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

Oh yeah, we on the rebound

I am not gonna say it no more. I am not gonna promise to update the blog more frequently. I will try tho. At least I can say with some hope that I am on the rebound and making progress toward feeling some better. Dang its been a tough couple years at best. As most know I am diagnosed with rheumatoid and osteo arthritis and fibromyalgia. Plus the damage to my back and arms from a work injury. Some day I am gonna wake up and not feel pain and know for sure I am dead. But until then the battle rages. The long an short is my doctors had me on some meds that are good for fibro and helping manage chronic pain from such but the side effects were killing me. I have always all my life loved being outside, in the garden, having flowers, taking care of different beds of edibles here on the farm, raising our own meat, all things farm related. I have spent the better part of 2 years INside because I could not tolerate heat or cold, the fatigue and brain fog were just awful. Then I had an Ah-ha moment. Yes another one. All this started when I was put on cymbalta and lyrica. So if they cause that many negative effects I did not have before then I think it would behoove me to not take them. I am here to tell you getting off the medications was a nightmare. Literally! I had horrible dreams, violent dreams, pain, headaches. brain zaps,(you cant know unless you have had these), my tummy has been mad at me for a long time. I have not allowed myself to drive now for about 3 weeks because I just did not feel safe riding with ME. I am now at the point where the worst is over. I can walk without appearing to be intoxicated now, I can drive and feel safer in my own abilities. I am making positive progress. Thank God!! I have had some pretty good days this past week. I at least have been able an felt like getting out side to do things. In all this, I guess the message is, if you are sick, no matter what the illness. Be your own advocate. Research your illness or injury, know your options, know your own body and really pay attention to how meds make you feel. Sometimes a bunch of small changes (minor side effects) can be as bad if not worse than big effects. IF you feel your medication is causing more problems than it helps, ask the doc to change it if possible or adjust your lifestyle to make you better. The cymbalta I was taking slowed the chemical signals in the body that tells the brain "pain". It slows the pain signals but along with that everything else in the body as well. I feel like my digestive system has slowed really bad to the point I don't digest my food well thus not getting the nutrition my body needs. Now I have to work on that too from a holistic standpoint. Add more cultured and fermented food to help digestion, fresh pineapple for the digestive enzymes. I kept wondering why I could eat only once a day and feel full and not hungry all day and all night. That is not normal ya know. But tomorrow is gonna be better. Always!!

Today I actually drove me to town and didn't scare me or damage anything or anyone. I went to check on mom, she is doing OK. Had lunch with Rodger at the local DQ(mistake). Ran into some old friends I had not seen in a long time. Stood on the sidewalk and talked to them for well over an hour. Had intended to stop by the store to say hello to Lori, but dang by time I looked at my watch it was past time to for me to start supper so I came on home. I cant remember when I have been out of the house this long. We had fresh green beans, new taters, corn bread an garden maters for supper. I fixed a pan of meatloaf but not much of it was eaten. We all just pigged out on the garden stuff. Rodger got his after supper nap in and then finished installing our cell phone booster. It has helped our cell phone reception a good bit. Not much signal to be had out here in the boonies. But that is a good thing. There are places on our road that has no GPS signal too. We so hid even the satellites cant find us. While Rodger was doing his project I started getting my stuff together to plant my lil cabbage plants that we picked up at Lowe's yesterday while we were in Lexington to the dentist.

There were only 9 of them but that is enough to make a few more jars of kraut and have coleslaw for a while. They should be done before really bad weather. I had the black plastic over this whole section of the herb bed to kill weeds and it did a fine job. I just left the plastic on the area I am not planting to keep the weeds at bay. I did use landscape fabric under the cabbage with mulch on top to keep it in place.

My friend Anna had sent me several lavender plants earlier in the year and I put them in pots so they would get really good strong roots. I got some of them planted here at the west end of the herb bed so they can have plenty of light in summer time and bloom really well. The nearby plant is one of my mature sage plant that has been all but scalped. I have about 10 nice sage plants growing in here now. I really have made some headway on getting the herb bed back in order. Gosh it was about gone with no weeding this summer. Next project is to thin out the mint(s) and purple cone flower. They are so over grown. The oregano is out of control too. I did cut a bunch of it last week to dry for use in cooking. If we don't get rain tomorrow I am gonna try to cut the chives and get those frozen for later use. Chives are best frozen. I got a spot ready to plant some parsley too. Parsley is good frozen or dried. I dry most of mine. Its about time to be thinking about where I can plant some turnips and mustard for greens. I probably need to can more greens so we can take more to Rob and Amoy next spring. I like to just eat the turnips raw like an apple. I had some last fall that got lost in the back of the fridge and stayed in there for a good 3 months. When I found those they were so sweet and good. Love em!
I had my camera in hand (can you imagine?) when I went out back to close up the chickens for the night and check on my beans out back. This jungle looking mess is suppose to be lima beans. Not sure but they have grown up and down the fence wire they are trellised on till it might be near impossible to pick the beans.

The smaller beans to the left of the tall "mess" are a few plants of the Ky wonder pole bean. Those are gonna get trellised this weekend I hope. But the beans on the limas are huge and to me look almost like fava beans.

Well, what do you think, Limas or Favas? I don't know, but if they lima beans they are gonna be huge beans. They are wide and flat and I always thought Lima's looked like large green beans as they grew, just a bit bigger.

These things are a good 1 1/2 inches wide and they are just starting to grow. I better ask someone who knows more about Lima's and Favas than me. I bet my friend Deb will know.

Rodger and I were out of town last weekend to western Ky to visit Aunt Ann and Uncle Tripp for the weekend and pick some green beans. Oh my, that woman, even with her being sick and taking chemo and radiation treatments all spring an summer she has a huge garden. At least she had some friends that came from out of town to help her daughter in law get lots of things canned up. They got green beans done and while we were there I helped Shawna make and can some tomato juice so she can comfortably do it alone now. And Ann had lots of tomatoes that were close to ripe enough to make juice. Please keep this sweet lady in your prayers that she can make a speedy recovery and we can have her for many more years.
Not much else happening here, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Canning season is in full swing

The canning season for us is in full swing now. Rodger went to work, came home again to help me pick a bushel of green beans this morning and he went back to work. I sat on the front porch till around noon stringing beans. Then off to the summer kitchen to break them up and get em canned. That got finished around 4 this evening. I had more tomatoes than we could eat and we decided to make and can a batch of veggie soup. So while the beans were processing I put the veggie soup together and got it in the jars. I went ahead and put them in the pressure canner but didn't turn the flame on till after we went to the garden again and picked a bunch of sweet corn. We picked half way down 2 rows and got 2 big feed bags full of corn. Keep in mind I have 10 rows of sweet corn. We came back to the house and shucked and cleaned the corn and I got it all cut off the cob and ready for the freezer. I did remember to turn the stove on and process the veggie soup while we cleaned corn tho. We got the corn put in zip top bags and in the freezer about the time the soup got done. Rodger put the bags of corn in the freezer on his way in the house and I stayed in the kitchen to let the pressure drop on the canner. While I waited on the canner I checked my last batch of kraut and it was ready to be packed in jars and put in the cellar. So I did that and emptied the soup out of the canner and called it a day and night. Dang my body is tired. I suspect I probably wont be able to move too well tomorrow. But no matter it will be off to the garden again to pick more corn and get it put away.
Not much else happening here on the homestead today, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Updates from the farm

Dang I sure didn't think it had been that long since I had posted. But any who been preoccupied fora while. Rob came home from Nevada and got here on July 2nd. They drove from Elko Nevada to home here in Ky. A total of 36 hours on the road. Arrived about 7 am on Saturday and spent the week here. Such a short week, seems like I didn't even get to visit with Rob while he was here. But they had to be gone doing various things during the week. We met them in Richmond on Friday night for dinner before they left this past Saturday. I did get a text message that they arrived back in Elko about 8:30 my time on Sunday evening. Just thankful for a safe uneventful trip for them.
Over the weekend we had to get started on the garden stuff. I have canned 19 quarts of green beans so far and that is just picking the ones off that are big enough to encourage the plants to keep blooming and extend the harvest. I had started kraut a week or so ago and it was finished. I did put that in the jars yesterday and sealed up and stored in the cellar. Dang it is good too. I had 21 pints and 7 quarts of kraut. And still got more in the crock working that was started today. Several gallon bags of chopped cabbage in the freezer to use when I make and can veggies soup later on. Also have several quart bags of shredded zucchini in the freezer for zucchini bread when the weather is cooler for baking. I have made about 8 quarts of dill pickle spears so far too. Most likely in the next couple weeks the sweet corn will be in the freezer too. As usual I planted far too much corn, again. The tomatoes are starting to ripen. I am so happy this is the first year in many that we have had potatoes. If they do as well as the ones that we have dug for fresh eating we should have a good supply to store for winter. So far we have been blessed with a really good garden this year.
Our weather has been too hot for man or beast the past few days. The temps were in the low 100's today and for the next few days. We have high humidity this time of year and thru the month of August as well.  I made the mistake of trying to pick green beans yesterday evening around 4 while Rodger ran the weed eater around the watermelon vines and it was far too hot. Had to come back in the house and go back after the sun went down and finish up. I was in the summer kitchen all day today canning the green beans and chopping more cabbage and zucchini. Am thankful now for the AC out there. I will probably end up buying more jars this year to can all the things I want to get canned.  While we were out of town last Friday having dinner with Rob and Amoy we made a stop at Walmart. I looked at canning jars and notice the Main Stays brand that was there. We looked closely at the jars, they are so thin and on the bottom stamped "made in china". NO THANKS I would rather take my chances with the re-used miracle whip jars in the pressure canner than those cheap ones from China. The miracle whip jars are much thicker glass and I would rather trust those. I sure hope folks that are kinda new to canning don't go for the 20cent savings and buy those cheap Chinese made jars. I surely do not think they would last more than 1 or 2 seasons. Now my mission is to buy all the older brands and used canning jars that I can find. Am thinking not long till they will no longer be available. Kinda scary all the things that have been quality staples in our lives are slowly being replaced with cheap foreign made junk. OK enough of my rant for today.
I dang near missed blackberry season here. We have managed to pick about 3 gallon of berries so far. I usually like to have about 5 gallon minimum to make juice, jelly and such from. So probably tomorrow I will be chigger bait again and pick more berries. I think I would like to pick several wild fruits and make some mixed fruit juice to can. We have blackberries, elderberries, passion fruit all growing wild here. And I am inclined to think wild fruit juice would be very nutritious. We shall see how my time goes and how much hot weather I can take to harvest these things.
I still have a lot of herbs to dry between harvesting things from the garden. Kinda nice to have you own herbs to flavor dishes with and not have to buy them and wonder what they have been sprayed with. Not to mention the expense.
This week I will be starting more cabbage plants for the fall crop. Although it is hard to get them started here in summer due to the heat and having to remember to water most time twice a day. I would like to be able to store some cabbage in the cellar for winter use. After the potatoes are out of the garden that lil area will be plowed up and mustard, turnips and rutabagas will be sown in there. All of which do well in cooler weather of fall. So much to do and we are on the tail end of summer here almost.
Enough of my rambling for this post. Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

So happy, finally got kraut started

I have been wanting kraut for a couple weeks now and finally got some of my cabbage cut and shredded this evening. I raised red and green cabbage. I had to use my wine making bucket (6 gal. capacity) to hole the green cabbage when I got it shredded. I ended up with about 3 1/2 gallons of kraut making in the bucket. I use a lid to weigh the cabbage down and keep it under the liquid with a jar filled with water to hold that down. Then the lid on the bucket with an airlock in it to keep out nasties. The red cabbage was shredded an put in the German fermenting crock. It was about 1/2 full. I use about 1 tablespoon of kosher or canning salt per average cabbage head shredded. This usually come out perfect without being too salty. You should be able to taste the saltiness in the liquid once the cabbage starts to give up its liquid. The salt acts as a preservative to kill off back bacteria till the good bacteria from the cabbage cant take over and make lactic acid. Kraut made in this fashion contains lots of good flora for the intestines and can actually wipe out yeast infections, thrush and such caused by antibiotic use. Also kraut adds some good acids to the stomach that aid digestion as well, especially helpful in digesting meat. Never heat kraut you are wanting the goodness from, heat will kill off the probiotics. Fermented food it said to help the body heal from most any illness caused by bad intestinal flora and poor digestion. A wonderful book to have on the shelf to read is the Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. The info in the book is based on studies done by Dr. Weston A. Price.
Not much else going on here. I have really been under the weather the past couple weeks. I had to see the doc on Monday due to a knot in the right side of my neck. Think I probably had some infection in there cause by some dental work done. Needless to say taking antibiotics can sure make the body feel pretty crappy. Thanks to my friend Deb I do have Kefir grains and have Kefir to help put back some probiotics so the antibiotics don't upset my system too bad. Kefir is really a soothing drink for the body. It has a more varieties of live cultures than does yogurt. What ever I have going on sure drains my energy pretty fast. So till I get thru the antibiotics I think I am gonna try to take it easy. I got to get better soon, I will have green beans to pick before long and sweet corn too.
So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella