Whew! I made it Back!

Today is a great day for writing a blog, isn't it?

I've been telling myself that for more than eight months now. Thanks to all of you who have kept asking me about the blog and pressing me to continue with it. It is because of you that I've finally made it back. Well...and because of my new technology!

So, what was the big problem? Well, technology can be a wonderful thing...or a terrible thing. In our case, I liken our internet system at home to being in the Bermuda Triangle. It works sometimes, when it wants to. The signal is in and out constantly. We don't get reception from all the local towers like people think we do, or should. And, no Virginia, it does not work like it does in the city.
Doing the blog or website was extremely painful for me.
Don't get me wrong, I love writing it, changing the pictures, telling about the animals, etc. But, some days it would take hours, literally, to get it done. And, mostly because of our signal. Well, the signal hasn't gotten better...I finally got smarter, or just more determined!
I had hesitated to drag my business computer around with me because I can't bear to think of it crashing with all my business info on it. That would probably crash me too. And, to get a good signal and be able to blog or update the website, that was what I was having to do. But, today I broke down and bought a Tablet. Now I can blog ANYWHERE! Or mostly. I get a better signal at home with it...definitely.
Soon I will be able to figure out how to take pictures and add them to the blog! Then I plan to figure out how to do a new website. The possiblities are endless!!

In the meantime, let me update you some.
We have Bernie, a Jersey calf. Got him last summer when Surprise had a stillborn calf. Bernie plays kickball with me and LOVES buckets. A raccoon took out about half the chickens last summer, but the rest are doing okay. Unfortunately she took out our lovely Gimpy turkey also. We really miss her (the turkey, not the raccoon).
Saturday we acquired a new Guinea Hog sow, named Margaret (Maggie). She came from a farm in Indiana. On Sunday, she had a litter of 7 babies, 6 survive still. She is super friendly, as we find Guinea Hogs are. And, like our other two sows (Swee and Tea) she is great mother.
The crops did okay for us last summer, even thru the drought. We had a really great winter root crop season due to some late rains. And, we are already in the planning stages for this year. I'm working on compiling all our sales info and we passed out seed catalogs to the chefs. Next we will check our seed stash and begin our lists of what to buy.    
We harvested fennel seed from one of the hoophouses this week, and soon we will till up the soils and start planting some more greens, herbs, and garlic. We re-covered one hoophouse and will do the second one this spring. The walk-in cooler, as of two weeks ago, was packed with produce still - potatoes, turnips, radishes, rutabaga, etc. all harvested this past fall. We also have a good supply of wheat and corn that we are still milling. All in all, the crops did good.
Projects for this year include getting our four walk-in coolers, purchased last summer, put together and then covered. I also want to make a portable washing station on some kind of trailer, with wash basins and windows. In the winter we can bring it up to the house to heat it and in the summer we can put it in the shade. I would also like to figure out a way to purchase a covered hoop structure to put the pig cages in during the winter. Now that we have 30 pigs (12 cages) it is hard to get them inside the barn before a blizzard. Ideally the ends would roll up on the new structure so they would still have fresh air.

That's the quickest update. I am working on getting some pictures taken and figuring out how to load them so stay tuned.
And thanks again to all of you who kept on me about continuing the blog. I am glad you pushed me cuz I am really looking forward to it again!

Happy New Year!

Rosey days and Rhubarb recipe

   I'm still working with the edible flowers! It's so much fun. We've come across some really wonderful ones that we didn't know about, such as black locust blossoms. Unfortunately the trees are at the end of the bloom. We were a week too late. After searching all the trees, I found a small spray that was still somewhat fresh. WOW! They taste like jasmine tea. Really terrific. I'll put them in my little notebook for harvest next year. The house is surrounded with these trees.

   Now every time I see flowers someplace on the farm, I have to research to find out if they are edible. We have a list from online that includes the usual veggies and herbs. Then we looked in the wild handbook we have to find out about some of the flowers blooming in the woods and around the house. We're very careful to make sure they are listed as edible someplace before we taste them.

   Today's find isn't new...just that they are blooming now. Roses! I've saved the petals of roses for years to make teas and sachets. The red ones are up by the house and smell wonderful, very pretty fragrance and strong. The little white ones I found in the woods on an invasive plant called Multiflora Rose. It's wild and we usually try to pull them out. They aren't as fragrant and are smaller, but they are still pretty and taste nice. I lay the petals out in the bowls and on plates, stirring them every day, until they are all dry, making sure the are very dry so they won't mold in the containers. I'll enjoy rose tea this winter!

   Today we participated in the spring bird count. We've done that for many years. A list of birds is sent to us by the organizer. Then we go out all around the yard, thru the woods, and along the praire to see what we can find. We mark them on the list and send it back for it to be compiled with other people's finds.
   I have to say that this year was a lot of the regulars. Downy and red-bellied woodpeckers, blue jays, red-tail hawk, grackles, red-wing blackbird, morning dove, goldfinch...etc. We saw a sharp shinned hawk in the woods and a couple of grosbeak. Nothing fantastic like the coot that flew in last year. But...we do have lots of robins sitting on nests this year.

Here's the rhubarb chutney recipe I promised...
   from the cookbook "The Big Book of Preserving the Harvest" by Carol Costenbader
   (This is a great canning cookbook! It has a really terrific ketchup recipe that can be easily changed into bbq or salsa. And I use a lot of her recipes every year.)

Rhubarb Chutney

Water bath canner, 8 - 1/2 pint jars
2 large oranges
2 1/2 pounds rhubarb washed, cut into 1" pieces (I do smaller even)
5 1/3 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
4 cups cider vinegar
2 cups gold raisins
2 med. onions, peeled and chopped (I don't include these!)
1 tablespoon yellow mustard seeds
12 whole allspice berries
12 whole black peppercorns

Grate zest from oranges and set aside. Halve and section oranges as you would grapefruit, remove white membranes, place in 2-quart bowl. Chop oranges sections coarsely, squeeze any remaining juice out of halves into chopped sections.
Combine rhubarb, oranges, sugar, vinegar, raisins, and onion in 4-quart saucepan.
Tie spices in cheesebag cloth and add to pan. Slowly bring to boil, stirring to dissolve sugar.
Simmer uncovered until thick, about 1-1 1/2 hours, being careful not to burn and stir often. Remove spice bag.
Ladel into hot clean jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Cap and seal.
Process 10 minutes in boiling water-bath canner. Adjust for altitude if necessary (chart in book).

It really tastes great!! We use it on toast like a jam. But she suggests in the book use on poultry, pork or lamb. I leave out the onion and might've left out the mustard seed also, making it more sweet like a jam. I also figured out how many cups the 2 1/2 pounds of rhubarb fit into, then chopped my rhubard and filled freezer bags and put it in the freezer, one bag for each recipe amount. That way I could process it when I had more time.

Happy spring!

Springtime flowers

Spring is always a delightful time here on the farm. Chickens are laying colorful eggs,

Little banty hen, Peng (short for Penguin) has been
on the nest being broody lately. She lays beautiful tiny eggs.

the wheat and alfalfa are greening up, and the trees and flowers are all in bloom. Ah. (That’s a very small rendition of the roaring winds we hear every day…that’s Central Illinois for you.)

Lilacs smell incredible right now!

Our hoophouse plastic is hanging in there, barely. It is still windy most every day but we keep patching it until we get the quotes for the new plastic. Inside the hoops everything is going pretty good. We’ve been harvesting quite a bit of spinach for chefs, lettuce for ourselves, and sold all the early green garlic. The potatoes that Marty planted between the garlic are looking good and we’ll be mulching those this week. Can’t wait for our regular potato order to come in so we can start them sprouting in the sun!!

We were having baby rabbits in the hoops eating all our bok choi. Argh!! Needless to say, we relocated them (not to the oven tho as they were too small). We mulched around the hoops in hopes of keeping the rest of the bunnies out! Also in the hoophouses we have some cilantro and arugula that we harvested the leaves from. Now they are setting flower heads so we hope to harvest the flowers soon.

And that leads me to flower season. We harvest a lot of “wilds” on our farm. They are some of the specialty items that we are known for. Wilds include some “weeds” that are highly nutritious and edible, wild plants from the woods, and also the wilds in our yard which include redbud blossoms and violets.

Redbud blossoms

Also edible are the apple blossoms. All of the apple trees are loaded. We taste tested them and found that each kind of apple had a different flavor of blossom also! The red delicious were somewhat sweet. Some of the others weren't as sweet but had more of a floral taste.

Red delicious apple blossoms are sweet.

Every tasted a turnip blossom? Tastes a little like turnips. How about making dandelion tea? Or trying some colorful tulip petals on your salad? There are lots of edible flowers. Make sure you know which ones are edible and which are poisonous tho! Some...like asian daylilies are NOT edible. They are Poisonous! However, the other kind that are in our yard are.

Daylilies we harvest the flowers and buds from.

I love harvesting the flowers. I get to spend time with the wonderful smells, beautiful colors and textures, and also with the little bee ladies that hang around. The bees are busy on all the trees and flowers in the yard. They are working on the apples and even on the weedy Creeping Charlie in the grass. It’s nice to see them so busy. And they never sting me as we are friend harvesters.

Harvesting in the woods right now gives us some early mushrooms and wild onions. We have some sweet cicely coming. It has sort of a licorice flavor.

Sweet Cicely

Lots of work to do outside, and it’s good to go out and enjoy the great springtime weather (except the wind!). We’ve  all our spring root crops and many of our leafy crops in. Now for some rain so they germinate!

Super dry for us lately. The rain has been skirting around us. We are really hoping we get a good shower tonight…really need it!!   Well…off to work outside!!

"Drowning in Eggs"

That quote came in an email from my friend and fellow farmer, Emma Lincoln. She and her husband have a farm north of us called Lucky Duck Farm (www.kiyoshimino.com).

Emma brought us some delicious hard boiled eggs a few weeks back. They were all cracked looking and tea stained. They tasted spiced and were beautiful. She said it is a Japanese recipe.

So when I also was “drowning in eggs” I asked her for the recipe. Here it is…

For 6 eggs
Put the eggs in a saucepan and cover with cold water.
Bring the water to a boil, turn of the heat, cover with a lid, and let sit for ten minutes.
Run the eggs under cold water, then tap all over with the back of a spoon to crackle the shell.
Rinse out the saucepan, put the eggs back in, and add:
- 2 tea bags (I used Oolong)
- 1/2 cup soy sauce
- 2 tsp salt
- 3-4 pieces of star anise
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 tsp whole peppercorns
- a little bit of dried orange peel or lemon peel
- water to cover the eggs

Then heat on low for 1-3 hours, turning the eggs periodically and adding water if the liquid gets too low.  The longer they cook, the more the flavor penetrates.

I tried it out, left them on low for four hours. I read my book “Future of Ice” by Miyazawa Kenji (1896-1933) while my eggs steeped.

What a beautiful book! I love his poetry as he talks so much about nature, using words that make me think. I like this simple one…

“A snatch of cloud

reflected on the wings
of a beetle nibbling parsley flowers
flies in the valley sky.”

Some are much deeper and you have to read each line slowly, savor each word, let them deepen in your head, then let them drift back up into consciousness, before you go on.

There is another longer poem I like about a cypress and how it changes from day to day. And an even longer one about a farm that he went to work on called “Koiwai Farm”. Apparently he worked on some farms when he was a young man.

So I checked my eggs and here’s how mine turned out.

Hm. Not much for pretty cracks showing, no decoration. Hm.

Ah ha! My eggs are brown to start with. Duh. So the tea dyed cracks didn’t show up on the outside like I wanted. I decided to steep them longer the next day...close to 8 hours total.

They turned out better, and on the inside they look like this…

Pretty cool looking!

And they taste pretty good. Not as good as Emma’s but I think that is because I had to substitute the oolong tea for all I had, which was china black. I’ll have to get some oolong and try it again. Yum!

I wonder about trying it with different recipes and colors. Maybe using beet juice to get pink lines. If you try it, let me know how they turn out!

Franken Hoops

Spring in Central Illinois, in my experience, always has seemed windy. This year is no exception. A couple of days ago we experienced severe winds...like REALLY severe! One building was rocking so bad I thought it would go over at any second. Glad it didn't! The cow hut was flipped over so we moved them to the pasture where the pigs are...not to the delight of the pigs.

Then there is the problem with plastic over the hoophouses. Our plantings in our hoops are doing pretty good right now. We harvested red mustard, arugula, cress, and some lettuce in them this week. Radishes and cilantro are springing up, as well as the fennel and some spinach. In another two weeks we expect to have some green garlic ready. We certainly don't want to lose it all due to the plastic giving way.

But, Thursday morning we went out and saw huge rips on the roofs of the hoops. The rips went up the plastic at each metal rib and the east hoop's east side was a disaster. (Thankfully the west hoop only had two rips.) We scoured the buildings and came up with some spare plastic and started to do some quick repairs while we wait for a call back from the plastic company.

Here you can see one section kind of flapping around and the metal ribs sticking thru the other sections.

Here's two of the three (I'm the third) of the repair crew. Can you tell they are patiently waiting me to stop with the photos already? We used a piece of plastic and fit it between the ribs and the original plastic piece. Then we stapled and taped on the inside to hold it in place. The guys (while I weeded cilantro) put Gorilla tape on the outside at each rib also to hold the ripped pieces to the new plastic (I was too short to help so I just stayed close to the ground inside where it was 70 degrees).

That is how we ended up with this Frankenstein looking hoophouse. Looks like it has sutures or something. Weird, but works for now. Hope we don't get anymore wind!