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Archive for the ‘zero mile foodshed’ 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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The swallow’s favorite vantage point.  Every morning they land here on the shop roof, to warm up and plan their day.  The recent rains have caused a flush of insects, so they have been busy.  We counted 120+ of barn swallows and violet-green swallows.  It’s not unusual to see 50 or so swooping around the [...]

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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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I’m dating myself again, I like Ted Nugent, too.
Ahhh, fruit what can I say?  Everybody likes fruit in one form or another.  We eat a lot of fruit.  Breakfast, lunch and dinner, it seems like we never have enough.  We buy extra fruit of different kinds that don’t grow well here, like apricots, nectarines and [...]

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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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I grew up eating out of our garden and orchard.  Store bought didn’t happen very often. So, I don’t have any qualms about eating less than perfect looking food.   With food prices on the rise and more people gardening, people will have to get used to blemished food.  (Pesticides aren’t good for you, and sometimes it is easier to just [...]

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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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I love that song, Just Shut Up and Drive.  I find that one in my head a lot.  But, sometimes it has to be the homestead version… .
It’s no secret I like to can.  Or put up food.  It is comforting to me and I like the process.  But, being a claustrophobic farmgirl tomboy, I [...]

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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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Linda wanted to see Henry’s other asset, so here it is.

That is definitely a standing rump roast!  Nice dapples there you!!  When the cows are slick in the summer, their dapples look like maple leaves, instead of round like horses dapples.

Naptime.
I’m trying to get my hay post done, and I have to do an anniversary [...]

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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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I want to leave a light effect on this land that I have had the great fortune to grow up on.  To do that, I have to understand when I have to be hard and when I have to be soft.  Usually, I have to do both at the same time.  Finesse is required to [...]

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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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