Category: Farm Life

Watching paint dry

As I have posted recently, we are trying to get our log house re-stained before winter. This either a tough or expensive task as the front of the house has 3 dormers on the upper floor, though the front of the house walks out onto a ground level porch but the roof is metal and steep. The back of the house that originally was designed to have french doors that walked out to a ground level deck ended up on a walk out basement, not in the original plans and the french doors walk out onto a narrow part of the deck one story up and the deck itself sitting about 4 feet off the ground with a serious stone retaining wall under the west edge. This makes the dog run dormer on the back of the main house on the 3rd story. As we have set and moved scaffolding and Son #1 tries to figure out how to set up enough on the deck and in the breezeway garden to go over the breezeway roof to stain the east end of the house, we have discussed the dogrun dormer and its steep sides.

He reminded me that when he was designing and building the deck and walkout that he suggested we extend the walkout the full length of the back of the house to accommodate an extension ladder so he could get up there. At that point, our building funds were running low. The painting contractor who did the house 4 years ago sent two young men up on ladders set precariously on the roof to do it, and charged us an arm and a leg for it. There is no way we are going to let our son do that. We will get as much as we can done then hire someone brave or fool enough to do that part. If we come into a windfall of funds (not likely since we don’t play the lottery and don’t have any known rich relatives), we will extend that deck walkout.

The stain we use, recommends it be applied between certain temperatures and with humidity at or below 40%. This is Virginia, the humidity is never that low, so we have to pick the driest days with a string of expected dry days following it to get sections done and then we sit and watch the paint dry. The stain should dry overnight, it is taking days. Days of being careful not to brush up against it. Days of hoping the cats and dogs stay away from it. Days and days of waiting.

The plan was to stain the front of the house on Monday. It absolutely poured rain on Sunday, so we needed a drying out day. Instead of painting, we made our annual jaunt to Mabry Mill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabry_Mill) for the winter supply of grits and cornmeal. Though it is not ground there anymore, it is locally ground especially for them, it is wonderful and I like supporting the Parkway, the Mill and having local grains in the house.

The view from one of the overlooks on the Parkway. A beautiful place indeed.

This morning I was going to start early. Nope, this is what I am waiting for the sun to dispatch.

Fog is definitely not low humidity. Though the temperature last night fell to the low 40’s for the first time, when I awoke, I couldn’t see past the window panes. Chicken chores were done by feel.

The Rainbow Rangers are huge now, they look like chicks in the bodies of adults. Some have combs and wattles that are red, though they still behave and sound like chicks. Their heavy bodies and thick legs make their movement amusing. If they want to move quickly, they flap their wings and run awkwardly like they are trying to take off. They have 3 1/2 more weeks to feed and fill out before I will be back to only 12 hens and Romeo. Just as all of the hens are finally laying, it is getting on to molting season and the two older hens will molt this year for sure. The March hatches probably won’t molt until next year.

I know I said I was done canning, but I can’t resist making one more batch of applesauce so that Son #1’s family can have some this winter too. And of course, I will continue to make Tomatillo Salsa and XXX sauce until the Tomatillos and peppers quit producing. Guess I’m going to need more jars after all.

Lovin’ life on our mountain farm.

September 23, 2014
Where have you been my whole life?

The canning was finished yesterday by early afternoon and Mountaingdad was off riding his BBH (big bad Harley) as it was a beautiful day and beautiful riding days will soon end for the season. I drove down to the local grocery, a real small town affair with produce displayed outside and much of it local and picked up half a peck each of Golden Delicious and Rome apples and spent hours peeling, coring and chopping them for a batch of applesauce. Thinking that it would be enough for the season, I jarred it up for canning and realized I only had 7 pints, not enough. My hands were so sore I wasn’t looking forward to another round of peeling. Though I am not a big fan of gadgets, trip was made to Walmart for a flat of jars and an apple peeler/corer, but it was a double fail. This morning, a quick internet search showed that Bed, Bath and Beyond in a nearby town carried the peeler and I knew that Kroger Grocery had the jars, so we made a pre football run to make the purchases.

Quick work of another peck of apples, peeled, cored, sliced and chopped in about 30 minutes. Part of that was learning how the device worked. The apples have cooked down and another 6 pints prepared for the winter.

The Green Tomato Chutney smelled so good yesterday, and made such a small amount that I decided to spend some time gathering and picking just about every green tomato left in the garden, many requiring significant paring of bad spots and making a double recipe of the Chutney. It is simmering on the stove.

I wish you could smell my kitchen right now. I’m hoping for at least 4 or 5 pints from it after it has cooked down.

Last night after the canning was complete, I did finish one of my sweaters. This is homespun yarn made by a friend and gifted to me by another friend. It should be a great fall sweater.

Perhaps I should wear it with a contrasting shirt. Now I am back to working on the other sweater and the dresses for one of our grandgirls.

Lovin’ life on our mountain farm.

September 21, 2014
The Last. . .

…harvest of tomatoes that is. The vines are dry and brown, the handful of remaining tomatoes are being decimated by the stinkbugs and each day I pull and toss a vine to the chickens to pick over. There are a few remaining green slicer tomatoes and I will enjoy them as fried green tomatoes, a treat that I rarely indulge, partly because my diet contains very little fried food and partly because I let them ripen on the vine during warm weather to enjoy sliced or canned.

These will be canned probably into salsa to add to the root cellar shelves to enjoy and remember a successful tomato season when the snow is falling or the cold wet wind is blowing much sooner than ready.

…the last pullet figured out the egg laying business, sort of. There was a tiny egg this morning, apparently laid yesterday in the run and not seen until this morning when I went to let them out. It was dark when I locked them up last night when I came in from knit night. Surprisingly, nothing found it during the night. Now, if she will just lay them in the nesting boxes with the other hens. Romeo is a very frustrated young roo. None of his ladies in waiting will stand still for him to mount them, they run and peck. When he was first added to the run, several squatted in submission, but not now. It is going to be hard for us to raise a heritage flock if that behavior continues.

…of the 5 gallon bucket of stain will be mixed this morning once the fog clears, to stain the soffit and fascia board overhang from the front porch. At knit night last night, I ran into the manager of the Sherman Williams in the coffee shop and he suggested I wait until this weekend to buy more as the stain that we use will be on sale for 40% off and that is a significant savings in dollars for our budget. That also gives me two days for my sore and painful shoulder to calm down before I tackle the log wall of the front of the house. Saturday is to be mild and breezy with humidity in the right range for the project, so that will be the day to complete the task.

…the last few rows of the beautiful handspun sweater. The photo doesn’t do the color justice but it is lovely. It should be ready for the spinning retreat I will be attending soon.

September 18, 2014
I’m getting too old for this!

The weather has been beautiful. Mid 50’s at night, great sleeping weather with a window open, 70 for the day’s high. Occasional clouds, some of them quite lovely.

Last night it was so beautiful outside that after I finished staining the garage doors with Mountaingdad and then finished the half wall on the garage that Son #1 didn’t have time to finish, we grilled out and ate on the back deck. I was tired and sore and needed some zen time, so I spend about an hour near sundown mowing in one of the back fields. It really is quite zen to ride the tractor and watch the goings on around you on the farm.

Today being a copy of yesterday, I began earlier to get the front and back walls of the breezeway stained. This critter with her brood of babies on her back watched from the stone wall nearby for quite a time.

While I was doing the breezeway, our handyman neighbor was staining the ceiling of the front porch and we worked together to get the front porch posts to use up the remaining stain mix that was made today. Once the additives are mixed in, it must be used within 6 hours. As we were working on that, I spotted another spider’s work.

It is spun to the contour of the A frame bird house. This is the best I could do to get a photo.

The only parts of the house left for me to stain are the front log wall, seen in the background of the photo above and the 8 windows that are in the areas that I have or will stain.

About 38 years ago, I separated my left shoulder on the second day of skiing with my hubby. We weren’t married then, though he says that my skiing for several more days after that injury helped him decide that I was the woman he had been looking for. I am a southpaw, so I work that shoulder and arm a lot and when I do, whether gardening or staining like I am doing now, that old injury makes my shoulder quite sore. I may need a day or two break before I tackle that front wall. It will take me several hours to complete. For now, I’m going to get cleaned up and go socialize with my friends at knit night. As a bonus, I have 4 dozen eggs to sell to them.

September 17, 2014
Eleven and an Escape Artist

For the past several days one of the young Buff Orpington hens has been giving herself a free range walk-about. One day we let the rest out too. Somehow, she is getting herself back in by bedtime or if I put a special treat in the run. She won’t show me how so I can try to stop her and she is laying in the coop so she is at her own peril, though she is pecking every red tomato within her reach.

Today there were 11! There are only 12 layers and one still has pale small comb and waddles so I’m excited that maybe Broody/molty girl is over it. More than 9 eggs a day provide enough for our use, a dozen for the 2 neighbors that help us out and enough to sell to buy feed for them and the meat chicks.
Yesterday I opened the ark and freed the 5 week old meaties into their run. A few came out for a few minutes but they mostly hunkered down in the ark. Today I put half of their food out in the run in a dog feeding pan and as I went to put them up for the night, I had to lure them in with food. They were so active, it was a joy to watch them play and run and chase the grasshoppers that were fleeing the mower.
Today though mostly cloudy was delightful and I took advantage of the dry, cool weather to start the major fall mowing of all 30 acres. Because of the recent rains, I started around the house and worked out doing 3 small fields that only get hayed in spring and mowed in fall. The 2 huge fields, making up about 2/3 of the farm remain and we know we are facing hours and hours mowing unless our haying neighbor comes and brush hogs with his bigger more powerful tractor as he has offered to do. Though I don’t particularly like pushing the lawn mower or using the huge weed wacker, I do like mowing on the tractor.

September 9, 2014
Tom Tom

The garden provided 5 pounds of tomatoes, 2 pounds of tomatillos, a dozen or so various hot peppers this morning. I quick decision that salsa at $5 a pint and large cans of pickled jalapeños at under $2 a can, that the peppers are better used in salsa than just being pickled. Another round of canning commenced.
The tomatoes peeled and diced, the tomatillos diced, onions, hot peppers and garlic chopped. Eight pints of salsa in the making.
Today’s creation is Tom TomSalsa.
Tom Tom Hot Salsa
5 lbs tomatoes peeled and diced
2 lbs tomatillos husks removed, washed and diced
1 large onion chopped (2 cups)
10 cloves garlic minced
12 jalapeño pepper minced
1 habanero pepper minced
1 Tbs oregano
2 Tbs cilantro
1 Tbs pickling salt
1 cup lemon juice
Place all in a heavy nonreactive pot, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Ladle hot salsa into clean, hot pint jars, seal with new lids, tighten bands and water bath process for 20 minutes.
Yield 8 pints

The shelves are being filled with garden goodness.
The pullets are laying more each day. We are getting 7 eggs most days from the 10 pullets and 1 hen. Broody Girl went into molt as soon as she quit being broody and hasn’t laid an egg in more than 2 months. I’m not too happy with her right now.
The Rainbow Ranger chicks at not quite 4 weeks old already weigh about 2 pounds each and have seriously outgrown the brooder. They are in a large dog cage with an attached run in the garage and get as much daytime outdoors as weather permits. They foul their cage daily. Can’t wait until they can go out to the chicken ark and run to live out their lives until mid October.

Lovin’ life on our mountain farm.

September 2, 2014
The summer kitchen

Much more time is spent in the kitchen than in the garden this time of the season. Each morning after animal chores and breakfast, I wander in the garden with baskets in hand, pull a few weeds, but mostly harvest. All tomatoes except for the occasional slicer are destined for canning in some form or another. Most of the Tomatillos now are being frozen in 1 pound bags as most recipes call for a pound.

There are 5 pounds in the freezer since I am saving my jars for tomatoes and salsas. On mornings when the Tomatillos are generous and there are too many Jalapeños for a pint to can but not enough for 2, a batch of green salsa is made. Most of the Habanero’s are being strung to dry, there is so much XXX sauce it probably won’t get finished off this year.
If an Ancho pepper turns red, it is also strung to dry to make enchilada sauce later. There are two types of Cayenne’s in the garden. I didn’t realize that until the second type started bursting forth with peppers. Really I think they are not Cayenne’s though they were sold as such. The pepper is much smaller, grows upward and is hot, maybe Thai peppers, which is okay too. The Cayenne’s are strung to dry for crushed red pepper for pasta, pizza and cooking.

Today there were lots of tomatoes ripe in the garden and more on the window sills and baskets in the house, so today was Chili Tomato canning day. Nine pints are out of the canner, sealed and cooling on a tray on the counter.

These are my answer to the name brand tomatoes with green chilies that you purchase in the grocer. Mine are a bit spicier and lack the BPA lined can. We eat lots of Chili con Carne in the winter so they are a welcome addition to the larder.
Chili Tomatoes
4-5 quarts of peeled diced tomatoes
3 diced green Ancho peppers
4 diced Jalapeños
1 Tbs pickling salt
Place a heavy non-reactive pot on the stove top. Add the peppers and a couple of cups of diced tomatoes and simmer to allow the pepper to start cooking (I continue to add the tomatoes as I peel and dice them). Once all the tomatoes are added, add the salt and bring to a boil.
Ladle the mixture into clean hot pint jars. Wipe the rims and seal with new lids. Screw a band on and pressure can according to directions for your canner. Here in the mountains, it is 15 minutes at 12 PSI. They can be water bath canned but I would add some lemon juice to each pint to ensure acidity. My batch made 9 pints with about half a cup left over that I just added to the salsa in the refrigerator.

Lesson learned, last week I made 10 pints of pasta sauce and didn’t label them. The rest of the canned goods were labelled. Hubby opened one thinking it was salsa and noted that it wasn’t spicy like the first jar. I couldn’t figure out why one jar from a batch would be very spicy and another not at all until I went to get jars this morning and noted that all the salsa was still there but one jar of spaghetti sauce was missing. Mystery solved and lesson learned, label all of the jars. I would date them too, but nothing I can this year will be left at the end of winter except jelly and I do date them.
We are having internet issues right now, so posts may be sporadic for a while as well as replies to comments, my apologies in advance.
Lovin’ life on our mountain farm.

September 1, 2014
No Space Left

This morning’s tomato harvest pushed me over the edge. There was no more counter space to put them. Tonight the deck herbs can return to the deck and I will have plenty of collecting space, but not this morning. Since I was making pasta sauce, I prefer to pressure can, so down came the big canner, out came the instruction book for a refresher, out came the big sauce pot, chopping board, kitchen knives and ice water bath.
Tomatoes were removed from the freezer, peeled under running water and put in a large glass bowl to thaw. Fresh tomatoes were blanched for peeling, chopped and set aside. Onions, garlic, carrots, summer squash all chopped and sauteed til tender. The tomatoes were added to the pot with seasonings and simmered. Just before canning time, a few ounces of tomato paste were added.
The sauce was ladeled into 10 pint jars, just what my canner will hold and amazingly just the amount of sauce made and all processed for safe keeping.

The next batch will be diced chili tomatoes, the canner being a fixture on the stove top for weeks to come. A batch of plain tomatoes will likely be made, more salsa and pasta sauce until the tomatoes are all used up. We will eat well this winter.

Ten perfectly sealed pints cooling on the counter.

August 28, 2014
Rainy Sunday Musings

Again it rains! Everyday for the past 7 days. The grass is literally knee deep and too wet to mow. The decks haven’t dried to be able to paint. When I brought these in last weekend I had no idea they would still be on the kitchen counter.

These are my kitchen herbs for a quick snip when cooking and I don’t want a trek to the garden. They live on the south deck, just outside the Dining area French doors. Some winter over in the house, but not this early.
And then there were 4. . .

Last night when I went to lock up the girls for the night, there were 4 eggs. There are two 17 month old hens (1 not currently laying); three 26 week old pullets; eight 24 week old pullets, one whose comb and waddles are still small and pale. It has been 6 weeks since we were getting more than an occasional egg. I have missed them but have enjoyed a few this week with our fresh tomatoes and a few shreds of raw cow milk cheese.
Since it is rainy and wet, instead of mowing, I will process more tomatoes and tomatillos.

The garden is giving. The rain causing the tops of the tomatoes to split. There are more Habañeros than we will ever need for hot sauce and salsa, I am going to experiment with drying some. A pinch of them dried and crushed will surely add a kick to curry or chili and Son#1 will use them.
But the flowers love the rain and it does make the weeds easier to pull between storms.

If it doesn’t stop soon, I will need a machete to get to the garden and the coop.
The chicklets are getting huge. They are 2 1/2 weeks now and going through 2 jars of feed and a gallon of water a day. I moved them temporarily this morning to a smaller brooder box long enough to clean the huge water trough that serves as their brooder. It is 15 square feet of floor space and looks too small for the 15 chicklets that seem to double in size weekly.

The most severe storm we had on Thursday evening damaged some component of our internet service. Our provider iuis a local coop with no weekend hours, so being on the internet or posting right now is an effort in frustration.
We love life on our mountain farm!

August 24, 2014
Olio – July 25, 2014

Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things.

Phone saga continued. . . after numerous visits to the cell phone store, learning that they are retail outlets with zero authority to do anything but make a phone call; agreeing to accept a “Network Extender” refurbished with a monthly discount to help pay for the thing, knowing that it probably wouldn’t work since we don’t have high speed internet with our phone co-op, just DSL; receiving the extender (a new one 3X cost, not a refurbished one) 10 days ago; hooking it up to have service, maybe, if you were sitting right in front of it; receiving our bill (still no reliable service) and there being a charge for a new extender, no reduction of cost; we took both phones, the extender, and a major case of attitude back to the store yet again. This time, the poor young man on whom we unloaded, was very sympathetic, knew what to say to customer service and finally got our contract cancelled without penalty. Another couple of hours in the old provider’s store that we knew had service on our mountain and we have new phones, and amazingly, service.

Now reality, this was probably all my fault in the first place. I wanted an Iphone, the provider we had didn’t have them; my service with this provider was good here in the mountains, but spotty when I went to babysit in Northern Virginia a few times a year. I didn’t get an Iphone when we switched, the service was better in Northern Virginia, but the two times we had a crisis here, we couldn’t even call each other within shouting distance if we had both been outdoors. Back with the original provider, they do now have Iphones and I got one. Hubby got the next generation of the phone he had and liked and we can make and receive calls on our property, up our road, and in our house. I will suffer spotty service when I travel to have a phone at home.

Broody hen is still being difficult. I put plastic buckets in her two preferred nesting boxes, there are still 4 others, so she is hunkered down just outside of the boxes. She tried to peck me when I shooed her out the pop door and got a swat for doing so. Our egg production is less than one a day right now. I know that in a few weeks, we will be overrun with eggs once all 13 girls are laying.

On Tuesday, both pups had a new vet visit. When we first got them, we took them to a vet in our county, but it was 18 miles in a direction we rarely go. We tried to switch to a vet that was much nearer us, but they didn’t carry the Trifexis that we had the dogs on for heartworms and fleas, so we switched to one about 18 miles away in a direction we do travel, but he is nearing retirement and has a new younger vet part time in the office that we did not care for. During the time we were using him, our pups decided that they wouldn’t willingly take Trifexis. Surprisingly, the big guy, the English Mastiff would let me force feed his, the much smaller German Shepherd would have no part of it and nothing I did would trick her into taking it. During this 14 months or so, the vet nearest us retired and the two vets that took over his practice, are great as well as doing house calls if necessary. They switched the pups to Sentinel and Nextgard and both dogs will take them willingly. Win/win!

The garden is more or less stalled due to the hot weather. There are lots of tomatoes, but none of them are turning red yet. There are some peppers and I will likely have to pickle another jar or two soon. Chard is thriving, but grandson doesn’t like it. Berries are done. We don’t like the yellow wax beans and the green beans are just sprouting. There are a few white scallop squash and an occasional lemon cucumber. There will be dozens of small Seminole pumpkins come fall and it looks like a stellar crop of yellow and white sweet potatoes. Two beds are awaiting some fall greens in another couple of weeks. This fall, the raspberry bed is going to be dug out, a reasonable number of shoots moved to the orchard and that bed prepped to return to part of the vegetable garden, there just wasn’t quite enough space this year with blueberries, raspberries, and grapes occupying about half of the garden beds. The huge multibin compost structure is coming down, it is actually falling down, so it will be pulled down, the compost spread and a compost pile initiated. That area will continue to be utilized for the vegetables that spread so viciously throughout the garden.

Any photos that I had taken are on the SD card of the old phone and haven’t been transferred to the computer or the cloud to add to the new phone and blog, so just words today.

July 25, 2014