Normal Days

It's just a normal day.  Nothing special.

After a week off while we worked hard on other things, we are back to the discipline of homeschooling.  The kids are scattered around the house doing their school work and my evening holds the promise of correcting papers.

Preserving the harvest is an everyday job that I seem to only remember every other day.  After the green beans are picked, they need snapped and blanched.  I don't think I've gotten it all done in one day yet.  After picking in the morning, I leave the bucket somewhere and discover it the next morning.  Ack!  These beans I finally finished today actually waited three days.  We picked them Friday, snapped them Saturday, and then I forgot to blanch them until today.  That's a long time!  While they sit around, they lose some of their tender freshness, so we'll pay for this forgetting in flavor.  I'm making a new resolution to move faster.

We're getting a full gallon bag of these green beans every three days.  I just love how the freezer is filling up of these wondering vegetables.  Everybody in the family likes green beans and they are one of the highest producers in the garden.

We are making a cake today, so it begins with a fine grind on the wheat.  I'm amazed we can get such light and well flavored cake from whole wheat, but the grind must be just as fine as we can get it.

Today is nothing special, just normal cooking and schooling and being family.  These are days that are easy to disregard, but it's in these typical normal days that real life happens.  The breeze is cool this morning but the sun is shining.  The chickens are scratching.  The cows are grazing.  The children are feeding their minds and bodies.  It's a good day.

Full Freezers

We are coming in to the final period before Christina's dry period.  Her milk production has already dropped in the last few weeks from the four-and-a-half gallons a day we've been enjoying almost from the beginning down to three-and-a-half gallons.  Today we begin switching her to grass hay, a lower quality feed that will produce less milk.  Next week we'll drop to one milking a day and have her fully dried off within two weeks.

It'll be two-and-a-half months without fresh milk but we are ready.  Last year we had only had Christina for two months before she dried off and were only able to freeze some milk and cream.  This year we expect to get through the entire dry period without buying any additional dairy.

Since May we've been freezing milk, cream, butter, mozzarella, fromage blanc, cottage cheese and cream cheese.  We have 37 gallons of milk, 26 quarts of cream and 16 pounds of butter.  We have 8 packages of fromage blanc, 5 packages of cream cheese, and 6 packages of cottage cheese.  The mozzarella we didn't count,  just make it and threw it in the freezer to keep our pizza habit going.  Of course, our hard cheeses (cheddar, colby, parmesan, and romano) will wait for us, aging in their "cheese cave."

Our freezers are brimming.  In addition to all the dairy, we are adding stuff from the garden nearly every day and we just bought a butchered pig, adding about 150 pounds of meat.  This chest freezer is full up to the top.  Our upright convertible refrigerator/freezer has been switched to freezer and is completely full.  The last chest freezer is 3/4 full but we think we'll make it.

Full freezers give a wonderful feeling, knowing that Christina milk will be waiting for us, even as she has the last two months of pregnancy for the needs of her own body and her new calf.  Just as she rests, so will we.  With our daily milking chores  lifted, we plan to camp and vacation and watch movies in the evening. 

The Big Move

Today we did the simple act of opening a hole in the fence so the chickens could go out on the pasture.  But it's a big step.  This is what we've wanted all along — multiple species on pasture.

As soon as it was open, a bunch came through and headed straight for the manure piles. 

We wanted them out there to eat the bugs, the best chicken food there is.  There's so many bugs, it's a shame not to turn them into good egg.  We're also hoping for some thistle eating and spreading out the cow pies so we don't have to.

Our onions haven't bulbed up much this year.  We didn't get manure spread and we're seeing a big difference.  My Dad came over and seems to think these will bulb up good by fall, but they seem small to me. 

We scooped up some compost from the chicken pen which has been lightly enhanced with chicken manure and spread it over the onions.  I'm hoping the extra fertilizer will give them a boost without burning them from too much.

It's Finally Happening

The garden harvest has finally really begun.  Here is the haul from this morning — green beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini, and green peppers. 

Our "three sisters" are growing very differently in the two spots we planted them.  These mixtures of corn, beans, and squash are the traditional planting of Native Americans.  In this patch, the corn is strong and tall, easily supporting the beans and the squash with their yellow flowers are spreading out below.

But in the other patch the corn is much shorter.  This stalk was pulled all the way down by a hearty bean plant.

I don't really know when to dig potatoes, but the Yukon Gold had completely died back so it seemed like it was time.  When we started digging we found that most of the potatoes were rotten with fungus.  We don't want that!  So we ran over to the blue potatoes with withered plants and started digging. 

They were doing much better.  We got over half the row dug and almost filled a five gallon bucket. 

Our fall plantings aren't doing well.  I haven't done much planting for a fall harvest so I'm learning everything the hard way.   We planted three weeks ago and in spite of watering daily we haven't seen much growing.  Walking out this morning I discovered some baby pea plants that would be several inches tall but had been eaten back to almost nothing!  It's probably slugs or ear wigs.  I sprinkled some diatomaceous earth and I'm hoping they will be protected. 

I am gaining a new appreciation for the part of the Eucharistic Prayer, "fruit of the earth and work of human hands."  God gives us so many good things but we have to meet God in the middle to receive them.  We must fully participate.  There is such an abundant harvest, but we if we don't go out there, weed, harvest, and preserve, it's all gone.  So many wonder at the presence of God, but they are looking around from their easy chairs instead of out in the garden where God is waiting for them.  I get lazy, but every time I wander in the garden, God rewards me.  I suspect there are other parts of my life that require a little wandering and work.

The Garden is Coming On

The trellis is working well for the tomatoes, so far.  Every few days I've been walking through and gently pushing stems through so they weave as they grow.  The plants are upright and getting loaded with fruit.

This roma plant looks promising!  I just got a magazine with an article on canning tomato sauce, so I'll read that over soon.   In the past I've been frustrated at how long tomato sauce has to cook so I want to find a better way.

The cherry tomatoes have started coming on.  My daughters can eat cherry tomatoes as fast as they produce.  Every year I vow to grow more to satiate them.  I don't think I did enough this year.  But all of these clusters are promising.

The zucchini is doing its thing and going to town.  We still have zucchini frozen from last year.  I use it in soups all winter along, making them thicker and heartier. 

The other day my daughter said, "I love winter."  It's not too hot, so I wondered why she longed for the cold.  Then she explained, "there's no garden work."  OK, that I understand.  We are working hard and it will continue through November when the land goes to sleep.

Apricot Jam — Anybody Can Do It!

Of the many things I've canned, I like the jam the best and I think it's the easiest.  When I was 18 or 19 I made my first batch of jam just following the directions and it turned out perfect.  It was cheaper and tasted better than store bought.  I was sold! 

Start with washing the fruit and pitting it.  You can use a knife to cut it in half, or just use your thumbs at the stem and pull apart.  The fruit will naturally split into two.

Slice the fruit up into very small pieces.  You can use a knife but a food processor is easier.  We have a hand crank food processor that is fantastic.  Measure out six cups of the sliced up fruit.  Dump into your cooking pot, but don't fill more than half way.  We do five batches at a time in our 3.5 gallon stock pot.

For each batch of fruit, add two tablespoon of lemon juice, 1/4 cup of sugar, and one package of Sure-Jell for lower sugar recipes.  The Sure-Jell is the pectin that will make the jam be thick.  You can find it in the canning section at the store.

Since we make a lot of jam, I think the $2+ for each pectin package is too much so we buy pectin in bulk from Pacific Pectin.  Each ten pounds lasts one or two seasons and works out to about 90¢ per batch.  Use 1/3 cup for each batch.

Bring the whole thing to a boil and then add the sugar — 4 cups for each batch of fruit.  Stir and bring back to a roaring boil.  It takes me upwards of an hour to get five batches of fruit up to boiling.

At this stage, you could freeze the jam instead of canning.  Canning doesn't make it jam, it just preserves it.  To freeze, let the jam cool down, ladle into tuperwares and freeze.

We can instead of freezing because our freezers are too full as it is.  Canning isn't hard and it's nice to keep stuff on the shelves, staying good, without any electricity.

While the fruit is coming up to a boil, I fill my canner up to the jar rack with hot tap water and put it on the stove to boil.  I also count out the number of lids I'll need and boil those in a small sauce pan.

When the jam is boiling, I get it all put together.  Ladle the hot jam into quart jars.  Fill to about one inch from the top.  Wipe the rim with a clean cloth and use a little lid grabber (a plastic rod with a magnet at one end) to grab a lid from the boiling water.  Put the lid on the jar without touching the inside and hand snug a ring on. 

As you get each one done, put in the canner.  My canner holds nine jars, so I do jam in nine quart batches.  When all nine jars are finished, put the rack down, and turn the heat up.  When the water starts boiling, turn on the timer for 15 minutes.

When it's done, pull the rack up, and take the jars out.  Set them on the counter and leave them alone for 24 hours.  After 24 hours, take the rings off and test the lids to make sure they sealed.  Test by bonking each lid with your finger.  A sealed lid will make a dull thud but an unsealed lid make a sharper sound, you may even feel it move.  If it didn't seal, it just means it has to go in the frig and you eat it first.  The ones that sealed can go on the shelf for winter.

Bloat Again, Urgh

We switched the cows into new pastures and by evening, Christina had bloat.  I even saw it coming.  She was out on the new pasture all day long.  Late afternoon we asked the twins if they had given her any hay.  They hadn't, thinking she didn't need any.  Oops. The biggest reason for bloat is a sudden change in diet.

It was easier for me to tell she had bloat than when jerky had it before.  Maybe she had it worse, but she also is has a bigger skeleton so it's easier to see it.  She was round and firm.  We pushed on her rumen and it was tight like a drum. 

So out we went for another bloat treatment.  She was pretty hesitant to take the medicine, but my husband got his arm under her chin and we got some in her.  With the first swallow the twins cheered, and then suddenly she was much more cooperative.  I think she liked that cheering.

After we got it all in her, we started walking.  She seemed more interested in standing than walking so that become a multi-person job too.  My husband had the lead line, then Christina, and my daughter and I followed, whacking her on the butt whenever she stopped.  After several laps around the pasture, her side felt like a living being instead of a musical insltrument.

Whew!

Like every other thing with cows, I'm noticing how much easier the second time is.  This episode didn't scare me nearly as much.  We knew what to do and we knew when we were done. 

Praise God!

Apricots

Our one-year-old apricot tree produced only one apricot, which is already gone.  So we bought some from somebody selling them off their mature tree.

Fresh apricots are just barely okay in my opinion, but they are my favorite fruit dehydrated and in jam.  I got a bunch prepped for some solar drying using the racks from my electric dehydrator.  I think I've read it takes 2-3 days in the sun.

Almost three-quarters of them weren't ripe enough.  After sorting them, I put them in paper bags to work on ripening.  I left them in the pantry area, not because that is better than any where else, but because it's the mostly likely place I'll notice them. Too many times I've stumbled upon things a week after I should have worked on them.  I blame these lapses in memory on number of children rather than number of years.