Happy New Year!

A toast to everyone for the New Year - Wishing all of you prosperity, abundance and good health for the year ahead.  From all of us at Wandering Moose Farms!

What to make for dinner?

Post was written on 12/30/17 & posted the following day:
I have made several attempts at meal planning and I am successful for a month or so at a time and then I fail miserably.  This weekend is no exception to the latter.  Most of my day was spent off the farm and while exceptionally productive, not much got done here.  Once I returned, Little man and I spent an hour crossing one item off my ever growing to-do list and then he came over and said, "Mom, what's for dinner?"

"I don't know, buddy, but I will figure it out?"  

Fortunately we have a wonderful problem - the freezers are full with both freshly frozen and leftover frozen meals, components, vegetables and other assorted combinations of the above.  I manage to stock the basics - onions, potatoes, spices, celery - most of the time, this week was of course an exception.  I had two potatoes, three onions - one of which I could use the tops for a salad, six mushrooms, and about three stalks of barely salvageable celery.  

I opened the freezer and stared at various packages of un-identifiable frozen proteins.  While I am pretty good at marking whatever I put in there, Little man's father isn't so diligent.  He was playing cards with Little man at the kitchen table so a pop quiz ensued while five packages of unknown proteins (I am pretty sure they were proteins) were placed on the table in front of him.  From those packages, a three ounce leftover grilled steak and a six ounce portion of roast beef were identified and placed in warm water to defrost.

The mushrooms, celery, and one onion were sliced and added to a pan with some butter.  Minced garlic from the refrigerator and the two potatoes, diced were added.  A 2-cup bag of stock was removed from the back freezer and added to another pan to return to liquid form.  A little salt, pepper and some dried oregano were added to the simmering veggies.  The beef, still semi-frozen, diced easily and was set aside.  In the meantime I threw together a pie-crust, and after five minutes of looking for my rolling pin because I didn't put it back where it belonged, I lined the pie plate that my mother gave me when I moved into my first apartment now almost 25 years ago.  The chicken stock, beef, a few ounces of mixed, frozen vegetables and some cornstarch were added to the mix.  About that time, Little man's father came into the kitchen and asked me what smelled so good - I must have been doing something right.

From a combination of sad looking ingredients I managed to pull a beef pot pie out of the oven with some filling left over to go over bread or biscuits for lunch tomorrow.  I could have called the pizza place twelve miles away, I could have gone to the store the same twelve miles away and gotten some ingredients for dinner, but a little ingenuity and some sharp knives yielded a pretty yummy dinner for no added expense.

We are working on organizing, cleaning out and pairing down for 2018.  One of the items we have unearthed is a bottle of Dom Perignon that we were given for our wedding ten years ago.  Tonight's dinner cost less than $5.00.  Tomorrow night's adult beverages will be worth significantly more.  Sharing both this meal and tomorrow night's beverages with a happy, healthy family - priceless!

Bath Time for the New Ducks

We rescued eight juvenile ducks earlier this week.  They will get a new coop up by the ponds in the next couple of weeks.  Little man is having a great time watching them grow.

Weed control, landscape cloth

I have tried all manner of weed control on the farm - tilling, mowing, rotation, mulch, spraying, and last year it was landscape cloth.  A section of old pasture was tilled in and the landscape cloth was carefully rolled out.  When performing this task, be sure to choose a day with little to no wind - much easier that way!  Rocks were collected from various piles put on top of the cloth at the end and on each seam.  It wasn't until later in the year that I was walking through the hardware store and I found out they make 'staples' to secure this stuff to the ground - I bought those for this season.

When we finally got the cloth down, it was a little late in the season and my transplants were getting root bound so not as much care was taken with the rocks to ensure that everything stayed where it should have.  The wind got underneath one section during the summer and over the winter, it took up two more sections and wrapped them around neighboring trees.  Where the cloth stayed down, the weeds are pretty much gone, although there is still some stubborn grass.  Areas without cloth are definitely covered with weeds.

The cost of this stuff can be pricey when you start talking about acres, but I am thinking that I might run each section of new field through a season or two with the cloth to help eradicate a lot of the weeds.  Long season or set it and forget it crops might get landscape cloth all the time.  It worked really well for our squash patch last year.

This section will get tilled this week and the old landscape cloth re-applied.  Some people say that you shouldn't bother rolling it up but the cash flow is meager at the moment so I will re-use and recycle it for another season.  Now I have to find the seeder that has the big holes for the squash seeds.

Ear scratches

Little one loves her some scratches behind the ears!

She isn't so little any more with a weight measurement of just under 250 lbs.  I will be watching this weekend for signs of heat from her and Sally.  Late last month Zeb appeared to be on his game so I am hoping...

Seedlings ready for transplant

I have been watching the weather with an obsession for the past two weeks; that was the day that the seedlings moved from inside the house to the greenhouse.  After being carefully protected while inside, watered carefully, turned so they received even sunlight, these tomatoes had grown up enough to move into their own pots.  Like a mom whose kids were moving from their crib to their toddler or big kid bed, I was a little sad to see them go outside.

The greenhouse is not heated, it is more like a giant cold frame with some heat retention characteristics built in.  There are bricks in the floor by the door, there is a large raised bed with dark boards to help hold any heat collected by the sun throughout the day and there is the compost experiment in the corner.  But it was late March/early April in Northern Vermont, the risk of frost remains very real for another month and a half.

For the first night, the transplants were fine.  The following day was cool, rainy and snowy.  At only 224 sq. ft., it doesn't take much to keep the temperature above freezing, but it does require action on my part.  Into the garage to find the small propane tank and the little buddy heater.   Little man's father got it all set up while the temperature inside was well in the fifties, no need to waste the propane.  I went out later to turn on the valve and light the heater - NO HEAT!  Moving over 750 transplants back into the house was not going to be a fun experience, especially with it snowing.  I closed the valve, took the heater off the tank and looked inside to fine one ticked off spider.  I grabbed a pencil and evicted her then put the assembly back together, turned on the valve, and poof - HEAT!

We have used just over 20 lbs of propane (a standard grill sized tank) over five nights.  This coming weekend is forecast to have some upper 20 degree nights.  I will watch carefully and decide whether supplemental heat will be needed.

During the day, the temperatures inside the greenhouse have to be watched as well.  If I leave the house in the morning with outside temperatures in the upper 30's and overcast skies, I would consider leaving the door closed.  If the sun were to come out and shine in earnest for the better part of the day, the poor little transplants could cook before someone else arrives to open the door.

Spring brings renewed life and a longer to-do list to this small farm.  It is hard to be off the farm when the sun is shining and temperatures are above 40 degrees.  Soon enough this farmer will be able to be on the farm full-time.

Prepping pigs for piles of snow

Snow, and lots of it.  That is what Mother Nature has in store for the farm for the next 12 - 24 hours.  Being prepared for storms is essential in all walks of life, but a little more so for folks who have livestock depending on them for their well-being.  Fortunately my off-farm job let us leave early as the road conditions deteriorated.  My 23 mile ride back to the farm took almost 45 minutes instead of the usual 25.  Just over two inches were on the ground when I arrived so I changed and went directly outside to complete chores, thankful that I could get them done before the worst of the storm arrived.  

Each pig hut received extra hay.  The pigs immediately set to work rearranging it, piles were moved to the front of each hut to ward off the snow which normally blows in from the North, but today is blowing in all directions.  Both houses have enough hay for the pigs to completely bury themselves with extra to spare.  I took a couple of flakes and tucked them into the north facing corners to ward off the worst of the forecasted wind.   

Back across the pen to their water bowls (sawed off bottoms of 55 gallon plastic barrels), the snow is falling harder and I am reminded why I bought a good pair of bibs when I moved back to Vermont, now if only I had put them on!  I attempted to turn each bowl over only to find them frozen to the ground.  I headed back across the yard to get some hot water only to forget the splitting maul.  The hot water works on Zeb's dish, but not on the girls'.  Back over to the garage, the hood of my jacket is little match for the blowing snow.  Splitting maul and one bucket of food in hand, I head back over to the pen.  Several whacks with the maul and a little more hot water and the girls' dish is emptied.  The rest of the hot water added to their dish and before I can rinse it out - they dive in.

Across the dooryard one last time for five more gallons of water and the second bucket of food for Zeb.  I notice my face turning pretty red and that my worn out jeans are no match for this weather.  Inside the heat washes over me as I fill the water bucket.  Once upon a time this girl might have said to heck with it and left the rest of the chores for later to enjoy being warm.  Back outside I went, pigs watered and fed, then back into the garage with my empty buckets and maul then onto the chickens.  Eggs were collected, more water was thawed and re-filled and their feed dish topped off.  I also let them out of their coop - if chickens could talk I would have gotten some choice words as the girls headed for the open garage door only to turn quickly and head back in the other direction.

Returning to the warm house, I was well aware that my choice of clothing did not protect me well from the weather.  When I moved back to Vermont ten years ago, I purchased a good quality jacket, some warm bibs (ski-pants), great boots and a good pair of gloves.  The gloves have since met their demise and the jacket has survived longer than any garment that has seen as much as it has, should.  I do not have a pair of farm/rain boots so my older shoes act as a non-waterproof version of farm shoes.  Each chore on the farm requires an appropriate tool or set of supplies and I have learned to be better prepared to complete those projects before they are even started.  The other thing that this farmer needs to learn is that she isn't going to be very successful in getting anything done if she is appropriately attired for the weather.  Good rain/muck boots have been added to the to-buy list for spring and a new jacket has been added to the list for fall.

For now all the animals, including the two-legged ones, are tucked in and nice and warm.  Snow totals are forecast between 14 and 24 inches.  Everyone will be checked twice more before we settle in for the evening and tomorrow morning will come earlier than normal as fences are checked, feed and water containers are dug out, the driveway is cleared and the storm heads out.  Little man is pretty excited to be able to go sledding again and mom will certainly join him!