Author: Cabincrafted1

Support Services

The blog has been quiet for a few days as I traveled on Sunday to Fairfax County, VA to provide support services for eldest son’s family. T started a new job 2 Monday’s ago at GMU, W started her Art Camp teaching job the same day and that was L’s last day of 3rd grade. This week he had an adventure camp that required drop off and pick up for the camp bus at times they couldn’t possible manage. As I have blogged before, they do not have a car. Between the cost, the traffic, and the availability of public transportation, they generally don’t need one. They get where they need to go by walking, biking or taking Metro system busses and trains. Grandmom to the rescue. Being retired has it’s benefits and since the camp bus drop off point is the direction I am willing to drive, I came up to help. My sole responsibility is getting L to the bus by 8 a.m. and picking him up at 5 p.m. That leaves a lot of unencumbered, unscheduled time for me. I voluntarily fix dinner and keep up with basic chores. I have spent lots of time knitting and reading. My current book is The Goldfinch. Monday I visited a yarn shop we spotted on our way to dinner Sunday evening. They were so welcoming that after buying some yarn, I sat and knitted with them for a couple of hours. It is too hot to work on the wool/silk sweater I brought, so a started a scarf with the new yarn.

With the heat index in triple digits, I haven’t wanted to be outside much, so I have tackled a few chores here. L will be excited to see that Grandmom cleaned his room. He has so many crates of Lego’s and they were everywhere. They are all re-crated, books re-shelved and trash picked up. I sent him upstairs with clean clothes the other afternoon and found them on his floor. I figured it was distracted 9 year old behavior but realized he had more clothes in his dresser than he had room for. I sorted through the dresser, taking out all of the too small clothes, sorted winter from summer, undies and socks from shirts and pants and put it back together minus the out grown clothes, two bags full.

While I am here, Jim is home critter sitting with these dogs and chickens.

July 2, 2014
Olio – June 27, 2014

Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things

The Raspberry jam salvage was a success. It is spoonable, spreadable, and isn’t so sweet it makes me gag. A win. The wild Blackberries are so thick with fruit this year, I have a dilemma. I don’t need any more jam. My daughter who LOVES blackberry jam made a pantry full of Strawberry Jam when the berries were ripe in Florida, so she doesn’t need jam either, but I can’t resist foraging for blackberries on the farm. I can freeze them and use them in smoothies, cakes, and cobblers, but we aren’t dessert eaters unless we have guests and then hubby would rather I make apple, lemon or pumpkin pie rather than cobbler. What’s a girl to do?

The rain held off long enough for me to get everything that wasn’t hayed, mowed. Jeff is coming a few times a day and hauling off 9 bales of hay at a time on his lowboy trailer pulled by the behemoth tractor. There are still 45 bales to go. The mowing was a priority as I am off to babysit for 5 days then bring RT and L back here with me on July 3. We will send 8 chickens to freezer camp, hang a gate, watch fireworks, and feast for the two days RT is here, then he will catch a bus back home to be back at work on Monday. L will stay with us for about 7 weeks of his summer vacation.

The teenager chicks are looking like I may not have to wait until August to get eggs from them. Many of the girls combs and waddles are growing and turning red. It won’t be long before I start seeing wind eggs in the coop and then pullet eggs in the nesting boxes as they figure the process out.

They are hiding from the heat, the culls are dustbathing to keep cool.

I dragged the chicken tractor to a new spot to give the culls something fresh for their last week. Jim will be in charge while I’m gone.

The last of the spoiled bale of hay needs to be moved over to the garden and some areas remulched. We had a chicken escape and they got in the vegetable garden and the new flower bed and made quite a mess. Between that, some thin areas that are starting to show weeds, tomatoes and peppers tall enough to mulch around, I need to get that task done before I leave also. I might actually welcome a rain shower while that is being done to cool things off a bit. The garden is thriving, the kale is winning.

The sink is full, the chickens got at least this much and there is plenty to take to Northern Virginia for them when I go up.

First Tomatillo. Can’t wait for a crop of them.

The peas are almost done. If I cool off enough from working out there, I will pick a meal’s worth for tonight.

It amazing me how quickly the raspberries ripen. I picked the bushes clean yesterday and treated myself to a hand full while I was weeding. I save a hand full to have with my yogurt tomorrow.

Lovin’ life on our mountain farm.

June 27, 2014
Salvage

Each evening as I harvested the day’s produce and eggs, bringing in a half to a full cup of raspberries, I got more frustrated with the results of my batch of jam. The new berries were put in a wide mouthed pint jar and frozen, new ones added each night. The original batch so sweet and so gummy that it didn’t even work well in a smoothie without melting it first. Today’s harvest of berries filled the jar plus a half a cup or so. After some research from various cookbooks, homesteading books, and the internet, I decided to see if I could salvage the batch. Again, down came the pots, the jars and lids. The original 6 jars were warmed slightly to thin the sickly sweet goo. The new fresh and frozen berries crushed in the bottom of the jam making pot with the potato masher. Once they were beginning to cook, the first batch was added back to the pot with a quarter cup of water and a good splash of lemon juice and cooked til a gel test on a spoon showed a product that jelled but didn’t clump. The re-canning in clean jars with new lids has been done. The now 7 jars have all given the satisfying pop as they cool, so they are all sealed. The new process was less frothy looking and the foam easier to skim, so the jars are a pretty ruby color throughout. After they cool and I can do a tip test, I will see if I have 7 jars of jam or 7 cups of raspberry syrup. Hopefully, when I open one, I will have a jam that is spreadable. It tasted better when I checked it. When my peach jam didn’t jell (my fault for using old pectin), I bought liquid pectin and it seems to give a thicker consistency jam which I don’t like.

If any of my readers out there have jam recipes for low sugar (not artificial sweetener, I can’t use that stuff), or have found a good source of recipes for low sugar jams, I would love to have it. It is counter intuitive to me that most jam recipes call for sugar equal to or more than the amount of fruit. That takes a healthy product and makes it unhealthy.

June 26, 2014
It begins

I love this time of year. The garden is producing, giving us goodness for dinner and extra to put away for the winter. Today, the bulk of the peas were harvested. Two hours of shelling, a meal enjoyed with some and after dinner, blanching, chilling, and freezing. I would like to have at least twice what was harvested put away, but at least there are 10 meals worth of fresh frozen peas out of our garden to enjoy when the cold winds blow and the snows fall.

I opened one of the jars of raspberry jam and I am so disappointed. The jam is too sweet and somewhat gummy. Hopefully, I will be able to harvest another quart or so and can try again using a low sugar recipe and get a product that I am happier with. The jars I have can be used in smoothies or stirred into oatmeal, but there is no way I would spread it on homemade bread or biscuits.

I am lovin’ life on our mountain farm.

June 24, 2014
Wins and Losses

No, I’m not talking about FIFA Soccer, though that is on every public television in every place in town, including the grocer.

Ten months ago, we needed new phones and instead of dealing with the provider I had been with since moving to the mountains with no contract, we switched. That was an epic fail. Since our switch, my phone has had to be replaced because it wouldn’t hold a charge and would get so hot that I couldn’t put it in my pocket and we have had spotty to no service on our property and in our house. About 3/4 of all calls do not ring, and we may or may not get a voicemail eventually. To have any success making a call, we have to stand on our back deck. We have had two incidents in recent weeks where one of us tried to call the other from our land to our house or from the top of our driveway to the yard and the calls haven’t gone through. Both times were emergency situations, not life threatening, but situations that required the other immediately. We picked this service because of their advertisement about coverage. This is what we have most of the time.

Zero service, no bars, just the universal symbol for NO. Today we decided we had had enough and returned to the place we bought the phones and signed the contract to complain and possibly get out of the two year contract 14 months early. After dealing with a testy young man who finally after about 15 minutes of automated attempts to connect with a service tech, put Jim on the phone with the tech. We don’t know if we got anywhere or not, but allegedly they are going to work on it. As we don’t have a land line and as we are seniors working a small farm, and Jim riding a motorcycle and me traveling to babysit a few times a year, we need reliable cell service. If they can’t make this right, we may have to take the hit and cancel the contract early to go back to the provider that works on this mountain. This may be a loss.

The win is the soap. It isn’t pretty, sure couldn’t sell it at a fair or the Farmers’ Market, but it lathers nicely and smells good. There are 25 bars in two essential oil scents curing in the spare bedroom.

We will have plenty of soap for our use for a while, and to share with any of our children that want some bars. The two batches reinforced some lessons from my mentor. I reformulated the lye solution concentrate for the preferred of the two recipes to make it more superfatted using a lye calculator and wrote the recipe down where I can find it again, along with reminders about measuring everything by weight next time. I consider this a win.

June 23, 2014
Suds and Sweets

Nope, not beer, though I have been known to make it too. I realized that my homecrafted soap was nearly gone and as it takes 3 to 4 weeks to cure, I knew that I was going to have to get brave and make a batch or two on my own without my mentor’s help. I have made two batches in her kitchen and only one here alone. I have been procrastinating but realized that if I didn’t get over my reluctance and accept that I am still a novice and it might not be perfect, we were going to run out. Summer is not a good time to run out of soap. Sure, I could go to the grocery or the Farmers’ Market and buy some, but that goes against my nature.

Yesterday, the soap making box was hauled out. I quickly realized that I didn’t have the exact oils that the recipe I selected called for, but know that you can substitute some. I quickly forgot rule #1, that in soap making, everything is weighed and I measured out the water for the lye mix in liquid ounces. I measured the oils by weight though. The recipe that I selected only filled my good mold about halfway, but I covered it, wrapped it in old towels and put it aside to saponify. Today, when I pulled it out, it was a bit softer than the soap I made with my mentor, but the 6 bars are curing for use in a month. Since the recipe only made 6 bars, I resupplied on the oils that I was missing yesterday so that I wouldn’t substitute and followed a new recipe to the letter. When I added the essential oils to scent it, the soap seized and it is crammed and packed in the molds, covered to saponify. It won’t be pretty, but it will be soap.

Batch one curing.

Batch two about to go under cover to saponify.

Today’s raspberry harvest brought me up to the 4 cups I needed to make jam. Mind you, I don’t need any more jam, still having blueberry and blackberry left from last year, peach that I made a week ago, but I grew these raspberries and I want to savor them all winter. So down came the pots and jars, the berries mashed, the sugar added and jam making round two for the season begun.

Jam cooking while the jars heat beside it.

Six one cup jars ready to for canning.

Six jars cooling on the counter, as I listen to the satisfying pop as they cool and seal.

The rest of this year’s harvest of raspberries can be eaten as I pick, put in yogurt, and frozen for treats during the winter.

Lovin’ life on our mountain farm.

June 22, 2014
The Harvest

Yesterday just as they finished mowing the lower field, it started to rain. We probably got two inches yesterday evening and last night. This morning dawned thick and gray and it didn’t look good for finishing the hay. Jeff unhooked the baler and added a second fork to the back of the tractor and started moving the already baled hay into trailer size loads around the fields. The sun finally came out and the wind picked up, so they tettered the mowed field twice and let it sit for a couple of hours, raked it and finished baling it about an hour ago. The total hay harvest this year is 96 big round bales.

While they were baling, I picked more raspberries. I need less than a cup to make a batch of pure raspberry jam. Another day or two and I will be set. The peas are filling out faster than I can pick them and certainly faster than we can eat them, so tomorrow I will pick, shell and freeze at least a few packages for the winter. There are tiny peppers on some of the plants, blossoms on the tomatillos, the cucumbers, squash and beans are continuing to grow. I think there will be a handful of blueberries soon too. The chickens are enjoying the over matured kale leaves. I think a big armful of kale and chard will accompany me to Northern Virginia in a week when I babysit for 4 days and then bring our oldest grandson here for a few weeks of the summer to help his Mom and Dad out.

The 3 jars of mustard finished their ferment time yesterday and today and were completed and packaged in 8 oz jars for summer enjoyment and to share with our kids.

We started our morning at the Farmers’ Market and came home with radishes, turnips, carrots, spring onions, flowers, beef and pork. We are set for a week of good eating.

Lovin’ life on our mountain farm.

June 21, 2014
Honey, Have I ever told you . . .

How much I love this place? Our home, the mountains, the changing seasons and the farm chores.

To be able to sit in the morning breeze and sun on the porch swing with my coffee and my book and soak up the beauty and quiet. Watch the birds wing by, see the bunnies and chipmunks scurry across the driveway, wondering where their tall grass went. Listening to the creek tumble down the hill and the leaves rustle in the breeze. It doesn’t get any better than this. Thank you for helping make it happen.

June 20, 2014
Farm Life as Summer Approaches

The 90 hp behemoth at work. There are 47 bales done and they are working to beat the rain on the lower field. He will bale by headlights tonight. The hay is beautiful and thick. That tractor always amazes me, our little tractor is only 28 hp. It would pull the tetter or the hayrake, but the sickle bar and round baler require too much power. We can easily mow with a 5 foot brush hog, power a post hole auger and if we could figure out how to use it, pull the small plow we store in the barn. I am not a short woman and my chin would rest on the top of the back tires of that beast.

Bales in the morning sun.

Jeff has equipment that is modern with CD players and A/C and equipment that is older than my kids. It is always fun when he is working here as he brings one tractor, then another, a hayrake, a tetter, generally he doesn’t trade out the equipment, he just changes tractors for the next job.

In the midst of the chaos, today I found a new wildflower/weed in the front yard which is green, but seems to be more wildflowers/weeds than grass.

This afternoon when I went to pick peas for dinner, I realized that there were still garlic scapes in the garden. I harvested as many as I could hold with the egg basket full of eggs and peas. I was able to make 7 half cup jars of garlic scape pesto and blended the other half of the scapes with olive oil to make a garlicky paste that I dropped in 2 Tbs. plops on foil to freeze for use as fresh garlic in sauces.

I was hoping to get some peas in the freezer for winter, but we are enjoying them fresh so much it is hard to put any away. Peas picked, shelled and cooked within half an hour are a whole different vegetable than even “fresh” peas from the Farmers’ Market.

It has been a productive day on our mountain farm.

June 19, 2014
Olio – June 18, 2014
Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things

Pet peeves of the day;
- the trend of semi fast food restaurants to shout out across the dining area “Welcome to …” each time a patron enters any door of the establishment. Do they really think that is appealing and welcoming?
- also in a semi fast food restaurant or even a real restaurant for an employee to walk up to your table and grab the tray/plate before asking if you are finished with it and say, “May I take your …” One literally tried to take the tray with my husband’s fries on it today while he was still eating them.
- along the same vein, to be in an establishment and have not only your own server ask how your meal is, but anyone else that works there. We have been asked at one steak place we patronize as many as 4 or 5 times by that many different people about how our meal/visit was while we are still seated and eating. Let us enjoy our food in peace.
Today was resupply all the critters feed. We managed to run out of dog food, cat food, chicken layer and chick starter grower all at the same time. That was a car full.

On our way home, we stopped at a local greenhouse and bought 4 new Day-lily plants, different from the two that I have and also bought 3 more pepper plants as some of my heirloom starts didn’t grow once put in the garden. Of course that mean garden work when we got home and it is HOT, HOT, and humid out there today. Two of the Day-lily plants went in the perennial bed in the front of the house. The garage wall bed had gotten grossly overgrown with grape iris, the purple ones that smell like grape Kool-aid.

That is one of 4 huge clusters when they were blooming. They haven’t been thinned in a few years, they were overrunning the English Daisies, and the bed had gotten weedy as well. I dug them all out! I hate to throw them away, but there are too many to replant. I am going to load them in the tractor bucket and dump them where we don’t mow. I bet some of them will come up next year and bloom there. A few of them were moved to a bed by the deck. The rest of the bed now has the other two Day-lily plants, two lavender plants, some English Daisies, a yellow poppy, three clusters of Dutch Iris plants that I divided from the deck area and on the opposite side of the walkway out of the garage side door, the Bronze fennel. The bed is weeded, watered, and mulched with spoiled hay until I can get some more shredded mulch to apply to the bed.

It looks sparse now, but will fill in quickly and have more variety.

The haying is not going as quickly as we had hoped. Jeff is trying to do too much at the same time. They tettered the upper fields yesterday then came back and raked it into rows for baling, but the first bale was too green so they left it to mow the lower field and ran out of fuel. This afternoon the have turned the hay and

hopefully will get it baled this evening as we are due for rain for a few days.

The first batch of mustard is so good, there are 3 batches fermenting now to share. Two are Bavarian style and one is a repeat of the horseradish recipe.

I think I am going to have to buy some sausages to grill soon.

Raspberries are ripening. Tonight I harvested about a cup of them and resisted eating them as I picked. They went into the freezer. As soon as I have a quart, there will be a raspberry jam making session.

Life is good on our mountain farm.
June 18, 2014