Animal update...

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of selling!  We sold a few various items from around the house but our primary concern was to sell the animals.

The rabbits have all been bought and picked up...save for a couple of stragglers that managed to escape.  We had some terrible winds here the other day - it picked up the shelter we had the butcher rabbits in and turned it over...releasing all 12 of our pre-sold rabbits.  They ran free for a couple of days until the buyers (our wonderful neighbors) came down and helped us to catch them.  All were caught but 2 so we called it a day and figured we would catch the remaining two some other time.  The breeding rabbits were bought as a package so we were able to sell them, their cage, and all of their supplies.

The cow has been bought by our neighbors however we worked out a deal that she gets to stay on our farm until she calves!  I wanted to be there for the birth and since they aren't ready to take in a cow just yet - it works out for everyone.  How lonely for our baby girl though as she'll be the only animal here through the winter. :(

The roosters were all purchased before the Thanksgiving holiday and the last of the hens will be picked up in a couple of days.  Good timing too as the starlings have shown up again and are eating freely out of the chicken feeder.  (I'll try to get a picture of the hoard of birds that fly in and out of the coop all day long.)  The youngest hens have just started laying too!

We're now finding ourselves slightly bored in the evenings with the absence of chores .  Everyday I continue to purge things from our drawers, cabinets, and lives.  A definite feat for a pack-rat like myself!

Eerily Quiet

We have since sold the remaining two goats and it's amazing how quiet the farm is without them.  Now there's only the crowing of the roosters and once those are gone, I can't imagine what it will be like around here.  Our chores have been reduced to about 20 minutes and hopefully will be 0 before winter.  There's nothing like having to bring in waterers into the house to thaw because they are frozen solid :)

We got a late start, earlier this year, in our decision of whether or not to raise pigs.  That late start meant that we ended up deciding to purchase a butcher-ready pig from a local farm.  We picked up our pig from the butcher and it feels so good to have the freezer completely full again!  We also went and picked up some sausage casings and cure mixes to make our own Italian sausage, pepperoni, brats, bacon, and hams.  We had the option of having the hams and bacon sent out to be cured but we wanted to do it ourselves.

The garden has taken on a "Halloween" theme - the tomato plants, which produced nothing, are black and reminiscent of those scary Halloween displays with the dead trees.  Since we made our decision, we've let the garden go and do it's own thing...which, thanks to the below-freezing temps lately, has pretty much died.  The only sign of life is the planter of oregano that died over the summer and is coming back in full force.

The Marans hen is finally laying again!  She's only a year and yet she's only laid a handful of eggs.  When she first started laying, she laid about 1/2 a dozen eggs before going "broody".  (That's when hens stop laying and want to sit on the eggs to hatch them....yes, they actually STOP laying when they are trying to hatch eggs.)  She was broody for about two months (normally it's about a month) then she started laying again.  But she only laid about 3 eggs before she went into moult (that's when chickens loose their feathers and grow new ones - and they don't have enough energy to grow new feathers AND lay eggs).  All of this started in July and it's now November and we're just now getting eggs again from her!  Definitely a novelty chicken...not one that I would choose for egg production.  The only other benefit to having a Marans hen is that she gave us the most beautiful 1/2 Marans, 1/2 Rhode Island Red rooster.  He is so big - he makes our purebred Rhode Island Red look like a mini...hahaha!  Of course, our celebration over her laying will be short-lived as she will be headed to her new home after Thanksgiving.

(I was going to post a picture of him but we sold him before I could get a decent picture.)

Other than that, we're still trying to sell what we can and scour the ads for an RV.  We'll have a better idea of what's in store for us after the holidays.  The more we sell, the easier it gets to let go of "things"... And we're hoping to take a trip to the local Yurt manufacturer to get a better idea of size and construction. :)

And before I go, I just have to share this link.  I follow a farm on Facebook and they posted the following link to a different farm's blog.  This idea would be great for homemade Christmas gifts or as a way to save a few dollars: Homemade Liquid Handsoap.  I'm already trying to think of a way to use my homemade soaps instead of a store-bought bar. ;)

A quick update

As I'm settling into our decision (yes, I am still trying to get a grip on it), things are moving along on the farm.  We've sold 2 goats, all of the butcher-ready rabbits, 1 breeding rabbit, all of our hens, some miscellaneous farm items, the chicken plucker, the apple grinder and press, and all the hay.  Only about a billion other little things to get rid of and we'll be ready...hahaha!  Seems like every time I open a cabinet or walk into a room, I'm faced with the overwhelming task of purging.  I'm trying to toss everything that is junk - those little trinkets and items that you know belong to something but can't remember at the moment exactly what it is ...so you hold on to it thinking you'll remember eventually....  But this only happens one cabinet or drawer at a time so it's not moving along as quickly as I'd like.

Our first destination is Erie, PA - to visit family.  That's about the only decision that is set in stone - well, that and where we'll settle down after our "trip".  We know it will be in Alaska, we just don't know where exactly yet.  Oh, and we know that we want a smaller house.  Actually, what we've been considering isn't even a house at all - we're looking at getting a yurt.  **I invite you to think outside the box and do a quick search on them.  I'll even give you the website that we've been perusing in our spare time - Alaskan Tough Yurts**  Everything in between seems to be up in the air - our current dilemma is whether to purchase our RV here or wait until we get to PA.  There seems to be a better selection here but we'll have more options available to us if we wait.  Ugh! The possibilities are endless....

Decisions, decisions.....

Over the last few weeks, we have made some difficult decisions involving our farm and our lives.  We have decided to sell the farm and hit the road.  We have realized that we work too hard to sustain our lifestyle and we are sacrificing our family time in order to do what we do.  We have always talked about traveling and figured why wait?  Why wait until we're 65+ years old when we can do it now?

We have already started selling some of our "stuff"... of which we have a LOT of.  We are constantly looking at our options and realizing that we have more available to us when we think outside the box....freeing ourselves from the societal "norms" that define what we're supposed to be doing.  Our dream has always been to return to Alaska and now this dream could become a reality... just with a slight road trip on our way there. :)

What does this mean for this blog?  I plan to keep writing (I have to maintain my sanity somehow - haha!), but the focus will be more on our travels and our family and of home-schooling.  Over the next few months, I'll try to keep it updated but cannot promise anything.  There's a lot going on here - selling of animals and belongings - so I'll do the best I can.

My first cow

I thought I would post a quick little something about our cow... she is the sweetest cow that you will ever meet.  A little shy at first but warms up with some edible encouragement.  Her name is Brandy and she is a purebred Jersey cow.  We bought her from some friends of ours and she came to us already bred... so in 9 months or so she will be giving us the most delicious milk!

She is only about 4 feet tall at the shoulders... honestly the most perfect family cow ever!

Busy, busy, busy....

This time of year is so very busy!  I had forgotten how busy we were last year, scrambling to get everything harvested, preserved and put up for winter.  Blackberries, apples, potatoes, summer squash, cucumbers....seems like everything wants to ripen at the same time!  I'll start first with the cheese.  In the last 10 days, I have made 2 batches of Fromage Blanc and 1 batch of Chevre.  Both are super easy and both follow the same method -

1) Heat milk to 86 degrees F (cow's milk for Fromage Blanc and goat's milk for Chevre)

2) Add culture and allow to rehydrate for 2 minutes, then stir to mix in.

3) keep milk at 72 degrees for 12 hours (I poured mine into a 1 gallon jar and put it in the sink full of 72 degree water.  It's much easier to control the temp of the water in the sink than the ambient air...The water temp is on the left of the thermometer.  I know the picture shows 75 degrees - it just hadn't cooled yet.)

4) Line a colander with dampened cheesecloth.  Ladle milk into cheesecloth.  You can collect the whey that drains and use it for various things (like making pasta or protein shakes) or you can give it to your chickens like I do.  :)  Allow milk to drain for 4-8 hours, until desired consistency is achieved.  Store in airtight container for up to 2 weeks in the refrigerator.  That's it!  Fromage Blanc tastes a lot like cream cheese and can be used in recipes that call for cream cheese.  The first batch came out with a weird consistency, almost grainy.  But then again, I started draining it at night and slept in a little late so it had dried a bit too much on the outer layer.  So I threw in some garlic, onion, and salt and made a dip.  (It's at this point that I pat myself on the back for not wasting a botched recipe AND for making something that my oldest really likes!)  I made the Chevre and froze it in 1-cup amounts, wrapped tightly in saran wrap and then vacuum sealed when frozen solid.  It freezes very well and my husband can enjoy fresh, homemade Chevre anytime he wants (I don't care for it).  Below is the batch of Chevre, which made 1 1/2 pounds of cheese from 1 gallon of milk.

Apparently, this year is a great year for cucumbers!  Last year, we were lucky to get the few that we got.  This year, I've already collected a few slicing cucumbers and over 15 pounds of pickling cucumbers!  I've been making pickles like crazy!  I've made two batches of bread & butter pickles (which turned out very good) and a batch of dill pickles (still waiting on the results of those).  This is a picture of the first set of pickling cucumbers that I got...

There were a couple of 1/2 pounds cucumbers in that bunch!!

And then there's the first harvest of both broccoli and summer squash.... This surprises me as broccoli is typically a cool weather crop and summer squash is a warm weather crop....guess we have the best of both worlds!  Our very late warm weather probably had a lot to do with it...

I just LOVE homegrown broccoli - it has such a wonderful flavor, almost nutty.  MMMMMM!  Our summer squash plants have gotten bigger than we thought they would.... much bigger than our zucchini did last year.

Our spaghetti squash is doing really well!  So far, at last count, we have 17 squash!  Here's a picture of the largest one...(sorry, I had to use my keys for comparison - they were the only thing I had with me)

The last couple of weeks, we also said goodbye to the first set of rabbits and hello to 2 more sets.  These ones are 2 1/2 weeks old - in the barn there's also some that are 1 week old and some that are 8 weeks old.

I love this age!  They're cute and look like miniature rabbits...these are 1/4 Champagne D'Argent and 3/4 Satin.  As they get older, their faces will get longer and they will actually look more like rodents...as bad as that sounds.  But this age...they're so cute and cuddly!  I just try not to think about what will happen in about 10 weeks.

The blackberries are starting to come in.  Last year, they took us by surprise as we didn't know they were there.  We picked every day for about 6 weeks...in the extreme heat (not that it's all that hot, but since I don't like to sweat - it was HOT).  Then there was blackberry syrup, blackberry jelly, and blackberry wine...not to mention the dozens of vacuum sealed packages of blackberries that we put into the freezer.  I was actually kind of dreading the blackberry's arrival this year...picking, sweating, cuts and scrapes, sweating, and cooking, oh, and sweating.  But one taste of my husband's blackberry jelly, mmmmm!  Yeah, I'd do it again!  And the size of the berries this year.... it's gonna be a great harvest!  Maybe we'll even be able to sell some....

We also harvested the last of the potatoes.... the russet variety.  Pretty cool - for our first time growing potatoes.  And since they were so easy, and we all love potatoes, we'll be doing them again next year.  For now, it's just a matter of storing them..... I dug them up all by myself while my husband was taking care of some much needed auto repairs.  I was careful and made a couple of observations about the garden....1)earthworms - excellent for the soil and the plants so I was careful to put them back into the dirt and gently cover them with soil so they wouldn't dry out in the heat (I resisted the urge to toss them to my chickens). 2)moles - the bad = they gnawed on a couple of my potatoes and one of my green tomatoes (grrr);  the good = they aerate the soil and allow for bigger potatoes.  So I figured a couple of lost potatoes was the cost for healthy soil and big taters.

There were a couple of odd ones in there....although perfectly good, they're just not something you'd see at the store. :)  And I kinda like that....

The early apples also ripened.  Unfortunately, the slight breeze that we had one day knocked the bulk of them down so we aren't gonna get as many as we would have liked... but there's still plenty on the tree.  And we still have a couple more trees yet to ripen.  We've offered the fallen apples to local farmers for their chickens and pigs...they love them!  And they don't care if there are bugs in them or if they have bruises....  But it's about this time that I'm wishing that we had our own pigs to feed them to... lesson learned - we're getting pigs again in April.

The picture below shows what we picked in about an hour - before the sun came out from behind the clouds and it warmed up too much.  It's not much, but it's more than enough to get me started on making some applesauce.

While picking apples, we stumbled upon this little guy....

We've also decided to make some changes around here.... but more on that later.  For now, I've got my hands full with fruits and veggies - with more coming in every day.  Later this week, I hope to be posting about a new addition to the farm... :D

Superwoman I am not

I have come to the realization that I am not superwoman.  No matter how hard I try or how many tasks I try to take on - I cannot do it all.

We have lived on our farm for almost 2 years now and we are starting to learn the groove of the seasons.  We now know that late summer/early fall is our BUSIEST time of year.  Mostly because of the garden and the orchard as the animals turn is in the spring.  Our apples are getting ready to "literally" fall off the trees -

This means that we'll be pressing apples and making applesauce and apple pie filling soon.  And since we have two varieties of apples - one early and one late - this means that we'll be doing all of that twice.  Everything that we can is coming into season - peaches, pears, tomatoes.  The blackberries (which there seem to be more of this year) will be ripe within the next couple of weeks - a task that I'm not really looking forward to as we picked blackberries everyday for a month last year, even when the temps were in the 90's!  But I'm willing to sacrifice a few beads of sweat to gather a few pounds of those delicious little berries!  Those berries eventually become blackberry jelly, blackberry syrup, and blackberry wine - all made by my husband.  YUM!

This was all made by one 25 pound box of tomatoes... that I bought from the local farmer's market.  I think I'll be in trouble once our tomatoes start ripening but I just couldn't help myself.  I plan on making lots of salsa - we found out that Tyler loves salsa.  He normally hates tomatoes but if he'll eat them in salsa, who am I to say no?

Here are the last of our red potatoes.  We pulled them all up a few days ago and were surprised at how many there were, especially since we've been pulling them up early and eating "new" potatoes.  Our guess, there's probably 50-75 pounds of potatoes there.  Not bad for a $5-10 investment in seed potatoes.  The "russet" variety should be ready to pull up in a couple of weeks.

I'm sure that all of this doesn't sound like very much, but it is time consuming.  Canning is an all day process that precludes me from doing the rest of my housework - laundry, cleaning, meals.  Normally, I would love an opportunity to avoid those chores but it all just seems to pile up around me.

Our field was cut, raked, and baled last week.  I just love the look of our pasture during this phase.  Something so peaceful about it.  But that also meant hauling bales of hay from the field into the barn.  This is when we learned that we are not as youthful as we were last year.  This time last year, we just tossed the bales from the back of the truck up into the loft.  Steve threw them up to me and I picked them up and put them into an organized stack.  There are not light - each bale is about 60 pounds which you pick up by squeezing the baling twine together to make a handle of sorts.  Quite the workout!  However this year, we have a different truck that is a little lower to the ground making the distance that he has to throw them up to the loft a little greater.  We resorted to just stacking them in the lower level of the barn until we get our hands on a bale elevator.

I just wanted to include this picture of some late season strawberries that I picked.  It always amazes me how we all love strawberries yet when there is a bowl just sitting on the counter full of them - they all end up in the compost pile.  These late season ones don't last long at all, one night in the refrigerator and the mold had already set in. Dang!  Didn't even have a chance to give them to the chickens....

Back to the topic...

In saying this, I'm trying to justify our decision to stop homeschooling, at least justify it to myself.  While ahead of other kids their age in some areas, such as biology, they are probably behind in other areas.  However, I am not enrolling them in the local elementary school - over my dead body!  I am fortunate enough to have a distance learning teacher that lives a few houses down.  And the boys LOVE going to their farm.  And they'll be able to interact with other kids ... hopefully their age.  And it will be small group interactions.  It's a lot like homeschool, as the bulk of their work will be done at home.  But the curriculum is set by the school district and guided by a teacher - a "certificated" teacher.  And, she has a LOT of experience working with special needs children.  I truly am - dare I say the word - blessed.

Wonderful days

After a wonderful visit yesterday with family that I haven't seen in years, I was on cloud nine.  Our boys don't have friends and there aren't any boys around us that are their ages so you can imagine how happy I was to have my aunt and cousin and her family come to visit.  Two of her children are roughly my boys' age and they played so well together!  It wasn't like going to the playground and watching my kids get pushed around by the other kids for being different - it was pure fun... the way kids are supposed to play.  I was able to show my family our farm and do one of my favorite things - cook for them.  I'm sorry, I must pat myself on the back a little here, but I am a pretty good cook.  And I love to do it.  Sure sometimes, usually when I'm cooking for other people, things don't turn out just the way I wanted but every time is a learning experience and I get better with each mistake.  We had roasted chicken (that we raised and butchered ourselves), potato salad (using potatoes, chives, and parsley from our garden and my homemade mayo), a salad (sadly I had to buy the ingredients as we didn't have any in the garden yet - but I bought them at the local farmer's market), homemade apple pie (using apple pie filling that I made from our apples and canned myself.  The crust was made using lard from our pigs.) and homemade ice cream (using raw cow's milk and eggs - from our hens of course).  Everything tasted fabulous!

Then today, Tyler volunteered to get the mail.  He ran back into the house, practically jumping with joy, and exclaimed, "It says 'Tyler Dickson'!"  Sure enough he had received a package.  (My children have inherited my love of the postal service - we all love to get mail/packages.)  To backtrack: I  recently reconnected with an acquaintance from high school on Facebook (it's been 17 years).  After previewing my profile and subsequently seeing my blog, she sent me a message saying how excited her husband was to find someone else who shares a passion for electric poles. (giggle)  She mentioned that her husband was probably somewhere on the spectrum and after reading about Tyler's obsession, he wanted to send him a book.  That was what arrived today.  Upon opening it, he did not react like most children would at the sight of a book, he was intrigued and curious.  I tried to explain it and show him a few pages but after seeing a couple of the pictures, he took the book and set about to reading.  I gave him a couple of minutes before I went looking for  him and I found him like this:

He was actually reading!  He has never shown so much interest in a book!  And here it was, a book about something that he is fascinated with, and he was sounding out words and reading on his own.  This lasted maybe 20-30 minutes but that is infinitely more than he's done before.  I was almost in tears!  Who knew that clicking a simple "Add Friend" button would lead to that?

My soapbox

I've been following a story about a small town that has made it a mission to destroy a family's small vegetable garden.  Add this to the various other articles and headlines that I read about our government's control over what we eat and I've come to the conclusion that our government officials - the same ones that we elected - think that we are naive and stupid.

I don't understand how one person, or a small group of people, can make laws or regulations that effects how millions of people eat.  I understand about safety, I understand about general guidelines, but if a person (or a family) wants to grow and raise their own food - why not?  And if they have an abundance, shouldn't it be their right to decide whether or not to share with their community?  Isn't this how it's been done for the last few hundred years??  Some of these officials believe that it is a woman's choice to have an abortion, yet we can't decide what to eat???

It frustrates me so!  Laws written to protect the many from the few.... ugh!  I know that my animals are healthy and that the milk and eggs and meat that they provide will not make me sick.  I don't know what the chemicals in the processed foods will do to me - especially in the long run.  I do know that I've never felt better or healthier - ever.  I do know that my son, who was diagnosed as Autistic, who was severely violent 2 1/2 years ago, who refused to learn anything from anyone - has shown me that our decision to get processed foods out of our system has been the best thing that I could have ever done for my children.

Wanna sample my homemade soaps??

I've been trying to make soap lately.  It's actually not as difficult as I thought it was going to be, but it requires a LOT of patience.  The soap bars have to cure or air-dry (or else the bar won't last very long) for a few weeks.  In preparation for my soap-making adventures, I read a lot of books, watched YouTube videos, and read blogs about how to make soap.  The process is a little tricky in that it calls for lye, which is a very caustic chemical.  Other than that, it's just a combination of oils that you can get from the grocery store.

Homemade Mayo

I have searched high and low for a mayonnaise recipe that I could make at home using normal, everyday ingredients that I have on hand.  Most of the recipes were the same - an egg, some seasonings, and oil.  The problem turned out not to be the ingredients - it was the method.  Each recipe said to s..l..o..w..l..y drizzle the oil into the egg while it was blending (or mixing or processing - depending on the machine you happen to be using).  Each time I tried this method, I ended up with a messy, separated goop that hardly resembled mayo.  So I tried an old method that my aunt told me about when I was younger.  We have been eating homemade mayonnaise using this recipe and method for over a year.  (Bonus: my kids can't even tell the difference between store-bought and homemade.)  Maybe this will help someone else out there.  **The bonus on this recipe is that it uses the WHOLE EGG - so there's no waste or trying to find something to do with a leftover egg white.

Celebrating Memorial Day on a Farm

This past Memorial Day weekend, our celebration was a little .... unorthodox.  

Now, mind you, I am formerly a suburbanite.  I was raised in the 'burbs of a big city and went on to live in various cities and suburbs in my young adult life.  Now that we have settled down and decided to start this farm, I am surprising myself (and anyone who knows me) by doing things that I never thought I could do..... like butcher a chicken.  

Growing up, I knew where our meat came from (and no, I didn't think it was the local grocery store).  I knew it was raised on a farm somewhere, then it was killed and cut up and packaged into the nice little packages that we bought at the store.  I was fine with not knowing the gruesome details.  Until I married a hunter.....

Lots of pictures!

I went a little crazy and took a bunch of pictures of our farm.  The weather was beautiful - how could I not??

Here are the ducks - I just can't help but sing that song from Sesame Street, "One of these things is not like the other..."  It's really too bad that their time on our farm is up, at least for 9 of the 10.  I kinda liked seeing all that white in the tall grass...

Homemade bread, butter, and creamer

In an effort to reduce (and one day erase) our consumption of soy and other ingredients that are not real food (not to mention not good for our bodies), I tried a couple of new things today that I thought I would share.

**Warning - this is a long post**

Normally, I'm not one to stray very far from a recipe - I might add or remove various spices, but I don't venture out too far.  But today I was making bread and thought I would try using butter instead of vegetable oil.  I happened to look on the back of the oil bottle the last time I was at the store and was disgusted to find out it was made from solely soy beans.  UGH!!

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, do some research on soy beans grown in "good ol' USA".  They are genetically engineered to withstand the weed-killing product known as Round-Up.  So the farmers plant these soy beans, then they can spray Round-Up and not kill their crop.  Makes sense but the soy plant is still absorbing those harmful chemicals, which goes to the bean, which is mass produced and processed into just about everything we eat.  The company that makes Round-Up is the one that genetically engineered the soy bean and their primary board members are also the heads of USDA, FDA, and the like.  They have also just come out with an alfalfa that is resistant to Round-Up.  Alfalfa is fed to animals, which then become or produce our food (milk, meat, eggs, etc).  Sorry, I have a tendency to get off topic.   

Anyhow, the bread recipe (found here) I have been using for a few years now is fairly simple. But today I tried using 1/4 cup of melted butter instead of 1/4 cup of oil.  The result - EXCELLENT!!!  Yea!!  Now, when I get my cow, I have another reason to make butter (like I really need another reason....YUMMY).  Especially since I make bread just about every other day!

* 6/11/2011 - I have recently been substituting 1 TBSP bread (or all -purpose) flour with 1 TBSP of potato flour and the results are a softer bread.  This makes an excellent sandwich bread but needs to be toasted a little longer to hold up to firm butter or refrigerated peanut butter.

Spring has Sprung!!

Well, it's definitely Spring 'round here!!  Seems as though we're up to our knees in babies....

Besides the ducks we got at the end of March -

and the cornish cross chicks we got at the beginning of April -

My children amaze me everyday.  It seems like I learn more from them than they do from me - sometimes.

Tyler, my oldest, has been ....we'll say "focused" ... on different things over the years.  This is common in children with autism.  They find an object or a "thing" and they talk about it, recreate it, draw it, etc, etc, etc.  Sometimes it can be irritating (like when he's in the car talking non-stop about his....whatever).  But for the most part, we just go with it.  We  think that it's a natural learning experience for him because he learns everything he can from the "thing".

Farm food

This past week has been amazing!  We added 30 new critters to the farm.  Okay, okay, it started out as 33 but we had a few casualties.  But all are doing fine now!  And in about 10 weeks, they'll be even better.....yummy!

Last Friday I received the yogurt maker that I had ordered.  I wanted to try a couple of different methods, but I couldn't bring myself to risk losing that much milk to "test" out their methods.  Our precious raw milk is too valuable to waste... I'll explain the two other methods just in case someone has "extra" milk they want to experiment with.  Maybe once we get our cow, and have LOTS of milk to use, I'll try their methods.

A time for change.......

Things are always changing around here.  I know my last post was almost a year ago *embarrassed* - I can't believe it's been that long.  When I left off, the workload was picking up and I simply didn't have the energy at the end of the day.  I can't make any promises for the future, but I'll try to do better.

So much has happened in the last year, I'm not really sure where to start.  Let's see: