Back to real food

I miss my garden!  The warm temperatures over the past week have helped the ground inside the greenhouse thaw, if only just a little.  Unfortunately, overnight they are predicting a good nor'easter followed by a couple of pretty frosty nights.  Even though my seed inventory and starting dates are set for each group of transplants for the garden this year; actual yield is still a ways away.  I miss my garden even more at the end of the grocery store and whole foods market checkout process.

Back in September, when I returned to work full time, I focused on weekly meal planning for the family.  One day a week I would sit down, tally the contents of the freezer, refrigerator and pantry and make a meal plan which would use most of what we had on hand and the remaining ingredients would make up the list for grocery store and whole foods market.  The past several weeks have found my freezer unusually well organized.  Too many perfectly rectangular or square packages, intended for quick and easy evening meal preparation, started to take over a lot of the space.  Gone were the irregular packages containing whole chickens or stew meat or venison from this past year.  No uneven bags of chicken broth or peculiarly shaped bags of frozen vegetables.  The cookie jar no longer contained delicious home baked goodies but was filled with perfectly formed off-the-conveyor belt cookies for an after dinner treat.

Peanut butter banana oatmeal cookies
with no added sugar or fat

About two weeks ago I stood in front of the open refrigerator and freezer doors (something my mother would certainly have yelled at me for) and sighed in disgust.  I had gotten lazy and our diets and eventually our health would suffer for it.  That Friday night after both Little man and his father had gone to bed, I headed out to the deep freeze and took stock of what little basic protein and vegetable we had left.  Back into the kitchen for an inventory of the freezer and a thorough cleaning of the refrigerator; pig had a feast Saturday morning of all the leftovers that were not consumed because they were less than remarkable, primarily prepackaged or frozen meals.  I made a comprehensive grocery list and split it between both the regular grocery store and the whole foods market.

When I originally started my meal planning adventure I found thebettermom.com.  This website had some great meal plans which were derived primarily from a whole food approach – very little came from the center aisles of the grocery store.  As I have refined my approach, I have found dontwastethecrumbs.com and 100daysofrealfood.com.  Both are great websites which also take a real food approach to your diet and meal planning.

Homemade applesauce

Staples like granola to add to my oatmeal and yogurt and great sides like vegetable pancakes have joined our meal plans.  Last week we were much better and this week the plan continues for some more delicious, wholesome foods.  My budget hasn’t taken too kindly to my renewed focus on eating health especially with a large expenditure* looming at the end of the week, but after only one week, I am certainly sleeping better.  My evenings this week will be a little busier as my weekly meal prep time was instead spent outside with Little man but it was certainly worth it.

Here’s what our meal plans look like for the last two weeks:

Fresh tomato cucumber salsa

Last Week

Monday - Marinated venison steaks, frozen mixed vegetables, brown rice

Tuesday - Homemade macaroni and cheese with ham, frozen peas

Wednesday – Pot roast – crock pot with potatoes and carrots

Thursday – Chicken fajitas on homemade whole wheat tortillas

Friday – Goulash, Italian bread, vegetable (this got eaten Sunday night after playing outside and making homemade tortillas for lunch and Thursday’s dinner)

Saturday – Leftovers (we actually had baked chicken – there were no leftovers)

Sunday – Stuffed hamburgers with mushrooms, peppers & onions

BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches

This Week
Monday – BBQ pulled pork sandwiches (pulled pork from the crock pot and homemade BBQ sauce), 
tomato cucumber salsa - made from leftover produce - two tomatoes, one cucumber, 1/2 a green pepper, 1/2 an onion, a little lime juice - all just hanging around after last weeks meals.

Tuesday – Sausage, mushroom & kale pasta

Wednesday – Beef stew – crock pot

Thursday – chef’s choice – it was supposed to be butternut squash ravioli’s but I didn’t get them made on Sunday so chef’s choice is either leftovers or what ever is around and thawed

Friday – Chicken nuggets (homemade, breaded, and baked in one large batch – ½ is frozen for a second meal), baked sweet potato french fries, vegetable

Saturday – Chicken and homemade biscuits – normally we don’t have chicken two nights in a row so chef’s choice might get moved to Friday and chicken nuggets to Thursday.

Our meal plan is very flexible, but having all the ingredients in the house to make six meals per week makes dinner much more enjoyable and a lot less time consuming.   Do you plan your meals?

* The big expenditure - Pig should be in heat this weekend, if we can come up with the cash to order sperm by tomorrow afternoon, we will breed her this weekend.  

Goal - $225 - we have gotten together just about 1/2 with 24 hours to go.

     $60 for the sperm

     $108 for the shipping

     $50-75 for the vet visit - since I have never done this before

Pig, New boar? Summer piglets & Home renovation

I made a promise to myself of no more permanent additions to the farm until we had made progress in some of the projects that we had already started.  That promise might get broken.  In my research for a boar or sperm for Pig, I located a farm within a half a day’s drive that breeds Gloucester Old Spots.  While that is too far to trailer pig for a romantic weekend away, they have a couple of litters coming up and they would be willing to provide me with an unregistered, intact boar for a reasonable price.  I could over winter him and at least one of Pig’s offspring and be able to start breeding heritage pigs here at the farm.  It is a very serious consideration.

The location of this particular farm is proving advantageous; my trip down there will take me only a stone’s throw from Cold Antler Farm.  I have wanted to meet Jenna and talk with her about her journey.  Although I may already have answers to some of my questions, it will be nice to hear what I am doing right, what I am doing wrong and perhaps get a good smack upside the head to put things back into perspective.  Jenna has done what I attempted, unsuccessfully to do, leave the off-farm employment world and dedicate my life to farming full time.  She is a full ten years younger than I, but I don’t think age has much to do with it.  It will be great to spend an ‘Indy Day’ or half day with her on her six acres of paradise.

Photo courtesy of Hidden Nest Farm

Until then, I am working feverishly toward next weekend.  Pig will be going into heat again.  I have lined up sperm for artificial insemination which in and of itself isn’t too expensive.  The shipping, on the other hand, is almost worth my gas to drive out to Ohio and pick it up.  Unfortunately my time is much more valuable so no road trip for me next week.  The goal is to sell a couple of things that have accumulated over time that we no longer use and perhaps I can find new homes for some of the craft items left over from this past summer’s farmers market.  I will also be mixing up a couple batches of jelly if time permits on Sunday (even with losing an hour this weekend, I am hopeful!).   I will be reaching out to the vet to make sure that they can be available and am lining up some panels so that pig can be held still while we attempt to do what the boar should be doing.  If we miss this cycle then we won’t have piglets until July and may have some difficulty finding them new homes.

Some of the swine related projects that are planned for this spring and summer include –

• Improvements to our current pig housing situation - Pig has been very adamant about not leaving her fenced enclosure, even when tempted with left over birthday cake, fresh grain, whoopie pies, fresh vegetables, semi-rotted vegetables, left over goulash, etc.  Her house is sufficient, but we would like to improve on it so we don’t go through as much hay next winter and perhaps include some kind of solar heated watering device to save from carting water across the dooryard when it is snowing and blowing.
• Additional fenced pasture and shelter for a boar
• Shelter for the piglets and new boar
• Larger capacity solar fence charger for use in conjunction with or in addition to our current solar fence charger

Next week I hope to have an update on our seed starting dates - where we stand and if there is any chance of getting seeds started before Earth Day.

You might have noticed that I have added a donate button to the blog.  If you would like to contribute to some of the upcoming projects at the farm, any assistance would be greatly appreciated.  All donations will go straight to these projects and not be used to for any other expenses.

Fruit trees

Earlier this week I was gifted with an unplanned day off from work – I forgot that Town Meeting Day is a state holiday in Vermont.  The weather was an unseasonably cool 10 degrees with a light breeze, but the sun was shining.  I headed out to the backyard with my big snow boots, pruners and loppers and had at them fruit trees.  There are hundreds of how to prune your tree guides out there so I will not regurgitate the how.  Fall and winter are the perfect times to prune your fruit trees.  Pruning keeps the trees healthy and improves their overall quality and productivity.  People have known this for years, but it was only last year that I saw the results first hand.

The spring after I moved into the family farmhouse my father sent us three fruit trees.  Pathetic looking little things, they arrived as bare root twigs in a cardboard box, barely protected from the elements with small little plastic bags tied around their roots to keep the moisture in.  I thought he was nuts for ordering fruit trees since we have forty or more varieties of apple tree on this farm, but who am I to question.  I dutifully dug three holes and planted three, lifeless looking twigs.  Fertilized and watered and protected from pests the little twigs sprouted a few leaves and a couple of branches the first year.

After that I didn’t pay them much mind.  I sprayed them a couple times a year to keep the worst of the pests at bay, but it seemed to be a losing battle with the Japanese beetles.  Dad was up to visit in the fall of 2011 and asked me if I had ever pruned these trees?  I confessed that I hadn’t dared because I didn’t want to kill them.  We discussed whether they had flowered, what if any fruit they had produced and what pest problems they were having.  He took a couple of branches off the first tree, told me to repeat the process on the next two and we should have a better showing the in 2012. 

The flowers that spring were gorgeous and plentiful.  Then there was the late frost; all of the trees had already budded and begun to flower, it hurt the apple industry significantly that year.  Dad said they looked good but that I wasn’t being aggressive enough.  Last winter I armed myself with knowledge – books, magazine articles, the Internet and advice from actual, real people.  Some of the older locals told me I was nuts trying to prune them trees they had been neglected for far too long, they don’t have a chance of good production any more.  I told them that Dad had sent me some baby trees a couple years ago; ‘Now why’d he go ‘n do that?  There plenty o’ trees on that farm.”  In talking with several folks I found someone a little closer to my age and a little less set in their ways to tell me that being a LITTLE more aggressive would be good.  The worst thing I could do is have a bad year and then I knew that I had to a lot more gentle the following winter.  We had a bumper crop of plums, only 2/3 of which I lost to some kind of worm in the middle.  A sad crop off apples – four I think – but they were big, beautiful, delicious baking apples.  And no pears – this is the tree that I thought I had over done it – I didn’t go far enough.

I am still learning and am sure that someone with more experience would have done a much better job, but it worked last year, we’ll see how well it works for 2014.  This weekend I am mixing up a batch of homemade dormant oil spray to see if I can eradicate them pesky worms.  The few plums we had last summer were juicy and delicious, this year the bugs will not get so many!

Life, death, life and rabbits

My thoughts were turning toward Spring this week as we had some beautiful, sunny, albeit cold, couple of days.  Since I can’t put plants in the ground and the spot where I want to build my raised beds this spring is still covered with several snow banks, I focused on minor repairs and breeding the next couple of does.

We are expecting two does to kindle and the almanac has been close to on target having predicted temperatures to be slightly above normal this weekend.  I lost two litters in November 2012 and January 2013 to frigid temperatures and inexperienced does.  This year I have consulted the trusty old almanac each time I considered breeding this winter.  My hope was that it wouldn’t be too far off; it predicted very cold temperatures for the past two weeks so I postponed my last breeding a week or two to try and miss the coldest of weather.  The girls are due this Saturday and temperatures are forecast to be close to normal for this time of year, in the upper 20s and low 30s.

Unfortunately the colder temperatures took their toll on our older breeding does.  We lost two to upper respiratory infections or pneumonia last month.  One of whom had a litter which was only two weeks old.  Anyone you talk to will tell you that if the kits are still nursing solely from mom and haven’t opened their eyes yet then you are wasting your time attempting to feed them and bring them through.  Perhaps I should have listened.  Forever the optimist, I attempted to bottle/syringe feed seven, one and a half week old baby rabbits. 

It was very obvious from the first attempt at feeding that two of them were not going to make it, but I tried anyway and was able to get them to take a very little warm, kitten-milk replacer.  The following morning I took them out of the nest box and focused my attention on the remaining five.  That day all of the kits eagerly fed and went potty and cuddled back together to keep each other warm.  On the third day two more had passed and the fifth was looking pretty terrible but I persisted.  By the fourth day I was down to two, apparently healthy, good looking baby bunnies.  Each day they fed vigorously, processed their waste products and appeared to be responding well.  They did well through day four and into day five. 

When I got home from work on the evening of day five, I was busy with Little man and dinner and the various evening chores which are required to keep any household running; I hadn’t noticed that one of my cats was pretty much absent.  After our dinner I went into the bedroom to retrieve the baby bunnies for feeding time, there was no movement in their box.  A wave of defeat washed over me.  I had been up extra early every morning that week and tried to fit an extra 30 minutes of chores into my already packed evening schedule every day.  I was doing absolutely everything I could for these little critters to no avail.  I reached in to collect them - they weren’t in there!  Where could they have gone?  The blanket covering their box appeared to be in place indicating that the cats hadn’t gotten in there.  I was frantic, as their caretaker I had failed these two little critters, they were my charges and I hadn’t protected them sufficiently from the paws of my felines.  Under the bureau, behind the night tables, under the baseboard heat, behind the hamper, all through the hamper (which they couldn’t have possibly gotten into, but it made me feel better); then a brown ball of fur flew past me and out of the bedroom – my oldest cat.  She originated from the area of a crumpled towel from this morning’s shower.  I cringed as I carefully unfolded it, expecting to see the worst.  Curled up in a little nest that my cat had made out of that towel were the last two baby bunnies, they were very clean and soaking wet from ears to tail.  There wasn’t a puncture mark on them.  Apparently my oldest cat found the babies outside of their box and attempted to mother them.  I don’t know if they were scared to death or if they got cold but the last two bunnies passed sometime during day five.  My cat paced checking the spot where the towel had been and the spot where their box had been trying to find them.  I finally heard her leave the bedroom just after 1:00 a.m.

Would my time have been better spent on other farm chores and to-do list items instead of trying to save a litter of bunnies that, all research had told me, had slim chances if any to survive without their mother?  I remain an optimist and more than a little bit of a sap and will probably try it again if there is any hope of any of them surviving.  It is never easy losing an animal, but it doesn’t seem to take nearly as many tissues and as much time to recover than it did when I started this journey.

This journey

This journey began almost nine years ago as I arrived at a little trailer in Northwestern Vermont.  It was a cool, November day and the past weeks early snow was just beginning to melt.  Along with a new pair of snow mobile boots and a pair of ski pants, I was unwrapped, my tags removed and placed in the hallway to await cooler days ahead.   My first days in this beautiful countryside bore witness to a snow storm, a trip to the nursing home and bringing home an old black lab who had just had her person leave her for the third time in all too short memory.  My first injury occurred that night when the cat tore a hole in my sleeve as the dog was welcomed into the house for the first time.

That winter I went ice fishing on Lake Champlain, walked the Missisquoi Rail Trail, and went snowmobiling over Jay Peak to points east.  On one such trip over the mountain, this time in the passenger seat, we went to a little town on the New Hampshire border where we met her husband for the first time on a mild February day.  That spring I kept her warm as we watched tons of accumulated winter ice break loose on the river; the noise nothing short of a racing freight train.

Later that spring, and periodically through the summer, I was witness to several Native American Pow Wows from New Hampshire to Maine.  We met some wonderful people as I helped keep a tent from collapsing onto the radio equipment in a downpour, was loaned to a woman in her 70’s to keep her warm while finishing a pot luck dinner, and kept a lost child protected from the cool fall evening while her parents were located.  I even got to go fishing and relax by the campfire with some good friends, many still with us, but some that have since crossed over.

As November arrived, I reflected back on my first year, I had participated in a pretty exciting series of events, what would be next?  At the end of the month, I helped them move into the family farmhouse racing against the impending rain as the couch and bed were moved across two towns on the roof of the old conversion van.  I carried many boxes inside that fall and helped shovel and plow the snow that winter.  I don’t get to see much of the summers except from my perch by the back window.  Every once in a while I will get to come out when the weather is dark, dreary and wet – that is when I am happiest to know that she is warm and dry and I am protecting her from Mother Nature’s worst.  But for most of the summer I long to play outdoors with the dog, plant Christmas trees on the side hill, go for a ride in the boat, and help in the garden, but alas summer is not my season.  I wait patiently for when I will be needed again as the cooler weather approaches.

Since that first exciting year, I have been witness to so many wonderful and scary events in her life.  I have been first on scene of a snow machine accident and a motor vehicle roll-over in the town where she was an EMT.  I have carried firewood and boiled sap into maple syrup till the wee hours of the morning in the late winter months.  My pocket was full of nails, screws, door hinges and other various tools and parts as the first chicken coop was built in late December and the second, larger chicken coop in late February.  Other projects on the farm have taken their toll on me – running fence for the first livestock to be welcomed to the farm in over 40 years resulted in a few punctures.  I have been used to carry rocks, both while protection her from the weather and while used separately in the form of a basket.

I have watched a new relationship grow and was there on the two degree morning when a new life was brought home from the hospital for the first time.  I have been sledding with pre-teens and toddlers, played outside with dog and even helped her build snowmen when there were no children around to build them for.  Many a Memorial Day has been spent by the campfire with family and friends watching the next generation arrive here on the farm.  I have even kept baby bunnies warm as they were abandoned by their mom and waited to be housed with their foster mom.

I have traveled the New England states but missed the opportunity to go to Florida as the weather was too warm.  In my travels I have helped people move, laid in the wet snow while mechanical repairs were completed to not only our car but others who we helped along the way, I kept a small child warm on the side of the Interstate while his father was loaded into an ambulance after a terrible accident and we waited for his grandfather to arrive.

I have seen much in my short time with her.  My red is much more faded and dull than when I arrived almost nine years ago.  I have been torn by tree limbs, burnt by errant campfire ashes, melted against the side of a boiling sap vessel and each time repaired by her capable hands.  Two of my zippers are broken and the Velcro on my front flaps and around my sleeves barely holds closed anymore.  Still I am present for morning chores and sledding with the Little man.  Soon I will be relegated to my place inside next to the back window.  I may not have too many more years left as I am getting thin and dull and my fabric is getting to the stage where it will not be able to be repaired any longer.  Until then, I hope that she will keep me around for a couple more years so that I can be witness to more of this amazing life here in Northwestern Vermont.

I think I have been a pretty good jacket!

Finding the balance between useful future resource and pile of junk

When I moved back to Vermont a little over eight years ago, I brought with me ten years stuff accumulated from the life of an up–and-coming young executive.  The newest technology, a pretty decent wardrobe, stuff, stuff and more stuff.  I downsized substantially before I moved back to Vermont because I knew I was moving into a small mobile home without much storage, but there was still stuff.  Six months later my husband moved in with me and with him came two, full, SUV loads full of stuff.  A little less than five months later we moved into the fully furnished family farmhouse with a generation or two of my grandparents belongings.  Then I got married, more stuff.  Then we had a child, LOTS more stuff.

My organization focused goals for this year include going through, cleaning out and discarding or recycling some of this stuff.  Through this process decisions need to be made whether something should be retained because ‘it might come in handy someday’ or it has sentimental value or, or, or…

As a homesteader I am trying to keep things like nails, screws, bolts, tools, etc. which will be valuable when something breaks or new animal housing is required.  I am finding there are piles growing, both inside and out, of things that are still useful, but that won’t be used for a year, two or more.  Pallets can always be taken apart and recycled.  Hardware cloth and fencing are other valuable commodities.  Pieces of flat steel and other construction materials will be utilized, someday.  Little man’s father likes a good deal and loves the ‘free’ piles on the sides of the roads on Sunday afternoons – all that stuff that didn’t sell from the weekend tag sale.  How many pop-rivet tools does one family need? (I found five in the workshop last night, still in their packages.)

As Little man grows decisions need to be made on whether to keep some of his clothes for the remote possibility that we might have another child someday or consign it/give it away because that same possibility is so remote.  How many kids books does one little boy need?  For things like outdated technology and scraps of a possible future craft project, those decisions are easy. 

Old jeans have been stockpiled for a craft project I hope to complete someday.  Skeins of yarn occupy a corner of one of the upstairs bedrooms; it needs to be organized so that we can get the bed back, but yarn will always be useful for clothing and crafts.  Old sheets will be repurposed this week as cushion covers so the cushions in the kitchen chairs will last a bit longer.  Three entertainment centers have been collected over recent months – those will be sold or added to the burn pile.

As the winter clean-up continues I have managed to find a full-size table saw in the workshop which I seem to remember having been there when we moved in and the chop saw which I knew was there but haven’t been able to find in over six months.  My trash collector has been the recipient of an extra bag or two for the past month of items which cannot be salvaged.  My burn pile has grown exponentially as I scan needed documents into electronic format and can discard the paper (Wood/paper ash is great for traction on an icy driveway as well as good pest control in the garden); I only await a day with less wind so that I can actually burn.  Only one item has been listed for sale, I hope to get pictures of more and get them listed soon.  One large box of Little man’s clothes have been handed down to the next generation.

It is hard to find that balance especially when you consider a VERY tight budget and that replacing something – should I possibly need it again ever – costs money.  In the meantime we will sell what we can to catch up on our outstanding bills and work to develop a network of folks who would like to barter with us for needed items, tools, babysitting, farm labor, etc.

As January comes to a close I have reviewed my farm planning list and found almost everything crossed off for the month.  Those that didn’t are mostly outdoor chores; they will be added to February’s list which will be printed this weekend.  With temperatures predicted to be at or slightly above freezing it should be very productive!

 

An off couple of days

I make it a point not to write about my relationship and the dramas of everyday life here on this blog.  If you want to watch a soap opera, there are plenty on daytime broadcast television let alone a plethora of reality TV shows and YouTube videos.  This week I let my real life drama get in the way of the great progress I had been making on the farm.

• I blew my budget this week; not by a lot, but when you are operating on not much any overage hits pretty hard.  $45 over on groceries and $57 over on printer ink/labels for the farmers market.
• I came down with a cold that has been going around and used that as an excuse to relax and not complete my daily tasks.  Aren't you supposed to rest when you aren't feeling well?
• I used the cold weather (temperatures ranging between -25 overnight to a high of -5 during the day) as an excuse not to complete outdoor tasks.
• I let my foul mood get in the way of making the much needed progress this farm needs in order to be successful.  It did nothing to make me feel better and only put me further behind in the things I want to get accomplished before Spring - lesson learned - turn that fire into productivity not an ulcer.

Not everything went down hill or slipped into a dark abyss with no hope of salvation. 

• One of the two remaining 'bred' rabbits kindled and from what I can tell she had between eight and ten kits.  The other one did not kindle, the boys must have been out of practice or firing blanks - not sure which.  With very chilly temperatures I do not disturb the kits, I check to ensure that all of them are alive and moving, but I have not done a complete head count lest I disturb the cocoon that their mother has created to keep them protected from the cold.  The Farmer's Almanac is predicting another cold stretch at the end of February so we will wait to breed the next couple of does until early February for March kindling.
• Pig's house got some much needed repair to stop the leaky roof and I installed some additional wind protection before double digit below zero temperatures hit this week.  She is packed into her house with mulch hay and has been very reluctant to leave her cozy, warm spot to come out and eat or drink, but she does.  I am not sure if it is better for her to have stayed outside with a small hut to protect her from the weather or if she would have been happier inside the shed for the winter.  Many farmers raise their pigs outside all year long with three sided shelters available to protect them from the wind.  She decided that she wasn't going to leave her pasture without my enlisting some serious man power and a big trailer, so outside she remains.  I have not been diligent in checking her for estrus, hopefully I haven't missed another breeding opportunity.  Today the temps are at least above zero so she should be more agreeable to coming out at least for a short spell to allow a quick check of her back side.
• The greenhouse got its roof - the door needs some repair, but at least no more snow will accumulate and a couple of batches of chicken poop can be added to compost prior to planting in there.
• Two batches of jelly were made - one Elderberry, one Wild Grape.  The grape has set well and the elderberry is just about set.  I have enough jars leftover to make one more batch so Strawberry Rhubarb is on the agenda for the coming weekend as long as the propane gets delivered today.
• I made a quick draft stopper out of some fiberfill and scrap fabric to keep out some of the wind that blows through the cracks which inevitably develop in a house that is over 200 years old.  The cat door was temporarily closed, a thick blanket was hung over one drafty window and plastic secured over another in an effort to conserve some heat and make the dwindling propane supply last a bit longer.
• Little man was feeling slightly under the weather on Sunday, therefore was extra cuddly.  We snuggled on the couch, read a couple of stories and as he drifted off to sleep his Mom got a chance to watch some playoff football! 

This weekends projects will include many of the same from last weekend along with business taxes and personal taxes and some extra house cleaning which didn't get done this week.  We all have our off days and I am chalking this past week up to a 'bad day.'  All you can do is get yourself up, dust yourself off and decide to get back in the saddle, or, walk.  I am determined to ride head long into whatever this farm throws at me next.