January 29, 2012 - Posted by Misty - 1 Comment
Apparently I have a craving for pie. Any kind, really. And here is the best crust recipe I’ve ever used. It freezes well for quick pie making. It is crusty and crumbly and downright yummy.
5 cups flour
1 cup shortening or lard
1 cup vegetable oil (corn, canola, etc)
1/2 t salt
2 tsp pwd. yeast
1/4 cup warm water
Proof the yeast in the warm water for five minutes before adding it to the remaining ingredients. Use a dough hook with your mixer and mix very well and completely combined. Divide into (5) balls and wrap in plastic wrap, slightly flattening into rounds. Store in the freezer. When you’re ready to make a pie, take out one or two rounds and allow to thaw prior to rolling them out.
At this point, though, I will have to take my pie to someone else’s oven. My stove sits in the kitchen but isn’t hooked up yet.
Apparently I have a donkey that is upset with me today. Not sure why, except that it was cold and windy and they stayed in their shelter all day. Tonight, while doing chores, I gave them hay to eat and carried in a bale of straw for clean bedding in their shelter. I set it down to cut the bale open and while my back was turned, Latte pranced in, turned around, kicked me in the knee and then pranced out again, all the while looking over her shoulder with, “So, there!” in her eyes, then went back to eating her hay. What a turd.
I transferred the Sweet Brown Ale into the secondary today. There was an impressive one inch thick layer of yeast sediment in the bottom of the brew bucket and I have been trying to decide what to do with it. In reading, you can use this sediment to ferment your next batch of beer. If I had all the ingredients for the next batch I’m making (Peat Smoked Stout), I would use it right away. But I don’t, so I’m not sure it will make it until Tuesday when The Red Salamander opens. This teaches me to buy all the ingredients in one trip and have them on hand.
I picked up a scoured lamb fleece from my processor yesterday. It’s from a suffolk/corriedale cross lamb’s first shearing. But, with moving and being busy, I left it in a bin in the garage for about a year. The fleece’s “yolk” dried and hardened and has permanently dyed parts of the fleece a light yellow. Suzanne allowed me to take the scoured fleece so that I can dye it and then I’ll return it to be carded. This particular fleece was quite dirty and there is still sand sifting out of the wool as it is handled. This little sheepie must have reveled in rolling.
In the meantime, I have finally acquired size 11 needle tips again (can’t tell you where the last ones went to) and will be starting on a sweater for the farmer where I get my wool. Lynette liked the pattern I picked out for her, Lady Lovelace. It will be spun and knitted from one of her black Suffolk/Corriedale cross rams.
I just finished a little shawlette, the Gingko Shoulderette Shawl. It is made with Lynette’s brown ram wool and was spun woolen.
We received a couple inches of snow today in the form of snow squalls. At times it was a whiteout. But during most of it, Joel and I were tucked into the crawl space under the kitchen hooking up the drain pipes for the washing machine. Yay! I have a working washing machine again! I’m not sure how I can convey the grateful feeling I have at the moment. Just that I am thankful for having this luxury again. The dryer isn’t hooked up yet, but it’s not an absolute necessity while the wood stove is running and will add a little humidity to the dry winter air.
And while all of that was happening, the crock pot has been bubbling away with home grown pork spare ribs. Thank you Mr. & Miss Pig. You have been most generous.
January 22, 2012 - Posted by Misty - 0 Comments
Apparently “frost free” faucets are not freeze proof. The weather here has been absolutely frigid the last couple of days. Below zero last night and tonight it’s supposed to be about 8 degrees, but I’ll check the thermometer in the morning to get the truth of it.
I really don’t like it when it’s this cold. Not only for my own discomfort, but for the animals who are subjected to the freeze without the reprieve of going in someplace warmer to get away from it. And there is the extra work to perform to overcome the cold. At night the pig’s water bowl must be emptied, otherwise it will freeze solid, then I fill it in the morning. The chicken water in the small coop must be emptied and brought inside for the night otherwise it freezes solid, even though there is a water heater base in there (logistically too close to the door). There are two chicken waters in the big coop, one sits on a water heater base and doesn’t freeze at all. The other must be emptied and brought inside otherwise that one freezes solid, too. Blah, to the cold weather!
And the cold has seeped into the house, too. This old farm house has a lot to be improved upon. Insulation in a few spots will help a lot. Lots of caulk and foam and some new siding would help. So would some new windows with full screens to keep the mosquitos out this summer (don’t ask how many mosquitos were in the house last summer!).
On a positive note: Seed catalogs are starting to arrive! So, thoughts, even though embedded in snow, can turn to warmer times and sunnier weather. The plans of a new garden plot for squash and the like are in the works. Last year’s test garden will be replanted this spring with the addition of a new layer of straw for mulch. Last year’s addition of a few inches of compost and a layer of brown cardboard over the top of sod grass was a smashing success. The cardboard killed the sod grass, the compost brought the worms up and the straw kept everything moist and weed free. I was hoping to build a high tunnel (unheated green house) this last fall, but didn’t get around to it. So, will set up the grow lights (after I get them back from my brother who borrowed them a couple of years ago) and set to planting a few seeds. I’ve started as early as February before, but March is a good time, too.
What I will change this year is to plant the potatoes deeper. A bunch of them came up to the surface and were green. That’s all. Other than that, the potatoes liked where they were planted because I got bunches of True Potato Seed.
And this next harvest season should be easier to handle, too, as I hope to have a working gas stove by them. (Please, please, please, let there be a gas stove hooked up by then!)
Update on the beer: It is bubbling away and must wait another week before being moved to the secondary. But preliminary taste tests prove that it is going to be quite tasty when finished. It has a dark brown color, yeasty aroma, and a sweet, hoppy flavor.
January 14, 2012 - Posted by Misty - 4 Comments
Just to prove how strange the weather has been this winter, i found this little dandelion in the yard just a few days ago–the middle of January!.
And today:
Tonight we have a leak in the back porch roof. All the snow and the uninsulated porch roof has caused an ice dam and now it’s leaking around the legs of the solar panel. We hung plastic up on the ceiling to catch the drips and poked a hole in the middle and it now drips into a bucket. The plan is to rebuild the “porch” next summer. It’s where the 1st floor bathroom and the laundry room were before we gutted it– because of the roof leaks and the dry rotted floor.
The universe has folded upon itself recently and allowed me to find my brew bucket and the ingredients I had purchased for Sweet Brown Ale and keep them together long enough to actually brew beer. Should turn out good.
Sweet Brown Ale
2 gallons water
1 lb crystal 60 malt
1/2 lb Belgian chocolate malt
6 lbs light liquid malt
1 lb light dry malt
1 oz Kent Goldings Hops
1 lb brown sugar
1 oz Kent Golding Hops
Safale S-04 yeast
3 gallons cold water
3/4 cup corn sugar
In a stainless cooking pot, add 2 gallons water, 1 lb crystal 60 malt, and 1/2 lb Belgian chocolate malt. Steep at 170 degrees F for one hour. Remove the steeped malt grain from the liquid.
Add 6 lbs light liquid malt and 1 lb light dry malt. Bring to a boil and add 1 oz Kent Goldings Hops. Boil for 50 minutes. Add 1 lb brown sugar and 1 oz kent Goldings Hops. Boil for 10 minutes more. Remove from heat.
Pour into brew pail and add enough cold water to bring to the 5 gallon mark. Allow to cool to 70 degrees. Proof the Safale S-04 yeast in 1/2 cup warm water before adding to the wort.
Allow to ferment at 65 degrees F for two weeks. Transfer to a secondary and ferment for one week.
Add 3/4 cup corn sugar, stirring well. Bottle. Allow to sit for two weeks before drinking.
Remember to sterilize everything you use, from start to finish. Any bacteria introduced to the wort can produce sour beer. Blech!
January 12, 2012 - Posted by Misty - 0 Comments
I have a hole in the sleeve of my current chore jacket. Actually, all of my chore jackets are like this. Always the right sleeve. And in the case of one chore jacket in particular, almost the entire right side of the jacket is a hole. But I can’t seem to get rid of chore jackets. They may have holes, but they are “indestructible”. You feel invincible when you wear them. You can get down and dirty and do all sort of things when wearing them. What’s one more stain or hole, anyway? And, after a while, you just layer two jackets together to make a complete one. I know exactly how the holes get started, too. I catch them on the fences inside the chicken coop. Come to think of it, I have a whole selection of t-shirts with holes in the fronts, too. I must be in the chicken coop a lot.
The hawk story continues today. The body count is up to four. The last several days I’ve kept all the birds in the coops in hopes that the hawk will move on to better hunting territory. But a few days ago I was thwarted when a chicken known for ducking under the coop apparently didn’t go in the night before and became a fresh meal. I thought I was beating the hawk at his own game, but when I drove past the chicken coop before I pulled into the driveway, there the hawk sat in a tree between the two coops, waiting for an unsuspecting chicken to dine upon. Before I could turn the corner of the house, it flew away. I thought to let the chickens and guineas have a little freedom before the sun set. The hawk doesn’t usually hang around that late. But it appeared and chose it’s next victim. Joel heard the guineas alarm and ran outside–the hawk flew away from it’s “kill”. The little red hen was laying with wings outspread and head rolled under. As soon as I went to grab her wing to pick her up, she jumped up and ran away from me, mud on her face. Yay! The hawk didn’t kill her after all. She was dazed and stood for a few minutes to get her breath and bearings, then ran under the chicken coop. Before dark I prodded her out and picked her up and put her inside. I think she was glad to go in with everyone else. Nothing like being plucked from the jaws of death!
Out of curiosity, I googled Red-Tailed Hawks to get some details. Their mode of operandi is to perch on a tree or someplace high enough to survey the territory and watch for prey. They weigh from 1.5 lbs to 4 lbs and measure up to 26 inches from tip to tail, females being up to one third larger than males. Get this… they could have up to a 52 inch wing span. Needless to say, these are big birds.
Joel and I installed a kitty fence on the back of the house last night, complete with a kitty door for big Tigger. ( Tigger weighs 21 lbs and needs his own little way to get outside during the day.) Since we moved to this house, he has been stuck inside, sometimes persuading one of us to take him outside to a small fence where first he drinks ice water, then sits and observes the scenery and finally, possibly, goes potty–unless he’s already relieved himself inside prior to going out. The new kitty door has a magnetic strip along the bottom edge and it’s proving to be a difficult thing to overcome (the old kitty door didn’t have it). So far, Tigger has learned to go out by himself, but coming back inside is beyond him.
January 4, 2012 - Posted by Misty - 0 Comments
Listening to an inspirational recording recently, it was talking about how you should live your life and shouldn’t allow your life to live you. Simply put, you should enjoy life.
This simple view of life was evident whenever I gave PC a handful of feed, she would chirp and tell me how much she enjoyed her meal. Whenever I walked to the chicken coop, she would run out and greet me, chirping and trilling her joy until I threw some millet behind the raspberry canes where she could eat without being bothered by the bigger chickens.
Tonight, though, PC didn’t run to greet me. So, as I was filling the feeders and waterers, I searched the nest boxes and roosts, and behind the shovels and carriers. No PC. I searched under the chicken coop. No PC. I searched the ground surrounding the coop and there, by flashlight, found the remnants of her tiny little body. Feathers with skin still attached and a wind pipe. Nothing else was left. PC had been consumed by a Bird of Prey and continued in the circle of life that surrounds all of us. I hate hawks.
Just before all of this, though, I had a bit of exercise when I let the donkeys out of their secure pen to stretch their legs. They got to running around so fast that they decided to jump the fence, and when that didn’t work, they circled around and blew right through the single wire strand of the outer fence. Then they were off, crossing our property line into the neighbor’s cornfield, then into the hay field beyond. When they headed out to the road and tried to cross the drainage ditch, I got them headed back into the hay field and then they were off again. Joel grabbed their halters and leads and headed down the road in the truck, but then walked up and met me in the cornfield, handing off the leads. He went back for the quad to cross the hay field in case they went further, but not before he handed me a bag of bread. Smart thinking, that.
By the time he got back with the quad, I had convinced the girls to stand still enough while I fed them bread to throw their leads around their necks to give me time to put their halters on. Emergency at dusk suddenly evaded.
December 20, 2011 - Posted by Misty - 0 Comments
There is a clue in the basement as to the age of this house:
When I questioned Don (a previous owner) about repairing the foundation in ’93, he told me that no repairs to the foundation had occurred in 1993. The inscription had been on the basement wall since before he moved there in 1952. Interesting! Now I wonder who E. Harmon and C. Ryan were and how it is that they built the Michigan basement for this little farmhouse in 1893. Were they hired? Or did they build it for themselves? (I wish I could get my hands on the abstract for this house. Apparently it was “lost” in a nasty divorce — the ex-wife took it out of spite and made it “disappear”.)
My in-laws recently acquired a historical farm photo for their house, nearly 45 years old. It was interesting to see how their farm had evolved over several owners. Trees and driveways that didn’t exist anymore and property lines that had changed. A silo that no one knew had been there. So interesting. Now it makes me wonder if there are any historical photos of this house?
We had to clean the chimney last weekend. Just about when the wood stove gets to the point where you think it’s burning efficiently, then you realize that creosote has built up inside the chimney and needs to be cleaned out before a major chimney fire ensues. Fortunately, this chimney is much, much shorter than the one at our last house. It didn’t take very long. Joel took one section off the top of the chimney and brushed it out, then ran the brush down inside the rest of the chimney. The loose creosote fell down into the 90 at the back of the stove and was vacuumed out. Again, I say, not terrible. Took an hour at the most. There’s a lot to be said for a little peace of mind.
I am so incredibly tired these days. The shorter days of the year, the cloud laden skies (and conversely the lack of sunshine to brighten up the moods), the insane amounts of mud and rain have all taken their toll. I am dragging by the end of the day… and by that I mean about 4:30 pm. That’s about what time I end one phase of the day and enter another. Chore time. It takes about an hour and I’m always glad when it is finished for the day. I put my grain bucket in the shed, my water buckets next to the faucet, and close the appropriate doors and flaps as I go. Then the next daily phase… dinner time. <sigh>
Tomorrow is the shortest day of the year. A few days after that, the days start getting longer. Soon I’ll be thinking about garden seeds and growing seedlings to plant out when it’s warmer. These are things to look toward. And all of this was punctuated tonight by making chicken soup with homegrown potatoes and onions. How satisfying is that?
December 13, 2011 - Posted by Misty - 0 Comments
For having such a lovely November, we are now paying for it. We received nine inches of snow. All in one sitting. And then last night another three inches. I have little footpaths through the yard from one animal shelter to another. From the water faucet to the grain shed to the hay shack. From the wood pile to the house. And then they’re all interconnected. They are lifelines this time of year.
The pig shelter, which is usually a great place to be, collapsed under the weight of all the snow. I don’t know where my head was the other night. Usually I’ll go out and sweep it off at least once to make sure this doesn’t happen. When I woke up and made my way out to hay the donkeys, I glanced over and my heart skipped a beat. Poor Lola was laying there immobile with the roof on top of her. She was able to breathe, thankfully. And very glad when she was able to get up again. Spot, however, was quite miffed and let me know by grumpily grunting for several minutes because she had to lay in a pile of damp straw. Poor babies. They recovered from their tragedy, though, and happily ate an apple and got a bale of fresh straw.
Where this is usually a nice arch, the cattle panel creased in the middle. It’s still shelter and the pigs don’t mind. But I’ll fix it just the same.
And less than a week later, it’s all gone. Can’t say I mind in the least. Except that the ground is sodden and slippery from mud that forms any where you walk more than once. And if you walk there repeatedly, it turns into slurry. A sucking mud that incorporates all of the clay in our so called soil. Reminds me of a little children’s book my great grandmother used to have called “Little Black Sambo”. It’s about a little boy who gets chased around and around a tree by a tiger until the pathway turns to butter. My pathway isn’t yellow, though.
And either Mia is blending in with the other Buff Orpingtons these days, or she’s disappeared right out of the chicken coop. It’s a mystery. (Update: she’s blending in these days. She made herself known today when I was throwing bread to the girls in the coop. )
Oh, there’s a new player in the coop these days. Her name is PC (short for Pocket Chicken). When she hatched, she was less than an inch tall.
Even though she is almost fully grown, she is still tiny but full of personality, she’s just trying to carve a niche in the pecking order.
So far, she’s at the bottom. But what she’s really needing is a bit of body warmth at night. She tries valiantly to snuggle up to some of the fluffy feathered hens, but they want nothing to do with her. They peck her viciously until she jumps down to the floor. I keep trying to find another hen or rooster that doesn’t mind that she’s next to them, but no one is allowing it. I snuck her under Mia tonight, though. Mia has been roosting next to some juvenile birds, so hopefully PC can stay there for the night. But, just in case, I plugged in a heat lump and suspended it a couple feet off the floor just in case she’s forced to jump down again.
Here she is next to a banty hen. She’ll grow a little bit more, but not much. Probably smaller than an Old English Game Hen.
I did finally get power to all the appropriate water heaters for donkeys and chickens in the form of extension cords today. (I did tell you I’m married to an electrician, right?) The pigs water I take a shovel to every day to break the ice. Also, I’m hoping for a new frost free water faucet on the outside of the house. Joel installed a new faucet in the Spring, but it developed a crack and a perpetual leak over the summer. Tonight he replaced the faucet with a new one (and all before it was below zero F. What a treat!) Next summer, I hope for a water line run closer to the animals. Lugging 80 pounds of water at a time isn’t terrible, unless you’re knee deep in snow crossing a frozen tundra.
On the knitting front:
I’ve been working on a new hat for winter (Dreams of Spring Hat I). I washed and blocked it and then tore it apart and knitted an applied i-cord before re-knitting the crown. I think it looks better. (Modeled by my friend Carrie, she doesn’t know she’s going to get the hat tomorrow. It looks much better on her than me, anyway.)
Then, from the leftovers, I knit the Strib Hat (also modeled by Carrie — this one I’m keeping for myself):
I’ve also finished some new socks (Big Bird’s Legs):
And these (Cinched Ankle Socks) finished while at the laundromat:
Also, trying to finish the button band on Mr. Greenjeans. I should have it done this week, I just have to look for a button. There’s a few other projects I’d like to finish while I’m on a roll.
November 22, 2011 - Posted by Misty - 0 Comments
It’s raining cats and dogs tonight — really raining. I put on my heavy duty raincoat to do chores and I’m glad I did. Except that the raincoat needs to be longer. When it’s “really raining”, my pants get soaking wet from mid-thigh down to the top of my chore boots, mid-calf. By the time I was done (and chores were done in record time tonight just because of the weather), my thighs were soaking wet and almost numb with cold.
Here’s where I tell you the story of Mia the chicken. Only because Mia was being difficult and not wanting to go in the coop due to the rain. Apparently, to her way of thinking, spending her first winter in the house with me excepts her from having to spend any time outside during inclement weather.
Mia was brought into the house last year, late autumn/early winter. She had been injured and couldn’t stand on her own two chicken feet. By the time she was able to stand, it was the middle of winter and too cold to reintroduce her back into the coop. (Chickens can withstand a 30 degree difference, but not more than that. And with the house averaging 75 degrees, temps in the teens were out of the question.) Mia grew into a normal size Buff Orpington hen, but with a few quirks. She had a problem with her balance and had a weird twist in her neck. But she survived and became quite the addition to the household. What a personality!
This little hen lived in a box in the kitchen with a hole cut into the side of it so she could survey the landscape and her housemates — two humans, three dogs, and three cats. But Mia liked “the good life”. All the food and water you could want, plus heat and company. She even got time out of her box… of her own free will, of course. That’s how it works when you have wings and a desire to lay an egg on a nice comfy “nest” of my work and chore jackets on top of a tarp that’s sitting on a dog bed (Princess and the Pea?).
Or maybe she just needed a little “R & R” while the dogs were out. (She figured that what the dogs didn’t know didn’t hurt them.)
Occasionally Mia needed a little “alone time”.
Of course, there were times when she craved a little chicken company. She found her “sister”, Flo, in this old mirror (reference the movie, Finding Nemo). By the way, those are paw prints all over it where the dogs knocked it over and had a party. When I washed the mirror, Mia had clear view of her “sister”, Flo, and had a little quarrel with her. Very entertaining, to say the least.
Back to tonight’s chores: every bird was in the coop… except for Mia. She was crouched underneath. And when I tried to prod her out, she ran around the coop, passing the open coop door, and ran back underneath the other side of the coop. <sigh> Back and forth, back and forth we go. After a few more minutes, I was finally able to get a hold of her leg and dragged her out, squawking and bitching me out royally.
Suck it up, chicken, it’s wet and cold out here.
November 19, 2011 - Posted by Misty - 0 Comments
The potatoes have been awesome. Juicy, firm, nothing like what you get at the store. Fresh.
The tomatoes? Lounging inside Sam’s high tunnel until they ripen. This is what the high tunnel looked like inside this summer:
This is what the high tunnel looks like inside now:
Sam’s tomato plants have died back because of the freezing weather. But he has planted some spinach and cold hardy greens. The high tunnel, during sunny weather, gets quite warm during the day. My green tomatoes languished on newspaper on the floor for almost two weeks. Some ripened, but the majority, having been picked in a very green state, are still green. I picked them up a couple of days ago since there have been hard freezes at night. Now there are one and a half five gallon buckets full of tomatoes that need to turn into green tomato chutney or some such thing.
We had harvest dinner the other night. Homegrown beef pot roast. Home grown potatoes & cabbage. Butternut squash from Sam & Sarah’s garden. Organic carrots. Onions.
And tonight we had homegrown ham with sweet potatoes. Love eating homegrown. Makes for a very satisfying meal.
I have saved seed from two types of tomatoes this year: Heritage Yellow Pear and Heinze. Both very prolific and tasty. Also, seeds have been saved for potatoes and Delicata squash. Sometime this winter, I will break out the grow lights and plant some hopeful little seeds, making Spring seem more near than far. In the meantime, I am enjoying the harvest.
November 8, 2011 - Posted by Misty - 0 Comments
We started the summer out with 11 guineas, I think. Miss Purple hatched four and two survived. A chicken hatched out two and one survived. Two adults were hit by cars (the dummies like to walk across the road) and one was snatched from a nest by who knows what. That makes a end of summer total of eight adults and three juveniles.
Another guinea hen tried to sit a nest in the tall grass by the pig pen at the end of the summer, through rain storms and cold temps and made it three whole weeks before something found her and scared her off her nest. There was one egg with teeth holes. Must have been raccoon. The guinea survived the attack, only losing a few feathers at the nest site. The eggs that survived in the nest were transplanted under a setting hen the next morning, but the cold of the night before killed the embryos and they didn’t make it. (Maybe that guinea hen will try again next year.)
Having guineas for so many years, this is the first year that a guinea was able to hatch a nest on our farm and it has been a revelation. Apparently, guineas mate for life. One pair is easy to keep track of since the female is a dark purple color. She also has a disability having gotten a foot stuck in the crotch of a very tall tree one winter and her foot was frozen solid. I was able to rescue her but she still hops around on one foot. (That’s a rather funny story, really. Suffice it to say, I didn’t do well having climbed to the very tippy top of a tall tree and then had to be rescued myself.) Anyway, Purple’s mate is a lilac colored male. This pair have provided a very stable family framework for their two hatched keets. They’ve stayed together through the summer, protecting their keets from the other adult guineas. Now that the keets are “teenagers”, Papa guinea has taught them to roost in the mulberry tree at night. And once in a while, they go into the chicken coop to roost with the chickens. These teenage keets are now being introduced into general guinea population and it’s fascinating to watch.
The keet that was raised by the mama chicken, though, remains with the chickens during the day and is definitely a part of the chicken flock. This group of three half grown chickens and teenage guinea hang with mama chicken during the day, they roost together at night in the second coop, separate from the general guinea population. Eventually it will join the others. I’ll let you know when.
On another note, I have only one Narragansett turkey hen left (the others having been killed by marauding dogs). I gave her chicken eggs to set on when she went broody and she hatched three tiny chicks this Spring and remains the matron of her little chicken family. They stick together when roaming the yard. And since the weather has been so windy as of late, she has taken then into the chicken coop to roost with the other chickens at night. They follow her everywhere, even though they are full grown.
Oh, one more thing… Peahen has taken to roosting in the chicken coop at night, too. She sticks with the chickens during the day, having adopted my chicken flock as her family. There are strong family ties in the bird world.
