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Archive for the ‘winter stores’ Category

I’m always amazed by the sheer volume of raw food it takes to make sauce of any kind.  Our Yellow Transparent apples finally started to ripen.  I didn’t get them thinned (like I ever do) so they are small to medium, and plentiful.  Usually I like to make chunky applesauce, but I don’t like to peel [...]

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Finally, the tomatoes are getting some color.  Still not enough to preserve yet, but hopefully soon… .  At least enough to eat all we want.
 
My daughter is now old enough to do some preserving on her own, and she gets real interested if it’s something she actually grew.  Sometimes I pay attention, sometimes [...]

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Remember that hay that was getting wet?  All baled and acting like 400+ sponges.

We have spent the last 2 1/2 days of DH’s vacation, cutting all the bales and spreading them by hand back into windrows.  How’s that for backwards thinking?  We have to be able to pick it up out of the field.  Since we [...]

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Remember when I said try not to bale your hay if rain is pending?  Because then it is hard to salvage if it gets wet… .  Well, Miss Executive Decision Maker, spoke the words “Bale it!”  With a shrug, DH climbed on his trusty steed and baled away.  My thinking was, we hardly ever get [...]

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This post contains many pictures - dial-up beware! 
Here’s what the gardens look like now in mid-August.  The heat has been 102* for the last three days - I guess maybe it’s time for that mean, ol’ dry land gardener to drag out the sprinklers and soaker hoses!
We’re just been busy keeping everybody (except us) in [...]

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Or should I say, “Who is farming, who?” 

Della, aka as Queen D, Smella, Mook, and Knock it Off!
Cows Rule, I love cows, my first words were, “COME BOSS,” okay, maybe not. . . well, you get the picture.  I believe animals are an essential part of agriculture, and necessary for agriculture to survive.  The animals [...]

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We spend all summer harvesting sunlight, just so we can meter it out over the dark days of late fall, and winter, and then the lean spring while waiting for the new spring growth.  Grass, firewood, hay, vegetables, meat, milk, seeds, fruit and suntans.  It’s no wonder we worship the sun.  We long for it, and [...]

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Here it is, Tansy, in all it’s runny glory.  Be forewarned I don’t follow every rule or recipe. 
So I made this one up.  We rarely eat bread, and most of the “jam” I make, ends up in yogurt or on ice cream, or in apricot bars.  We favor taste, over concrete-like jam.  Maybe I should [...]

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If I was a medium breed dog, that is.  Today is my birthday, and I’m doing something that I have done on many birthdays before.  I’m canning.  My dogs are sleeping at my feet, (they are 15 and 49)waiting for a bit of apricot to fly off the cutting board, and it’s raining.  If it [...]

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Hay means a great deal to us on our farm.  It is the food we put by for our cattle, who are very important to us.  They provide us with meat, milk, nutrient rich manure, leather, and tallow for soap, cooking and candles. (I haven’t made candles yet, but I still save my tallow.)  In addition, they [...]

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I spent all day Saturday, canning, well not really all day, just my “spare” time not allotted for regular chores.  This isn’t a how-to post, just my reflections about food preservation. 
Kerr canning jar manufactured in 1957, the year I was born.
Food preservation is part of my life everyday, as it has been since I was born.  Not [...]

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Sorry, I like Aerosmith, and I’m tired of sayings like “Life is just a bowl of cherries.” 
The surest way to get the fruit lady to call me and tell me the cherries will be here tomorrow, is to do this - it seems haying time is cherry canning time.

Raked hay
The cherries are late this year, [...]

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Poor Farnsworth, I know how he feels - I’ve got a bad case of weeds too!  Some are by my own hand, which, when they present themselves, make the light bulb go on (sometimes.)
I won’t take the blame for these weedy garlic rows.  Overwintering alliums are hard to keep weed free, since they span two [...]

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It’s always a struggle to get things in the gardens and greenhouse under control before we start haying.  So far, we’re behind.  While the guys were making noise yesterday, I snapped off all the garlic scapes for pesto, and the bolting tops on the multiplier onions, the weeds in the garlic I think I will [...]

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No gruesome photos today.
Here is the breakdown on the costs of raising this batch of chickens, and my thoughts on whether it is worth it or not.  If I didn’t stretch these chickens so far, getting 5 days of lunch meat for DH, 2 family meals and a fair amount of broth per week, raising [...]

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WARNING - LOTS OF BLOOD AND BODY PARTS WILL BE SHOWN AFTER THE SERENE VIDEO and the first 5 pictures.
 Last supper - really it is last lunch.  

Here is what those adorable chicks I showed you 8 weeks ago, turned into.  Grass and grain eating and pooping fertilizing fools.   I’ve just moved them to fresh grass, [...]

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If I have a dismal season in the garden or hay department this year, maybe I can eat my words!
Blogging makes me feel even more accountable about what I say and do, here are some examples of things I’ve said of late that fit in the category of “DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO…”
♣  [...]

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