed as a 1 hour project, which took me about 5, but whatever, it's done!
• A Very Small Farm - needed a small book to read on the bus/Metro last week, and this just happened to be the right size. It's one of those books that just makes your heart feel good (or at least mine).
• Make the Bread, Buy the Butter - was on the waitlist at the library for months for this one, but it was definitely worth the read. Hubby actually told me to read this one (mostly because I make butter sometimes and he thought it would convince me to not make it!).

Another source of ideas/projects/inspiration has been the blog Cold Antler Farm. I got her book from the library a few months back and have been following her blog ever since. The little farm that she now has is a big inspiration, and her new book, Barnheart, looks interesting as well. I'm inclined to wait until I can get it from the library, but I do look forward to reading it. What she describes as "Barnheart" is really how I feel right now.

Symptoms of Acute Barnheart: Endless hours spent baking bread, studying chicken coop plans, gathering eggs, browsing seed catalogs, weeding the vegetable garden, attending sheepdog trials, dreaming about heritage-breed livestock, and longing incessantly for a farm of one's own.

While I don't have chickens (yet), and I don't have a sheepdog or heritage animals (yet), this is pretty much my dream and goal for the (near?) future. Hubby, who is from rural Minnesota, is decently frightened when I really get talking about it, but neither of us want to continue to live, or eventually raise a family, locked in the suburbs. I like to think my crazy hobbies are just research and preparedness for the future!

For now, I'll let the cats out to mow the grass, and keep dreaming. :)



Awaiting Spring; Winter Foods

Winter just hasn't been that...winter-y around here. All of the area bulbs have been halfway out since mid-January, and I noticed some daffodils in full sun blooming last week. The temperatures are still bouncing between actually cold, and quite spring-like, but I have to remember to hold my horses when it comes to spring planting etc. My neighbors did think I was a little crazy for putting together the new garden bed in the beginning of February, but now it will be ready when the weather is!

As it is still winter, I'm trying to go through the stock of food built up in our freezer and pantry. Last fall we purchased a decent amount of beef from Oakland Green, an old farm/ B&B about an hour northeast of us. Hubby actually went with me (likely to restrain my spending, but he actually chose the more expensive cuts!) and we had a lovely time - resulting in bringing home enough meat to fill half of our freezer. We've since gone through the roasts and ground beef, and I have been slowly incorporating the more "interesting" cuts (offal), which are cheaper and require some creativity to make appetizing. Liver is still not high on my list, and tongue does add a different taste (even when slow-cooked in BBQ sauce), and the heart also makes a decent stew. It's nice to try different things that we may otherwise not have, and I like the idea of making use of/eating the whole creature. The freezer is the emptiest its been in a long time, save for stock, pizza sauce and even some ice cubes (which makes the hubby very happy).

My Reblochon is aging nicely in our corner (by the poorly insulated back door -thus nice and cool for cheese aging!) and I've been learning a lot along the way. The main thing I learned is that brushed rind cheeses are actually not that easy, and possibly not the next step I should have taken! After the cheese is pressed and salted, it needs to be flipped and wiped down with a brine every other day, and I guess such diligence is not my strong suite. I ended up battling some vicious fuzzy blue mold (not the yummy good kind!) and I think I delayed my cheese's proper aging in the process. In the past week it has finally started to develop its characteristic orange hue, and my blue arch nemesis seems to have been put on the back burner.

Just to prove that things haven't stopped fermenting here, I made my first batch of Kombucha, from a scoby I grew myself! I don't like the idea af spending $20+ to purchase a starter (and then what if something goes wrong?!?), so I found a method to grow it from one store-bought bottle ($3 - much better!). It's neighbor the sourdough starter is starting to behave (and smell/taste) better, mostly because I've learned how to better take care of it (aka cook with it more often!). I just pre-baked a couple of sourdough pizza crusts for dinner tonight - to be topped with homemade mozzeralla and pizza sauce! I'm still working on acheiving the proper crust and flavor when baking sourdough loaves, but they are steadily improving in both departments.

Hubby does not always appreciate all the healthy foods I keep around here (and therefore force upon him), so for Valentine's Day, he received a basket of goodies that don't normally make it through our door. Candies and chips were the majority, but some homemade chocolate chip cookies seemed to also go over well. The flowers he got me are still doing well, but the chocolate and banana bread beer are now only a memory. ;) 

Current and Future Food; Early Spring as Well?

Well, now we've started February and we should be in the middle of winter. Virginia is, technically, part of the South, but it's still not supposed to be 65 degrees in February! All my bulbs in the front yard are inches above the ground and pushing higher by the day. My garlic never died back, so everybody received a healthy dose of bulb fertilizer this past weekend. I am very prepared to put blankets and/or sweaters on everyone, should winter decide to make a comeback (as it is prone to do).

This past weekend was comprised of two time consuming and rewarding undertakings - multiple dozens of cupcakes, and a raised bed in the backyard. I always love an excuse to test my baking abilities, and my co-workers are always happy to test the results - especially when a birthday is involved. After much planning and mess-making, the resulting two dozen normal sized cupcakes and three dozen mini cupcakes were ready for celebrating and sharing. The green-topped lovelies are mint chocolate chip, and about as tasty as two perfect bites could be. Making mini cupcakes is definitely a lot more work (a recipe for a dozen normal cupcakes equals three dozen+ minis), and I only have one mini pan at the moment, so there was a lot of shift work for that pan. As cupcakes go, the minis are the absolute perfect size, however. I try to avoid making a ton of white sugar/white flour baked goods, but this recipe is definitely going into the repertoire.

The warm weather of the past couple of days made it impossible to stay inside; also impossible to not think about this year's garden. I stuck my name on the list for our local community garden plots, but I won't hold my breath for this year. So, I bought a couple more fabric pots for the front yard, and also got the itch to put a raised bed in the backyard to try my root veggies again. I tried double digging a small corner late last summer for some fall crops, but even with all the amendments, the clay compacted right back down. This second attempt involved about a hundred bucks worth of cedar bed kits (two of them), amendments and the most bad ass shovel I could find. In addition to breaking our back digging up the ground last year, hubby snapped our ground breaking tool in half last year. It seems that this shovel was the answer because even our awful clay didn't stand a chance against it. Once I mastered the in-and-outs of the power drill (and leveled the yard to the smallest extent), the box of beautiful soil was ready for spring. I still need some more compost and soil to fill it a bit more, but fast-forward to early March and there will be spring planting happening! All my attempts with root vegetables have failed thus far (mostly in large pots, and then the stupid clay), so fingers and toes are crossed for success this time.

I also finally got around to starting the earliest of the early seeds. I want my annual herbs and flowers to be approximately nursery size around last front time, so we are going for an extra early start. The Striped Marigolds from Monticello and heirloom bok choi are the first to emerge. The Bok Choi seeds are from '08 so I am especially impressed with their vigor! Sharing the grow light next to the seeds are a couple of Rosemary cuttings (I expected my main plant in the front yard to croak, but it is heading towards medium-sized bush status!), as well as my lone Alpine Strawberry, and an Oakleaf Hydrangea started from a cutting (very proud of that kid). We're going to have to do some re-arranging at the end of this month to accomodate the onslaught of tomato family seeds (several heirloom varieties, but tomatillo and ground cherry as well), how exciting!

Now it is time to make some soup, because it is still February!

Fermentation Station

Winter is the best time of year to have furry pets - I have Wren warming my lap as I type. It is hard to be productive with 1-3 sleeping cats on or around you, but I guess it must happen.
As nice as the holiday seasons were, with the family visits and all, it's nice to be back to peace and quiet. My family visited us for Thanksgiving, and then hubby and I flew to Minnesota for Christmas with his family. It was all quite lovely (and made me wish we could move out to MN some time in the near future!).

More free time at home has meant a whole lot more kitchen adventures. Our counter has been home to countless new concoctions in recent weeks - hubby doesn't even ask anymore, ha. I tried out this homemade root beer recipe which, despite needing a bit of sugar, actually tastes pretty good. I don't know if I would make this particular recipe again, but hubby drank it, and that is no small feat, but I think I would tweak the drink in the future. My results were not particularly fizzy, so I might try one of the bottles at room temperature for a few more days and check the results. Our house isn't particularly well insulated, so it's probably cooler than ideal temps anyways.
The groovy bottles came from Fifth Season Gardening Co. in Charlottesville. Hubby knows that when I go to the C-ville area, I'll be coming home with lots of crazy stuff, hehe. They carry seeds from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, my absolute favorite seed company, as well as cheesemaking basics (didn't want to pay shipping on pounds of cheese wax!) and all kinds of home brewing necessities. I finally obtained some large glass containers, and am trying my luck at a homegrown kombucha starter. It will hopefully soon be joining the ever-present water kefir and sourdough on the counter.

If it isn't obvious yet, I've been trying to avoid buying fruit juices. The two of us used to go through a container a week, and while I began watering them down, it seems better to generally cut them out. Thus all of the different fermented drinkables. Today I bottled the most recent attempt, an orange drink similar to the "Orangina" in Nourishing Traditions. I added sugar, which may have been what changed it up, because now I have something that tastes like a dry "orange" cider. It's also a little too salty. I wish I had the tool to measure alcohol percentage because I obviously left things fermenting longer than intended! A couple pinches of stevia and a handful of ice makes it decently enjoyable.
There is a gallon of delicious local milk in the fridge that is begging to be made into cheese, so I think I will try my hand at a washed-rind cheese, namely Reblochon. Wish me luck!

Also I have to leave on this completely unrelated holiday food note - Christmas pudding! I made one for a work holiday party, as I have been dieing to make one, and it makes enough for a small army. It turned out entirely delicious and decently brandy flavored - would totally make again, if only for the show. :)

Fall Kitchen Adventures

As the temperatures have dropped a bit (finally), I have been spending a lot more time in the kitchen. I've made dozens of things that I've been meaning to post, but have been too busy making more to do so!

I have to make a little bit of a timeline, as a lot of this cooking has stemmed from one thing - attending the Heritage Harvest Festival this past September. It was at Monticello (in Charlottesville, Va - not all that close!) and I was just excited about seeing the vegetable garden again, not to mention all the actual festival goings-on. It was not quite the hippy-fest my hubby accused it of being - mostly different organizations and vendors promoting whole foods. I walked around with a goofy grin on my face the whole day. The two main things I took from it (besides a strong-burning desire to move to central Va!) were a renewed interest in cheesemaking and brand new interest in fermented foods.

I bought this cheesemaking book last year with the thought that sometime in the distant future I would be able to use more than just the yogurt recipe - that time became now! I have since made lots more yogurt, fresh chevre, Fromage Frais (a fresh cow's milk cheese), Domiati (brined cow's milk cheese), buttermilk, cultured fresh butter, and there is cream cheese in process right now. The main hurdle to overcome was finding a source of good milk - I have since found a few! Moo Thru, about an hour south of here (pasturized, but unhomogenized, and their ice cream and grilled cheese are to die for...yum!), Trickling Springs Creamery which I've found at the MOM's stores in the area (but it's from PA, but they sell bottled cream - so much easier!!), and I recently found a have yet to try South Mountain Creamery which is from MD and is available at one of the farmers markets here. So there is no limit to the cheese making now! :)

The fermentation adventures are evidenced above - water kefir, kimchi, saurkraut, turnips and beets. A lot of the cooking I'm doing right now is from Wild Fermentation and subsequently Nourishing Traditions. These books are definitely not for everyone - both authors have very strong views on the world (I don't necessarily agree with all of them either) but their books are spectacular. I still have lots to learn from them, so all the better!

Enjoying Late Summer Bounty

Well, it is raining here, as it is on most of the East Coast, so now seems as good a time as any to get blog-land up to speed. The weather is starting to cool off a tiny bit, so the garden tomatoes seemed to have petered out, but the beans are flowering up a storm of promised orange and purple blooms.

The farmer's market has also been quite generous with its tasty produce. In the last few weeks I've acquired nicely priced baskets of tomatoes, peaches and also a couple of the monster zucchinis one expects at this time of year. The tomatoes became over 12 pints of tasty salsa, with its heat coming from our garden chilies.
The peaches make us whole-heartedly appreciate living in the south because they are unmatched. They became a spectacular peach jam, spiced peach butter, canned for later pies etc. and even dried peaches. The toaster oven did a great job with slowly drying them out (until I can financially justify a dehydrator, that is!). We look forward to popping open fresh jars of summer flavor this winter. :)

One small portion of the baseball bat-sized zucchini became a couple loaves of whole wheat chocolate chip zucchini bread. The King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking book is on my top 10 list for sure. If you're going to bake goodies, they should be whole wheat if at all possible, and this book makes it not only possible, but downright tasty! One loaf was shared among the coworkers, and the other is being quickly devoured at home.

The cats have been enjoying the season as well. As it cools off, there are more walks on the harness, and recently one realized that corn provides him with nature's string. He hoovered up the silks that fell on the ground, and even tried to eat some of the husk before I took it from him (not wanting to clean it up shortly after).

And because we cannot end on a cat barf note, here is my reblooming lilac, reblooming. It's a wonderful smell to be able to enjoy for most of the year!