I hope spring is here, finally.

I sure hope spring has sprung here. I got my seedlings started earlier this year. Had them all growing under flourescent lights in the summer kitchen till this past Saturday. We decided that instead of the added expense of covering our little greenhouse with some type of plastic we would just opt to use a cold frame for the seedlings as I am not starting near as many as I normally do. But still a plenty. So Rodger and Jason took off Friday evening after work and went to Lowes to pick up 1 sheet of the clear poly carbonate panels to cover the cold frame. Less chance of hail damage in the event we have that. And hoping we dont for sure.  So they got my cold frame built and put inside the fence in my herb garden to keep the dog out of it. She likes to carry off things she finds with our smell on it. She gave the guys a fit stealing their building material and tools Saturday. Poor Sasha had many new not so nice names that day. But they got er done. Then I got all the seed trays moved in and watered with compost tea. I do have some nice sturdy seedlings this year. yay me.

 Monday we had rain off and on all day so I spent my day going in and out of the house to take the top off, put the top on, repeat. This lil cold frame can heat up really quick with very little sunshine. This is so much easier to heat than trying to keep my little greenhouse warm enough for healthy plants. Tomatoes and peppers need warmer soil to sprout and grow than some other seeds. I did invest in a couple heat mats that are made just for the seed trays I use to supply some heat from the bottom to warm the soil and speed up the sprouting process of peppers and tomatoes. They worked just great. I had misplaced some of my bell pepper seeds and could only find the orange heirloom variety when I was starting the seeds. The next day I located the other pepper seeds and decided to start some of those as well. I used a deeper, about 6 inch deep, crate that I had to line with a feed bag, add soil and sow the seeds. The soil being deeper I could not use the heat mats under this crate. So needless to say I have tomatoes and peppers started one day using the heat mats that are several inches tall and a crate with pepper and some Amish paste tomato seeds that are just starting to sprout and come up where I wasn't able to use the heat mats. Heat made all the difference in how quickly the seeds came up. Also this year I have been using all natural fertilizer on my seedlings. I procured some composted goat manure from some friends and am making compost tea to use on the plants. In this compost tea I added some Lactobacilli serum to the bucket in which I have the manure for the tea. I have had no problem what so ever with damping off disease this year starting seeds. That in itself is a big plus for me trying to start seeds really early. Normally I just start my seeds in the greenhouse in early April no later than the second week. When we get cooler nights the soil cools even with the warmth of the sun during the day and I usually end up losing a lot of seedlings from damping off. In the greenhouse I could use about 3 tablespoons of hydrogen peroxide to about 1 and half cups water in spray bottle and mist the soil where the seedling are and this will sometimes stop the damping off and save the plants. But dang who needs the extra hassle. Not had to use that this year at all. I am very thankful and happy with my little bit of success  with seed starts.

Saturday I got my herb garden weeded and all cleaned out of debris from last season and over the winter. Talk about hard on the damaged back and bad legs and knees. Oh mercy, Sunday was tough. Anyway, that bed is all ready to add more herbs seedlings to when danger of frost is past. Maybe late April or early May will be safe enough to plant them without protection. I still have the strawberry bed to weed and get mulched. I planted 25 new strawberry plants this year to replace some that were spent. I intend to use straw to mulch them in with from now on. I learned the hard way that wood mulch was just too coarse a material to allow the runners to reach the soil and make roots and renew the bed.  Some of us just have to learn things the hard way. Was nice to not have to spend much time at all weeding but dang in the long run cost me in having to replace some plants. Chalk that one up to a well learned lesson at the school of hard knocks. I seem to learn a lot of things at that school.

Last week on one of the warmer days I got the fruit trees sprayed for the second time. Most of the stone fruits and pears had already lost their blooms. Not sure if they were lost from the light snow and cold or just that they were done. But the other trees, apples and nut trees are in 1/4 inch green tip stage and time for a spray. Got the neem apray mixed and Jason put the spray tank in the bucket of the little tractor and hooked the pump to the battery and off we went to spray. We had to use the tractor as my 4 wheeler is out of commission for a bit till the guys get a chance to work on it. Got er done tho.. At this point it is just wait and see how much damage the cold snap did to the trees that had already bloomed. Seems most of them were in the "process" of blooming and not in full bloom. I have noticed the pears are still making blooms so I might get a bit of fruit after all. God willing and we dont get any more serious freezes. We will take what we can get and be thankful.

We have been looking around for an "estate rake" to use in the big section of yard and orchard. An estate rake is used to rake up grass clippings to take off the yard. Usually pulled behind a 4 wheeler or mower. My intention is to use the clippings to compost for organic matter to add to the garden and orchard.  In reading and researching holistic orchard maintenance a lot of focus is on soil microbes and helping keep healthy soil. One way to do this is using the grass clippings to mulch trees and then encouraging the clippings to decompose to supply nutrients to the trees. Lactobacilli is one culture that aids in this process. I found online a method for making the lactobacilli serum to treat the soil and compost with to speed up the process.  A very simple process all in all. It is started rather simply. I will post this info in another post very soon. This serum can also be used to spray chicken and livestock buildings to eliminate odor from manure. It helps to decompose the same manure when put in compost as well. Anyway I have a science lab in my kitchen most days. One of these days I will have a mess when an experiment goes amiss. Till then I keep trying stuff.

In the house I learned to make a new bread that we are now addicted to. It is focaccia bread. Its an artisan Mediterranean bread. The authentic version has olives in it but none of us like olives so I dont use those. It was odd to me at first to make a yeast bread and not use bread flour but recipe uses plain all purpose flour. I will share the version I make for us. I use my Kitchenaid mixer to make this as I cant use my hands long enough to knead bread anymore.

Focaccia Bread

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons of hot water in Kitchenaid bowl
2 tablespoons sugar
3 1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons yeast
1/2 tablespoon salt
1/4 cup olive oil

In mixer bowl with hot water add in sugar, and 1 cup of bread flour, add yeast on top of this flour. Add remaining flour and then the salt. With dough hook attached mix ingredients a bit, maybe 1 minute. Pour in olive oil and mix well and continue kneading for about 5 minutes. When dough is smooth and elastic, turn off mixer and cover bowl and let dough rise till nearly double in size.
Prep 2 cookie sheets by oiling them with olive oil and sprinkle with cornmeal. When dough is ready turn on mixer and stir down dough. Divide in half. Press each half on the cookie sheets pressing with fingers till it is about 1/4 inch thick. Let sit for about 10 minutes. No need to try to be perfect, this is artisan style bread.
To prepare to bake, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Using fingers make indentions all over dough and drizzle with a good olive oil. Sprinkle on about half teaspoon dried rosemary over each pan with dough. A good sprinkle of parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and chopped sun dried tomatoes that have been preserved in oil. You can also drizzle a bit of the oil from the dried tomatoes over bread as well. Top with a light layer of shredded cheddar or mozzarella cheese.  You can add on some chopped olives if you enjoy those as well. Put in oven and bake till light brown. Tear into pieces at serving or cut like bread sticks and serve with a marinara sauce. Enjoy!!
We can make a meal on this and a bowl of marinara sauce.  This is a bread that you can top any way you like really . If you love garlic cloves by all means slice some onto dough. A thin layer of pizza sauce would be yummy with your choice of pizza toppings. An easy bread that can be used many ways. Limited only by the imagination.

Not much else happening here on the homestead, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

stella

Bad idea, bad idea.......

I learned too late it is a bad idea to buy 2 bushels of apples knowing how long it takes to work them up. Good grief, what was I thinking? obviously I wasn't.  I just wanted to put some apples up for pies and frying and such. I wanted to can pie filling so as to not fill the freezer full of apples. Well the apples I got SHOULD have been excellent for either of those things. But, nope they were not. Not sure if it was just a bad season where the apples were raised or what but they don't hold up to frying or cooking of any kind. Barely will stay intact just washing them. What to do, what to do. I peeled a bunch, chopped and froze them for caramel apple cake and fritters. And dried the rest. Now I have 3 gallon of dried apples. Damn it!!, I reckon I am gonna have to make fried pies. The apples will be fine but I much rather had them in jars than in the freezer. Any who... I found this recipe online a while back and recently saw it posted on facebook just a few days ago for "apple fritters". So if you are inclined this is an excellent  use for chopped fresh apples. These lil things are so dang good.

Apple Fritter Bites

1 1/4 cup flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 teas baking powder
1 teas cinnamon
1/4 teas salt
1/3 cup milk
1 egg
1 tablespoon butter melted
1/2 teas vanilla
1 1/2 cups chopped apple (chopped pea size)

Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
3 tablespoons milk

Stir together dry ingredients then add in wet ingredients except apple and  beat till almost smooth, don't over beat. Stir in apples gently.

Heat oil of choice for frying (I use coconut oil) to around 365 degrees. not smoking. I only use about a half to one inch of oil in skillet for this. Drop batter by teaspoons full in hot oil. After they bubble for a bit and brown on one side flip over and brown other side. You may have to adjust cooking time to size of spoon full of batter. Drain well on paper towels.
Mix powdered sugar and milk with just a few drops of vanilla and drizzle over fritter bites. Serve warm or they are just as yummy cold.
I usually don't flatten mine much, just enough to keep them from flipping back over once I turn them in the oil.

Last week before Rodger and Jason left on their weekend hunting trip I had Rodger pick all the peppers off for me before we get a surprise frost and ruin them. Another mistake. Oh my, how many dang peppers does one person need? A lot I reckon. He picked nearly a bushel of bell peppers and at least that many jalapenos. I did slice all the bells and freeze those for later use. Then I had to find another use for green jalapenos. I knew I was gonna make chipotle pepper with the red ones. I had read about and heard of Cowboy candy. So I gave it a try. Well I was not at all disappointed. That is some good stuff. A bit spicy, sweet, tangy with a lil heat. And pretty easy to make as well. I found the recipe online, actually found several and they are so near alike I think any will work. Now to let those age for a couple weeks and try them. If you think it is something you might want to make to use up jalapenos you might also look at the many many different ways  to use them. On burgers, spread over a wheel of Brie cheese and baked, with you lowly pinto beans like a relish, on hotdogs. Limited only by the imagination of the user I think.

Our garden is finished for the year. I did not even plant any turnips this fall. I do still have lots of work to do to get all the beds put to bed for the winter tho. Now that might take a while. My back is not cooperating with me very well right now. I think I injured it again a few weeks ago and it just is not getting better. Well it is kinda better but it wont let me do much till it starts giving me fits of pain and making my legs hurt really bad. I have been trying to give it a break and not over do things, not lift and that kind of thing but to no avail. Maybe soon I will be back up to speed.

The leaves have fallen enough now in front of the house and you can see the corn field from the front porch. So beautiful this time of year. The corn is brown and mature, just needs several heavy frost to drop all the moisture down so we can pick it.

 

You can see the corn beyond the trees in this photo. When I went out on the porch the chickens came running to see if I had a treat for them. I have far too many pretty birds. Trying to get some new pullets raised out of all these chicks that I hatched to save for layers. It does look promising too.

 

I got several young roosters that are destined for the freezer too. Maybe we can get those out of the feed bill this weekend.

Not much else happening here, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Back in the saddle again

I am finally home and back at it again. I did get a few days to rest after being away for a couple weeks. Then it was back to the homestead stuff. We had planned to get our older laying flock butchered off over the labor day weekend. Of course it rained and put an end to any thoughts of that. So this morning Rodger got the water kettle fired up and heated the scalding water and we did the deed. Butchered 13 of my older laying hens off. I did the usual of making stock with the bony pieces and canned the legs, thighs and breast halves. I got 19 quarts of canned chicken and 9 quarts of stock canned. That should last us a while for soup, stews, casseroles and of course chicken and dumplings.  I have 2 young pullets and the rooster left. The pullets are laying now so we can have at least 2 eggs per day to maybe hold us over till the younger ones come into production. I actually have 2 younger bunches of chickens and intend to keep the pullets out of both bunches. I should end up with about a dozen laying hens. Which means I will have about 20 standard breed roosters to butcher later as well. I did get my order of Cornish cross babies on Thursday as well. They are all doing great. I moved the rooster and his 2 girls in with the flock of younger birds and gave the Cornish the big chicken house so they will have lots of room to grow.  And grow they do. They will be ready to butcher about October 25th. At the young tasty age of 6 weeks.

After Rodger, Jason, Tasha (our friends daughter) and I finished with the chicken butchering Jason and Tasha went to move a lawn mower to her house and back to Jason's house to mow and weed eat his yard. Rodger went to the garden and dug our taters. Oh my, what a pitiful crop. For all the weeding and work it sure was not worth the effort. So what few we do have I will likely can those. I just hope to hell our sweet potatoes do better. I guess all things considered it was not bad. We had ate from the row of taters for a good while and we only planted 1 row in the garden. Not really many plants to begin with but dang I wanted more than a couple bushel of taters. We certainly hope to have several bushels of sweet taters tho. IF the deer will stop eating the vines off them. I think they have pretty much decimated the purple hull peas and now have a taste for sweet potato plants. But those will be dug soon as well. Rodger also brought a 5 gallon bucket of red bell peppers in for me to freeze as well. We use a lot of sweet bell peppers during the year. And my goodness, are those things expensive to buy in the store. I guess if I had to buy em, we just be doing without em. Next on the garden list is to get the jalapeno peppers picked and frozen. I think I will attempt to make smoked jalapeno peppers. Smoked ripe red jalapenos are called chipotle peppers. A rather easy process as I have read. A matter of picking the ripe red jalapenos, washing them well, They can be split in half if you rather not have the intense heat of the seeds. Then put in the smoker with some good wood chips such as hickory or any desired fruit wood and smoked till dry. My intention is to smoke for several hours then finish off in the dehydrator so they are completely dry. Then they can be stored for later use. Thas my plan thus far. Will post more on how they turn out, or not. Seems to me they should dry well in the smoker as they are thin walled peppers to begin with. We shall see.

I think tomorrow might be a jelly making day here. While I was out of town Rodger had picked and froze a good bit of hog plums for jelly. So maybe I can make the juice and jelly tomorrow. Those are one of those things its either feast or famine, some years you have none and you are best served to make a good supply of jelly in the years when the plums are plentiful. I am also gonna try to find the time to get to the garden again and pick the last of the tomatoes, ripe or green. I do want some green ones in the freezer for fried green tomatoes. Those sure can pick up your spirits in the middle of winter when you have fried green tomatoes and think of summer and the garden fresh tomatoes. I still have lots of herbs to dry also and most of a 50 lb bag of onions that need dehydrated. Lots of things to do to keep me busy till the snow flys I think.

As of right now, not much else happening on the farm. So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

This weather is like winter time

Our weather has been somewhat of a roller coaster ride as of late. First we have temps below zero, then like tomorrow it is suppose to be near 60. No wonder we all are sick. A body just cant adjust to temperature swings like that as we get older. Not that I am old. Ahem! We all complain but in reality it is just winter time as usual. We are suppose to have nice weather tomorrow with some sunshine so I hope to talk Rodger into going with me to the orchard an trying to get our trees pruned. They are big enough now to need to start being shaped like we want them to be when they get mature. I just hope the deer have not damaged any more of them. It has been so wet it has been impossible to get in the field an hang the bags of soap scraps to deter the deer. It seemed to have worked last time we used it. I have a stash of Irish Spring soap that no one here likes so I cut the bars in quarters and put a piece in a piece of empty onion bag, tie the top, and suspend it from a nearby tree. The smell seems to keep deer at bay. At least as long as the soap last. I also have a lot of grapevines to get pruned as well. The ones in the big vineyard near our orchard will be big enough to require pruning this year. I also will take more cuttings to root for my friend Anna. I tried a few last year and they made roots and I got them re potted but overlooked them in watering during the hot dry part of summer and they died on me. Shame on me. I hope to get a bunch started this year so I can ship them off to her this fall to transplant in her garden. We try to get vines and trees pruned in February on a nice day when its not so cold we freeze to death but not so warm that the plants bleed. Although I did prune grape vines last year after they had leaves on them and it didn't even slow them down. Still had a huge grape harvest. I am going to be making another raspberry patch this spring too with shoot from the older plants I already have near the orchard. I just need to get the place plowed up and manure on it to set them in after they break dormancy this spring. They are very easy to propagate. All you need to do is dig up the small off shoots near the mother plant and simply replant it in a new location. Big plans I have. Now to see if the body can keep up.

I have sat here at the computer this evening pondering ordering chickens to get here around march 1st. Not sure what kind I will order just yet. I like all the hens I have now, just not sure how to go about ordering more like them. I surely don't want to buy 50 standard heavy breeds to raise and cull to keep a laying flock. Thas a lot of lil birds to feed an deal with. And did I mention how expensive they have gotten? Dang I got sticker shock. But that happens to me real often. Guess I lead a sheltered life or something. I have a young rooster with my hens now. I am thinking I might need to butcher off my old rooster and let the young guy take over the hens and see if I get more fertile eggs and just hatch some of my own. It for sure would be more economical AND I would get to pick the ones I wanted to keep for layers. AND I would still have what ever roosters I raise to butcher for making good stock to can. I am really low on canned chicken stock in the cellar. I guess because it has been a while since I raised standard breeds to use for stock. I have hens that I know will set this summer and I also have an incubator I can use to hatch some eggs. Surely from hens and incubator I can manage to get enough pullets to replace my laying flock by mid summer. So I can have new hens laying come early fall. It just don't seem right to not have laying hens on the farm for eggs and meat. Not to mention bug control in the yard. They will also keep snakes at bay too. Maybe between the chickens, Luna and the cats I wont have snakes come in the yard this year. I hate a damn snake. They always manage to scare the whiz out of me.

Not long now till time for the greenhouse to be put up. Time flys when ya try to take a break and hibernate in winter. I am just glad I can be home to keep things half azz going here. We surely are praying we have a good garden this coming summer. I still have a good bit of stuff canned from years past but I am not sure we can go another year without canning a lot. Last summer was a total bust on the garden. Its time for a good one this year. I am actually looking forward to being able to  work in the garden some this summer. Gosh the past few years my health was so bad I could not get out in the sun and heat to do much of anything. Thank God I could eliminate some meds and end up feeling much better. Still cant do the lifting like I once did but at least maybe I can adjust to the heat a lil better and be able to help Rodger some in the gardens. IF the weather is as good as they say it will be then maybe we can get a few things done here this weekend to keep us ahead of the game. Some crazy weather man is calling for some crazy amount of snow next week so I will be house bound again I reckon. Maybe that's a good time to plan the garden, where to plant what, what to plant, how much of each to plant. Just silly things like that so I don't end up with tons of one things I don't really need a lot of. For sure need to start and plant more herbs this spring too. I somehow let my tarragon get chocked out by weeds or other herbs. Need more parsley, more chives, marjoram and savory for sure. Love the smell of marjoram. But if it snow I can make snow cream and contemplate gardens.

Jennifer ask in comments for a recipe for snow cream. Jennifer like more of my recipes its more a method than really a recipe. It all depends on how much you need to make or how many hungry people who like snow cream you are feeding.  I usually just take maybe 2 cups of whole milk, add a lil sugar to taste, not too sweet, a lil vanilla to taste. Just mix it in and taste it till it is slightly sweet an you can taste the vanilla. Then stir in clean "white" snow" till it is the consistency of soft ice cream. And dish it up and enjoy. Just a nice treat for the kids or the kid in all of us. Like the saying, "we are all adults till someone brings out the bubble wrap". Or in this case snow cream.

If you are home, nice and warm and dry, thank God for your blessings. Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Making lotion and herbal seasoning blend

It has been so nice outside today but dang it I didn't get out to enjoy it yet. I have been busy with piddly stuff in the house all day. It is getting closer to cold weather and my need for a good lotion for my winter time dry skin. I was all out. I think I gave Amoy the last 2 jars I had to take home with her. So it was time to make more. So that has been my project for today. Not sure why more folks don't make their own lotion so they can avoid all the heavy perfumes and chemicals in the store bought ones. I have tried and made several different lotions with different recipes and this one has to be the best and my favorite. Very rich, nourishing and creamy. It is more like a cream than a lotion I must warn you. But very simple to make. First I make an herbal tea to use in place of the "water" part called for in most recipes for lotion. I like to use soothing healing herbs that I grow or can purchase organically grown.

Make tea with about 2 cups of water and add in round leaf plantain, chamomile, rose petals, comfrey leaf, and golden seal, equal parts of each herb added to the 2 cups of boiling water and let sit about 10 minutes.
Strain the tea and measure out 1 cup and set aside.
In glass bowl or measuring cup measure 1/2 cup oils that are solid at room temp(coconut oil, shea butter, mango butter, avocado butter, cocoa butter) any mix you like, I use a lil of each.
Then measure out 1/2 cup of oil that is liquid at room temp(almond, apricot, castor oils) Measure out 1/3 cup vegetable emulsifier. Heat the oils in the glass bowl with solid butters and vegetable emulsifier till all are melted and smooth. Let oils cool a lil bit, hot but not scalding. Have the tea to about the same temp as the oils and then add the tea to the oils in a steady stream all the time blending with a stick blender. Once all the tea is in let lotion sit for a bit and blend again, repeat this till it has started to get thick. When lotion starts to thicken like gravy add in about 2 tablespoons of liquid germall plus (preservative, natural) and about 2 tablespoons of Hydrovance for stable consistency and also make the lotion feel silky on the skin. Blend well and pour into desired containers. Let cool completely and put lid on. Great stuff. I get most of my lotion making supplies from this place. Not to mention they always send trial size samples of new products with your order. Very reasonable prices too.

I finally remembered to make more of my herbal seasoning blend that we use on everything as well today. I feel like a chemist on days like this. I try not to get too adventurous tho when it comes to the food stuff. But I got out lots of my different dried herbs and used the spice grinder to grind all the ones that I use in the seasoning we use on chicken, venison, most any meats. Its kinda like Ms Dash only my version. You really can make it to suit your own taste buds by adding more or less of the different herbs. Or even leaving some out. But I added a lil more onions flakes to this mix and a bit of brown sugar. I just have to remember that the sugar will make foods brown much quicker whether in a skillet or on the grill. The recipe for the seasoning blend I make is in  this post from the past.

I brought a cast iron skillet home from Jason's house the other day that had some rust in it and was generally a mess. I think it was given to him and not sure at this minute who. Anyway I scrubbed the rust spots really well and used a Brillo pad on em, washed the skillet really good inside and out. Put it on the burner and coated it really good with oil. I let it get really hot but not smoking then turned it off. I will repeat those steps several times each day as long as I think of it and have time, heat up, cool down till it is re-seasoned. It is a nice size skillet and not as heavy as most I own so it might work really good for me. Hope it fixes the skillet but its not like I need another cast iron skillet. But just cant bring myself to see them get destroyed.

Not much else happening around here, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Uhoh!! Yep I am still alive

Well I have been lost in time for a week or so I think. We are all still alive and kicking. Dang I didn't think it had been that long since I had updated and filled you all in on life here. So here goes.

Just the usual stuff, waiting on the ground to dry out so we can plow and plant our garden. Every time it starts to dry then we get more rain showers. I wont complain tho as there are some folks in other states dealing with much worse. Flooding, snow and storms in different areas. Our plants in the greenhouse are not growing like they should with all this cool weather we have had. Gosh it seems one day we run the AC the next its heat. Maybe summer will be here soon. We have survived red bud winter, I think now we are having a lil dogwood winter. Then in a few weeks will be more rain and cool during black berry winter. Then it will get hot and stay that way till fall. I function much better when the sun shines I know that much. This cool damp stuff wrecks havoc on the joints. I saw my family doc this past week and I hope we have my meds better adjusted now to help manage the pain. I flat azz refuse to go to a pain clinic and have the docs label me another drug seeker or abuser. So I just suffer and keep going. The new state law has made it really hard on people who want to get help and don't take their meds just for the high. Some of us need to petition the lawmakers to get the law changed so our docs can treat us at their discretion. The doctors know who the abusers are, and the ones that fail drug test. I have never failed a drug test or taken more meds than prescribed or sold my meds. I don't think I should have to suffer for the damn abusers and ones that sell their meds because they are paid for by medical card and tax payers to begin with. This whole issue makes me mad enough to spit nails. OK off my soap box now.

I finally got my asparagus dug up and most of it shipped off to a friend in Virginia. She was tickled pink to have it and I sure hope it does well for her. I covered the bed over with black plastic and it is killing the weeds out. If we get a lil more hot weather it wont be long till I can plant in there and maybe not have to weed so much. Still need to get my butt in gear and get some plastic put down in parts of the herb bed to get it in order too. I noticed today I have some parsley that is big enough to cut and dry. So hopefully I can get up early enough to beat the rain tomorrow and get it cut and dried. Maybe I take some to Rob and Amoy when we go visit. And no we don't have that lil baby yet. I think he is making us wait till his due date. But knowing this weekend is a full moon, he just might make an appearance. When I worked EMS that is when we alas had baby runs. Gosh that seems so long ago that I was working. It has been 6 years now that I got hurt at work and it disabled me. Disabled, that is really a hard word for me to accept.

My meat birds are doing great. Although they don't grow as well when it is cool. For some reason they do not eat as much. But they are much much better than the ones I had last year. I have a few that are big enough to kill right now and am thinking I might butcher some of them this weekend if we don't get a call to go to Nevada. That will be that many less to feed. I guess the cooler weather has been good in one sense as I have not lost any to heat stress. I still have the 25 I started with 5 weeks ago. That is a plus. So I guess it is OK if they don't grow quite as fast if they all stay alive. It is much easier to keep them warm than to keep them cool. I do have a fan in the building to run when it gets really warm in there. Fans are great things. I have one in the greenhouse too, it is to move air around and to mimic mother nature as far as wind blowing the plants to make the stems stronger. Also I do let the plants dry out almost to the point of wilting before I water and this also encourages them to make thicker stronger stems. A friend of mine that runs a commercial greenhouse told me that. I will have lots of tomatoes as it looks so far. I think every seed I planted came up. I really wish the rain would hold off for a few more days so we could get the sweet corn and green beans planted in the garden. We have a frost warning for tonight here. But if we plant corn and beans it wont be up till after the first of May and by then we should be frost free. No freezes so far so am hopeful of having some fruit this year. Our little pear tree here in the yard was loaded with bloom. If only half the bloom makes a pear I will for sure still have to fruit prune it. Far too many blooms. We also had our young cherry, peach and hazelnut trees bloom in the orchard this spring. I sure would love to get some fruit from those. I do love fresh peaches. The cherries that we planted are sweet cherries and good for eating fresh. Am really looking forward to those. I have never seen hazelnuts grow so this will be a whole new experience for us. Life is good.

I found a recipe online the other day for caramels. Sounded easy and good. So you know I had to try it. Oh my goodness. IT was good. So I will share the recipe with you as I know it is good. It is the perfect texture, just soft enough to be easy to chew yet it can be cut and wrapped individually in wax paper as well. But I am sure you know I ain't gonna stop there. I intend to get some lightly salted peanuts and Cut the caramel in long pieces and roll each piece in the crushed salted peanuts. I love that combo. OK so here is the recipe.

Soft caramels

1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup light Karo syrup(corn syrup)
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
1/2 teas salt
1/2 teas vanilla extract

Mix all ingredients except the vanilla in a sauce pan. Bring to a boil and boil for 6 minutes. Start counting as soon as it starts boiling up good. Stir constantly to prevent scorching. When it is done quickly stir in the vanilla extract, mix well and pour into a greased 9 inch square pan. Let sit overnight to harden and set good. Cut with a sharp knife and roll in small pieces of wax paper, just eat it or cut in longer pieces and roll in crushed lightly salted peanuts and then roll in wax paper. Store in a cool dry place. I did make a double batch and it filled a 9 by 13 glass cake pan with the caramel being about 1/2 inch thick. IF there is enough left to work with tomorrow I will roll some in the crushed peanuts.

If someone had small children and wanted to make a duplicate of the old fashioned "sugar daddy" you could cook this recipe maybe about 7 minutes and it would be a lil bit firmer caramel. You can purchase the sticks to make suckers with online in various places. Or maybe add a bit of chocolate and make "cow tails". Do we ever get too old to enjoy candies from our younger days? I hope not.

These rainy days of sitting in the house not doing much I got started crocheting a blanket for Liam. I wanted to use up some of the yarn that my auntie had given me. I got it maybe 1/3 done. We had to stop at walmart today while we were in the big city to get a roll of yellow yarn to add to the blanket. It just needed some yellow with all the greens and blues. Maybe a few rows of yellow to divide the colors. It will be nice to keep that lil boy warm. But our my luck he will end up being like his daddy and not sleep in clothes or under covers. His brother was just the opposite. He had to have his footed jammies and lots of covers.

Not too much else happening on the farm. Unless you want to hear about the guys working on the tractors. Our big tractor, the old Ford, that was my dads needed brakes. So Rodger and Jason jacked the tractor up and took off the wheel. The old brakes are NOT coming off at all. Rodger said it has fairly good brakes at this time, so he will wait and take it somewhere after plowing is done to get new brakes put on. Someone that has the tools to get stuck on brake drums off. They were not happy after all the trouble they went to and didn't accomplish anything. But such is life on the homestead. There will be days like that.

Thas all that has happened lately, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Yipee, it was my 50th birthday

Well probably by the time this posts, my birthday will have passed. I can tell you that turning 50 is not for wimps. I got more things that hurt than most people 70 years old. This sucks. But I am amazed that I made it this far and am so very thankful. I got a ton of good wishes on Facebook today, hubby offered to take me to Red Lobster to eat but with our weather forecast I told him maybe we should wait and do it when the weather was better. I didn't want to get iced in out of town on my birthday. So instead we went to the store to get a box of hair color. OK so I color, deny my age, I will. No seafood for dinner but we did make a big kettle of potato soup and fried cornbread with onions. So dang good.
I have got some things done that needed doing today. I got our garden seeds ordered that we are gonna need. I ordered from both Baker creek heirlooms and Seed savers exchange. In the past few years we have tried a few varieties of beans, corn and such and have decided on the varieties that do best for us here and that is what we are gonna stick with so we can save our own seed. Although we are planting 2 varieties of sweet corn, Golden bantam and Stowells Evergreen. The Golden bantam will sprout and come up in cooler ground and can be planted earlier in the season in our area. It is a good old fashioned variety of yellow sweet corn. The Stowells Evergreen is a white sweet corn that can be planted a lil later to extend the harvest. As for green beans, we like the taste of the Kentucky wonder. Neither of us here have a good back so if we can stand up and pick beans all the better. So my friend Randy from central Ky sent me some Ky wonder pole beans, the variety we like only in a climbing variety. So we can save seed from those as well. A gentleman that Rodger works with gave us some white half runners that we love also. So that will be our beans for the coming year. The seed corn I did order so we can have sweet corn that is true to variety and a pure strain. I also replenished our carrot seed supply. All the other seeds we need, we already have from saving them from last year.
In all this online ordering I ordered a dress to wear to Rob and Amoy's wedding in February in Las Vegas. Gosh that is not far off. Rodger bought a new pair of dress shoes for the wedding. I still will need to find shoes to wear. But that is taken care of. The plane tickets, hotel and transportation are all taken care of as well.
My regular readers may remember a few months back when I was fussing about my carpet shampoo machine breaking. Well I found one almost identical on Amazon.com for a really good price plus I had a gift card to apply to the price. Yippee for me, now I have a carpet machine on the way. That should give me something to do this winter.
It is almost time for lots of folks to start making New years resolutions. I don't make resolutions I guess I just try to better "me" every day. Some days I think I succeed, some days, not so much. But in the coming year I do want for Rodger and I to try to take better care of ourselves. That will include cutting way back or stopping smoking. I have already told Rodger that after new years day we cant smoke in the house any more unless its an electronic cigarette. My sweet son Rob bought me one of the electronic cigarettes and I think they help a lot to cut back. Now I need to order cartridge refills for them.
We are hoping that the weather cooperates a lil more tomorrow so we can get our deer skinned out and processed. I really need my summer kitchen. I am out of home canned mixed bean soup and need to make and can more of that. Also still have the small sweet potatoes that I need to can. Rob bought me one of the magnetic knife racks to keep my knives sharp and safely stored in the summer kitchen and I have not been able to get in there to get it mounted on the wall. Maybe after tomorrow. Jason and I are cooking our holiday dinner tomorrow of turkey and he is making the ham. Yummy!! Jason makes ham but putting ham of your choice in roasting pan and adding apple cider about half way up the ham and adding about 1 cup brown sugar making sure to coat the top of the ham well and bake in 200 degree oven over night. Oh my, this ham is sooo very good. You should try this method sometime, it is awesome.
Not much else happening here on the farm, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Slowing down

Its the time of year to slow down and think about the holidays that are so near. Not near enough for me as my lil boy Rob and Amoy will be home for Thanksgiving. I am really looking forward to seeing them. We have Thanksgiving at Rodger's sister Tammy's house on thanksgiving day and then I will have a dinner here at the house on Saturday for family and friend here that want to come see Rob and Amoy while they are here. So in the next couple weeks I have to get busy planning dinner and meals to feed the kids while they are home. Rodger is off the whole week for deer season. He and Jason will deer hunt the weekend Rob gets to Kentucky till they have several deer for the freezer then they will be home.

Tomorrow Rodger and Jason will skin an process the deer Rodger got a couple weeks ago and get him out of my summer kitchen.That is if Jason can use his right hand well enough. He has a splint on it because he had an accident at work and broke his hand. Just a boxers fracture and it will heal fast. Its no biggie for him. It rained last weekend and they didn't get that task taken care of. We just got rain from the tail end of the hurricane Sandy that hit the east coast devastating several states. Please keep those folks in your prayers. After the fellers get the deer processed I will need to spend a week in the summer kitchen canning up some of our smaller sweet potatoes. After canning they can just be drained and glazed an served. If you hadn't noticed I can a lot of what I call "convenience foods" for us. There are time in winter if we get a big snow storm we can lose power for several days and the things I can are things that can be opened and just heated up and served with minimal resources. I also need to get some pears canned before they are all gone and get eaten by the deer an rabbits. By the time I get this done I hope the fellers have more deer to hang in the kitchen to cool out. Most likely that will be the end of our season of canning and preserving. Till next year at least.

I finally made my granola today. The recipe I used is great but the idea of toasting the granola in the crock pot was a no go. So I made the granola the old fashioned way. So here is the recipe for granola.

Granola my way

5 cups old fashioned oats
1/2 cup ground flax seed
3/4 cup coconut oil (I use half butter, half oil)
3/4 cup honey
2 tsp vanilla
2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cups coconut
1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup raw almonds

1 to 2 cups mix ins (seeds or nuts of choice, raisins, dried fruit, chocolate chips)

Melt oil and/or butter, stir in honey, vanilla and cinnamon.
In a large bowl mix remaining ingredients except mix ins. Pour oil mixture over all and stir to blend evenly.

 Pour granola into a baking pan and put in 350 degree oven till toasted. Stir every 5 or 10 minutes for even browning. When toasted cool add the mix ins of choice and store in air tight container.

This only took about 20 or 30 minutes in my oven as I used a dark pan and it browned faster so watch the granola closely as to not burn it. Below are the mix ins that I used. On the left is dried ground cherries, dried strawberries and dried apples, and in the bag Chia seeds.

 IF my plans go as I plan I will make another batch of cookie dough to freeze for later when the kids are home. We always need snacks when the kids are here. Somehow they think they need to eat while they are home. But thas OK, thas what moms do for their kids when they are gone from home too long.  I am really looking forward to their visit. I guess I will just stay busy till then.

Remember the orphan kittens I raised after their momma got killed? The black one has disappeared but I still have Possum. When they were little they spent a lot of time with the chickens. So now in the evening when I go out to close up the chickens Possum is usually in the building with them. I have a confused cat that thinks hes a chicken.

During the day when it rains Possum stays all day in the building and sleeps with the chickens. Poor fellow don't know hes a cat.

Not much else happening on the farm, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Deer season coming up

When deer hunting season comes around the fellers don't get much done on the farm. But thas OK too I guess as the deer put meat in the freezer. I didn't get much done on Friday myself except made a batch of cookies. I used the recipe shared by Mariann Tausch and her girls at the meet up a couple weeks ago. And this recipe is pretty easy and inexpensive to make as well. I divided the recipe in half and still baked about 4 dozen cookies and froze probably that many already shaped in lil balls an ready to bake. So I will share the recipe here.

Butterscotch Cookies for a crowd

3 cups butter or margarine melted an cooled
6 large eggs
6 cups brown sugar packed
6 tsps vanilla
6 tsps baking powder
3 tsps baking soda
10 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Blend all except the flour really well with electric mixer. Slowly add in flour half cup at a time beating after each addition. Roll dough in walnut size balls and place on parchment lined baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake 10 to 12 minutes till light brown at 350 degrees. Enjoy! These are really good cookies without any thing else in them. I happen to have some macadamia nuts and added a few of those chopped to the last bit of the batter before baking and those were great as well. Like I said I had extra batter that I froze. I just rolled the dough in lil balls an placed them on a cold cookie sheet and froze them on the sheet. After they were frozen hard I took them off the cookie sheet an stored them in a zip top bag in the freezer for later. This way we can have fresh baked homemade cookies anytime. I also do this with chocolate chip cookie batter as well. This works as long as I can keep the cookie dough hid from people who like to eat cookie dough.

This container was full of the cookies I baked and then that many again I froze for later use, so this really makes a huge batch of cookies. Would be great for family gatherings when ya needs lots of cookies.
I sent some cookies with Rodger Friday evening when he left to go deer hunting. After he left my friend Lori had ask me if I wanted to go to the local Woolly Worm festival with her that evening and I did go. We walked up the street in town, got up with Jason and Mary Kay, and looked at some of the various booths, nothing really caught my attention but I did notice my achy legs and back. We got a battered deep fried blooming onion and she brought me home. It was just getting dark when I got back home, so I wasn't out too long. I locked up the chickens and got the dog an cats fed an settled in for the night.  After I sat on the computer a  bit I got up to get something to drink an oh gosh, my ankles, knees an hips were so sore and I hurt all over. I guess I just cant walk on blacktop very far. So the next couple days have been recovering. Dang it an I had big plans while Rodger was out of the house. I really wanted to clean carpet but seems that was a no-go. My body so "nope, ain't happening". So I just had a relaxing Saturday. Jason and Mary Kay came by after they had went to town to meet up with extended family for a bit. It was a lil late for Jason to deer hunt but we saw several in the field in front of our house but too dark to shoot. Anyway Josh had called to tell us Rodger had got a nice big buck. He does not hunt horns but this animal was one of 3 in a group that they saw and Rodger said this one was a sure shot. There was a bigger buck in the herd but he wouldn't get a clear shot an decided to take this one. He was using his muzzle loader barrel that Danny Roebuck had given him a couple years ago. So thanks Danny. Not a bad deer.

Actually a really nice rack. And lots of meat for the freezer.We are for sure gonna mount this one. Maybe just a European mount tho. Rodger said he didn't want the whole head on the wall looking at him. They had a good weekend and he alas has fun but he got home a lil after midnight on Sunday night and was worn out. He was tired enough that he took off work today to rest up. Next deer hunting is modern gun season in November right before Thanksgiving.
Rodger also brought home another small freezer that Josh had given us. It is perfect in the kitchen to keep a stock of variety packages in the house so I don't have to run out to the building to get a pack of burger or bag of corn everyday. So thanks Josh, much appreciated.
I think at some time over the weekend we had frost here. The plants in the herb bed look like they have been frost nipped and the purple hull peas in the field across from the house are wimpy looking.But I guess it is that time of year. We are pose to have temps in the 70's all this week an our next cold day will be next Sunday with high in the 50's. With these temperature swings if a person isn't sick they will be. Its tough on allergy stuff.
Not much else happening here on the homestead this weekend. I cant get in my summer kitchen cause there is a big ole deer hanging in there for now. We actually made it to serve the purpose as we can turn on the AC and keep the deer cool enough for it to age well before we skin it an process the meat. After the deer is processed I get my kitchen back. Thas OK, its all good. At least for one week I know I don't have to can anything.
So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Making gumbo to can

It has been a long hard day. I made a big batch of gumbo to can and with Rodger at work I had to do all the choppin, browning, and making the roux by myself. Talk about a long day. My friend Deb from Mississippi taught me how to make it a few years ago. The recipe is here from another post on this blog.  We had fun but the fun ends when ya have to do all the work alone. I think I have cuts on every finger I own, a few burns from the Cajun napalm called roux. Not to mention the hurty feet from standing all day, and oh my aching back. I get a feeling tomorrow will be spent in bed recovering from today. Story of my life. If I can get out of bed in the morning I want to make some plum jelly. My buddy Randy gave me a quart of plum juice when we went to the meet up in central Ky last weekend and I have not had time or energy to make the jelly yet. But the hard part is done already an thas makin the juice. So surely I can get the jelly made.

Rodger will be out of town deer hunting this weekend and Jason an Mary Kay will be hunting here on the farm. I have big plans of my own. I hope to get the carpets cleaned in the house while there is no one to interrupt me and wonder where meals are. I might even get to stay up late an read as long as I want an not worry about waking anyone up. The linoleum in the kitchen needs to be scrubbed really well too. All summer of just mopping leaves it in pretty sad shape. I will have to wait an see if we get rain this weekend tho as the carpet might not dry well if its wet outside. We shall see.

I got some composted chicken manure I want to move and spread on my strawberry bed an asparagus bed out back this weekend too if time permits. Or if my body holds out long enough. I should soon be picking the last of the raspberries to get in the freezer this year. I would like to freeze more on cookie sheets an bag them up to use in cereal this winter. Oh an to add to homemade granola. Which I will likely make in a crock pot this time to save the constant stirring and risk of burning it. I really like granola with lots of nuts an dried fruit and it is very filling not to mention good for ya.

So thas my plan, now lets see how far I get. I will let ya know. Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Another batch of soap

I love learning new things an playing with this soap making process. I had the idea to make some soap for the guys to use after work to remove junk an smells. I have read that coffee added to soap will do the trick. So today I made a batch of coffee/chocolate soap.

 You can see the grounds of coffee in the soap and gosh does it ever smell good. The whole house smells like chocolate and coffee.

 Here is the recipe:

Coffee and chocolate soap

28 oz of lard
2 oz coconut oil
2 oz olive oil
2 oz Shea butter
 
4.56 oz of lye
11.22 oz cold strong coffee

Additives: 1 tablespoon fine ground coffee, 1 tablespoon Hershey's baking chocolate 

Weigh out the lye an coffee and add the lye slowly to the coffee and stir gently till all lye is in an dissolved.Set aside to cool.
Weigh out the lard, olive oil, coconut oil an Shea butter in a plastic bucket or bowl that you intend to make the soap in. Measure out the fine ground coffee and chocolate and set this aside.

Melt oils in kettle on stove top or in microwave in short burst till all the fats are melted and blended.
With a thermometer check temp of lye solution and fat solution, both should be around 120 degrees an within 5 degrees of each other. When the temps are correct put stick blender in the oil and start to blend as you slowly add the lye solution. When all the solution is in the fats blend about another minute to help saponify the fats. Let rest for about 3 minutes an blend again about 30 seconds, repeat this procedure till the soap is at a medium trace. With the blender on add coffee an chocolate powders and blend well. Soap should be at a good trace by this point. Pour soap into prepared molds and cover the surface with plastic wrap. This will help prevent soda ash from building on the surface of the soap as it hardens. Cover with a cloth to maintain heat so it cools slowly. Once soap is set after 24 hours, remove from mold an cut into bars.

Let the soap cure for at least a week before using it. The soap gets harder as it ages as well which makes it last much longer in the shower.

The herbal healing soap I made over the weekend looks nice and I love it. It leaves the skin moist an not sticky. Lathers really well and leaves very little fragrance behind.

Now what else can I make? Maybe I will make some lotion next, or body butter, or..............well the ideas are endless.

The weather has been just beautiful the past few days, sunny an cool. Great to be outside unless the fall blooming plants get you down. Well that leaves me in here looking out I guess. I sure don't need bronchitis. Rodger went to mow around the big corn field this evening after supper an a bit ago when he came in his hands were ice cold. Not long till we have frost an we need to dig our sweet potatoes before frost. They should be nice size by now with the rain we have had. We shall see.

Not much else happening here, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Sometimes I feel like the Clampets house

I guess if you are on a farm everyone has those times. Somehow this summer I have managed to inherit several orphans here. First it was the lil kittens with no momma. They are doing fine. After the last post I started setting out a bowl of food (home canned chicken and stock) for them early in the morning and late evening and they have learned to sit nearby the food dish in the weeds and wait for feeding time. They will sit and watch me put their food out but still wont come to me. Thas OK tho as long as they eat. I have to make sure they eat before I let the chickens out for the day or they steal the food. All the while I have to make sure Luna and her lil girls have food out so they don't take the kittens foods. Kinda tricky and time consuming to get those critters fed. Then I let the big chickens out after the kittens eat so they can do their thing. Which usually includes dusting under my shrubs. They move a lot of dirt but the base of some shrubs are sure weed free. Not to mentioned fertilized. So its all good. I let the chickens out today and checked on the hens with the babies. The first babies are about a week and a half old and doing good. I had one lil fellow that hatched out late and his momma didn't want him. I had him in the house with me one night till he got stronger and then took him back to the hens. Not sure what problem one of the hens has with the lil one but she kept beatin him up every time he got near her. I cant have that crap so he is back in the house in a box and is very happy not to have his lil head pecked for living. So now I have to make sure he stays warm so he don't fuss all night and keep us all up. Cant imagine how this is all gonna end. I can see me having a chicken that sits on the front porch with me because he don't know hes a chickens. Then the morning care includes making sure the meat birds are cool enough and doing OK. Yesterday I had to take a box fan and put in the building with them to move the air a bit in there. They were getting too hot. Those Cornish do not tolerate extreme heat or cold well at all. They do suffer. So this morning when I checked in on them they were doing what most chickens do, sitting in front of the fan where its nice and cool. Our temps are supposed to cool some this weekend and first part of next week so that will help the birds some. It gets to be a full time job keeping water out so all the critters have access to fresh water all day in the heat.
We are hoping for rain soon. Even tho the gardens are doing well they sure could use some rain. We did enjoy the new taters with our sugar snap peas last week. I had wilted lettuce and onions with bacon one day for lunch. Dang I could eat that every day for life I think. Just one of those comfort foods I grew up on. I usually just fry up some home grown bacon that I have cut in lil tiny pieces till it gets crisp. Drain off some of the bacon grease then toss in some sliced green onions till they wilt and then put the lettuce in the skillet till its wilted a lil and toss to coat well with the fat. Put in a big ole bowl and dig in. I put the bacon bits back on top of the lettuce after it wilts down good and for me thas a good meal. Especially if ya have some leftover cornbread to go with it. Can we say HOG HEAVEN!!
I have to tell ya about my lil observation this evening. After I had fed the lil orphan kittens and they had ate I saw our older white momma cat (the only momma we have now) had went down below the house in the yard with her kittens which are older. The momma cat and her kittens were playing with the lil orphans. When it was almost dark I saw the momma luring all the kittens back up toward the house and out back toward the outbuildings where her kittens have been staying. Kinda makes ya think that if humans don't interfere with nature, nature will take care of its own. I have to wonder if the momma cat knows the lil kittens (her grand kittens) are orphaned and is tryin to lure them back up to the house to stay in the company of her kittens so they can show them where the food bowl stays. I always feed the momma cat and her young on the back deck under a picnic table and they know there is food there. And we think animals are dumb. All animals have God given instincts and teach their young to survive. Even in watching Luna with her lil girls is amazing. She led them up here to the house where she knew there would be food when they were old enough to start on solid food. As long as she was nursing them before they were ready to eat, she kept them down across the road under the old house, safe, dry and cool. If I had leftover rolls and such I know Luna enjoyed I would give them to her in her morning food bowl. I watched her several different times take one of the rolls in her mouth and take off down the yard, across the road and take the roll to her puppies. I guess she knew it was soft enough for them to learn to eat and after about a week of this she started bringing them up to the house. I was watching her when she brought them up the other morning and she would walk slow ahead of them occasionally looking back till she led them to the water bowl I had out for them. So now they know where the water bowl is at. I feed Luna in her bowl and put the lil girls food in another container near hers. She will growl gently if they get in her food, they will just sit down an watch her. Then they will go eat from their bowl. I have noticed that she don't eat the food from their dish even if hers is empty. She will come to me when I go out on the front porch and with her body language let me know her bowl is empty. I am always amazed at the awesome work of God and his creations.
Not much else happening here, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Slow and steady as we go

That seems to be my way of life these days. Not sure what happened to my energy but it is long gone. I had to adjust some of my meds back down and it did seem to help some. I have felt a lil better the past few days. On those crappy days I just don't get a single thing done outside in the gardens. I have decided that if I don't feel like being out there in the heat I am best to just stay inside and do what ever needs doing and let it go at that. It is really exhausting to force my body to keep going when I feel so rotten. Any who, Rodger has got the garden all worked out and it looks pretty good. We sure do need rain tho. We planted a lil later than normal for us and missed all the early spring rains. The plants don't have deep enough roots yet to get water down deep as they would if we had gotten it planted earlier. So they do suffer some in the dry weather. But I am sure we will get rain when we are supposed to. I bet my dad is sittin up there sayin " I taught ya better than that".We are still having a lil trouble with the tater bugs, but not bad. But I did spray this evening to keep them at bay so they don't attack the tomatoes and beans. The peas are pretty much done and I was thinkin as I walked past the trellis spraying that maybe I need to just go ahead and pull up the plants and plow the ground leaving the fence in place an plant the length of fence trellis in White Half Runner beans. They do make the very best shuck beans. The Ky Wonders that we raise are OK for shuck beans but the half runners are much better.
I checked out the grape vines in the back yard and they Japanese beetles have attacked them again this year. So I caught a bunch of them and the chickens had a feast. Then sprayed with some Sevin to kill the ones I missed. They can destroy a grape vine in a matter of a couple days if left unattended.
Yesterday evening I went down the the old house and outbuilding to check on the Cornish cross and got to catch one of Luna's puppies. Gosh they are so fat and cute. The one I caught was a lil girl and she looked like her momma. As luck would be I didn't have my camera with me so no pics to post here yet but for those of ya that are on my friends list on facebook you can see the pics there. Sorry, I got a smart fone and it is for sure smarter than me and I have no clue how to get the pics from the fone to the puter.
But I did take a few pics in the garden when we were over there. So I at least can share those even tho it has taken me 3 days to find the cable to my camera so I could load them in the puter. Can ya tell I am technically challenged?

Well for some odd reason blogger is cooperating and I cant even upload the pics to the blog. I am done cussin now so we shall go on.

I have been harvesting and drying some herbs along the past few days. I am still researching and studying up on medicinal herbs and making my own natural salves, balms and meds. I did make a small trial batch of skin balm a couple days ago and it does sooth me skin after a shower and don't feel greasy. I love the way it feels and it actually smells nice. I added a small amount of lavender just for fragrance. It consists of coconut oil, round leaf plantain, lavender, comfrey leaf, a few drops of vitamin E oil. Melt the oil in a small pan and add the chopped herbs and stir to get as much of the essential oils from the leaves as possible then add vitamin E, stir and strain in a small container and let cool. The total time on the heat was about 30 minutes. So far I do think this works for me to sooth irritated skin after a shower and working outside.
I talked to my friend Rosie  and got a ton of ideas for different plants that can be used for many things. One thing that grows really well here is dandelion and the dandelion root teas is nearly a cure all for many aliments of the body. But this is still a learning process. I had an older fellow tell me one time that if you didn't learn at least one new thing everyday that you wasted the day. I think he might be right. But dang I don't think it will do me any good to learn things as I forget too quick. I reckon I will need to make an investment in a journal to keep notes.
Not much else happening here, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

A slow hot summer beginning

Our summer has started out hotter than normal for this time of year. It has been miserable all weekend. The fellows have a long weekend with the holiday and a short work week. We have been doing some chores to keep caught up so we hopefully don't get too over whelmed later. Early last week we picked peas and got those trimmed and I canned 13 quarts of the next day. We do like sugar snap peas in winter as a sub for green beans as a green veggie. I will need to pick those again tomorrow and can more. The tater bugs are giving the taters a fit now so Rodger sprayed those today in hopes of slowing down the damage. Gosh we need lots of taters to use thru the winter. I do need to organize my cellar again so I can rotate the things that were canned last year are used up first. And from the looks of the garden so far we should have a good many beans and stuff to can again this year. I feel so blessed to know that most all our food is home grown and mostly organic. I also have been doing more research online on holistic medicine and herbal remedies. If I can tolerate the heat tomorrow I intend to gather some wild herbs to dry for later use in medicinal teas and maybe tinker with some tinctures and poultices. Maybe even some salve. I am now really convinced of the benefit of some foods and their healing properties. I have a skin fungus that has been a nuisance for nearly 2 years. Then I was reading where coconut oil is anti-viral and anti-fungal, so I thought heck what can it hurt. It seemed that ever time I took a shower the fungus would itch so bad and become so uncomfortable. I decided to coat the fungus area with some of the coconut oil and immediately it seemed to stop the itch. After 3 days of using the coconut oil on those places all of them have stopped itching totally. I was shocked but convinced. Especially since the kind of oil I used was the same oil that I use to cook with, not even whole and organic. On Saturday we had planned on taking a trip out of town to get chicken feed for the Cornish cross because they needed a higher protein feed that I can get locally. On that trip to the big city I made a stop at the health food store. I picked up some whole vinegar with the mother, a jar of organic pure unprocessed coconut oil, a bottle of oil of wild oregano and even got a bottle of colloidal silver. Most illnesses in the body are due to acidity, most holistic practitioners recommend 2 tablespoons of whole apple cider vinegar with 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda mixed till it stops fizzing and add water till you can tolerate the taste and drink to alkalize the body. The coconut oil is good internally and externally, taken orally a teaspoon daily will rid the body of yeast over growth from taking modern meds, especially antibiotics. The oil of wild oregano is a very potent antibacterial and antiviral agent topically or taken 1 drop twice a day internally. Colloidal silver is the most potent antibacterial and antiviral agent known to man and kills any germ on contact. Taken internally it can prevent and cure most all illnesses. All these things are a good idea to keep on hand if like me your immune system is compromised by something like arthritis. The meds I take for arthritis suppresses my immune system so if I take the colloidal silver or oil of oregano I may be able to maintain better health so things don't sneak up on me like the last ear infection and sinus infection that got me a couple weeks ago. Rodger has a problem with sinus allergies and has taken over the counter allergy meds for over 2 years now. He now uses elderberry extract. He has been purchasing that but we are gonna harvest the many elderberries we have growing wild here on the farm. There are several wild herbs that we have tons of that I do intend to gather for later use.
Jason wanted to go back to Richmond today to get him a pair of work boots as he and his buddy didn't have time yesterday when they went out. He ask me to go with him and I did. I had forgotten to pick up coconut oil to cook with while Rodger and I were out yesterday. Rodger no longer eats pork products so I have in the past been using regular cooking oil when I had to fry stuff, which is not too often, for him. I decided that stuff is really toxic to the human body and told him we ARE NOT using that stuff any more. So I stocked up on the coconut oil and a jug of good olive oil for cooking. We also use butter and I use lard for things Jason and I will eat. All good healthy stuff. Any who, thas my rant for today.
With our hot weather I have to keep a close eye on my lil chickens. They can get too hot really quick and die from the heat. They are liking their higher protein feed too. So in about 4 more weeks we will have good meat in the freezer. I have 4 hens setting again. I did put eggs under all of them and now we wait and see how many babies we get this time. The last bunch the hens raised are half grown and pretty lil fellows. Luna still has 2 puppies and I did get a glimpse of them the other day. They are so cute and look like her. She should being them out soon so we can see them. I have no clue how many kittens my cats have. I do know 1 cat has 3 and not sure about the other momma. Jason's momma cat has some babies and he hasn't even counted them to see how many she has. I have a real soft spot for lil baby critters these days. Sometimes that is not a good thing too. A person could end up with far too many cats and they are a pain to give away unless they are really friendly and these are not at all tame.
Maybe in the near future I will get out the camera and give ya a glimpse of life here on the farm. Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.


Stella

It winter and I dont like it

Our weather is finally more like winter time now but I can alas wish spring was closer. Not much happening around the farm right now. I have had several doctor appointments in the past few weeks. None of em bad tho. I did see an ortho doc last week about the intense pain I have had in my left arm for far too long. As it turns out I have a torn rotator cuff and will be having surgery next week to repair the shoulder and to have the tendinitis issue fix with the left elbow at the same time. I tole the doc I only want to pay one insurance co-pay and have one recovery, not 2 different ones. So I see him again on Wednesday next week and have surgery on Thursday. I will sure have to recoup fast as we leave to go see Rob on April 6th. I know by then I wont be 100% but will be better. Really looking forward to getting this over with and then seeing the kids.
I haven't done much the past week to amount to much. At least we did get one side of our bacon sliced and in the freezer. It turned out rather good. I really need to get some baby chicks ordered for meat birds. I am almost out of our homegrown chicken in the freezer at this point. But we do have  a beef coming in a few weeks. We have meat, just not chicken. I still got 4 lil baby ones with 3 mommas running around. They are so dang cute. The mommas have been taking them outside even in this cold weather. When their lil feet get cold they hop up on the hens back to warm up. The moms know when they are too cold an take em back to the building and sit with em.
Today when I talked to my friend Deb she wanted my recipe for rolls. This is for Deb and anyone else who likes good homemade rolls. Although I use this recipe in the bread machine I am sure it can be done with a stand mixer or even by hand. If using a stand mixer or by hand I do think I would add the sugar and powdered milk to the water and then mix in the yeast, then flour butter and salt. in that order as to not kill the yeast.

Yeast rolls

! cup hot tap water, about 110 degrees
2  tablespoons powdered milk
2 1/2 tablespoons sugar
3 cups bread flour
3 tablespoons soft butter
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons yeast

In machine, add water, sugar, powdered milk, flour, put salt in one corner, add yeast to middle of flour out of the salt, then put the butter in the corners. Set machine to dough setting and turn it on. When machine stops remove dough and shape as desired , let rise till double, bake at 400 for 10 to 15 minutes till brown on top. Enjoy!!
 You can use the same order of ingredients in stand mixer. Mix for about 5 minutes, let rest for 10 minutes, then knead for about 10 minutes, let rise till double, knock down and shape as desired. Let rise to double and bake as above. 

Also if you use bread machine yeast you will only use 1 1/2 teaspoons of yeast in this recipe. And you will end up with 12 large rolls or 16 smaller ones.

Nothing else happening here on the farm, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Easy low effort meals

I like to cook, but dang once in a while ya just need a break from the stove. Ya really want something ya can stick in the oven and then go back later and take out a nice meal or at least main dish. So that is what I did tonight for supper. I make a dry rub that I like on pork ribs that is also great on chicken or beef. Its really good on any meat and can be varied with the type of braising liquid added. So below is the recipe for the dry rub.

Dry Rub

10 tablespoons brown sugar
3 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon each of black pepper, cayenne pepper, old bay seasoning, thyme and onion powder

Mix all the dry ingredients together then rub thawed meat well with it. Put meat in oven bag or pan  Let meat stand for at least 1 hour. For chicken I add about 1 cup of coke cola to the bag or pan, cover tight and put in 300 degree oven for 2 hours. If it cooks longer in oven bag the meat will still be tender and moist.
For pork ribs use the following braising liquid in the pan after the meat has set for an hour.
(I make several batches of this rub at once and store in fridge and use as needed.)

Braising liquid:

1 cup white wine
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
4 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoons garlic minced

Mix ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to boil. Pour over ribs in pan and cover tightly with foil. Put in 300 degree oven for at least 3 hours for meaty thick ribs. If ribs are thinner they may be done in 2 hours. Drain glaze from the pan and put in sauce pan and simmer till it thickens and brush ribs with glaze and run under the broiler till hot and well glazed. Serve hot. So dang good.
This recipe works for pork, beef ribs, pork chops and chicken.
Enjoy!! Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Great weather to work outside

It was probably 60 degrees outside today and sunny.  Really a great day for working out in the yard. And that is exactly what I did. I managed to weed the strawberry bed that has not been touched since last fall. The plants are still green and growing. We really have not had winter so far to kill them back. I still need to find energy to clean up the onion and asparagus beds, but thas for later. I pulled the few weeds that were in the herbs in the old pyramid bed and pulled about half the weeds in the big herb bed in front of the house. My back cant do it all at once. I have a deer netting little fence around the herb bed to keep cats out and did some repair on the fence. It has been bumped into with car doors and had some tears in it. Its all fixed back and looks a lil better. Still got a good bit of work and cleaning to do in that bed tho. If we don't get rain tomorrow I may try to dig up a small space and sow some lettuce. It would be nice to have fresh lettuce to use along. Beats all to heck buying the stuff in the stores. If I grow my own at least I can choose varieties that have some nutritional value. Not long till it will be time to plant peas, carrots , onions, beets and those kind of cool weather crops.

After supper I made some cookie bars that were easy and quick to make for a snack. The fellows like them pretty well. So I will share the recipe with you.

Toffee Bars

 * 1 cup (2 sticks) butter
    * 1 cup packed light-brown sugar
    * 1 egg yolk
    * 2 cups all-purpose flour
    * 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    * 6 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
    * 2/3 cup finely chopped nuts

Cream butter and brown sugar. Add egg yolk. Add flour and vanilla, and stir until well blended. Spread dough into a greased 15x10x1-inch jelly-roll pan and bake at 350 degrees F for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from oven and immediately sprinkle chocolate chips on top of crust. Allow chocolate to soften, and spread evenly. Sprinkle with chopped nuts and press nuts lightly into chocolate, using the bottom of a glass. Cool, then cut into squares.

I usually line the pan with parchment paper for easy of removal. The crust will be somewhat soft when they are done. No worries. Just put the chips on top and let em melt and spread em. Once the nuts are on and pressed into the chocolate I drag the parchment out of the pan onto the cutting board and let the chocolate set. Then use a pizza cutter to cut the cookies into bars. Simple and tasty.
Not much else happening here so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

I think winter is coming

I think our weather is taking a turn for more winter like weather this week. It has rain most of the day, although light rain. But tonight it is supposed to change over to snow and we are to get a lil accumulation. Not to mention it is going to get very cold. My body don't do cold weather these days. It sure makes the arthritic joints hurt pretty bad. So if it gets cold I reckin I will just stay inside. I am hoping my perennial plants that are starting to sprout and get tender green buds don't get froze out. Last weekend I noticed the daylillies had lil green shoots coming up and the lilacs have tender buds. Such is life. I sure would hate to dig holes and plant over. Oh well.

My lil hens are sitting pretty on nests with eggs. Only problem is they are in the hen house with the other hens that still want to use the nest. I have one lil hen that will get off her eggs to eat and somebody else will go sit down to lay and when she is ready to go back on the eggs she just sits down in what ever nest box is empty. Bless her heart, I think if she is to raise a family she will need to adopt or chic nap her babies. I am sure this event is going to get interesting. I can see me hand raising babies in the house this winter. Oh my!!! Well sure wont be a first.

I like to search recipes online and get ideas to replicate things we enjoy. One of those things happens to be the biscuits from Red Lobster restaurant. Those things are to die for. I can really make a meal of the biscuits and a soda when we eat out. But I do like the coconut shrimp too. Any way I found a copycat recipe online that was pretty close to the one they use. I think I finally got it down by tweaking it a lil bit. So for the ones familiar with those biscuits I thought I would share the recipe I use now.

Cheddar Bay biscuits

2 1/2 cups baking mix(Bisquick)
5 tablespoons soft butter(real butter)
1 cup grated cheddar cheese(needs to be fairly fine)
1/2 teaspoon of parsley flakes
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
3/4 cups milk or to make a medium dough(soft but not too soft)

With a pastry blender cut butter into baking mix till has pea size balls of butter. Stir in garlic powder and parsley. Mix cheese in evenly. Now add milk to make dough. (the dough should be a lil softer than regular biscuit dough that you would knead)

Now drop dough by Tablespoons full on a buttered cookie sheet.

Melt about 1/2 cup butter with 1 teas garlic powder, 1/2 teas salt, 1 teas fine parsley flakes. Stir well and brush on biscuits before baking them. now bake at 400 degrees till lightly browned. Remove from oven and brush again with the melted butter mixture. Serve hot. These are so dang good. Try these with a good soup or stew.

Hope you enjoy these with your family as much as we do. Not much else happening here on the farm. So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

I love to bake in winter when I have time

In summer I don't have time to spend in the kitchen baking, kinda lucky to just get meals cooked. But in winter I do have more free time to bake goodies. So when I was in the summer kitchen other day making stock I got out my old country cooking magazines and was flippin thru them and found some recipes that I had made a long time ago. One was a recipe for an orange layer cake that was so dang good. So I thought I would share the recipe with you. This make 2 layers 9 inches and the filling is more than enough and the frosting recipe will leave you enough to taste test..........a lot..

Orange Layer Cake

1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup softened butter
1 tablespoon grated orange rind
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
2 teas baking powder
1/4 teas baking soda
1/2 teas salt
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup orange juice
4 stiffly beaten egg whites

Prepare 2 - 9 inch cakes pans by buttering and lining with parchment paper and butter the paper and set aside.

Beat sugar, soft butter and orange rind till creamy. In separate bowl combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Beat dry ingredients alternately with orange juice and water till smooth. In separate bowl whip egg whites stiff and gently fold into batter. Pour evenly into the prepared pans and bake in preheated 350 degree oven about 25 to 35 minutes till cake test done. Remove and cool on rack till completely cool

Orange Filling

In medium saucepan combine 1/2 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons cornstarch, 1 1/2 teaspoons grated orange rind, 1/2 teaspoons salt. Gradually blend in 3/4 cup orange juice and 1/4 cup water and 2 slightly beaten egg yolks. Cook over medium heat till simmering and thickened stirring constantly. Cool filling before filling the cake.

Orange Butter cream frosting

In mixer bowl cream 6 tablespoons soft butter, add 1 lb or 4 1/2 cups powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon grated orange peel and a dash of salt then add in 4 tablespoons orange juice. Beat well with mixer till smooth adding more orange juice till frosting is smooth and creamy.

Put one layer of cake on desired serving platter and put filling on top of this layer only. Put other layer on top of filling and then frost the cake. Slice and serve. This is a very pretty and refreshing cake. You would have to work really hard to mess this recipe up.

This is just about all I have done today. But dang it the cake was so good and worth it. Not much else happening on the homestead this week as we have rain again. So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

The souse is done and so am I

On Monday I scrubbed the hogs head parts that had been soaking in salt water over night and got those all cooked to make souse. I left them in the pressure canner to cool over night so I could pick out the bones and chop the meat up. So on Tuesday that is what I did. I got an early start and got all the meat off the bones and into a pan to wait for seasoning. The bones I put in zip top bags and into the freezer for Luna and Delilah as they need em. Once the bones are out of the meat and the meat chopped. Add back to the meat some of the stock for the pot till the mixture is the thickness of mashed potatoes. Stir well and put into a heavy bottom kettle to cook. I used my enameled cast iron dutch oven.

 I did mine in batches. Add salt, black pepper, and sage to taste. It should have a slight hint of garlic from garlic powder and a notable taste of sage. Stir the seasoning into the meat.

In this 2 gallon kettle half full of meat I added about 1 cup of fine ground plain cornmeal. Stir in and turn on the heat and stir often and let it bubble for about 20 minutes.

I pour the souse into cake pans once it has cooked to let it set. The meat will get firm and can be sliced. Today I went to the summer kitchen and cut the souse into small blocks and wrapped it in plastic wrap and into the freezer. Once it freezes I will vacuum seal it to make it last longer. The fat content being very high and a cooked food it will get rancid fairly quick.
So now if some gives you a fresh hogs head you will know what to do with it. Although this is not something that everyone will eat. It is sometimes called head cheese or scrapple and to us in appalachia it is souse.

We have had drizzle all day today and it has been cold. Was kinda nice to work in the summer kitchen and not need heat or AC. I let the hens out while I was outside but they didnt seem to care much for the cooler weather either. The young pullets are laying pretty good. I get 5 or 6 eggs per day. So I have lots of nice eggs for baking. So maybe tomorrow I can stay in and bake something good.
Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella