Farm Progress Report July!

This week we finally got the chimney lined and in a way that it can easily be cleaned every year. Dan at Chiminey Cricket is brilliant and honest. We have really liked working with him and his crew. Polite, tidy, and very honest. The stove is not yet hooked up yet though, we still have to build the hearth and firewall. THEN I will be able to bake bread using a wood fire. So excited to realize this part of our farm goal. It was also heat all 2200 square feet of our home. We won't have to worry about pipes freezing in power outages. In fact, we may not have to worry about pipes freezing ever. We'll have a new set of worries though, like teaching the children about the incredibly hot dangerous thing in the dining room. They are smart though, they'll learn.

We also got some tree limbs cut back, water and electricity was installed out at Paw Paw and Nana's end of the pond, sold some more pork, and then relaxed and celebrated our country's independence from the British with some awesome and talented folks. I made soooooo much food. Potluck fare made simple and easy, no processed ingredients. No one complained or noticed. I also accidentally made a new pasta salad which was divine. I'll post that over at Simply Food. For beverage I also provided farm fresh mint tea and it was totally gone by the end of the night. We (I) drink almost a gallon a day. We saw old and new friends, and just had a blast hanging out by our lovely pond. We are still feasting on leftovers. Tomorrow I am making steak stir fry for dinner, and broiling up some pork strips to go with breakfast.

It is raining here. Still. Flood warnings and the news has warned that the highways that we use are underwater. Our farm is high and dry but our friends in Chariton are not faring as well. Manhole covers have popped out and streets are flash flooding. That's in town, 4 miles from the river. And the rain rain rain came down down down. Not to mention the mess in Des Moines, so much water. It is events like these that make me glad I work from home and worry for my Dearest venturing out for his commute. On the plus side, rain= lots and lots of frogs and toads EVERYWHERE. I have a little girl who is in heaven.

Bees have transitioned to honey production, which means less choring for a little while.

Since I am in the mood for glowing reviews.....Chariton just got a new coffee house Get Mugged. YEAH! The lady baristas were so awesome with my kids, extremely attentive, and very talented with the brew and milk. Latte latte latte. And I had the Cuban Panini for lunch, yummmmmmmmmy and seriously packed with protein; I think I have found this pregnancies craving food.  The free wifi will make me a regular, especially during finals when I am overwhelmed with grading. Other bonuses: good lighting and a variety of seating styles. Those things can really vary from cafe to cafe, but this one scores high points.

Then I ventured over to the other quilt shop in town, The Sampler. It is the hidden one that I kept trying to go to and never found open. Well, open they were! It must have been customer service day because we had another great experience there and I left with confidence, sewing machine questions answered, and a pile of lovely threads. The girls have requests in for skirts. Must learn how to make skirts. Ha!

I had the monthly prenatal check, at 20.5 weeks. Once again Vbac2 was discussed and various issues reviewed. My blood pressure was up from my normal. That has never happened before. I also only gained not quite a pound. With both Blueberry and Lil'Bug I was a consistent 1 lb per week. So diet was discussed and I decided to start tracking protein again. Today and yesterday both fell in the high 70's. 100 g is the goal. So I need to do better. Breakfast must include meat. I got out of the habit when we ran out of bacon and the girls have wanted oatmeal and cereal lately. Back to eggs we go, with cheese and sausage and peanut butter toast. Salad with feta for me for lunch or a soup with bone broth base or egg rolls. Dinner is fine the way it is, meat and two vegetables. We just got so busy I let meal planning slip.

This week I have been surrounded by loveliness, compassion, and gentle reminders of peace. The world continues to spin and everyday has its own troubles, but the heart is what matters. I am blessed and grateful for the friends and family in my life. Everyday we begin our dinner as a family with a prayer of gratitude, I think perhaps we should also begin our day with a grateful heart. We live in a time and location that is clean and bountiful in food, we have access to health care and medicine, and we are safe from gunfire and war. That is not the reality for much of the world, or even everyone in our own communities. That has been on my mind this week. Is it enough to be thankful?

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.