Merry Christmas from Epitherrien Farms

Steve and I started to holiday with putting up the outside decorations and having a small snow ball fight.  Grey, our pet rooster didn't like the fact that Steve's snowballs met the mark each time he threw one, he came to my rescue.  Feathers fluffed and head spiked out he ran straight for Steve.  Of course he doesn't do anything once he gets to you, just wants you to stroke his feathers.  Weird bird.
Dinner that night was Butterflied pork chops with a sauce from Bobby Flay that will be a regular in my kitchen now, Pomegranate black pepper sauce.
1/2 cup pomegrante molassas
2 tbsp fresh ground black pepper
1 tbsp prepared hot horseradish
Mix all ingredients thoroughly and warm to blend flavors.  Spoon over seared pork chops, Heaven!
Bobby Flays original recipe makes more of the suace and he serves it over roasted turkey.
I served the pork chops with southern greens cooked with vinegar and chilies, swiss chard and collards from the garden.
The night before Christmas eve we had a Quebecois dinner.  First Course Poutine!  French fries served with unaged white cheddar cheese curds and a hot gravy type sauce.
Second Course was Tourtier! American's would not know what this is but it is a pork pie that melts in your mouth.  Ground pork, onion and a special spice mix that is the key. Two crusts golden brown served with ketchup. Yummy!
  The texture was a bit different than Meme's because this original recipe calls for a potato rather than french bread as a base with the ground pork.
Third course was a Turket leftover soup, recipe from William Sonoma.  Turkey stock, left over turkey meat from Thanksgiving, fresh tomatoes, carrots onions, white beans, wild rice and you actually use a cup of left over turkey gravy to thicken the stock a bit.  Outstanding!
Christmas eve will begin with Shrimp Cocktail (feast of the one fish here in land-locked-ville) then
Ham with Fire Glaze (the glaze is a mixture of Red Pepper jelly and apricot perserves) Fantastic!
Served with Asparagus risotto and roasted root veggies with a salad of greens goat cheese and pomegranate, balsamic, maple vinaigrette.
Pies: Pumpkin Maple (Derek's favorite), Cranberry Pear with oatmeal struesel topping (of course pears what else), Creme Breule Custard pie with a caramel base (it tastes like flan) and assorted Christmas Cookies, sugar cookies, espresso crinkles, mudslide cookies and gingerbread men.
Christmas day will include roast turkey with bourbon maple glaze, stuffing with pears, pomegranate and mushrooms, served with sweet potatoes and beet & sweet onion salad.  Yes Beets!
Altogether a festive and great

Thanksgiving prep- Spiced pears and cranberries.

I ordered my fresh turkey and will pick it up Tuesday night.
Wednesday night I will brine the turkey in my huge stock pot filled with water, 2 cups maple syrup and 1/2 cup salt.  That will swim in the brine until Thursday morning.
Stuffing with be with sausage, celery, onions, cranberries and the two quince I have left in my tree.  The chickens ate all the rest!  Quince tastes like a buttery pear but has the consistency of apricots.
Since  I was working with the pears, I  peeled many more and made spiced pears with cranberries.  This is really good heaped on a bed of mashed potato and celery root puree.  Or you could poach pears, cut in half,  in Chardonnay then serve with the pear canberries in the center of the pear.  Yummy and pretty!  It's also great as filling in Crepes with whipped cream on top and a glass of Cognac.  Viva La France!  Here is the recipe for
Spiced Pears and Cranberries
12 cups pear peices, cut from bartlett pears peeled, seeded and cut into chunks.
1 cup water
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp anise seed or two whole star anise
1 cup fresh cranberries
Mix all ingredients in a large stainless steel pan, bring to a boil and  simmer for 1 1/2 hours stirring frequently.  Skim off any remaining foam and spoon into  in glass jars and cool.  This will keep in the fridge for at least two weeks.
 We will have our usual candied sweet potatoes with butter, bourbon and maple syrup.  Thank goodness Steve is bringing home more Canadian Maple Syrup.  We just can't have a holiday with out it.
I am looking to eat out of the garden for our Thanksgiving feast as we did last year, so I think we will have beet green warm salad with oranges and pomegranate vinaigrette and  brandy cream carrots as sides with the turkey, stuffing and sweet potatoes.  Apple pie, pumpkin pie and pumpkin chocolate swirl cheesecake for desserts.
Dinner will be served at 4:00 PM Thursday.  Call if you want me to save you a seat!
Have a blessed Thanksgiving!  And don't eat too much!

last of the pears but best recipe yet!

So last weekend I picked the last 40 lbs of pears. The wind was blowing hard and they were falling quickly.  The pears get bruised if they hit the ground so I picked all the rest to save as many as I could.
After making plenty of Ginger pear marmalade and pear mince meat for pies and pork chops I needed something else to do with bulk amounts of pears.
I don't know if you knew it or not but I make the BEST banaana bread in the world.  So I thought I would try to alter the recipe and make pear almond bread.  Steve doesn't like the taste of almond flavoring so I adapted the recipe I made to have just a hint of almond flavor.  This is the best breakfast bread yet!
Here is the recipe: It yeilds 2 regular loaves or 6 mini loaves (I like the William-Sonoma gold loaf pans)
Pear Almond Bread
2 sticks butter, softened to room temp
2 cups sugar in the raw, or 1 cup white and 1 cup brown
4 fresh duck eggs, if you don't have any use 5 fresh chicken eggs
4 cups organic bartlett pears, peeled, cored and sliced, about 6 medium pears
1 cup greek yogurt (plain of course)
3 cups flour
1/4 cup flax seed
2 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
4 drops (and I mean only 4 drops of almond extract)
1/4 cup of natural sliced almonds
Cream butter & sugar until fluffy.  Add 1 egg at a time and beat well.  Add pears, yogurt, vanilla & almond extract and beat well.  Batter should be light and fluffy with chunks of pears.
Sift dry ingredients together and slowly add to batter with mixer on low.  Watch out! The flour flies if you have the mixer on too high.
When well blended divide batter among loaf pans.  Sprinkle sliced almonds on top and bake.
Full loaf size 55 minutes, small loaf pans 35 minutes at 350 degrees.  Cool on a rack.

Italian night-yummy

After weeks of having no italian food I was craving a good spagetti & meatballs.  But with not enough time between processing my pears and bedtime, I settled on sweet sausage sauce on fettucini with  a garden salad of butter lettuce, mustard greens, radishes (don't throw away those green tops use them in the recipe below) and my last two garden tomatoes with crumbled blue cheese and vinaigrette.
I sauted the sweet italian suasage (I bought home made- lower fat at the local store)with two cloves of fresh garlic, minced, 1 cup of radish greens, chooped to bite size and sauted for 5 minutes until greens were wilted and sausage was browned. Added 1/4 cup red wine and  simmered until wine is reduced and almost gone while scraping the bits off the bottom of the pan.  Then added a restaurant brand of spagetti sauce with sausage & cheese and simmered for 10 more minutes. Of course you want to be sipping a glass of the nice red wine while doing this.   Ready to mix with 1 lb. of fettucini.  Yummy! And the sweet smell of italian food lingers in the kitchen.

Cold but still pulling in some green!

After a week in Tucson Arizona, I arrived home in the warm arms of my husband, thankfully, as it was 39 degrees out.  We had a hard freeze while I was gone and lost half of my yellow bean plants but the others are still full of blossoms.  I spent a good hour picking these veggies for this week.  Carrots, Lettuce, mustard greens, radishes, 3 white eggs I found that were not in nesting boxes, bad little hens (you always have to look everywhere with free range hens) yellow beans and of course Swiss Chard.

Mexican Pot Roast
First night home I made a mexican pot roast in the crock pot.  I rubbed Cumin and Ancho Chili Powder on the meat (chuck roast) salted and peppered and laid it on a bed of 1 lb. Carrots, 1lb roma tomatoes (I used frozen from the garden but you can use a 14 oz can, undrained; 1 lb. of roasted hatch chilies, 4 roasted jalapenos and 1 medium onion sliced.  I set it on high for the first two hours, then low the last two hours.
The meat fell apart and I served it with a garden salad and warm torillas.

Radishes, greens and all!
Radishes are great to grow because you get your rewards so soon.  And if you have been following my blog, you know I eat the whole radish, greens and all.  Last night I prepared them and added a new taste: Pine Nuts! It was fabulous!
1 lb. while radishes, greens attached , well washed and root tips clipped off
After washing the radishes and letting them drain, cut the radish in half leaving each half connected to some of the greens.
Heat 2 TBSP of Olive Oil in a saute pan, add two cloves garlic, minced, and saute until toasted but not too brown.  Add radishes and 1/4 cup dry white wine.  Saute radishes and gently turn them to suate evenly.  Salt and pepper to taste, add 1 tbsp of lemon juice and saute for another two minutes until the leaves are wilted.  Add 2 TBSP Pine Nuts and saute until slightly toasted.  Serve immediately.  The buttery flavor of the pine nuts adds a wonderful flavor to the crunchy wine flavored radishes!
Enjoy!

Anyone know a good animal psychologist?

I have a pet rooster!  Yes, he loves me so much, as soon as he sees me he fluffs up, runs over and dances around my feet.  He's been doing this for a few weeks now but now he also follows me around when ever I am outside.  And when I say follows, I mean right under my feet and won't let even a few inches in between he and myself.  He coos and crows and flaps his wings and ruffles his feathers.  Yesterday he even pulled my hand to himself, jumped on my gloved hand and starting humping it.  I was trying to open the freshened waterer.  He was so excited that I bent down, he jumped right on.
Now I know I am attractive,  but to a 3 pound rooster I don't see much commonality!
I defintiely spoiled him too much.  He has 26 poulettes just dying for his attenditon and he only sees me. He's like a totally trained rooster.  I can make him dance in circles around me or just jump up and down or peck at my boots, just by the way I talk to him.
What do I do?  How do I teach a rooster a proper separation?  Will it occur eventually?  He's quite big now although only 4 1/2 months.  I guess I need to give him some more time. 
Situation is quite hilarious actually!

How many pounds in a peck?

Since it's fruit season and frost has fallen on our tomatoes, it's time to get out those old recipes for processing fruit.
My favorite recipe is for Green Tomato Piccalilli that my Mom gave me.  Delicious and makes great gifts. Christmas is just around the corner. 
So, the recipe calls for 1/2 a peck of tomatoes.  What the heck is a "Peck"?  It is, actually, a dry measure and a peck of tomatoes is 13 pounds.  So 1/2 a peck is 6 & 1/2 lbs of tomatoes.

Harriet will be happy that I finally posted this.

Terry  Dziura's Green Tomato Piccalilli
1/2 peck of green tomatoes
1 pint of small cucumbers
1 grren pepper
2 medium onions
1 quart cider vinegar
1/4 lb. pickling salt
1/4 lb. sugar
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tsp celery seed
1 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp whole clove

Slice vegetables thinly. Place in a large bowl and toss in the salt.  Mix thoroughly. Cover the bowl and set aside for 12 hours or over-night. Drain well and press to get as much liquid out as possible. Heat the vinegar, sugar and spices, bring to a boil.  Pack veggies into sterilized jars and pour hot liquid in to fill.  Leave 5/8 in of space in top of jar.  Clean rim and add seal.  Place in water bath and process as usual.

I lost many of our tomato plants this year to the drought.  If anyone has left over green tomatoes that they don't plan on frying up for dinner, I will take them off your hands!

Half a hoop house and lots more swiss chard

Two weekends ago we worked on our hoop house.  Mom was visiting from Quebec, it was sunny and 72 degrees and while Steve made the plans for the hoop house and hauled the wood to the garden, Mom and I went to weed everything.
We cleaned out the berry bushes and around the eggplant and peppers.  We fertilized everything with worm castings tea and trimmed the pole bean plants.
We built half the hoop house and then completed the frame on the ground.  One more weekend and we should be ready for cover.  Steve had an older storm door from the house that we replaced and he installed it in the hoop house. So that's ready too.  It makes a funny skeleton right now.

I'm still picking cantaloupe, jalapeno peppers, beets and carrots.  New yellow beans are starting now.  They are long and skinny, like the french green beans but they are yellow.  Just beautiful.  My winter box of lettuce is full of bright green leafy lettuce.  Lots of mustard greens too. The mustard greens are pretty enough for a vase.

We lost a couple of hens in the last two weeks.  We are down to 27 hens and 1 baby rooster.  He missed me while I was away last week.  He has learned his sex dance.  He dances around my feet and fluffs up to show his colors.  Now I have to teach him to do it for the hens and not me.  Any suggestions?  The hens are giving us 12 eggs a day now.  Eggs available for sale!

I made some chile tonight with roasted chilis, garlic, jalapenos and onions from the garden.  Corn muffins with jalapenos from the garden too.  Apple crumble for dessert. (apples from our trees).

Tomorrow nights dinner will include mustard green salad with pears and goat cheese.  Yummy.

This weekend will be another picking weekend.  Apples and pears.  Sound familiar?

Apples and Pears! Apples and Pears!

Warm days and cool nights make for crisp apples and beautiful yellow pears. Unfortunately, with the drought, the pears are ripening now and so are the apples! Yikes!  My fingers are brown, so are my nails because I have peeled so many apples.  I can't keep up.  If you want to know if I am hiding, NO, I am still peeling apples.  Every waking moment will be spent peeling and preserving apples and then the pears.  Ginger pear marmalade is my favorite.  It has candied lime peel in it.  Tart and fabulous with seared pork chops.  Yummy!  I need to buy more jars.
The baby rooster has been moved in with the hens.  He 's still skiddish and can climb and sit at the top of his fence when the hens get too roudy, but he will soon notice them more than me.  As soon as he sees me, he runs and sits on my feet.  I am his mommy after all. I spoiled him only a little bit.
I am still harvesting cantalope this month.  I have about 10 left in the garden.  Sweeter than anything you buy in the store.
By the end of the month, I will plant my garlic for the spring. And start planting my winter boxes.  Carrots, more beets and kale will be planted there.
Steve cut the grass for the first time since April.  No hay yet but at least we have a bit of green again.  It sure looks better than a sea of dried brown nothing.  This drought has been horrrible. Hopefully it was a one year thing.

Hurricane Issac brings much needed rain

I know hurricanes reek havoc on the southern part of the country but after having only a few inches of rain in Missouri for the past nine months, it was great to see a full day of light rain from hurricane issac make it's way to us in the Kansas City area from the gulf.
The chickens were out all day and really didn't now what the rain was.  They weren't old enough to reremember the last time it rained.  The water should help the apple, peach and pear trees, not to mention all the trees that made it through the drought.  We lost half of our landscaping shrubs.  Oh well, you can eat those anyway!
The grapevines are still questionable.  We'll see how they do in the next few months.

I've been watering the garden almost everyday.  Cantalopes are doing well, peppers and carrots survived.  Not much else.  Some swiss chard, it really is hard to kill, and a few tomato plants have survived and I see some small green tomatoes growing.
I started planting for fall.  Two kinds of cauliflower, white and cheddar (yellow).  They are doing well.  Some green beans and a small batch of radishes and carrots.  I will plant some more pumpkins and pole beans when I get back home from new york.  And I have to buy some herb seeds for parsley and seed garlic.  It will be time to plant that as well very soon.
All in all we are proud of our harvest this year, it was 3 times more than last year, but this fall since most of the summer growth fried in the sun, we will build our hoop house and cold frames so we can start 2013 early.  Next year we will do even better.  Maybe enough to sell some!!!

One final note about fall fruit harvest is the biggest we had since moving here.  My apple trees adopted from Jim are overwhelmingly full.  I have to head over and pick another 10 gallons or so of ripe apples.  I will can apple pie filling.  These apples are a sweet and mellow flavor but boosted with lemon jiuse and nutmeg, clove and cinnamon, make outstanding pie filling.  Steve just wanted to eat it from the jar.  "Forget the crust, just give me vanilla ice cream" he called. Ha! It does make pretty good apple sauce also.
Next month, it will be the pears.  The branhces are still so full, they are hanging down to the ground.  I will be cooking pears for months also.  Ginger pear marmalade with lime is a favorite. I'll have tons this year.  I better order more canning jars.  If you know anyone who wants to get rid of some canning jars, let me know.

Morning workout, digging up potatoes and onions

With the temperatures still in the hundreds and even at 6:00 AM it is 80 degrees, it's the best time to get out early to finish my digging. Purple, red and white potaoes and white, yellow and red onions.
All dug and set out to cure.
They say theres a chance of rain tomorrow.  The tomato plants have stopped growing and are looking pretty crispy, even though I water them everyday.  Melons are still okay for now. 

What amazes me is my oriental long beans are still thriving.  Every morning I go out and there are new 12 inch long beans appearing that were not there the night before.  They seem to grow in 12 hours.  I get about 1 lb a day.  Definitely worth planting twice as many next year.  These thin long green beans are excellent in stir fries.

The Fish are desparate, send rain!

Our pond is down to the last 12 inches or so.  You can see the fish flopping and the ducks have refused to go near them.  We need rain.  Severe drought conditions persist here in Missouri and 26 other states. Over one hundred degrees expected for 10 more days at least.
Veggies are surviuving because I am watering daily.
Cantalopes are ripening but lost most of the watermelon.  They split in the heat, so I had to toss them to the chickens. 
Cucumbers and tomatoes are prolific!
 I made Gaspacho last weekend that was just to die for:
2 cups Veggie juice
4 lbs red tomatoes, diced
1 medium cucumber, diced
3 jalapenos, diced
1 small red onion chopped
1 large clove garlic
2 TBSP lemon juice
1 TBSP Tabasco
1 TBSP fresh basil
1 cup diced yellow or orange tomatoes
1/4 cup diced cucumber
salt and pepper to taste

Place 1 cup veggie juice in blender with the first 5 ingredients.  Blend until pureed.
Pour into a glass bowl.  Place final cup of veggie juice and next 3 ingredients in blender and blend.  .  Pour into bowl with the rest of the pureed ingredients.  Stir to blend, add the diced tomato and cucumber and adjust seasonings.  Chill in fridge for at least an hour.  Soup is even better the next day!

Hot! Hot! Hot!

It's a constant battle to get enough water in the garden these days.  The temps have been over 100 for at least a week and no relief in site for the rest of this coming week.
Steve has already adjusted the fountain in the pond, which is now a 10th of it's original size.  Poor fish, they're jumping around so much they are scaring the ducks.  The ducks have been tramping across the yard in search of a new pond and found the chicken's water trough.  So they took over at the trough and are miggling with the chickens, too thristy to care.  We may have to scoop up all the fish by this weekend.  No rain in the forecast.
Tomatoes are still okay but all the summer fruit and veggy plants have edges of brown.  One day without water will kill them.  Racoons are in the garden, at night,  eating a lot of tomatoes, they are probably thirsty too.
Please send rain!!!!!

Zucchini as big as a bat!

Summer means lots of zucchini.  These are actually some of the smaller ones 3-4lbs but we are also picking some that are huge!  Everyone makes jokes about having too much zucchini, but we love it.  I'll just have to be creative and can a lot for winter. Zucchini pickles? I don't have a recipe but I bet I can find one!
I knew my fellow bloggers would come up with some good recipes:


Cream of summer squash

Green sunburst squash (a basket full)
2 large baking potatoes
2 large yellow onions
4-5 bay leaves
vegetable broth (1 quart or 2-3 tbsp in water)
Water as needed
silken tofu 20 oz - you can also use regular tofu or dairy cream (optional)
Chopped fresh dill
2 tbsp light yellow miso
1 tsp white pepper
olive oil for sautéing
add salt to taste

Coarsely chop onions, potatoes and summer squash, sauté in hot olive oil and add bay leaves – sauté for a few minutes and add broth, water. Cook until all veggies are tender and allow to cool. Add the rest of the ingredients, remove the bay leaves and blend to a smooth thick soup. Add optional tofu or cream. Add more water or veggie broth if it is too thick. Add salt to taste and white pepper.

(if you have an immersion blender, remove the bay leaves and blend warm or hot, careful!)

        

Recipe: Millionaire Relish

MILLIONAIRE RELISH
Makes 24 1/2 pints and can be halved

3 quarts (12-14cups)zucchini
3 large onions
3 red peppers
3 green peppers

Put vegetables through a grinder w/course blade or finely chop after
peeling and seeding. (I left the skin on the zucchini)

Cover with 1 1/2 cups pickling salt and 16 cups cold water.
Let stand overnight or for several hours. Drain and rinse well with
cold water.

Add:
4 1/2 cups sugar
2 Tbsp tumeric
2 Tbsp mustard seed
1 Tbsp celery seed
4 cups vinegar

Mix well and cook for 5 mins. at a bubbling boil.
Mix 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup vinegar and add to mixture to thicken.
Continue to cook another 5 mins.

Pour into sterilized jars and process in hotwater bath for 5 mins. If
you use larger jars, process for 10 mins.

I will be busy over the weekend!

Time to harvest the spinach

Spinach is ready to be picked. The spinach vine and the regular spinach.  I've been picking some regular spinach all along, but now it's ready to be picked, soil ammended and something replanted there.
Swiss Chard is also piling up.  I have to pick that too.
This morning as I was turning on the sprinklers I noticed that the green beans have been ripening.  I picked about 12 beans and this weekend I should start having some daily.
The spring peas are in too.  Snap peas greeted me when I went to the north side of the garden to check out what was happening.   I had to did up some more garlic also. Nice huge garlic clustures.  Should be enough to last me at least a year.
Steve mowed the back pasture on Sunday, and stacked the hay in the stables out back. We have two stables full of hay.  Good thing because I will continue to use it as mulch in the garden and have to clean out the chicken coop once a month now.  It takes plenty of hay to fill the coop since it's 10 feet by 20 feet.  Plenty of space for our 30 hens and Mr. Rooster.
 

We were visited again by the goose family.  Mom, Dad and two babies spent the day at our pond on Sunday. 

Spring Harvest

From the top: Garlic, Asparagus, Strawberries and Radishes being harvested this week. Spinach and swiss chard is not far away.

Hens now 4 months old!

Sometime in July they should start laying.  E-mail me if you want to get on the fresh egg list. Customers taking a dozen on regular intervals get them first!

Have you ever seen artichokes growing?

I lived in California, years ago and loved that I could buy artichokes at such a reasonable price.  Now they are very expensive, especially here in the Midwest.  I know why though,  they take a lot of space in the garden and are small in comparison to the bush they grow on.  The bushes are over 4 feet across and the artichokes sprout out of the top of the plant.  It is beautiful and a rare treat.  So out of the 5 bushes I have I'll harvest about 10 artichokes.  The plants won't die in the winter.  These are from last year and I just covered them with plastic over the winter months.

Pumpkins and squash are sprouting!

Busy weekend.  Saturday I started cultivating and muching around all the sprouts in the garden.  All the plantings are doing well.  Picked more strawberries, asparagus and radishes.
 Italians eat their radish tops.  Don't waste those lovely greens.  As long as they are too big and tough, you can saute them in olive oil, lemon juice or white wine and garlic.  Yummy! 
When it's time to thin my radish rows, I wash all the sprouts that I pull up and throw the whole thing in a saute pan, add white wine and garlic and serve with pork chops, marinated, then grilled with olive oil, oregano and garlic, s&p.  Music to my mouth.
Animals were active this weekend.  New baby chickens are now allowed out of their run during the day.  I leave the chicken run open so they can go in and still feel comfortable, eat and get water there too.  The rooster stays close by and keeps them all in the coop corner of the farm for now.  At night they go into the coop with no problem.  26 new hens keep that rooster very busy.
I got the ducks to eat out of my hand this weekend.  I sit in the grass and pet them when they come to see what's in my hand. Steve and I are still trying to get them to swim more in the pond.  They stay very close to shore which is dangerous.  They are safer if they can stay out in the middle of the water.  Foxes and coyotes won't go swimming for dinner.
Steve did a bit of fishing on Sunday. He caught a catfish that was pretty darn big.  Big enough to eat, but he let him go.  They are doing a great job keeping the pond clean.
Saturday evening we had some visitors.  A pair of geese came by the pond with their 3 babies.  They were so cute.    Babies were too small to fly yet.  And as the sun set, the goose family rested a while and then moved on to look for shelter for the night.

Tomatoes are planted!

May 5th, 93 degrees and humid is not the best temperature to be planting in the garden but this weekend is the best time of year.  28 tomato plants, 20 varieties of heirlooms are now in the ground.  Cucumbers, zucchini, yellow squash  and eggplant were added.  I also planted more rows of Rapa (italian collards) regular collard greens and more beets.  I just couldn't resist planting more beets.  To have beets available in the garden year round is wonderful.  So I say, not Steve.  Beets are not his favorite food but I serve him the beets greens and save the red beet jewels for me.
Next planting is the pumpin patch behind the chicken coop and the melons in the front garden. I'll get that done during this week.

Cleaned out the chicken coop again.  It's turning into a once-a-month tasks, with so many hens now.  Thirty four messy hens. More poo for the compost pile.

Today was the day for the ducks to go into the pond.  Easier said than done.  I had to carry each duck to the pond and toss th5em in.  They quacked like I was torturing them.  They swam around a bit and flapped their wings and walked back into the barn.  It will take some time to covince them that it's more fun in the pond than in the barn. 

Sunday May 6th, rain storms coming in.  Yipee!  All my seeds and new plants with get plenty of water to start them off correctly!

Planting is in full swing!

Longer, sunny days allow me to get 2 or 3 good planting hours in right after work. I've been dashing out of the office at 4:30 PM (which is my regular leaving time but it rarely happens) and I work until sunset which is now around 7:45.
The tilling went beautifully. We have nice dark brown soil and I am amending with worm castings and composted chicken poo.
Last night I planted radishes, spinach, turnips (3 kinds) and carrots (3 kinds). The night before I planted 3 kinds of potatoes and 2 kinds of onions. The night before that (Monday) I planted 3 kinds of bush beans, red onions, ever-bearing strawberries to fill in the existing berry patch and radishes.
This Saturday we plan to plant the new Macintosh apple trees and peach trees that Steve just bought. The peach trees already have small fuzzy peaches on them.
Now I have about 60 square feet of garden left. I am not even half done.

Windy but very productive day!

After a busy weekend of meetings I had some time on Sunday afternoon to help Steve with his new project. Our 27 baby chickens are not babies anymore and they needed a new chiken run to play outside. We cleaned out the area between the big horse barn and the chicken coop. It was our temp storage place for extra wood. After hauling all the wood into to horse barn we started enclosing the area between barns for the chickens. By 7PM we had a beautiful area for the new chickens to run, scratch and play during the day with a door directly into the coop and an outside door for easy pen cleaning. They are happy campers and can now suppliment their diet with all the bugs available! Yummy!
I also planted 25 more, ever blooming strawberry plants, 2 raspberry, 2 blackberry bushes and more lettuce.
Tonight I will plant beans, radishes and peas. I hope to have at least 5 types planted by the weekend and finish up after Steve finishes tilling. Planting season is busy!

It's Asparagus Season!!!

I really could be out there picking asparagus everyday.
My 3 year old patch is about 60 feet long by 4 feet wide. This is our first spring to cut spears for eating and we are having asparagus with almost ever meal.
I will start freezing some and then work on a really good Cream of Asparagus soup for the winter months, because I could really see us getting a bit tired of having Asparagus with every meal. I'm not complaining now, but now I see how it can get a bit boring after awhile.
Roasted, tossed with garlic salt and toasted sesame oil is still my favorite! It's like candy!
Photos to come.
Also, Strawberry blossoms a plenty! This is early!

Great Start to the Week!

Sunday after mass, the temps were already reaching 75 degrees. The high was planned for 85 so I had to get my chores done quickly. Two hours spent shoveling chicken poo out of the babies chicken coop, shoveling new hay in the babies coop and adult hen's nesting boxes, lead to an hour of digging up Day Lillies since they were growing in a very inconvenient spot, right in the middle of the lawn (very hard to mow around). I gave the Day Lillies to Sue next door to decorate her side of the barn. She doesn't have free-range hens that eat all her flowers, like we do.
After showering off all the poo, we had dinner Alfresco! With a gorgeous purple sunset, chilled glasses of wine and my favorite chicken recipe of Bobby Flay's, chicken with lemon, cumin, parmesean cheese and a fabulous mango sauce on a bed of cilantro pesto mashed potatoes.
Yummy!

I also came up with another dandelion salad, even better than the last one. This one is adapted from my favorite Mediterranean salads with sliced oranges and olives. Pick your dandelion greens before the plant blooms. Baby greens are best.

3 cups baby dandelion leaves, washed and cut in half.
3 small oranges, peeled, seeded and thinly sliced
1very small red onion, sliced thinly
1 cup green olives with pimentos, sliced
5 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp white wine vinegar
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp ground cumin
salt & pepper to taste

In a platter, lay greens on bottom and layer sliced oranges, then red onion slices and top with sliced green olives.
Wisk dressing ingredients together and drizzle over salad. Let set about 5 minutes to meld flavors and spoon onto individual plates. Enjoy!!!!!!

By the time Spring is over, you shouldn't have any dandelions left in your yard! Send gifts as thank you's.

Spring salad tonight!

After spending a warm spring day in the garden, transplanting my swiss chard and collard green plants that did not die over the winter and fertilizing the lettuce and beet beds I scanned the edges of the garden fence and noticed how plentiful the dandelions were. Even the dandelions benefited by all that organic fertilizer in our garden. The leaves were tender but very plentiful so I picked a basket full for a salad with dinner.
I was thinking of a sweet maple blasamic dressing to balance the bitter greens.
The dandelions were not bitter at all but crisp and tart. What a treat from a weed!
Spring Dandelion Salad
Salad ingredients:
4 cups, tender dandelion greens washed & torn in half
1 large stalk celery washed and thinly sliced
two kiwis peeled and sliced then halved
1 small granny smith apple peeled and chopped
Dressing ingredients:
equal parts:
Balsamic vinegar
Maple Syrup (the real stuff)
Olive oil (extra Virgin please)
Fresh ground black pepper
Mix all salad ingredients together except the kiwi. Wisk all the dressing ingredients together except the black pepper. Place salad on 4 plates, top with kiwi slices, drizzle with dressing and add black pepper before serving.
So get out there in your lawns and dig up those tender greens while they last!

March 6th and 71 degrees!

With the crazy weather we've been having and early tornados here we decided to get all our tree trimming done. The pecans, pear, apple trees and flowering shrubs are now trimmed and all broken limbs removed. This took several hours under windy conditions. Next time I am wearing a face mask. I got whipped in the face countless times by branches waving in the wild wind.
We trimmed the overgrowth around the pond and removed a few dried stumps to make more room for the water we will no dfoubt get in the spring rains. The malard duck thought this work was interesting and kept swimming by to observe. She's very happy living in both locations, our pond and next door with the boys. She visits our pond during the day and spends the night next door with her beau. Hussy!
For dinner I used the last bag of frozen tomatoes, my home made ricotta cheese, swiss chard, of course and made lasagna layering the chard with the cheese between the noodles. The fresh marinara sauce was outstanding, heavy on the garlic. Yummy!!!! What a treat!

Baby Chicks on the Move!

As I drive around our community I see all the baby cows curled up in the tall grass. A sign that spring is here. 65 degrees yesterday, made a perfect day to move the baby chicks out to the big chicken coop. Steve built a great area for them, separate from the mature ladies, and they are having a blast testing their wings and trying to stay balanced on their roosting pole. The photo at left was their brooder (much too small now). Our mature hens love their new nesting boxes and additional roosting pole that they have all started laying eggs again. We are thrilled. Spring is indeed just around the corner.

Our one lonely female mallard (who moved next door with the males) comes back each morning and quacks up a storm in case any old friends show up.

Steve has begun to plow up the garden. In a week or two I will mix up our first organic fertilizer to add to the soil and begin forming our rows. The fall-planted garlic has already peaked beyond the winter mulch. I can't wait to plant.

Cheese making is coming along, but I need more practice. I can't seem to keep the temps consistent so my curds are not as strong as they need to be. I'll keep trying, becuase Ricotta and mozzarella are good at any time!

In the nice weather on Saturday, we walked up to our back stables to check on our newest addition to the farm, a black and white calico ferrel cat who sneeks down to our deck at night to check for water and food. We noticed the fox den was clean and well used. Time to blow the family out. They fed on our birds for too long last year. Time for a bit of extermination! I just have to find out what to do!

Never a dull moment and always something going on. It's heaven!