Today's food preservation:
Bread & Butter Pickles, cucumber - 4 quarts
Bread & Butter Pickles, summer squash - 2 quarts
Okra, pressure canned - 2 pints
Pickled Banana Peppers, water bath canned - 1 pint
Szechwan Green Bean Pickles - refrigerator - 1 quart
Pesto, freezer - two 1/3 pints

Today's food preservation:
Green Beans, pressure canned - 3 quarts

Today's food preservation:
Orka, pressure canned - 3 pints

Today's food preservation:
Tomato sauce, water bath canned - 4 pints

Today's food preservation:
Tomato sauce, water bath canned - 3 pints
Mint Sauce, pressure canned - two 1/2 pints+

Today's harvest:
From the farm sitting job:
Onions, bunching
tomatoes, cherry
Tomatoes, Roma
Okra
Green Beans
Watermelon

From our farm:
Tomato
Green Pepper
Carrot
Summer Squash and Zucchini

Today's food preservation:
Watermelon Rind pickles, water bath canned, 5 pints
Tomato Sauce, water bath canned - 3 pints
Dilly Beans, water bath canned - 2 pints
Beets, pickled, pressure canned - 1 quart
Green Peppers, dehydrated

Pickled Beets

Recipe by Alton Brown at the Food Network

Ingredients

• Roasted Beets, recipe follows
• 1 large red onion, frenched
• 1 cup tarragon wine vinegar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons Kosher salt
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup water

Directions

Remove the skin from the Roasted Beets and slice thinly. Arrange in 1-quart jars alternating layers with the onion. In a small pot boil the rest of the ingredients and pour over the beets. Tightly lid the jars and place in the refrigerator for 3 to 7 days before serving.

Roasted Beets:

• 6 medium beets, cleaned with 1-inch stem remaining
• 2 large shallots, peeled
• 2 sprigs rosemary
• 2 teaspoons olive oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large bowl toss all of the ingredients. Place into a foil pouch and roast in the oven for 40 minutes.

Canning continues... Okra Recipe

Potted up the grapes I got earlier this spring into larger pots today.  I also put another layer of mulch on top of the newly planted potatoes to help keep them moist.  It hit 103F here today!

Today's harvest from the farm sitting job:
green peppers,
green beans,
cherry tomatoes,
13#s roma tomatoes,
okra, lavender,
cucumber,
beets.

Today's food preservation:
Okra, pressure canned - 2 pints
Tomato Juice, WB canned - 4 pints
Green Peppers, dehydrated
Lavender, dried buds stripped and stored

Canned Okra Recipe:

Makes 6 pints.

6+ pounds Okra

3 teaspoons Pickling Salt

Water

Wash pods and trim ends. Leave whole or cut into 1-inch pieces. Cover with hot water in a saucepan, boil 2 minutes and drain. Fill jars with hot okra and cooking liquid, leaving 1-inch headspace. Add 1/2 teaspoon of salt per pint to each jar, if desired. Adjust lids and process for 25 minutes at 10# of pressure in a pressure canner.

Chow Chow (Green Tomato Relish)

Green Tomato Relish:

AKA (Chow Chow)
12 large green Tomatoes (cored)
(I used about 20 small to med size)
4 - green bell peppers, seeded

4 - medium yellow onions (I used one very large one)
1 - red bell pepper, seeded
1 - tablespoon + 2 teaspoons yellow mustard seed
1 - tablespoon celery seed
2 - cups cider vinegar
2 - cups granulated sugar
1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons kosher salt
Chop the tomatoes and peppers very finely. Either by hand or in small batches in a food processor. I diced up all my veggies only because I like a chunkier relish. Put the chopped vegetables in a large pot (heavy bottom non reactive pot) add the mustard seed, celery seed, vinegar, kosher salt and sugar. Stir well and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook stirring often and skimming as needed. ( I did not have to skim off anything) Simmer until the relish/chow chow cooks down and thickens into a relish, about 2 hours. Turn into hot sterilized jars and process in a hot water bath.

Green Tomato Salsa Verde

My father in law always plants a few tomato plants every year in his yard and this year was no different.  But this year he has been plagued with blossom end rot and has only been able to harvest a few ripe tomatoes from them.  He has left the tomatoes to ripen on the vine, fall to the ground and rot.  When I was there yesterday I asked if it was ok if I harvested the remaining green tomatoes on the vines to use.  McKayla and I picked 12 3/4 pounds of green tomatoes off of those two plants!

So now I just need to use them up... the first thing I am making is a green tomato salsa verda.  Salsa verde is a traditional Mexican sauce made with tomatillos.  Tomatillos, although resembling green tomatoes are actually related to cape gooseberries.  My 2009 "Ball Blue Book guide to preserving" has a recipe for Tomatillo Salsa which along with the recipe for Green Tomato Salsa Verde at ModernComfortFood is how I came up with the following recipe:

Mild Green Tomato Salsa Verde:

4 pounds green tomatoes, cored and quartered
2 cups yellow onion, coarsely chopped
2 green jalapeño peppers, coarsely chopped
6 garlic cloves, peeled and coarsely chopped
2 teaspoons sea salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons olive oil
6 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon fresh lime zest
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 teaspoon honey or sugar
2/3 cup loosely packed cilantro leaves, coarsely chopped

1. Combine the green tomatoes, onion, jalapeños, garlic, salt, cumin, olive oil, and water in a stock pot. Bring to a boil and cook covered on a medium-low heat burner for approximately 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until tomatoes and onions are soft.
2. Stir in and simmer for an additional five minutes the lime zest, lime juice, honey (or sugar), and cilantro. Taste the mixture and adjust the seasoning, if needed.
3. Blend the mixture in the pot with a stick blender or spoon into the container of a food processor or blender and pulse until the salsa reaches the consistency you prefer, either chunky or a smooth puree.  Makes approximately two quarts of salsa.
4. Ladle into sterilized jars and process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes.  Remove jars from the water and allow to cool on the counter.  Test tops for a good seal and refrigerate any that have not sealed properly and use within 2-3 weeks.

Other farm happenings today:
Our alpaca stud Novio bred our female Aberdeen this afternoon.  I will have to keep watch to see if she spits him off in the future.
Spotted a hummingbird in the marigolds in the greenhouse.

Farm Happenings

Day two of goat milking went well.  Pepper, one of my oldest does, stood nicely and milked out over a quart today.  Her daughter, Mary Jane, was a bit more jumpy on the milking stand.  Mary Jane also has smaller teats so it takes a bit longer to milk her out fully.  Two of our three goat kids will be picked up tomorrow afternoon.  I love the baby goats and it is so hard for me to let them go when they are still in that uber playful age.  These two will be going to great family with lots of human kids so they will be happy there.

I made a batch of vanilla yogurt today.  It has been a while since I have made yogurt so I had to start from powdered yogurt culture again.  Future batches I will just use some of this batch to culture it.

We got this postcard in the mail today from a Chicago family.  Traded through Postcardkids Yahoo Group.

A lesson in Turkey Butchering

My friend Heather and her family came over this afternoon to learn how to butcher and dress out a turkey. They have a farm in Virginia and will be starting a CSA this year. They have been thinking about adding some turkeys to their farm but wanted to see if the end production was something they could do themselves.

I have three tom turkeys hanging out that needed to be processed so I invited them over to help out.

The process of butchering, scalding, feather plucking and dressing out went well and think Heather is comfortable with the idea of doing this in the future herself. But, we only ended up doing one of the toms today. After they left I continued butchering out the turkey. I didn't really want to keep it as a roasting bird so I opted to remove the meat from the bones.

I successfully removed 7+ pounds of both light and dark meat. I saved one nice piece of breast meat that weighed 1.3 pounds aside to cook for dinner later this week. The remainder of the meat was ground in my Kitchen Aide mixer grinder/pasta maker attachment. You can see below that after the first grind the light and dark meat is still quite distinctive from each other.

I put the meat through the grinder a second time and got a nice homogeneous mixture. I packaged up six 1 pound packages of ground meat for the freezer.

Dirty job done dirt cheap!

I finally coordinated a time for fellow vet tech and local farmer S. to come to the farm to help me process our rabbits. S. has been raising rabbits since she was a young girl so she is very experienced in processing them. Personally, I have no problem butchering and dressing out the rabbits. What I have a bit of a problem with is the actual act of offing the cute rabbits I have been feeding for 12 weeks. So S. did that part and we both dressed and cleaned them out. We only had seven to do and together we made quick work of it.

I had intended to give her some of the finished rabbits as a "thank you" but S. said she had plenty in her freezer at home. She then spotted our geese out in the pasture and commented on how she was looking for a trio for her farm. Done deal! She couldn't take them today but I will hold them for her until she can come get them.

Trading skills and/or goods is such a fundamental part of homesteading. I just love when it works out so well!

Later this evening as I was locking up the barnyard for the night I went ahead and put our American Chinchilla buck in with our two does. That would put new kits to arrive the end of August and they will be ready to go the end of October.

Yogurt, Pickles and Goat Cheese

No, I am not pregnant again!

I was just feeling a bit ambitious in the kitchen today. After chores, as I was straining the goat's milk I realized it had piled up again so decided I would get another batch of Cherve cheese cultured. And as I was heating up the goat's milk to pasteurize it, it occurred to me that I hadn't made any yogurt in almost two weeks. So, into another pot went the cow's milk for the yogurt.

While the milk's were heating I was straightening up the kitchen and was trying to figure out what to do with all the cucumbers, summer squash and zucchini I had about.... pickles! I pull out a recipe for Bread and Butter Pickles and checked to make sure I had everything I needed. I got the canning jars out and into the dishwasher to sterilize.

By now the milk's were hot and needed to be cooled down in an ice water bath in the sink. As the milk cooled I started cutting the veggies which also included onions and the sweet banana peppers from the garden. I salted the veggies heavily and set them in colanders to drain for a few hours.

To the goat's milk I added the culture and rennet and set it toward the back of the stove... done for 10-12 hours. To the cow's milk I added, powdered milk, some sugar, vanilla and half a jar of yogurt from my last batch I had been hiding in the fridge from the kids. I pour the concoction into the jars and set in the yogurt maker to culture for 8 hours (we like a thick yogurt here).

Time to clean up a bit, feed the kids lunch and nurse the baby.

After the salted veggies sat for 3 hours I rinsed them off, made the vinegar brine, cooked the veggies for a minute or two, packed the jars and canned them in a water bath for ten minutes. I ended up with three and half quarts of cucumber BnB pickles and one and half quarts squash BnB pickles.

One final clean up of the kitchen and it was time to rest for a while. After dinner I will refrigerate the yogurt and then just before bed I will strain the cheese and hang it over night.

Butchering day.

It was a nice warm day today and Taylor took a long morning nap so I actually managed to get four of our roosters butchered out. I still have 8-10 more that need to get done soon. I will try to get them done before the girls get too pestered by all the excess males during the spring breeding season.

Farm happenings

Not too much going on here today. Just the usual farm things.

I moved our American Chinchilla rabbit buck from Chamomile's hutch into Purslane's hutch. He had been in with Cham for 48 hours and she was starting to avoid him so I figured she was either bred or just sick of having him around. He and Purslane seem to enjoy each others company so I will keep them together until I see signs of Purslane possibly kindling again. Hopefully this time it won't take three months.

I had made a salad the other night with an avocado purchased from the store... it was yummy. The pit was so round and smooth that McKayla had kept it to touch and hold. I discovered it again today and was going to throw it away when McKayla said, "Mommy, can't we grow it? It is a seed isn't it?" That got me thinking... I wasn't sure. The thought never occurred to me. So, a quick zip onto the Internet told me that is was possible with a bit of TLC to grow an avocado tree from a store bought pit. Wouldn't that be wonderful to have homegrown avocados! So, we stuck three brads (very small nails) around the top of the seed and placed it into a small glass of water so that the brads held the pit half in and half out of the water. This we placed on the windowsill over the kitchen sink where it will get the most sun. It may take several weeks to sprout says the website I found. Only time will tell...
The hens gave 16 eggs today.

Dream Castle

My 5 1/2 year old son, Evan, was lamenting this morning the fact that his Medieval Playmobil figures that he got from his Christmas Advent calendar had no castle to live in. He knows that Playmobil sells several castles and his hope was that if he made a big enough disturbance that he might be rewarded with one.

* According to The Free Dictionary the verb lament means: to grieve audibly; wail. So, yes I did mean to use that specific word, as that is an accurate description of Evan's behavior. *

Like most homesteading folks, our budget is tight and spending up to $100 on a plastic castle just isn't in our budget. But, Evan was right that his medieval figures really should have a nice castle to live in. So, I took Evan out to the recycling bins and started scavenging items. We brought back in these things:

• 1 Big sturdy corrugated box
• 1 Small corrugated box
• 1 Borax box
• 1 Cereal box
• 1 Fruit Snack box
• 2 Small Tissue boxes
• 1 Breadcrumb container
• 1 Pringles can
• 1 Paper cup

The tools I scavenged from around the house included:

• Box cutter
• Scissors
• Hot glue gun
• Masking tape
• Leftover paint
• Paint brush
• Sponge

It took us all afternoon to design, construct and paint up our masterpiece. We had great fun talking about what Evan wanted and how to incorporate it into the design. Both Evan and McKayla helped paint the base coat and I added the details. This is what we finished with:

Pretty cool huh? Yes, it is not grey... we didn't have black or grey paint. We did have several browns so that is what we used. It has a ramp up to a second floor room, three rooms on the roof and a veranda, a drawbridge, two balconies and a secret escape shoot from the roof (the shiny silver thing rotates around so it can be hidden from view). Total cost? Less then $1. I used 1/2 a roll of masking tape and two sticks of hot glue. Everything else was found items.

Evan moved his figures in before I even finished painting it! There has already been an alien invasion on the castle from the Legos and I see many more adventures to come.

Chicken Butchering

First thing we did this morning (after chores and breakfast that is) was to hook up the trailer and head down to the feed store to pick up the 25 bales of hay that I pre-paid for on Tuesday. I would have liked to get more but at $8.75 a bale 25 was all that we could mange right now. That will bring our hay numbers up to 52 bales for the winter. To be on the safe side I would love to have twice that number put up. All this means is that I need to be conservative with the hay and not use any until we really need to. As long there is green grass in the pastures the livestock is just going to have to make do. Being a small farmer on a tight budget can be a struggle at times.

After getting the hay we did a bit of shopping in town since we were there. Got some food to stock the pantry and some new shoes, two pair of jeans and couple of shirts for Evan. He is growing so fast and with cooler weather coming on I can't get away with just putting him in shorts and sandals all the time.

Then this afternoon it was time for me to butcher the three roosters I had separated out from the flock last night. This was the first time I had butchered chickens all by myself (I had learned to do it in college). First I had to decide between the chopping block or using a "killing cone". I opted for the killing cone as the part I hate the most about the butchering process is having them flap around after they are dead (or dieing). The cone holds their wings against their body and prevents any of the flapping around. My "cone" was just a plastic gallon jug with the bottom cut off and the spout cut off to allow the head and neck to pass through. The jug was installed bottom up on the backside of the tool shed with a 5-gallon bucket on the ground to catch the blood.

One at a time the chickens were placed upside down into the cone. Chickens become very calm when held upside down which makes is very easy to put the chicken into the cone. So, with my first chicken in the cone I firmly held his head, took a deep breath, and using a sharp knife slit the jugular vein on one side of his neck. I continued to hold his head to keep him from shaking it, and blood, all over. I repeated that with the other two birds. Once that was done (which is by far the hardest part) I scalded the birds in a big pot of water I had sitting on the side burner of our outdoor grill. Time of scalding varies with the temp of the water and the age of the bird. My water was at 125 degrees and I swished them around (one at a time) for about 45 seconds to a minute. Once scalded the feathers come off by hand pretty easy. I then took the three birds into the kitchen to finish the remainder of the cleaning process. I would say it took 7-10 minutes per bird to remove the heads and feet and eviscerate them. This time should get closer to 5 minutes as I get more practice. Once they were all cleaned they went into a cold water brine (just water and salt) and placed into the fridge to age for 2-3 days. Once they age they can be cooked or frozen for later.

All in all the butchering process was not as bad as one might think it would be. Now I only have 15 more birds to go!

What an honor!

About six months ago while searching for more information on self-sufficiency I discovered the website of Patti Moreno, aka The GardenGirl. Her website, www.gardengirltv.com, is about Urban Sustainable Living. Patti lives with her family in Boston, MA where on her urban farmette she gardens, raises rabbits, chickens and fish. Patti is one of my inspirations! I love how she so intensively uses her urban land and hope to include some of her ideas here on the farm during our next growing season. The world needs more like her!

I encourage you to visit The GardenGirl site (which is in the process of being updated now... just wait and see what is to come). While you are there make sure you sign up for her e-newsletter to keep tabs on what Patti is doing now.

Speaking of her e-newsletter, this is where I became honored today! I received the latest issue in my e-mail box this morning and eager to see what it contained I opened it immediately. Patti is almost ready to launch some new videos and had several previews available to watch. After watching those and reading the rest of the contents I got to the bottom of the e-newsletter where Patti always lists a few links for her readers to check out that have inspired her. This time she had four listed. And guess what one of those links was too? That's right, our little patch of heaven here at Thane's Neck Farm! I was so shocked, excited and thrilled that I had goose bumps on my arms! Here is what Patti had to say about our farm, "In my fantasy world I live in the country on Thane's Neck Farm. The spinner in me is so jealous of all that Alpaca {fiber}! I am always looking at Sustainable Farms, a bit jealously, I admit and this is one of my favorites." Wow!