Summer Fun at the Farm

Well, fun for us at least!

Later in the week, I got stung in the belly. I had swelling and then bruising, which is odd, but everything resolved itself with time.

Then we painted the kitchen and cleaned downstairs. We settled the girls down for a movie and......CRASH BOOM. This mess took up downstairs, well, the clean up of it, for 3 days, We had A LOT of stuff on that shelf. Luckily we had cleaned and taken out a sturdier shelf from the kitchen just hours before.

Blueberry gobbled her broccoli (from our garden!) by the fistful. Then mine and Lil'Bug's too.

Brewing mint tea concentrate; stock pot full of water, food processored Spearmint leaves, bring to a boil then cover and turn off, let sit for 2-3 hours, then add 1/2 cup of raw turbinado sugar for every 2 gallons. Then I put it in freezer safe pint jars and freeze. It is really strong, so when the time comes I take 1 frozen pint in a pitcher and pour over that cold water to fill...still strong so I serve over a glass full of ice. It is really not at all like "tea" but rather minty ice water. Very refreshing with the added nutritional bonus. I think that the Spearmint vs Peppermint makes the tea. I'm not sure I'd like it with Peppermint. I have not tried chocolate mint or lemon mint.

I dried the remaining mint from that harvest. The dried mint gets stuffed into mason jars with a few grains of rice and used all winter long for hot tea and seasoning. With the next harvest I plan on making mint extracts for cookies.

We are also curing garlic. Once cured they will be braided and hung in the kicthen for winter use.

We finally got a lift rented that 1)reaches our chimney and 2)isn't broken and 3)we could afford. Whoo! Next step, line teh chimney and install wood burning cooking stove that will heat the house and let me bake bread and fry boudin all at the same time with the same heat source. So excited.

I've been making popcicles. The kids gobble them and the good kind with no HFCS are expensive and not much selection at our local grocery. So I've been using frozen juices and better yet pure unsugared fruit purees. Watermelon in a blender= most yummy dripless stainless popcicle EVER. No extra sugar so the kids can eat as much as they want. I had to order more moulds because of the freeze time.

Chickens taking a dirt bath. I know they do this but I'd never seen it before.

And it is tree frog time. Chad caught this one, we let it go later that night but first he had to identify it. Sorry for the crappy focus. 15 or so days before I can replace my lens on the good camera. Trust me, I am X'ing off days on my calendar. Sigh.

This week we also cleaned out our storage room, sorted and culled toys, sorted and culled and folded and better marked kid's clothing, and next up is the laundry sewing room and the winter coat closet. Nesting anyone?

Oh and Blueberry has decided that poop in diaper=bad. Poop on potty=sugar beans. Poop on floor=scowling mama. Good timing kid. I am hoping to make serious progress on the potty training front soon. I am also thinking about selling my Bum Genius cloth diaper stash. A friend gave me a couple snapping Blueberri's and I really like the snaps better as far as laundering goes. The velcro tabs on the BG get yuck and useless after a few years. I could pay someone to replace the tabs I guess, but for the same $$ I could sell my stash and buy new. Using cloth paid for itself by month 4 of Blueberry's life, but I had hoped to get more use from the stash, you know?

What else......I'm not sure! It just has been crazy busy around here!

Jam tarts and Pies.

Favourite recipes for use with amazing pie crust:

Jam tarts. I roll the dough into little balls, then roll them into little thin cookie circles. Place 1 spoon of your favourite jam in the center of each and top with another little thing cookie circle. Roll the edges up like pie crusts, glaze with cream and sprinkle with sugar.....and bake at 350 degrees on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or or until golden. There are variations. You can roll the dough out in a big sheet and make them like raviolis. Or you could roll out a cookie circle and fold it over like a moon. Make them tiny, make them bigger. It's all good. I like served warm with ice cream best.

I love these best with strawberry jam, next best with red raspberry. They taste like pop tarts only way better.

Apple Pie:

Cut, core, and peel 7 cups worth of firm apples. I like Wealthy apples the very best of all, but Macintosh work too.
1/2 cup brown cane sugar.
1 T of fresh lemon juice
1/2 t fresh ground cinnamon
1/4 t fresh ground nutmeg
2 T cold salted butter

Mix all but the butter together in a  big bowl. Once mixed dump in pie crust, sprinkle filling with butter pieces, and top with more pie crust. Trim edges and press together. Bake at 400 for 30 minutes, 375 until the crust has browned to golden. Let cool for 1 hour before serving.

Strawberry pie. That one I have to still work into a recipe. Basically my success has been heating up strawberry jam, adding fresh cut strawberries, pouring into a pre-baked pie crust and topping with a really thing layer of top crust, glazed and sugared. That doesn't sound recipe ish though. I will make it tomorrow and try and document it better.

Amazing Pie Crust

I know, my Dearest will say, "For Humble Pie?" Indeed. This crust changed things for me. Making this crust made my first successful apple pie. That gave me the confidence to keep going.

Use a food processor. Not kidding, this makes crust making easy as pie.

3 cups of all purpose unbleached flour. I use Bob's Red Mill or the local Paul's Grains High Gluten. Either one works well.

3 tablespoons of raw cane sugar. You can use brown pure cane sugar if you can't find "turbinado" or Sugar in the raw. Cane sugar is key.

3/4 cup SALTED sweet cream butter frozen and then cut into 1/4 inch pieces. I prefer to make my own butter BUT there is no noticible differnce between that and store bought in this recipe.

1/4 cup of frozen lard. Pig lard. I'm not kidding. Use local, pastured pig lard if you can. HUGE difference. (If any of you local ladies want to try it let me know and I'll share a bit.) Cut into pieces.

1/2 cup of very cold water.

Put the dry ingredients in the food processor and pulse to blend. Then add the butter and lard. Pulse until mixture is crumbly. Fluff the mixture if needed. Add the water slowly while pulsing and stop once the mixture starts clumping like course crumbs.

Take mixture out and knead with your hands on floured parchment paper. Form into two balls and squish into disks. Wrap in plastic or paper and stick in the fridge.

(Make your pie filling)

When you are ready to roll out the dough (I use a chilled marble rolling pin, but that's just me being fancy pants), do so carefully and intentionally. Line your pan with one and top the filling with the other.

But wait, there's more. You want flaky crisp top crust? Use WHOLE CREAM and brush on a glaze over the entire top. I cut my slits after the glaze. Then sprinkle generously with more raw sugar. That adds just the right amount of sparkle. I also take the edge trimmings and make them into pretty shapes to top the crust. That's just fun.

I'll post fillings in just a bit.

Our week has been very wet and muddy and magical.....

So our week has been rainy. Lots of flash flooding, power flickers, and constant downpours with a side of mud. Grey, gloomy, wet and mucky. The rain rain rain came down down down.

One of the sunny hours I rushed out to do bee chores and Lily grabbed the back up camera to take a couple pictures of mama in the spacesuit. 

You will see that I do not wear a full suit. I still wear gloves and the veil and the white shirt though. I found that my normal clothes are too predator like in colour. Also that the bees get stuck in my hair. My hand are too busy for their liking as well. This is the get up that prevents me from getting stung. I also usually wear boots, but I forgot and wore rubber clogs and was totally fine. Also, I work the back of teh hives because my belly bumps the front and that tends to get them buzzing more.

I also had to add a box. The cranky hive (the ladies that gave me 10 stings) was finally full and needed more room.  The boxes are beautiful. I am so glad I am apprenticing with Sean at Blue Gate Farm. He really puts a lot of care into the construction of the hives and doesn't mind that I get chatty and ask a lot of questions.

Lily took this picture. She says its proof the grove is enchanted and full of faeries.  My Aunt Deedle will apreciate this, she's a big believer in cameras capturing the supernatural. I think it's poor lighting and a 1.2 MP with a dirty lens. Still, it does look magical in real life too. Minus the ghost bubbles. (Also, see the mud in the foreground? The whole farm is a marsh.)