Almost 60!

The momentum is started! It was almost 60 degrees as the sun set. It felt so warm we aired out the house and everyone headed outside. Such a beautiful day! My mom asked if I wanted to start some seeds today…which led to setting up my walk in greenhouse-originally from BiMart I believe, though I got mine several years ago for $50

Everything was there, despite it being scattered in three different boxes. The zippers for the door are not functioning now, however. I think we can put up visqueem or a blanket to hold the heat in at night.

While we intended on starting seeds, we got into some family discussions about what we could start and where to plant them and realized we do not currently have much available space to plant in without designating a garden area and making new beds. There are beds around the house, but the eventual goal there is perennial flowers and bushes. Not food production beds.

Then there is our ever present deer problem; our town has a large deer population that live in the town limits and eat everything they are not securely fenced out of. We can either build the current fence up to be deer proof or fence a separate area. It sounds like building up the current fence is a likely option. With some raised beds needing to be built or perhaps apple crates to use as raised beds? We are a pass away from a major fruit farm area so those are pretty easy and cheap to get.

On an egg related note-we are getting quite a few daily, 5-12 add up quickly! We have been making lots of frittatas for lunch or dinner and things like birds nests/toads in a hole, and fried eggs as a side to hash browns and toast as well as other less breakfast style meals. Oh and providing family and friends with eggs. Yup, they sure do add up quickly. I was just watching a video by Homesteading Family on YouTube about how to use your excess spring eggs to make eggnog for the holidays. Sounds good!

How do you eat your eggs? Are you planting anything this spring? Leave a comment below!

Spring is here!

It was a balmy, beautiful 56 degrees yesterday with 59 degrees predicted today. Wonderful, warm, lovely, joyous. Also muddy. Very muddy and we are just heading into the snow melt and then mud and flood season.

It is all hands on deck to get the load of gravel we got right before everything froze solid shoveled and spread out over the rather soupy path from the driveway to the house. It isn’t done but we made progress certainly.

I started the day intending on some spring cleaning upstairs and when I went to take donation bags to the car I almost lost a boot so my focus switched. I am hoping to get it all done fairly quickly so I can get all the spring deep cleaning before full meltoff and I need to work on the chicken run and coop outside and sanding and painting on the inside.

In addition, I need to apply to all the spring job openings so I have money coming in to save and to put into the vehicle fund and all those adulty adulting things we all have to do.

Oh…and a garden? Maybe…if I start it soon I suppose and the deer don’t eat it all. Spring has sprung! Time to get cracking!

The Best Strawberries

Have you ever had the joy of eating homemade strawberry freezer jam in whole milk yoghurt? I am so happy we have freezer jam from strawberries grown by K Family Farms in Albany Oregon. They grow the best strawberries. Seriously. We have been buying strawberries from them all summer long for the last 15 years or so for fresh eating and for making strawberry freezer jam. They grow the best strawberries! If you happen to be on the I-5 corridor this summer, plan a quick detour and get yourself some juicy wonderful strawberries from K Family Farms. You won’t regret it!

Unfortunately, we moved away from the Willamette Valley and this batch of jam may be our last from K Family Farms Strawberries. A sad realization. But still the most delicious strawberry freezer jam-perfect for this beautiful but cold February day.

Season Of Dreaming

The spring seed and chick catalogs are arriving my friends. All the temptation!

My daughter gets as many hatchery, seed and plant catalogs as I do…possibly more. At 6 years old she really has the dreaming aspect down pat. And also the planning as well. She wanted to know how long her Cochin hen will lay before she slows down so we went on an egg laying information research spree while my preserves and canner came to readiness. From what we read; her hen will slow down to 50% of her laying capacity around age 5 so my daughter wants to get a Standard Cochin rooster in 4 years and try to breed her for her second generation hen. My Faverolle is the same age so I am thinking I will have to split the hens and get a Mahoghany Faverolle rooster for her at the same time or fairly close.

My daughter has also settled on the next chicken breed she wants to try and big surprise-Mama wants this one too for the same reason-it is Marans, she isn’t sure yet which flavor but dark eggs are the goal.

This would of course be after we move…to that undefined place in the future. My mother has no interest in having any roosters or breeding anything really. So it is not something we can do here. This is also contingent on a) the hens living that long, because we all know predators are out there b) the 6 hens I got coming with us instead of staying with my mom’s 6 she got from North 40. And c) My now 6 year old holding her obsession for 4 more years. She has held it for several years already so chances are good. Oh, and d) being able to find the roosters and Marans when the time comes. Perhaps if we had an incubator we could order hatching eggs? Hmm…talk about season of dreaming lol

Then there are all the plants and seeds….aaagh…I am looking for sorrel starts come spring or seeds as I love eating it. I want to set up a compost pile for ongoing composting. First thing upon thawing we have to get that chicken coop up. It froze solid as we tried to put it up and has been solid since. Fencing in the run and starting to plan a lean to roof off the side of the coop for my rabbit cages. I could only hope and pray there will be rabbits in those cages while we live here. Me and the kids eat rabbit but my parents and sister are not in to it…like they think it akin to eating your cat or dog. Eating a pet mentality. Yup. I won’t eat a cat or dog or horse but everything else is fairly open season.

My mother isn’t totally against starting a small garden so we will likely have one…practice for when I have my own place she says 🙂 I am down with that! The kids love gardening as well. We just have to deer proof the yard…which will be challenging as it has to look nice and deter those deer. Otherwise it is a futile waste of time effort water and seeds. We have a huge in town deer population. Seriously. Year round with a mass of gorgeous bucks around every corner hunting season and on into breeding season.

I also plan to transplant my rhubarb and my mother’s out of pots and into the ground so they are happier. And after reading about asparagus being an arsenic magnet and it being a possibility to get arsenic poisoning if it absorbs to much and you eat it…well let’s just say we need to move the asparagus we planted last year to be safe.

What are you dreaming of as those catalogs hit your hands?

Post FIJMC January Citrus Challenge Feedback

What do you do with preserve recipes you try but don’t quite love?

For the January Citrus Food In Jars Mastery Challenge I made Lemon Lavender Marmalade from Emma MacDonald’s book Artisan Preserving. It calls for both lavender buds to be added and essence of lavender. I love lavender but I did find this combination to be particularly intense. It is good on toast with butter in smaller amounts. I am thinking I will try it in something butter or cream heavy to mellow that intensity and making it something rich and decadent to savor. Fingers crossed! Sometimes the first, second or even third iteration of a recipe isn’t quite “It” I did follow this first version up with a second, I made the same recipe but instead of lemons I used the blood oranges I had on hand. I also used the lavender buds in the “tea bag” with pith peel and seeds, and did not add essence of lavender. The result is a really pretty jelly with slivers of orange peels that has a sort of sweet bitter flavor I have to admit I cannot get enough of! The oranges I got are pretty bitter, above what is the norm for blood oranges. And when it is made like this it sort of blends with that tangy floral bite of lavender and gives a delicious sweet bitter bitter effect that is amazing on toast or bagels. It would be good on chicken or duck as well.

I also made another sweet-bitter marmalade using just blood oranges. I used this Blood Orange Marmalade recipe and whole orange process from the Food In Jars blog. I did add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract and 2 teaspoons of cinnamon at the tail end for a better flavor. While I like this one better then the intensity of the Lemon Lavender Marmalade…it wasn’t my favorite, something about that orange pith flavor note just doesn’t delight me. Smuckers Sweet Orange is my favorite to be honest. It converted me from a sometimes eater of marmalade to that is what I want on my toast for sure (that or lavender jelly!) There was quite a few jars that didn’t seal so I had to come up with what to do with that much marmalade in the fridge.

I had thought it might work in citrus cinnamon rolls and recalled that my sister had made cinnamon rolls from Paula Deen and that they were quite sweet which I thought would pair well with the marmalade. I used her printout of the recipe from the Food Network site. It is essentially the same as the one on her personal site but slightly different in wording. I made the recipe exactly as directed with two additions, I added 1/2 a pint or so of marmalade to the filling of the cinnamon rolls and another 3/4 or so to the glaze, and 1/4 cup of cream cheese went into the glaze as well to make it more like my mother’s cinnamon roll glaze. It baked up with no changes to time or heat and turned out well enough that my family polished the whole pan. My only warning here is you might want to double your recipe, and that marmalade glaze/filling will turn to the sturdiest glue you could imagine in cooking once those rolls are completely cool so get them free of the pan while warm! Overall a successful way to use a preserve I may not love and that excess if some jars don’t seal. I intended on taking pictures of the rolls…but they were inhaled. With requests for more so I may update this with pictures the next time I make this combination.

How do you use those excess or not so favored preserves you try?

Blood Orange Marmalade

bloodoranges

I made the blood orange marmalade and canned it today. I think it turned out well, however feel like I should have let the orange water reduce more as it was supposed to make 5 pints…and made quite a bit more! I ran out of hot jars and room in the pot so I water bath canned the amount I thought it would take and put the rest in the easiest reachable clean jars- a pint, two half pints, and the rest in a quart jar freshly clean from the dry canned pasta we had in dinner the other night. So I have some non canned marmalade to use up. Lots of non canned marmalade! I don’t want it to sit in the fridge until used on peanut butter jelly sandwiches or toast…that could take forever. Or three days. Kids, ya know?

I think I will make some cinnamon rolls and either use the excess marmalade as part of the filling or as part of the glaze. I am pretty partial to my mother’s cinnamon roll glaze though so the filling is more likely.

Cold Mornings

Oh the cold mornings when you don’t want to leave the cocoon of your blankets. But the chickens need let out, chores need to be done. Coffee must be made.

Lo and behold! The chickens have been busy laying eggs and there is a new colored egg in a funky shape! Now the question is this: do you wake the chicken crazy 6 year old to tell her that her precious Cochin aptly named Cochie has laid her first egg? This is all she wanted for her birthday weeks back…can you imagine the excitement? Hmmm…after the first cup of coffee I will wake her up.

A quiet couple of hours alone with the dogs and fresh coffee would be wonderful but a first laid egg of the first chicken she will have is a wonderful thing too. Oh the excitement on a cold cold morning just cannot be beat 😉

Food in Jars Mastery Challenge; January’s Citrus Makes

image_6483441 (4)

I had such good intentions I swear! I have never canned any citrus preserves unless you count Sunny D jelly for the refrigerator. I don’t count that though to be honest. Have you looked at the ingredients in Sunny D? Don’t if you love it.

I bought organic lemons from our local co-op, and blood oranges from our local family owned grocery store (who am I kidding, these are the only two places that carry any produce in our tiny town) and looked through recipes in books I own…ordered 13 more books on canning from our library. Excessive, I know. I tend to research voraciously any topic of interest and I think the librarians think I am a crazy book lady.

My sister requested Lemon Lavender Marmalade from Artisan Preserving by Emma Macdonald. I got this book from the library and highly recommend it-I will be adding it to my “Want To Own” book list.

We already had the aforementioned lemons, and I had quite a bit of culinary lavender on hand to make lavender jelly eventually as that is another favorite of mine. Okay, we can do that. So I ate some clementines with my kids and kept reading, trying to decide what to make with the blood oranges. And read. And read. So you could say procrastination is strong in me. I have the Lemon Lavender reducing as the recipe calls for as we speak. Type. Whatever…you know what I mean. But wait. Isn’t the challenge’s final day today?! Yes indeed it is. I procrastinated to long! Or did I? When we were eating those clementines we saved all the peels and made clementine orange vinegar. I have two jars full that are in the works, a partial jar that we are filling as we eat oranges. And I put some into my kitchen cleaning spray from a previous batch so I did actually make something by the deadline. Hurrah!

I don’t have pictures of the in process vinegar really because the peels start to lose color and are an orangish brown that just is not pretty. You can see a little of that in the jar to the right. That is our ongoing peel jar. As well as my post-zesting naked lemons.

So outcome? Love clementine orange vinegar for cleaning. You could also use it for vinaigrette’s etc. I just love to use it on the kitchen counters, stove and the cart I do all my chopping on. I tend to have a fair amount of clementines from the brand Halo this time of year since they are a favorite for both my sister and I since childhood and they are my youngest child’s all time favorite fruit…so we actually have some orange rationing so they do not go poof in a day or two. Using the peels from that makes good sense I think.

And as for the Lemon Lavender Marmalade? I will update this after we know if it is a pass or fail for our family’s taste.

Have you canned anything with lemons or another kind of citrus?

An update on the Lemon Lavender Marmalade: Very intense lavender, not as much lemon despite that being the main ingredient. My sister, the kids and I all agree we like it. But also that we would like to try it next time with the lavender buds strained out with the pith and seed packet. And I don’t think I will add the essence of lavender oil next time. I really liked it before adding such a lavender intensity. I never thought I would say I want less lavender but truthfully…it is intense. We will still eat it however, so I would not say this was a fail at all, just something to try tweaked a bit next time around when I make it.

Discouragement in the beginning

Anyone else have a dream, an interest, a curiosity, a desire to homestead or farm? A desire to grow things with your own two hands? To raise some of your own meat?

I would imagine so. Since you are reading this right now. I read and read and read before, during and I suppose I will read after if there is an after To this pursuit of a dream.

Growing up I had a small taste of it, my parents went off grid. Built cabins, pasture, a barn and a garden. They raised chickens for eggs and meat, raised rabbits which never ended up as the meat as intended. They used solar power, cooked on a wood cook stove, had an outhouse and overall gave a taste of the life I aimed myself at when I had my first child. I want to raise my children in a way that teaches them more about life then what they will find in a public school room, more then what they will find on the news and give them a strong foundation and skills that could keep them going in their hard times. I was not sure on the how or where in any specific manner. I had no real experience in these things as I was a child and they were the accomplishers of all of the above. But I was aware of possibilities from living with them as they went on their own back to the land adventure; and I had a dream.

A dream that gave me hope in a modern world of chaos. A dream that held me together as my marriage crumbled and then imploded. A dream that kept me going on sleepless nights-plural and in succession-when I held my young children through their sleepless nights.

To raise our own food, even a portion. To give back to the earth and those around me in a positive way. To upkeep our health and be mindful of what we put in our bodies and where it comes from. To hopefully fire an on-going passion for that way of life within myself, and pass it on to my children.

Where does the discouragement fit into that rousting beginning you ask? Facing single parenthood. Trying to raise and homeschool multiple stubborn children. Seriously stubborn. I know one day they will be strong adults full of conviction and that will be a good thing then…but dang if it isn’t real hard right now trying to get morals, manners and common sense in there with your standard schooling subjects. Discouragement at fighting your own slow start nature. Accomplishing daily tasks and the extra curriculars you want to do that are on the homesteading path. Toss in some less then flattering but realistic opinions on that same nature from family members…looking at properties and dreaming and knowing your meager savings just will not cut it…for such a long foreseeable future you want to cry at the hopelessness of ever getting there.

It can feel like an abyss of not going to happen. Of myriad reasons you will fail. You just have to buck up and keep going towards your goals. Know that others are right there with you going through that same cycle of fears and nerves. I know I am. We all need to use that inner voice and while acknowledging it exists and could be true, we need to overcome these obstacles wade through the way life throws things at us and keep going. You cannot succeed if you do not try. You can do this. We can all do this!

Set your goal in concrete and let your path be as fluid as needed to get there.

Did you need this flash flood style pep talk? I will admit I did. I am up late, it is around 1am. I am worrying about the future as the kids and my family sleep. Can I do this? I think I can. I can. I just need to affirm that periodically. I find that putting those late night musings into words can really help tackle that inner negative Nancy monologue that we so often hear and put a positive spin on it.

Remember, concrete goals, fluid path to get there. Maybe a dash of a Tony Robbins motivation talk in there. What 20% of effort will get you the biggest results and so on.

Food In Jars Mastery Challenge 2019

Have you heard of Marisa McClellan’s Food In Jars Books and Blog? I am in love with small batch canning to try things after buying her Food in Jars: Preserving in Small Batches Year-Round as a birthday gift to myself a few years ago. It changed my life! I grabbed Preserving by the Pint: Quick Seasonal Canning for Small Spaces from the author of Food in Jars for my birthday in 2017 and it just upped the awesomeness. I seriously love being able to try different recipes and only be a few jars out if I don’t care for it…that being said, I have yet to not like something canned from recipes in her books.

This year she is hosting the Food In Jars Mastery Challenge 2019 based on the 2010 Tigress’ Can Jam Challenge- The Tigress’ blog seems to be deactivated and removed but you can google “Tigress’ Can Jam” for lots of recipes she provided and the many many people who participated and posted. Each month has a themed canning item-be it an ingredient to use or a canning process to try. This month the theme is Citrus so I grabbed some Blood Oranges that were on sale at our local family owned grocery store and some organic Lemons from our Co-Op. My sister wants to try Lemon Lavender Marmalade I think she said, from a canning book I ordered from out library. She is not big on eating jams and jellies (and does not can) but loves to try new recipes and I love both Lavender jelly and Lemons so we will likely try that.

I want to follow along because I haven’t canned much other then requested canning given as gifts to my grandparents and we ran out of jam in 2017 after moving so I canned some stone fruit jam up for peanut butter & jam for my kids. With my then 6 year old son’s help actually; much to my surprise and pleasure.

And I miss it, I really do. Once you get down to it it really doesn’t take long to make your own preserves, and they taste better more often then not. You also can try all those exotic sounding artisan jam and jelly recipes that add up so quickly if you can find them in the store or market. The last two years have held little food preservation and that is something I want to implement more and learn more about by doing rather then less. Taking part in this challenge will hopefully get my butt in gear while trying small batches to see what we like to eat, what processes are the best for us. I like doing things and being inspired by others doing them at the same time so this should definitely get me moving-especially if I want to meet the challenge deadlines! I think the January Challenge entries are due on the 25th so I better get off here and get prepped to can 🙂

Will you be joining in on this challenge? Do you can? Let me know in the comments below.