Pickles

I started making pickles with cucumbers from our garden on Friday. I have 5 quart jars so far and the plants show no signs of slowing down. I am using a salt and whey only recipe from a cook book of my mothers called Nourishing traditions, by Sally Fallon. They're the kind of pickles I had growing up: they fizz in your mouth when you bit into them (i know that sounds strange but they are very good), like a nice kosher dill pickle. A lot of books say its not safe to to make pickles without vinegar but people have been making them for a very long time and i think you must use your common sense: smell and look at them before eating.

How i made them:

Place clean quart jars in an 200* oven for 20 min. Carefully remove jars from oven and place in each jar:
-2 cloves of Garlic
-1 head of Dill or 1 tbsp Dill seed
-1 tbsp Mustered seed
-1 tbsp pickling Salt
-1/4 cup Whey*
Pack you cucumbers in the jar so they don't float while leaving 1-2 inches head space. Fill the jar with warm water, screw on lid and shake to help dissolve the salt. Store at room temp for 3 days in the dark and then place in the fridge or in cold storage. They are ready to eat as soon as there cold, but i prefer to eat them when they have started to get fizzy, after a month or so.

* I get my whey from draining yogurt in a sieve over a bowl for 12 hours in the frige. It leaves me with a bowl of whey (which will keep in the fridge for a month) and nice thick yogurt which is easier to feed to Liam and makes a nice spread in a sandwich. If you can't or don't want to use whey just add an extra tbsp of salt.

*** All information is intended for your general knowledge only. Use this canning and preserving information at your own risk.

Hope you enjoy the recipe!

Things I've learned about geese

The geese have become a bit of a pain around here lately. Matt and I have had to show some great restraint in not thrashing them some days. They have become the bullys of the farm as of late and have been getting into everything. They are just smart enough to get into trouble but not much more. We have had to put a baby gate up in the porch to keep them out of the cat food (which they love to eat, who know?) and today I have had to chase them out of the chicken coop and pen three time so far. Most of the cats have learned to stay away from them as the geese will try to take a chunk out of them at any chance they get. They don't seem to like Liam very much but thankfully for them they keep there distance even if they do make a big fuss about him being out in the yard. I'm sure they are eating there fill of grass but it really dose not seam to be making a dent in the yard though you would never know it by the amount of manure they are leaving everywhere.

I don't want to say that there days are numbered because I'm not sure what if anything I want to do about them. One option is to sell them now and try to make my investment back. Another is to wait till around Christmas and add them to the freezer, but I do have people asking to buy eggs in the spring if they start laying. I have read that if you don't have a gander then they might not lay at all and I'm not sure what sex are geese are because I have not had the guts to catch and hold one long enough to find out. For all I know they could be all ganders; then i'm really out of luck. Someone said that if they have brown eyes then they're female and blue eyes means males but they all have brown eyes so I don't know if that means all girls or nothing at all.

I had originally planed to put some in the freezer (for us or to sell) and keep the rest to breed for the spring.

At this point I'm not sure what is going to come first: The freezer or the eggs. I think we will have to wait and see if we can put up with there nastiness. The chance to sell them will be good for some time and I think we will have to get creative as to how to handle them before I give up.

Wish me luck!

Eating it up

We finally had a couple of rainy days this week after a lot of sun. It was not very nice weather to work outside, but it was great in the greenhouse. I had a chance to get down on my hands and knees and take a good look at the plants. I was so surprised to find the plants much further along then I thought. At the end of my time in the greenhouse it was so nice to stand back and look at how nice everything looked after it had been weeded and pruned.
One of my 3 eggplant plants has a baby eggplant growing on it and the other 2 have flowers so hopeful I will be making eggplant parm soon. Its hard to tell from the photo but the fruits almost the size of my thumb.
I had to do a double take when I first saw this cucumber. Its the first one I'v ever grown and the first thing to come from the gardens here at the farm because we are a bit behind this year. I don't know how it got so big so fast. All the other cuc's are itsy bitsy, but this one was a monster. I'm growing them to make pickles mostly so I don't want them to get much bigger then this one did.
Liam and I enjoyed the cucumber for lunch the next day. I had it on toast with yogurt spread and him straight up. I think he enjoyed his first home grown food. I know I enjoyed watching him eat it and I can say it didn't tasted to bad either.

role call

It feels like our farm is starting to fill up:

43 Chickens

12 Cats

6 Geese

And

3 Humans

So busy

Things have been so busy around here since we got back, its like i have to do everything now that i missed last week. Thankfully my brother has come to stay for a few weeks to help me get some stuff done.The day we got back one of our Americauna chickens started laying so its been so nice to go into the hen house and find a little blue/green egg with the lovely brown ones.
I started a batch of sour cherry wine this week. I got the recipe from my mom and its the first time i'm trying it. So far it smells really good; kind of like cherry pie and yeasty bread. Its bubbling away now and hopeful it will work. If it dose i'll share.
I must say that the one time i feel at peace with everything that is going on here is when i'm hanging clothes on the clothesline. It must be in the evening while Liam is hanging out with Matt. Nothing seems as overwhelming and it feels like i'm getting something done. As i'm shaking out the wet clothes the fact that the counter is coved in dishes or that i'm not sure what to do with 12 cats (oh yes ginger her kittens) dose not seem to weigh on me so much.

Holiday

We went on a nice little holiday to my parents house last week. They live about 7 hours north of us, and it was my first solo trip with Liam. The two of us went up a few days earlier with the car and then Matthew follow us up after he got off of work on his motorcycle. It was so nice to visit the place that was my home until just a few years ago. We haven't made the trip since Christmas last year when Liam was only a wee baby and napped the whole trip.My boys had a wonderful time in the hammock one afternoon. I believe we will soon have one in our yard if they have anything to do with it. I am going to have to start hunting for one at the thrift stores.
Liam, I and ante Emma went on a nice walk one of our first evenings we were there. I picked a bunch of daises and made a little flower crown for my little prince. It was a beautiful day, almost just like fall, which is one of my favourite times of year.
It was great to spend time with family and for them to see Liam who was been growing so fast.

Picking up chicks

Our order of 30 duel propose meat chicks came in on June 22nd with 2 extra. They were so cute and little. I know they wouldn't stay like that for long. Right now they are about 2 weeks old, almost covered in real feathers and are running around in a pen in my laundry room. They are going to have to go outside soon as I am getting sick of the smell and bust. We are planing to slaughter them ourselves so we can learn how. We have some extra hands to help so I think we should be OK. We are going to let them grow for about 11 weeks so that brings the big day to around mid September.
We unpacked then, showed them where the water and food was and left them to grow big and fat! So far things have been going very well and we hope that continues.