Harvesting in Earnest

This year has been a setback on our 5 year farm plans because of the drought, we have added acreage, we have put more land into production, but the main income stream is planned to be from the sale of cattle and the drought has just decimated every ones pastures and the price of beef on the hoof has plummeted. Luckily we have worked our butts off on keeping the truck garden going through all this and we are now reaping the results of those efforts; Holly has actually done pretty good selling veggies from our roadside stand because most sane folks gave it up about a month ago.

So we are happily eating the tomatoes, the fresh corn, the cauliflower, making jams and jellies, pickling, canning, freezing and otherwise preserving our harvest to sustain us for the next year. We enjoyed a couple rain showers the last couple days and the temps have abated somewhat to the low 90s during the day and high 60s at night......about a 10 degree drop so it feels so much cooler.

Our diets certainly changed when we moved to the farm and during the harvest we enjoy finding creative ways to eat what is fresh. This fritatta that Holly made has farm fresh eggs, cheddar cheese, and fresh tomatoes and onions from the garden. Was it good? Yes it was....a bit of Tabasco, a strong cup of coffee and some fresh juice and it was a morning feast.

And this dinner consisted of a BLT with farm raised smoked thick cut smoked bacon (and man its good), our garden tomatoes and lettuce, and a mildly sourdough french bread that was store bought (too hot to bake right now) but good. Toast the bread , slather in mayonnaise (not the Miracle Whip folks around here use) and cut it on the diagonal. Add an RC Cola or a Stewart's Black Berry soda and its nirvana. By the way, I don't know about any of you but I like Mayo and its just not used around here for anything...they call it Yankee food. 

Yesterday we picked 20 lbs of white grapes from our vineyard and we have much more on the vine. The red grapes didn't do well at all but these sweet whites are like Concords and they have an extremely grape/sweet flavor. So.....grape jelly time. The whole time we were de-stemming and cleaning the grapes all I could think of was Brian singing "Peanut Butter Jelly Man".....Holly and Judy just think I'm a little off...

So once they are thoroughly cleaned and cleaned again, you boil them for about ten minutes then hang them to drain through cheese cloth and its that concentrated juice that you use for your jelly base. Then you add sugar, Sure Jell or Pectin, heat some more, put into jelly jars and cap them, then boil for ten more minutes (due to our altitude over 1000 feet) and poof............

24 1/2 pints of Grape Jelly and it is so good. I even like this grape jelly in replacement of apple jelly for lamb or goat...but we are making apple jelly too so...? One thing I didn't get pictures of is we took those black berries from a previous post and made 16 1/2 pints of blackberry jam. I have been eating it from the one jar that didn't seal right and its better than anything you ever had from a store. We also put up black berries for pies and tarts and as a sauce for venison.

We have had a lot of people mention that we always have an abundant garden and that it must be nice to just go out and pick something instead of go to the store...and it is. But it takes a lot of work to plan, plant, tend, harvest and now preserve what we harvest. We have enough things coming ripe all at once that we would just have to chuck it in the compost heap if we didn't have a plan for what to do at harvest. This is out first mass harvest of corn (we have been eating fresh corn for a week or two and we have sold a bunch). Its always satisfying and look how good our corn came out even in this drought. For some reason it didn't get starchy and is just as sweet as you could ever want.

We wash it all out and then separate the corn we will freeze as nibblets and the corn we freeze on the cob and then process it accordingly. We may not can corn this year as we don't particularly like it..we have gotten spoiled I guess. One thing we have come to appreciate; our old farm house is one quarter kitchen, one quarter living room, one quarter family room, and one quarter bedrooms (with a bathroom thrown in). So in our almost 2000 square foot place we have a lot of space devoted to the kitchen...and its needed when you start canning. We also have a pantry, a fridge, and an upright freezer in our kitchen in addition to the root cellar.....its all come in handy.

We sold most of the cauliflower but blanched and froze enough for us to last over the winter. And we had some that was breaded and deep fried the other night..................so good to take a healthy veggie like that and make it a caloric and cholesterol nightmare!!

The chickens are all doing well and are going to be starting to lay eggs at any time now. We have several customers lined up for the eggs and with 9 hens we should have enough for us and everyone else but its a financial loser if that's your aim. What ever we make will just partly offset the feed cost...but having chickens isn't about money. I was up at the fire station the other morning and came home about 6:00 am and got out of my truck and the dogs came to great me, the roosters were crowing, and I opened the farmhouse door to the smell of coffee...it all just felt right.

And finally with the weather easing a bit the tomatoes have gone crazy. We have already sold a bunch and we harvest daily now and we will soon begin canning more of them.

We have found that when we find a tomato on the ground because its so fat it pulls the branch down that if we pick it and place it on the window sill it ripens and tastes great so we have much less of a loss now. Another tip..NEVER refrigerate a fresh tomato..they not only lose taste immediately they change texture.

So at the end of the day we are slowly filling our freezer and our larder and root cellar. This is what it looks like at the beginning of the harvest, we will post again at the end.

So what else has been happening? One of the cows has pink eye and we are treating her though its frustrating, last night was my first meeting as the President of the local Lions Club and we have lots to do before our horse show on Aug 4th, Holly has been working selling veggies and working on the Fire Department financials, my friend Ed and I are working on installing the HVAC system for the new Fire Department building, I finished 2 FEMA grants for the fire department last Friday, I got all the gages working on the new hot rod and there will be an update soon on the work that's been done

How is it that we are more busy as retirees than we were when we worked full time? 

Life is...Interesting

The cycle of life was starkly illustrated the past week through a series of ambulance calls that demonstrated both ends of the spectrum. At one end, we have a man dying of cancer who a friend and I have been helping in a small way by holding him while sheets are changed and doing other small things to help he and his wife in his last days. They both want him to die at home and I understand that completely. At the other end was an ambulance call a few days ago at 0200 in the morning for a woman in labor way out in the country..when we arrived she had given birth in the front seat of a pickup. All we had to do was a quick check to ensure there wasnt bleeding, a vitals check, and keep mom and baby warm until the transport ambulance arrived. The baby was healthy, mom and dad (who was driving the pickup when the birth happened) were a very nice young couple who did everything right, and the birth clearly brought home to me the delicate balance that nature has between life and death...we are all born and we all die and its all part of life.

And when it rains it pours.....we are awaiting the delivery of all the parts for the Ranger so we can get that back on the road and yesterday I noticed a rust spot on the front bumper of the GMC had dramatically gotten worse. I poked and proded a little and my finger went right through the bumper so it has to be replaced. Ordered that from the same place we ordered the Ranger parts ( autopartswarehouse.com ) and I cant say enough good things about that company. I have used them for several things and highly recommend them. But wait you ask, is that it? No..today when we were driving the car the dreaded yellow wrench symbol idiot light came on for awhile and though it ultimately went off that means a fault with the transmission or electronic throttle control. It drives fine right now but thats not something to ignore so I am starting by taking the throttle body off and cleaning it along with the MAF sensor. The dealer charges between $350 - $425 to clean a throttle body but anyone with just a smidge of basic mechanical saavy can do it in about 30 minutes for free. I will take pictures when I tackle these projects to try and illustrate what I am doing in the hope it encourages someone else to dive in with their own maintenance or repairs.

I dont usually look at sales flyers other than with a cursory glance and we use them mostly to light the wood boiler but the othr day Tractor Supply Company had a sale on Air Compressors and since we needed a new one we decided to take the plunge. I had been looking at several higher end machines and I really wanted to avoid anything Chinese but good luck with that. Even the higher end compressors (in my price range)  were mostly made in China and they ranged in price from abou $300 and up. TSC had a Job Smart 26 gallon oil lubricated vertical compressor with a cast iron cylinder for $180 and I got a 2 year warranty so...what the heck. It puts out 4CFM @ 90 PSI with a 125 PSI Max so it should work fine for my needs. Like most pieces of equipment now days I re-torqued all of the bolts, tightened screws, put high end compressor oil in it instead of the junk it came with, and I will probably end up replacing the rubber feet with hocky pucks like we did with the Chinese generator (that we are actually quite happy with by the way). We will let you know if the Zhejiang Hongyou Air Compressor Manufacturing Co LTD puts out a decent product as we use it over the next year. So far I have been pleased.

This is the rock shop and eventually this will go up to the pole barn shop but it should be big enough to run an impact wrench, shears, nailer, and various airing tools. I also plan on using it to power a small air sprayer.

I was actually surprized by the quality of the thing. Dont get me wrong, this is for the home handyman and in no way equates to a heavy duty belt driven job but overall it was fairly well done.

I am not a fan of in line oilers so I doubt I will use this. To me they just get oil I dont want in air lines and I would rather oil my air tools manually.

I did a leak down test with no loss of air pressure over 48 hours...I am pretty happy with that.

For another $20 I got a 5 gallon air pig which if you live on a farm or rural property is invaluable. Everything worked right out of the box...hmmm

The compressor oil that came with the machine was probably fine but Chinese petroleum products are not known for quality so I used a quality compressor oil to fill it. And for some reason I see a lot of compressors overfilled with oil as if more is better...its not.

The diet and exercise routine continues though my running program has had to come to a halt. I am full of enthusiasm, the lungs are still there, but the knees are shot and after several couple mile runs I have come to the conclusion that running is part of my past history...I am a bit bummed. We did get a new mattress as our old one started to have indents of our bodies on both sides and no amount of turning and flipping the mattress was helping.

Its hard to see in the photo but this queen sized matress has no stains and looks like new even though its about 10 years old....it just has lost its support and we were feeling it.

Our new matress is firm, has a 10 year warranty and ......wasnt cheap as you can imagine but its already helped both of us get more sleep with less pain.

Lots of folks have asked about living so far out and home protection. To be honest, we dont worry much about it because we are always armed and have weapons with us constantly...I mean if I am in the shower I can reach a weapon. What am I afraid of you may ask?...to which I would reply absolutely nothing. I have carried a weapon since I turned 17 and joined the USMC and its just habbit. We dont brandish weapons, we both have concealed carry credentials, we shoot often, and though nothing we own is worth a life and we live in a low crime area.....we are prepared.

Jeese....just a small carbine magazine is all you have?

Umm, no. We keep a fairly large amount of ammo on hand because we shoot so much and we have lots of magazines for our various weapons. The AR-15 is a favorite because its close to what I carried for most of my career and using it is instinctive. We dont load all of the magazines and rotate them so as not to stress the springs and we clean weapons and magazines as part of farm chores.

And speaking of farm chores, we have a routine each day that includes feeding and watering, putting out hay, feeding the birds, loading the wood boiler, and at least once per day checking the fence line. This has to be done rain or shine, when your sick or feeling great, and there are no "off " days. We like the routine but its not for everyone and owning livestock is a huge comitment of time and money.

Wiiiillllllbbbbbeeeeerrrr......not satisfied with hay Opal wanted carrots or apples too.

Unlike cattle, you cant feed them together as they all fight and need their own little flake to keep the peace.

The black and white pony is just pure evil and will try and bite and bully everyone man or horse. He thinks the hay doesnt taste as good unless it comes from anothers pile.

On this day it was raining and cold and poor Maybelle looked pitiful.

For the cows we can put out hay in a pile and they will go at it but they do get picky and wont eat dirty or wet hay.

We have gone through a couple cords so far but have stayed warm. We load the wood fired boiler twice a day...mornings when we get up and right before bed.

Mud, cow manure, horse manure, and hay...yup this is a farm ATV and is a valuable tool around the place.

We have two different types of wood peckers that hang out at our place and we feed them suet. Our house is stone and concrete, the siding is hardyplank, and we havent had any issue with them pecking at the house so we encourage them. Sometimes we will have 7 or 8 flitting around jockeying for position at the suet feeders.

Its basically grease and peanut butter etc in a brick and they love it.

We go through 2 a week.

And finally, yesterday Judy went for a walk around the property and when she was in the cattle pasture she was followed by the girls like she was the pied piper. Its hilarious, when you stop they stop, when you start again they start again.