I got up at 7 am to pick peas and beans today. We started picking the pea rows last night for dinner and it was nice all of us sitting on the front porch shelling the peas for dinner while the bison steaks were on the BBQ.
This morning I got up before anyone else, and picked several gallons of peas and beans and then as people started to wake up, they came out and just started shelling peas to help me out. I need to get them blanched and frozen here in a little bit, but I thought I deserved a break since I got out of the flow with a couple phone calls.
Picture Above : My boyfriend helping to shell peasFoot ball season started last night and the boys are pouring on the food even more so than normal. Especially fruit!! I need to start buying that in cases as well.Well, I ought to pull in the laundry off the line and toss another load into the washer and go make my bed.. think of what to have with dinner tonight and make something for a snack for the boys.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
August 17, 2006
I was dreaming this really cool dream and having a great time with people I knew, when suddenly there was this part that did not work with the dream.. a noise.. rather.. many of the noises rather.. Kiiiii- keeeeee-Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.. OMG.. I forgot to lock the chickens in the barn last night and the hawks were calling. I threw on clothes as I ran through the house while trying to focus my eyes I think.. those memories I am pretty bleary about that .. grabbed my tennis shoes and ran through the newly planted lawn and headed up to the chicken pens.The darn things were flitting from tree to tree.. there were two of them. While I was standing in the chicken pen, trying to convince the chickens they were going to die if they did not get back into the barn (YEAH RIGHT!), one and then the other hawk, landed in the dead tree top next to the hog pen. They were not 30 feet from me and I kept jumping up and down and flapping my arms yelling at them and they seemed to not even realize I was there. They were quite aloof.
Finally they flew off and I grabbed "Kid" out of bed to stand guard and try to help me put the chickens in.. then we sent him out there with a pellet gun and a lawn chair. We can hear the birds but they must be 'next door' now.I got last nights laundry hung to dry outside by 8:30 am.. so it will probably be dry by noon on a day like today.. it is nice and sunny now. Not like the last 2 days.. "Teenager" has been doing alot of his laundry lately and using the dryer which we must put a stop to.. our electric bill went from $54 for every 2 months to over $163 for 2 months.. and that is in the summer.. it is pathetic our electric bill goes up in the summer. I am going to be getting wooden racks for drying this winter inside and he will have to use the clothes line for drying his clothing like the rest of us do.
Yesterday morning was chilly. It was 5C/ 41F and very foggy and I thought the house was a little bit cold to take a bath and then head outside.. This morning is 15C in the house, but I opened the windows anyway. "Kid" is going to bring down a load of firewood and cut up some kindling today and "Teenager" and I are going to clean the woodstove pipe.Yesterday was also the fresh produce co-op.. so I spend the whole day there. It is summertime and people have gardens and the farmers market is each Saturday, so the numbers are down, but I expect come Fall they will come back up again.
Last night I started on a sock.. the first of the Fall/Winter. I have to finish another mate for my "MIL", since I have one done for her.. made the other and found out I did a single instead of a double blue row, which made me mad and I quit on that project for awhile.. this new one is black and a pale golden/yellow and in a 15th century pattern. I am having fun with it, but you need to not be tired to actually get the pattern correct.
Feeding the hogs is scary now. I did it by myself this morning, but I do not like to go into their pen without someone there. They are getting pushy and they are starting to fight each other if they are not fed on time. They are well over 100 pounds now. It is unfortunate that their feeder is now in the middle of their pen. I need to get them some bowling balls to shove around other than the feed trough which is actually quite heavy metal.
Today's list is to make Zucchini Bread, pick a LOT of peas and probably shell and blanche then and freeze. I also probably have beans to pick again. We discovered we have 6 pumpkins which will be a nice size for Fall.. they were all volunteers from the compost bucket. We also had cheery tomatoes and peppers volunteer from the compost bucket as well.. I also have a bunch of wine I need to rack off and/or bottle and actually I do not really want to deal with them today.. maybe tomorrow.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is
Finally they flew off and I grabbed "Kid" out of bed to stand guard and try to help me put the chickens in.. then we sent him out there with a pellet gun and a lawn chair. We can hear the birds but they must be 'next door' now.I got last nights laundry hung to dry outside by 8:30 am.. so it will probably be dry by noon on a day like today.. it is nice and sunny now. Not like the last 2 days.. "Teenager" has been doing alot of his laundry lately and using the dryer which we must put a stop to.. our electric bill went from $54 for every 2 months to over $163 for 2 months.. and that is in the summer.. it is pathetic our electric bill goes up in the summer. I am going to be getting wooden racks for drying this winter inside and he will have to use the clothes line for drying his clothing like the rest of us do.
Yesterday morning was chilly. It was 5C/ 41F and very foggy and I thought the house was a little bit cold to take a bath and then head outside.. This morning is 15C in the house, but I opened the windows anyway. "Kid" is going to bring down a load of firewood and cut up some kindling today and "Teenager" and I are going to clean the woodstove pipe.Yesterday was also the fresh produce co-op.. so I spend the whole day there. It is summertime and people have gardens and the farmers market is each Saturday, so the numbers are down, but I expect come Fall they will come back up again.
Last night I started on a sock.. the first of the Fall/Winter. I have to finish another mate for my "MIL", since I have one done for her.. made the other and found out I did a single instead of a double blue row, which made me mad and I quit on that project for awhile.. this new one is black and a pale golden/yellow and in a 15th century pattern. I am having fun with it, but you need to not be tired to actually get the pattern correct.
Feeding the hogs is scary now. I did it by myself this morning, but I do not like to go into their pen without someone there. They are getting pushy and they are starting to fight each other if they are not fed on time. They are well over 100 pounds now. It is unfortunate that their feeder is now in the middle of their pen. I need to get them some bowling balls to shove around other than the feed trough which is actually quite heavy metal.
Today's list is to make Zucchini Bread, pick a LOT of peas and probably shell and blanche then and freeze. I also probably have beans to pick again. We discovered we have 6 pumpkins which will be a nice size for Fall.. they were all volunteers from the compost bucket. We also had cheery tomatoes and peppers volunteer from the compost bucket as well.. I also have a bunch of wine I need to rack off and/or bottle and actually I do not really want to deal with them today.. maybe tomorrow.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is
Monday, March 19, 2007
August 15, 2006
I was coming back from getting 400 pounds of animal feed from the farm store and then picked up our 12 year old cousin to babysit for the day... as we neared the top of our hill and just before our driveway. I see a large dark animal which sorta, but not really looked like a horse standing in the middle of the road and I was beginning to think it was a moose.....and it was a moose. I was pretty excited about just seeing a moose in the road as they rarely stand and wait for you to look at them very well and as I just started to notice something about it.. "Kid" yells out that it had HORNS! After five years of my quest of looking for a bull moose, and lamenting about it here periodically, I FINALLY saw a BULL moose!!! And he stood there.. well, he got off the road and stood in the paper birch trees which were along the road, but that white bark of the paper birches showed him off magnificently. And we stopped the truck in the middle of the roadway and watched him for the longest time while he was watching us.
I was just so excited and me.. who carries my camera with me all the time, did not have my camera *sad*.. but oh well.. he is in the area and our pond is the closest for water, so I am sure he will come to drink and maybe munch on the horses round bale.
The rest of my day consisted of putting my house into order. I sorta of accomplished a bit of Fall cleaning. I have noted that the leaves of certain vegetation has started to change. I have 3 carboys of wine I need to rack off and/or bottle this week. I also feel like starting to make some more socks. I even priced some 50# sacks of coal as I am just itching to fire up my forge.Got alot of magazines I need to mail tomorrow. Got them addressed tonight. It is exciting to see how much the magazine has grown since last year when it started. I have a few really fun ones I have come up with this week. One will be in the Fall issue for Kids (of all ages) and then the other one will be in the Winter issue.
I also went to a historical town this last week and in one of the interpretation things they do with it, I came up with a plan.. one for the magazine and one to help them. They seemed very interested in it and I need to go back one of these days to go help, learn and write. I am excited about this one as well.Well I think I am off to relax for a bit.. and I am going to start on a new sock.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
I was just so excited and me.. who carries my camera with me all the time, did not have my camera *sad*.. but oh well.. he is in the area and our pond is the closest for water, so I am sure he will come to drink and maybe munch on the horses round bale.
The rest of my day consisted of putting my house into order. I sorta of accomplished a bit of Fall cleaning. I have noted that the leaves of certain vegetation has started to change. I have 3 carboys of wine I need to rack off and/or bottle this week. I also feel like starting to make some more socks. I even priced some 50# sacks of coal as I am just itching to fire up my forge.Got alot of magazines I need to mail tomorrow. Got them addressed tonight. It is exciting to see how much the magazine has grown since last year when it started. I have a few really fun ones I have come up with this week. One will be in the Fall issue for Kids (of all ages) and then the other one will be in the Winter issue.
I also went to a historical town this last week and in one of the interpretation things they do with it, I came up with a plan.. one for the magazine and one to help them. They seemed very interested in it and I need to go back one of these days to go help, learn and write. I am excited about this one as well.Well I think I am off to relax for a bit.. and I am going to start on a new sock.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
August 14, 2006
I think the people I was tour guiding with while they were looking at the properties up here found their piece. They will know sometime today. I am pretty excited. They promised me the second call, though I am sure I will hear them all the way from the Island.
Last night I had to go to the dump and I got alot of old barn wood (or shed or something) and I am making slip forms for the root cellar. We need to go get the hand cement mixer today sometime as I hope to work on the cellar this upcoming week. I am tired of staring at the hole in the hillside and I believe I have done enough mental planning on the thing that it is time to get going on it, since I will have potatoes to dig in less than a month.
I also took time at sunset to go up to the cabin site and I laid out a 16x16 foot area and sat in there to see if I could live with the way the cabin would be set for both view and sun strategies. And where the woodstove would go (which I need to restore). Then I went out and sat on the 'porch' to see if that would be set right. I was totally relaxing up there and then the "Teenager" came up to talk with me for a wee bit. So he helped me plan as well.I guess I ought to back up just a little bit... as I went up to the site, I had measuring tape, surveyors tape and an axe with me. Just as I got to the site, this big dark/blackish thing got up from the middle of the cabin site and SCARED ME TO DEATH!! I have seen bear tracks and other signs up there. But as this beast was getting taller and taller though the bushes as it jumped up, I finally realized it was one of our horses "Kit", who is the 13-14 hand pony, who had been laying down and I had scared her just about as bad as she had scared me. When I initially did a girly scream and then talking to the horse, "Teenager" heard me and knew where to locate me at. So this morning, I am going to go out and pound old rusty nails out of the barnwood and lay out my lines for the root cellar. I REALLY want to get the walls going so I can make the niche and then start blacksmithing again so I can start building the door. I am thinking on a 14th century church door I have seen once, but I cannot wait to start on the doors. I have been in such a forging mood lately. But I do not want to start on the doors until I know what size the hole is going to be.
My bf and I took a walkabout on the property last night and we decided to take down all the pines and leave the other things (spruce, fir, alder, poplar, birch ect). The Mountain Pine Beetle is attacking the pines younger and younger and we decided to take them down to utilize them now instead of when they are ruined. We can cut alot of them green for siding and cause them to dry faster.A neighbor down the road had her neighbor's kids run bikes all over her property and ruined all her blueberries. So she came over to pick ours. They are spotty this year, not the beautiful blue carpet that we had last year (and I could not pick due to my injury). She is very interesting to talk to as she is a wildcrafter, herbalist and works at a heath food store. So we can gab alot. I fed her homemade cheese and crackers. It was the cheese that was the demo cheese for when the out of town land buying people were here and I showed her how to make cheese easily.
Today's chores are cleaning up the mechanics shoppe since the back part got cleaned out so alot of the stuff being stored in there can go to the back, such as my dog sled. Bringing up another pallet or two for the woodshed to move the 2 cast iron stoves to, so the boys can being in more wood. We try to do a couple trees at a time, get that all cleaned up and then do the next couple, but our faller/bucker friend went faller-happy last weekend and there are about 40 trees down, so that mess needs to be dealt with. Maybe we can set up the Alaskan Mill and start cutting siding and put all the 'learning to cut siding' up on the shoppe to make it look nicer than the black side of the lumber wrap.
Speaking of lumber wrap, I want to put a layer on the top of the mobile home which is the poultry house as there are 2 holes from where some sort of equipment used to have to go through the roof. I do not want to make too many repairs to it, since in the next 2-3 years we will be building a proper barn since this one is probably the first year they ever made mobile homes and it is rotting.
Well, the chickens and turkeys need to be let out and the hogs fed (who are getting large enough they are making me nervous to go in their pen alone. Took chicken counts and we need to butcher at least 15 in a month or so. Some of the roosters need to have their bands removed anyway as their bands are starting to get too tight on their legs and one poor rooster had a small injury from it.
Evening Update:
My new friends indeed got their place. I am excited and thrilled for them. They are new at homesteading and I will help them along as much as I can.
Today was a long, but productive day here. I got the greenhouse watered, picked a 50 foot row of Calendula and took all the petals off for soap making as I have been negligent at making us more for the last few months.
Between the 4 of us, we almost got all of the woodshed filled today. My bf and "Teenager" cut the trees up with chainsaws and then all the guys filled the trucks with the firewood. Then they bring them in from the back 40, sort them from splitting to just stack it. If it gets tossed to the doorway, I then stacked it. My bf did miss the routine.. and I got slammed in the right kneecap with a chunk of wood. Or maybe I missed the routine.. oh well.. I am not limping now.Dinner was a nice chicken Alfredo made with Mozza over spiral noodles and fresh broccoli salad out of our garden. I had some left over Leek Soup which I made yesterday-ish.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
Last night I had to go to the dump and I got alot of old barn wood (or shed or something) and I am making slip forms for the root cellar. We need to go get the hand cement mixer today sometime as I hope to work on the cellar this upcoming week. I am tired of staring at the hole in the hillside and I believe I have done enough mental planning on the thing that it is time to get going on it, since I will have potatoes to dig in less than a month.
I also took time at sunset to go up to the cabin site and I laid out a 16x16 foot area and sat in there to see if I could live with the way the cabin would be set for both view and sun strategies. And where the woodstove would go (which I need to restore). Then I went out and sat on the 'porch' to see if that would be set right. I was totally relaxing up there and then the "Teenager" came up to talk with me for a wee bit. So he helped me plan as well.I guess I ought to back up just a little bit... as I went up to the site, I had measuring tape, surveyors tape and an axe with me. Just as I got to the site, this big dark/blackish thing got up from the middle of the cabin site and SCARED ME TO DEATH!! I have seen bear tracks and other signs up there. But as this beast was getting taller and taller though the bushes as it jumped up, I finally realized it was one of our horses "Kit", who is the 13-14 hand pony, who had been laying down and I had scared her just about as bad as she had scared me. When I initially did a girly scream and then talking to the horse, "Teenager" heard me and knew where to locate me at. So this morning, I am going to go out and pound old rusty nails out of the barnwood and lay out my lines for the root cellar. I REALLY want to get the walls going so I can make the niche and then start blacksmithing again so I can start building the door. I am thinking on a 14th century church door I have seen once, but I cannot wait to start on the doors. I have been in such a forging mood lately. But I do not want to start on the doors until I know what size the hole is going to be.
My bf and I took a walkabout on the property last night and we decided to take down all the pines and leave the other things (spruce, fir, alder, poplar, birch ect). The Mountain Pine Beetle is attacking the pines younger and younger and we decided to take them down to utilize them now instead of when they are ruined. We can cut alot of them green for siding and cause them to dry faster.A neighbor down the road had her neighbor's kids run bikes all over her property and ruined all her blueberries. So she came over to pick ours. They are spotty this year, not the beautiful blue carpet that we had last year (and I could not pick due to my injury). She is very interesting to talk to as she is a wildcrafter, herbalist and works at a heath food store. So we can gab alot. I fed her homemade cheese and crackers. It was the cheese that was the demo cheese for when the out of town land buying people were here and I showed her how to make cheese easily.
Today's chores are cleaning up the mechanics shoppe since the back part got cleaned out so alot of the stuff being stored in there can go to the back, such as my dog sled. Bringing up another pallet or two for the woodshed to move the 2 cast iron stoves to, so the boys can being in more wood. We try to do a couple trees at a time, get that all cleaned up and then do the next couple, but our faller/bucker friend went faller-happy last weekend and there are about 40 trees down, so that mess needs to be dealt with. Maybe we can set up the Alaskan Mill and start cutting siding and put all the 'learning to cut siding' up on the shoppe to make it look nicer than the black side of the lumber wrap.
Speaking of lumber wrap, I want to put a layer on the top of the mobile home which is the poultry house as there are 2 holes from where some sort of equipment used to have to go through the roof. I do not want to make too many repairs to it, since in the next 2-3 years we will be building a proper barn since this one is probably the first year they ever made mobile homes and it is rotting.
Well, the chickens and turkeys need to be let out and the hogs fed (who are getting large enough they are making me nervous to go in their pen alone. Took chicken counts and we need to butcher at least 15 in a month or so. Some of the roosters need to have their bands removed anyway as their bands are starting to get too tight on their legs and one poor rooster had a small injury from it.
Evening Update:
My new friends indeed got their place. I am excited and thrilled for them. They are new at homesteading and I will help them along as much as I can.
Today was a long, but productive day here. I got the greenhouse watered, picked a 50 foot row of Calendula and took all the petals off for soap making as I have been negligent at making us more for the last few months.
Between the 4 of us, we almost got all of the woodshed filled today. My bf and "Teenager" cut the trees up with chainsaws and then all the guys filled the trucks with the firewood. Then they bring them in from the back 40, sort them from splitting to just stack it. If it gets tossed to the doorway, I then stacked it. My bf did miss the routine.. and I got slammed in the right kneecap with a chunk of wood. Or maybe I missed the routine.. oh well.. I am not limping now.Dinner was a nice chicken Alfredo made with Mozza over spiral noodles and fresh broccoli salad out of our garden. I had some left over Leek Soup which I made yesterday-ish.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
August 11, 2006
Last weekend was spent at a medieval event for 4 days. I have been 'playing' in the SCA (Society of Creative Anachronism) for around 10 years now.I love the camping out, the rusticness of the place. The non-electricity and how to invent things like showers without having any of the regular ways to have them. The chivalry, the politeness and kindness of people. The blacksmithy, the bakery with its wood fired ovens, the new root cellar for the bakery, the merchants, including the fresh fruit and vegetable vendor. And of course the rapier and heavies fighting. The archery. The LOW TECHness of the place. Not keen on the dust though.
It is always hard for me to leave. I love the lifestyle there. It is what drew me to the medieval re-enactment. I did homesteading and the preserving of foods and tried to study groups such as the Amish and how they did things, but there is so much more open history and such in the middle ages, so when I found this SCA, I thought I had fallen into something right up my alley. I had indeed.This is where I learned my blacksmithing through. Free classes. Many classes are free or low cost. I signed up for a Bodran class and there were a few others I wanted to take, but conflicted with it.I found that both the SCA type events and homesteading went quite hand in hand. So when I am not studying homesteading per se, I go back and study agriculture from many centuries ago.
I nearly swooned when a rather slightly inebriated pirate bowed over my hand and kissed it (well not really swooned, but it was a nice compliment and he was NOT bad looking).
And then a Frenchman in courtly attire, after my friend and I had been discussing music and garb with him half the night as the drummers were drumming most of the night with bagpipe players here and there and then a nice quartet playing off in another corner.
I learned about Lampworking.. it has nothing to do with lighting or light bulbs.. it is a open flame and in this case, making the most beautiful glass beads I had ever seen. I opened my floor length skirts wide to be a wind block for the woman who was showing me how to make them. I must have stood in there for an hour and then a day later as I saw her struggling with her flame, I popped into her tent/booth and offered wind protection once again.. it was a good deal though, as I get a front row seat to see her working.
I forgot to locate the lady who handspins with a drop spindle, she had some nice fiber and natural dyes I wanted to investigate. I need to build a braiser for next year to have our own flame, as it was, I borrowed flamage from the people who sorta invaded our camp when they moved in after we 'parked', but all in all it was great as I rather enjoyed the 2 families and though we have not known each other long, I would consider them friends. Sometimes you just know from the onset that these are "YOUR" kind of people.
We ate alot of cold meals that 4 days, but it was too hot really anyway. Fresh bread from home.. cold sausages and cheeses and LOTS of water.The days were hot, but the evenings were cool. The day we left there was a bit of snow on the peaks and the night before there were the Northern Lights. Many people were from the south, so I had to make sure they saw them. They were in awe and they were not even great lights that night. (Which reminds me, I ought to look outside to check if they are out tonight).
I would like to say I did alot of productive things at the event, but I DIDN'T!! It was nice to have a vacation and the first 2 days I took 2 naps a day, so I must have needed it.
The last couple days, a couple who has been on another newsgroup I own, came up to "Moosetown" to look for property. I have gone around with them for 2 days looking for land. It is fun shopping for land for homesteading, even if it is not for your own. I rather enjoy this couple too and hope they do indeed move up here from Vancouver. They are like minded people and learning and willing to learn, so it would be nice to include them in our circle of friends.My goat must have met up with some barbed wire and she ripped her right udder. I am not pleased. I milked out her left side almost all the way, just to make her more comfortable, but to help her dry up more. She is a serious milker and will not have anything to do with drying up before October/November evidently.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
It is always hard for me to leave. I love the lifestyle there. It is what drew me to the medieval re-enactment. I did homesteading and the preserving of foods and tried to study groups such as the Amish and how they did things, but there is so much more open history and such in the middle ages, so when I found this SCA, I thought I had fallen into something right up my alley. I had indeed.This is where I learned my blacksmithing through. Free classes. Many classes are free or low cost. I signed up for a Bodran class and there were a few others I wanted to take, but conflicted with it.I found that both the SCA type events and homesteading went quite hand in hand. So when I am not studying homesteading per se, I go back and study agriculture from many centuries ago.
I nearly swooned when a rather slightly inebriated pirate bowed over my hand and kissed it (well not really swooned, but it was a nice compliment and he was NOT bad looking).
And then a Frenchman in courtly attire, after my friend and I had been discussing music and garb with him half the night as the drummers were drumming most of the night with bagpipe players here and there and then a nice quartet playing off in another corner.
I learned about Lampworking.. it has nothing to do with lighting or light bulbs.. it is a open flame and in this case, making the most beautiful glass beads I had ever seen. I opened my floor length skirts wide to be a wind block for the woman who was showing me how to make them. I must have stood in there for an hour and then a day later as I saw her struggling with her flame, I popped into her tent/booth and offered wind protection once again.. it was a good deal though, as I get a front row seat to see her working.
I forgot to locate the lady who handspins with a drop spindle, she had some nice fiber and natural dyes I wanted to investigate. I need to build a braiser for next year to have our own flame, as it was, I borrowed flamage from the people who sorta invaded our camp when they moved in after we 'parked', but all in all it was great as I rather enjoyed the 2 families and though we have not known each other long, I would consider them friends. Sometimes you just know from the onset that these are "YOUR" kind of people.
We ate alot of cold meals that 4 days, but it was too hot really anyway. Fresh bread from home.. cold sausages and cheeses and LOTS of water.The days were hot, but the evenings were cool. The day we left there was a bit of snow on the peaks and the night before there were the Northern Lights. Many people were from the south, so I had to make sure they saw them. They were in awe and they were not even great lights that night. (Which reminds me, I ought to look outside to check if they are out tonight).
I would like to say I did alot of productive things at the event, but I DIDN'T!! It was nice to have a vacation and the first 2 days I took 2 naps a day, so I must have needed it.
The last couple days, a couple who has been on another newsgroup I own, came up to "Moosetown" to look for property. I have gone around with them for 2 days looking for land. It is fun shopping for land for homesteading, even if it is not for your own. I rather enjoy this couple too and hope they do indeed move up here from Vancouver. They are like minded people and learning and willing to learn, so it would be nice to include them in our circle of friends.My goat must have met up with some barbed wire and she ripped her right udder. I am not pleased. I milked out her left side almost all the way, just to make her more comfortable, but to help her dry up more. She is a serious milker and will not have anything to do with drying up before October/November evidently.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
August 05, 2006
I will be out of the office until Sunday night or Monday. See you guys then, and have a safe fun weekend!!
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
August 05, 2006
I will be out of the office until Sunday night or Monday. See you guys then, and have a safe fun weekend!!
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
August 03, 2006
So much for sleeping from 8:30 pm last night when I went to bed. I am all curled up with my hot water bottle in my moose flannel sheets and just drifting off to sleep when I hear "One of your dog's is gone!!!".. I get out of bed, get dressed and go looking for the dog. I have been asking for someone to drive a new post for me as that was only a temporary to begin with and I am actually amazed she did not get loose sooner. She came back from the woodshed where the rabbits where, she had nipped the toe of one of them. I would have shot the dog, but I need that dog. She is my best lead dog and she is also my only unspayed female I hope to breed soon. She is now under lock and key after she got into trouble for 20 minutes with me stuffing another rabbit under her nose and telling her she is the worst dog on the face of the earth.
Too riled up and mad (at the dog and myself) to go back to sleep, I stayed up and painted more on my gate sign for eggs. Then "Kid" was jabbering and said that 'thing' in the wall was back. This is the second day that this noise has been heard by both kids and also the same length of time that the cat "Charlie" has been missing. So we opened up the access to the attic and at midnight the kids are trying to be silent while their dad is sleeping, crawling around up there. "Kid" is smaller and could fit in there better, but he wanted his big brother to go up there with him. "Teenager" lifted the ever gaining mass "Kid" up and then jumped up and pulled himself through the opening. I am thinking "Man.. if this does nor work, we have alot of sheetrocking, spackling and painting to do tomorrow".
No cat later... the boys come down and I need to vacuum. Ever try vacuuming at 1 am in a 900 sf house and not wake someone up? Apparently it CAN be done. My bf never heard it when asked this morning when he woke up to go to work. We might need naps later today, but it was a fun evening, even though we did not find "Charlie" out of all of it.
We may or may not go to the 4-H livestock auction today. I was rather interested in what the meat pens I judged yesterday, went for today.
Thinking of what I ought to cook for dinner tonight. I am leaning towards a whole roast chicken. OK.. I just inquired with the boys and they are game for the whole roast chicken as long as it is BBQ's.. I have to make some BBQ sauce, but that works for me.Fresh steamed Swiss Chard out of the garden last night for dinner. "Kid" did not realize we had "Five Color Silverbeet", the variety that has reds, greens, whites, oranges, pinks, golds and other colors in it. It is quite festive and colorful. Also quite good with butter, vinegar and sea salt on it."Teenager" and I got into the 4 cucumbers I have picked so far out of the garden. I need to look today as there is probably more ready to be picked.
The English peas have had a couple pickings on them. The Snow Peas are going to seed which is good as I needed more seed.I stole a few red Potatoes... they are much larger than I thought they would be. I will go out and see what I can raid today for dinner tonight.
Evening Updateot dinner on the go while my bf and "Kid" and 2 spare kids are out in the back 40 playing around with a free car. I have not seen nor heard from them in 20-30 minutes so my guesses are #1 they are stuck in the trout pond or #2 the lawnmower battery they have in it died and they are having to walk back.
On the menu for tonight is one of our chickens from last year (the last one I think) which was surfacing in the freezer one too many times, so it got hauled out this morning, to go with the chicken we are having freshly picked purple beans, and a medley of various colours of potatoes dug by hand out of the soil in the garden.On the chicken I must have 30 cloves fo garlic.. 1% antibiotic you know.. and besides I love the flavour of it. The onins, garlic, spuds and chicken are all nicely roasting together in the cast iron pan in the oven.Got my farm gate sign for eggs done. Trying to sand the other side, but I need bigger grit sandpaper. I had such fun painting the first side, I am just itching to work on the other side.I think I hear the car, so I will go out and check to see how they made out..
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
Too riled up and mad (at the dog and myself) to go back to sleep, I stayed up and painted more on my gate sign for eggs. Then "Kid" was jabbering and said that 'thing' in the wall was back. This is the second day that this noise has been heard by both kids and also the same length of time that the cat "Charlie" has been missing. So we opened up the access to the attic and at midnight the kids are trying to be silent while their dad is sleeping, crawling around up there. "Kid" is smaller and could fit in there better, but he wanted his big brother to go up there with him. "Teenager" lifted the ever gaining mass "Kid" up and then jumped up and pulled himself through the opening. I am thinking "Man.. if this does nor work, we have alot of sheetrocking, spackling and painting to do tomorrow".
No cat later... the boys come down and I need to vacuum. Ever try vacuuming at 1 am in a 900 sf house and not wake someone up? Apparently it CAN be done. My bf never heard it when asked this morning when he woke up to go to work. We might need naps later today, but it was a fun evening, even though we did not find "Charlie" out of all of it.
We may or may not go to the 4-H livestock auction today. I was rather interested in what the meat pens I judged yesterday, went for today.
Thinking of what I ought to cook for dinner tonight. I am leaning towards a whole roast chicken. OK.. I just inquired with the boys and they are game for the whole roast chicken as long as it is BBQ's.. I have to make some BBQ sauce, but that works for me.Fresh steamed Swiss Chard out of the garden last night for dinner. "Kid" did not realize we had "Five Color Silverbeet", the variety that has reds, greens, whites, oranges, pinks, golds and other colors in it. It is quite festive and colorful. Also quite good with butter, vinegar and sea salt on it."Teenager" and I got into the 4 cucumbers I have picked so far out of the garden. I need to look today as there is probably more ready to be picked.
The English peas have had a couple pickings on them. The Snow Peas are going to seed which is good as I needed more seed.I stole a few red Potatoes... they are much larger than I thought they would be. I will go out and see what I can raid today for dinner tonight.
Evening Updateot dinner on the go while my bf and "Kid" and 2 spare kids are out in the back 40 playing around with a free car. I have not seen nor heard from them in 20-30 minutes so my guesses are #1 they are stuck in the trout pond or #2 the lawnmower battery they have in it died and they are having to walk back.
On the menu for tonight is one of our chickens from last year (the last one I think) which was surfacing in the freezer one too many times, so it got hauled out this morning, to go with the chicken we are having freshly picked purple beans, and a medley of various colours of potatoes dug by hand out of the soil in the garden.On the chicken I must have 30 cloves fo garlic.. 1% antibiotic you know.. and besides I love the flavour of it. The onins, garlic, spuds and chicken are all nicely roasting together in the cast iron pan in the oven.Got my farm gate sign for eggs done. Trying to sand the other side, but I need bigger grit sandpaper. I had such fun painting the first side, I am just itching to work on the other side.I think I hear the car, so I will go out and check to see how they made out..
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August 02, 2006
I just got home from judging 4-H rabbit showmanship, breed classes and fryer pens today. I am pretty tired. The classes all went well I think and I feel like I did a good job. On the fryer pens.. there were only 11 this year.. there were some good ones.. I picked my Champion and Reserve Champion and asked the boys who owned them if they agreed and I was pleased that they also thought that the one pen was superior, though not by much.
The Junior class was the hardest class of the day. I had 3 girls.. who made me change my mind half a dozen times. I would think I had my Champion, Reserve Champion and then the contender.. and then they would keep flipping around. Then I would think the 3rd one was going to get Reserve and then my Champion would flounder.. it easily could have done to any of them.
The Cloverbuds.. the pre-4-H kids.. one must have been 3-4 years old.. she was the cutest thing.. she almost did not look real. I have my most fun in a way on them, although I like making the classes work as well and put them through their paces. .. I asked the Cloverbuds the basics.. how many ears.. how many feet.. the idea is just to get them to talk and get them used to being up on the table and answering questions. I had an epitomy and asked them how they liked 4-H and what they learned this year and if they would be back next year. I almost burst out laughing (and probably did) at some of the answers.
It was a good day, but I am really tired and my back really hurts tonight. Too much leaning over the judging table.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
The Junior class was the hardest class of the day. I had 3 girls.. who made me change my mind half a dozen times. I would think I had my Champion, Reserve Champion and then the contender.. and then they would keep flipping around. Then I would think the 3rd one was going to get Reserve and then my Champion would flounder.. it easily could have done to any of them.
The Cloverbuds.. the pre-4-H kids.. one must have been 3-4 years old.. she was the cutest thing.. she almost did not look real. I have my most fun in a way on them, although I like making the classes work as well and put them through their paces. .. I asked the Cloverbuds the basics.. how many ears.. how many feet.. the idea is just to get them to talk and get them used to being up on the table and answering questions. I had an epitomy and asked them how they liked 4-H and what they learned this year and if they would be back next year. I almost burst out laughing (and probably did) at some of the answers.
It was a good day, but I am really tired and my back really hurts tonight. Too much leaning over the judging table.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
July 30, 2006
After trying to get to the poultry houses for the last week, we finally got to it around 8 pm last night. It has been too hot on the days we could do it and then we were doing errands on the days it was cooler for the most part. But in about an hour both the turkeys and the chickens had new clean made houses. They were not that bad to do as I always put a bale of pine shavings down first and then a bale or two of straw in.I put the truckload of cleanings into the garden in a pile so it can be tilled into the soil when Fall comes. I was going to wait until this morning to unload, but I had the funny feeling it was going to rain and boy did it rain. I was very glad I did not have wet heavy manure in my truck when I woke up this morning.
All of us were out playing with the pigs again when my bf went up to feed them. They are sure getting big. One of them is getting tame enough that when she was laying down, she let me open her mouth so I could look inside. I guess it is the vet tech in me who wanted to see how the mouth was put together and how many teeth they had.One of them is still making that "squeaking" noise with her mouth. I have heard another one do it since. My bf thinks they are grinding their teeth. I am pretty sure it is not teeth grinding, which in animals is usually a sign of pain. It is almost a 'squish-squish-squeak' noise. It is almost, but not really like a horse who windsucks. Anyone else ever hear of this before? How do they do it? I think they are doing it when they are happy.
I need to check on birthdates for my Californian rabbit does. I think I can breed them soon, which means in November we can have rabbit meat for the table. I am not sure I REALLY want to do the next following butchering in February though. To me it is still strange to butcher out around the season as compared to when I lived in Oregon. I somehow REALLY do not want to milk or butcher January-early March.
OK.. this is the strangest phone call from my mom yet. She came up and visited me for the first time in 5 years and stayed 9 days earlier in July.
She calls last night and the first thing she says to me, is she is not sure how to say something without insulting me. Fearing the worst.. I am thinking it is probably something to do about our house or something I did. I was totally thrown for a loop when she told me to quit bleaching my teeth. "WHAT?!?!?!?!" I say to myself? I say 'WHAT' again to her.
I do not bleach my teeth I tell her and I thought they needed to be cleaned again actually (I clean my own - I am a dental hygienist for many species - including root canals after all- albeit not for humans, but it is pretty much the same thing). She was amazed I have not been bleaching them with something. I have always had comments on my nice white teeth and maybe it is just not mom seeing me for 18 months or something.
The other thing I commented it may be, is that we have calcium in our water, which may also explain why more people are commenting on my 'pretty white teeth'.. or it is due to the brands of toothpastes I use or my homemade stuff. I 'promised' her I would drink more tea or start smoking. (NOT). But I think it may be her not being used to seeing me as often as I used to get compliments on them all the time when I lived in the States.
I need to get nestboxes ready for my hens. They ought to start laying soon. I pulled the 4 hole one out and set it to get some sunlight to disinfect (sun is a very good disinfectant for animal equipment if you did not know that. Always use it for at least 24 hours after you clean with whatever you clean with - I prefer 15% solution of Clorox bleach unscented, NEVER use Lysol.. it kills rabbits).
I may also start working on my gate sign for "Eggs for Sale". This one has to be 2 sided and I am not sure if I am going to put a Barred Rock on one side and a Dark Brahma on the other, if I am going to go with 'generic chicken' on both sides. It is kinda a Tole Painting thing I am doing, though I have actually never taken a Tole Painting class or know the adzact definition for Tole Painting. Maybe I will just call it 'tenzicut style'. but I anticipate that we will be getting close to 50 dozen eggs a month when they are in full laying mode and even the "Teenager" cannot possibly chow all those down.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
All of us were out playing with the pigs again when my bf went up to feed them. They are sure getting big. One of them is getting tame enough that when she was laying down, she let me open her mouth so I could look inside. I guess it is the vet tech in me who wanted to see how the mouth was put together and how many teeth they had.One of them is still making that "squeaking" noise with her mouth. I have heard another one do it since. My bf thinks they are grinding their teeth. I am pretty sure it is not teeth grinding, which in animals is usually a sign of pain. It is almost a 'squish-squish-squeak' noise. It is almost, but not really like a horse who windsucks. Anyone else ever hear of this before? How do they do it? I think they are doing it when they are happy.
I need to check on birthdates for my Californian rabbit does. I think I can breed them soon, which means in November we can have rabbit meat for the table. I am not sure I REALLY want to do the next following butchering in February though. To me it is still strange to butcher out around the season as compared to when I lived in Oregon. I somehow REALLY do not want to milk or butcher January-early March.
OK.. this is the strangest phone call from my mom yet. She came up and visited me for the first time in 5 years and stayed 9 days earlier in July.
She calls last night and the first thing she says to me, is she is not sure how to say something without insulting me. Fearing the worst.. I am thinking it is probably something to do about our house or something I did. I was totally thrown for a loop when she told me to quit bleaching my teeth. "WHAT?!?!?!?!" I say to myself? I say 'WHAT' again to her.
I do not bleach my teeth I tell her and I thought they needed to be cleaned again actually (I clean my own - I am a dental hygienist for many species - including root canals after all- albeit not for humans, but it is pretty much the same thing). She was amazed I have not been bleaching them with something. I have always had comments on my nice white teeth and maybe it is just not mom seeing me for 18 months or something.
The other thing I commented it may be, is that we have calcium in our water, which may also explain why more people are commenting on my 'pretty white teeth'.. or it is due to the brands of toothpastes I use or my homemade stuff. I 'promised' her I would drink more tea or start smoking. (NOT). But I think it may be her not being used to seeing me as often as I used to get compliments on them all the time when I lived in the States.
I need to get nestboxes ready for my hens. They ought to start laying soon. I pulled the 4 hole one out and set it to get some sunlight to disinfect (sun is a very good disinfectant for animal equipment if you did not know that. Always use it for at least 24 hours after you clean with whatever you clean with - I prefer 15% solution of Clorox bleach unscented, NEVER use Lysol.. it kills rabbits).
I may also start working on my gate sign for "Eggs for Sale". This one has to be 2 sided and I am not sure if I am going to put a Barred Rock on one side and a Dark Brahma on the other, if I am going to go with 'generic chicken' on both sides. It is kinda a Tole Painting thing I am doing, though I have actually never taken a Tole Painting class or know the adzact definition for Tole Painting. Maybe I will just call it 'tenzicut style'. but I anticipate that we will be getting close to 50 dozen eggs a month when they are in full laying mode and even the "Teenager" cannot possibly chow all those down.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
July 27, 2006
I was busy in the kitchen again today. Make watermelon wine, watermelon sorbet, started on watermelon rind pickles. Made vanilla ice cream and lavender ice cream which are freezing at the moment. Chicken and rice with vegetables casserole for dinner. The kitchen is a disaster. But is in the works of getting some sanity back in there.
Had a man out here tonight for digging our new well. Hopefully soon we will have that water situation under control again. It will be nice to have water and not have to monitor it everyday.
Got a few new subscriptions today, I was bad today and forgot to take 2 packages to the post office. I will remedy that situation in the morning. They could not get my deer struck bumper put back on today, so I have an appointment again tomorrow. The rest of the truck looks beautiful again however.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
Had a man out here tonight for digging our new well. Hopefully soon we will have that water situation under control again. It will be nice to have water and not have to monitor it everyday.
Got a few new subscriptions today, I was bad today and forgot to take 2 packages to the post office. I will remedy that situation in the morning. They could not get my deer struck bumper put back on today, so I have an appointment again tomorrow. The rest of the truck looks beautiful again however.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
July 26, 2006
Hmmm.. ABC Television has now joined "DTTR" website. Wrote a email back to the lady who casts the show who joined our site and she emailed me and apparently this show is a real thing. Shows you how much I watch TV.. I cannot be on the TV show since I am in Canada, but I was still giggling this morning to think of what the other woman would have thought of feeding and petting pigs and milking "Crystal". I did not have any fears over this unknown person in my house or with my family, but I was concerned about some city-slicker handling my animals. 71 animals is not a small amount for a newbie to work around. And if one is 'off' or injured what a newbie would be able to do in a situation like that. The other thought I had was if she would know what to do with our pantry and if she could cook from it. It would be hard for someone who is used to going to the grocery store often, if not everyday. And no microwave foods.
It went from super hot to overcast and sprinkling. I am going to put my laundry out on the line anyway and hope for the best. Summer rain fresh?
Watermelon and blueberry wine batches are on the go. I want to make some mead next. Lavender ice cream is also in the works for today since my Lavender is going strong.Since it is cooler, cleaning the poultry houses and weeding the garden are on the agenda for the day. I had beans and corn soaking overnight and Texas style chili is on the menu for tonight.A sister of a longtime friend recently moved into the area and may get a basic lesson on how to handle horses since she is marrying a horseshoer and she wants to be part of his world and not look like such a newbie. I will start her from the ground up. Probably "Sierra" will be the guinea pig, though he is our tallest horse and she cannot be over 5'2". But "Sierra" will stand there like a rock for her.
I love FreeCycle. We have about 9 people on our local one, but we just picked up a cast iron woodstove, vintage unknown at the moment. It is pretty cute. It is for a project for the magazine one day. just wait until you see what I have planned.
The sun came out and it is warm again. I forgot to tell you guys the other night we have a reminiscent Walton's thing going the other night. We had unexpected company Friday night and we all sat on the front porch talking for an hour or two and drinking homemade lemonaide. After the unexpected company left, we continued to all sit there in the shade on the front porch. The guys started to grease and work on the logging truck, everyone else was reading various parts of the newspaper that my bf brought home and we were all listening to the comedy channel on the truck radio.I thought about how little anyone as a family sits on the porch or livingroom and all of them listen to a radio program anymore. Our TV was off, 2 cats were sitting in laps. It was a delightful summer evening. Hot, but nice.I will have to continue this when I get back from the barnyard. Apparently the pigs have uprooted their water trough and we have to re-vamp it and I need to go help.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
It went from super hot to overcast and sprinkling. I am going to put my laundry out on the line anyway and hope for the best. Summer rain fresh?
Watermelon and blueberry wine batches are on the go. I want to make some mead next. Lavender ice cream is also in the works for today since my Lavender is going strong.Since it is cooler, cleaning the poultry houses and weeding the garden are on the agenda for the day. I had beans and corn soaking overnight and Texas style chili is on the menu for tonight.A sister of a longtime friend recently moved into the area and may get a basic lesson on how to handle horses since she is marrying a horseshoer and she wants to be part of his world and not look like such a newbie. I will start her from the ground up. Probably "Sierra" will be the guinea pig, though he is our tallest horse and she cannot be over 5'2". But "Sierra" will stand there like a rock for her.
I love FreeCycle. We have about 9 people on our local one, but we just picked up a cast iron woodstove, vintage unknown at the moment. It is pretty cute. It is for a project for the magazine one day. just wait until you see what I have planned.
The sun came out and it is warm again. I forgot to tell you guys the other night we have a reminiscent Walton's thing going the other night. We had unexpected company Friday night and we all sat on the front porch talking for an hour or two and drinking homemade lemonaide. After the unexpected company left, we continued to all sit there in the shade on the front porch. The guys started to grease and work on the logging truck, everyone else was reading various parts of the newspaper that my bf brought home and we were all listening to the comedy channel on the truck radio.I thought about how little anyone as a family sits on the porch or livingroom and all of them listen to a radio program anymore. Our TV was off, 2 cats were sitting in laps. It was a delightful summer evening. Hot, but nice.I will have to continue this when I get back from the barnyard. Apparently the pigs have uprooted their water trough and we have to re-vamp it and I need to go help.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
July 25, 2006
Thunderstorms again tonight. So hot today, we did not even want to go to our normal place to go swimming and we just went to our local lake and even took "Cyrus" our bear dog for a swim.We got a little bit of rain and it cooled it off a notch or two.
This morning a friend of the family who is pretty much family, who is an older woman, came to witch us a new well. We evidently have alot of water here and it is not very deep. She says it is only 10 feet down. The well nearby is hand dug and only 36 feet deep. With 2 ponds also in the area, it is a pretty good indication there is water there. She is never wrong and always gets good water for everyone. She 'retired' from it, but because it was my bf, she could not say no. Thanks "Inga".
I am waiting for the storm to pass before I go out and water the garden. For not having watered it for 2 weeks it is looking very good. By next year I will have a dedicated well just for the garden and greenhouse, so I will not have to be frugal with it this year. I did not get to the poultry houses today as it was just too warm out, if it is cool tomorrow, I will get to it then. The straw bales are sitting right outside the doors ready to be put in.
Things in the garden which look great are Leeks, Swiss Chard, Beans, Sunflowers, Onions, and Peas. I know I will not get anywhere close to what I was anticipating for potatoes. The cabbage is suffering from the chincy water amounts. The flowers are doing great for no water and I will remember to keep those varieties. jon's Marigold mix, Lavender, Cosmos, and Calendula are looking beautiful.
5 minute later update: Did I just not say I was going to go water the garden? It has poured non-stop for the last 20 minutes and we have gotten 1.3 cm/ 0.5 inches within the last 15 minutes. It is a roar on the roof and I really do not think I will even have to water tomorrow. The driveway is a flood which is running like a muddy river and it does not look like it is going to stop anytime soon. I really do not even want to run up and lock up the chickens. I will do it later even if I have to run out there at midnight.The sky is a marigold yellow and it has been for the last hour.
Evening Update:
Hotter than Blue Blazes again today. After "Kid" and I ran our morning errands and mailed off more magazines, picked up animal feed at the farm store we came home to vegetate for a bit.The garden does not need watering after last nights storm. I may water it tonight again however.The other extent of our outdoor energy today, other than caring for stock and making sure everyone had water, was putting the clothesline (See Summer 2005 issue for the original story on that) back up, after my bf took it out with the trackhoe. "Teenager" due to his vertical advantage over the rest of us, was the one who was volunteered to help put it back up. We had to go buy more 1,100 pound test line for it. But just the 15 or 20 minutes it took to get it back in working order, was just about enough to melt us.I decided to do a 'girly' thing for myself today. Usually I always paint my toenails. I cannot paint my fingernails, nor grow them out. I do not wear makeup very often (3x a year maybe), so my thing I do to keep my femininity is wear a dress or sarong in the evenings and paint my toenails. When I did the dog sled event last January, I had done so little walking after my injury last summer, that doing 36 miles in 2 days, caused me to bruise under my toenails and I lost 4 of them. They are finally back, so it is time to pretty them up. Dinner tonight is a bison shoulder roast and vegetables. I am thinking of making Blueberry Soup. It is a cold soup, which suits the day. We have slacked the last couple days on dinner due to how hot it has been. No one has felt like eating, so we made a rare splurge and bought a pizza last night. YES.. a take out order. We do not do that very often. But it was TOO hot to cook. I still ordered a salad. Why? I have no idea, for no apparent reason, it never occurred to me to go out to the garden and get some lettuce for a salad. My brain must have been fried. *L*
I have a couple other projects on the go for the magazine in the kitchen and I am soaking 4-5 kinds of beans for making chili tomorrow night. I will probably make corn bread to go with.. and the ever present salad.Time to go rotate laundry I suppose and try out the new clothesline.
July 24, 2006
It has gone from monsoon rains back to scorching hot. After we did the morning chores, we went and played in the river for 7 hours yesterday. Never fear however, I was also working on articles for the magazine. Those will be upcoming in the Winter 2006 issue. Did you know there is usually 2-4 magazines on the go at all times? I have started writing on the Spring 2007. Sometimes an article makes more sense to have in a certain issue.. and some, like the upcoming ones can be put in any of them. It will be a fun article to do and NO! I am not telling what it is yet, but I will just let you know, I have never see either of them written in any magazine which is not geared JUST for that topic..We must have worn everyone out yesterday. It is 9:30 am and only "Kid" and I are up yet.
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CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
July 20, 2006
Picked Saskatoons today. Started another batch of wine. Got alot done on the magazine stuff and I am FINALLY all caught up. Two more stores picked up the magazine and I am pretty much out of the Summer issue. More will have to be printed so I think that is what I will be doing on Friday.
I went up to see where my bf had disappeared to this afternoon and he was up talking to his piggies. I went up there to take pictures of the animals to post here later and I went in with the pigs to take their pictures without the chain link in the way.
Going from hating me, the pigs now are too happy to see me. They keptgetting too close and all I could take a picture of was a nose or an eyeball. I asked my bf to come in and scratch them so they would go see him and leave me and my shoes alone, since they keep stuffing their noses under my shoes and knock me off balance. My bf started laughing and said they did like me now.
Yes, we will eat these guys coming this Fall, but like I have said before, we treat our animals, even the butcher animals, very well while they are here. My bf was playing with the pigs.. just as you would start playing with a dog, you evidently can do that with piggies as well. No.. none of them have names.. not even names like "Porkchop", etc. We were scratching them and even the ones who did not let me pet them before, now came up to me. One piggy forgot how to stand on her right side and lifted BOTH the front and the rear feet up on the right side (yes, same side) as evidently the scratching felt just too good. Sooo.. in order to have a 3-point system so it did not fall over on its side like the other one did for me, it put its snout on the ground to keep from falling over. Yep, it was bracing itself with its nose. (they are so low to the ground, it is hard to tell which gender which one is, so I am saying 'it').
We stayed in the pig pen for awhile, just playing and petting them and listening to them talk to us. Yes they are muddy, but not what I would call dirty. "Kid" comes in from playing and he is much muddier most of the time..Then my bf quit scratching one and it came up behind him and started to scratch himself on the back of my bf's legs. I have no idea what the deal with my tennis shoes is, but all of them just love to try to push them around or get under them with their snouts. They do not do this to anyone else's shoes
..... the hawks are back. A pair I think. So I sat out in the treeline between the triangle of the pigs, the chickens and the milkgoat. The turkeys were out again and there "Charlie" the outdoor cat and me were sitting up in the folding chair between everyone Guarding. I am glad all my animals seem to be happy. It is pretty hard when you own 71 of them. Yep, 71 animals until Fall.The chickens are happy doing their chicken things out in the chicken yard. The roosters actually do not start sparring with each other. One gets a little carried away, struts his stuff, runs around in a circle and then runs at another rooster around the same size. If he meets up with a littler one.. the bigger one backs off. Only when they are pretty evenly matched do they stop and stare at each other until one challenges the other. Nothing serious. But I think I will be glad to get rid of 14 or so roosters. I took some pictures of them today as well.
The turkeys, as they are LOUDMOUTHS, saying PIP, PIP, PIP, they call in all the predators for about 100 miles around. SO they are not being let out unsupervised until I get the overhead netting put up, which will be in a month or so, certainly by next summer. Well.. maybe sooner than later. I am not sure I want to babysit turkeys for hours a day for another three months.But I spend a couple good 3-4 hours up there today after getting other stuff done. I have not been able to do that for a long time, but it really is a great way to make sure all your animals are healthy and happy. Plus it is so peaceful.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
I went up to see where my bf had disappeared to this afternoon and he was up talking to his piggies. I went up there to take pictures of the animals to post here later and I went in with the pigs to take their pictures without the chain link in the way.
Going from hating me, the pigs now are too happy to see me. They keptgetting too close and all I could take a picture of was a nose or an eyeball. I asked my bf to come in and scratch them so they would go see him and leave me and my shoes alone, since they keep stuffing their noses under my shoes and knock me off balance. My bf started laughing and said they did like me now.
Yes, we will eat these guys coming this Fall, but like I have said before, we treat our animals, even the butcher animals, very well while they are here. My bf was playing with the pigs.. just as you would start playing with a dog, you evidently can do that with piggies as well. No.. none of them have names.. not even names like "Porkchop", etc. We were scratching them and even the ones who did not let me pet them before, now came up to me. One piggy forgot how to stand on her right side and lifted BOTH the front and the rear feet up on the right side (yes, same side) as evidently the scratching felt just too good. Sooo.. in order to have a 3-point system so it did not fall over on its side like the other one did for me, it put its snout on the ground to keep from falling over. Yep, it was bracing itself with its nose. (they are so low to the ground, it is hard to tell which gender which one is, so I am saying 'it').
We stayed in the pig pen for awhile, just playing and petting them and listening to them talk to us. Yes they are muddy, but not what I would call dirty. "Kid" comes in from playing and he is much muddier most of the time..Then my bf quit scratching one and it came up behind him and started to scratch himself on the back of my bf's legs. I have no idea what the deal with my tennis shoes is, but all of them just love to try to push them around or get under them with their snouts. They do not do this to anyone else's shoes
..... the hawks are back. A pair I think. So I sat out in the treeline between the triangle of the pigs, the chickens and the milkgoat. The turkeys were out again and there "Charlie" the outdoor cat and me were sitting up in the folding chair between everyone Guarding. I am glad all my animals seem to be happy. It is pretty hard when you own 71 of them. Yep, 71 animals until Fall.The chickens are happy doing their chicken things out in the chicken yard. The roosters actually do not start sparring with each other. One gets a little carried away, struts his stuff, runs around in a circle and then runs at another rooster around the same size. If he meets up with a littler one.. the bigger one backs off. Only when they are pretty evenly matched do they stop and stare at each other until one challenges the other. Nothing serious. But I think I will be glad to get rid of 14 or so roosters. I took some pictures of them today as well.
The turkeys, as they are LOUDMOUTHS, saying PIP, PIP, PIP, they call in all the predators for about 100 miles around. SO they are not being let out unsupervised until I get the overhead netting put up, which will be in a month or so, certainly by next summer. Well.. maybe sooner than later. I am not sure I want to babysit turkeys for hours a day for another three months.But I spend a couple good 3-4 hours up there today after getting other stuff done. I have not been able to do that for a long time, but it really is a great way to make sure all your animals are healthy and happy. Plus it is so peaceful.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
July 19, 2006
Another long day.. it is nearly 11 pm now and I am just getting to write for the day.I was in charge the fresh food buyers co-op again today. It is obvious that gardens are growing and people are getting local stuff from the few farmers around. We went from 66 boxes last month to 23 this month.Did chores around here and then I got a bee in my bonnet about making pesto tonight..
Get out your food processor and make some for your own..
Take 6 handfuls of Basil.. I mixed mine tonight, even added Purple
3-4 Garlic cloves
half a handful or so of Walnuts
a pinch of Salt and about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of Olive Oil
Turn on your food processor or blender or you can even use a knife or a Mortar & Pestle and crush all the ingredients and slowly drizzle in the olive oil.This is great on homemade bagels (Summer 2005 issue) or on angel hair pasta and my friend who is staying the night tonight, used a bunch of it on her egg sandwich she just made.My favorite is on a bagel with avocado, tomato, alfalfa sprouts, and our goat cheese.. toasted or not toasted.. OH.. and sunflower seeds on it.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
Get out your food processor and make some for your own..
Take 6 handfuls of Basil.. I mixed mine tonight, even added Purple
3-4 Garlic cloves
half a handful or so of Walnuts
a pinch of Salt and about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of Olive Oil
Turn on your food processor or blender or you can even use a knife or a Mortar & Pestle and crush all the ingredients and slowly drizzle in the olive oil.This is great on homemade bagels (Summer 2005 issue) or on angel hair pasta and my friend who is staying the night tonight, used a bunch of it on her egg sandwich she just made.My favorite is on a bagel with avocado, tomato, alfalfa sprouts, and our goat cheese.. toasted or not toasted.. OH.. and sunflower seeds on it.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
July 18, 2006
I am not sure where I left off on my last post on this ole blog o' mine.My garden is going gangbusters after all that rain.. we ate fresh snow peas out of the garden for dinner last night. A full colander/strainer full was GONE! Just lightly steamed with a tidge of butter. Even I ate them and I am not a legume fan. Actually I like the snow peas, I am just not a fan of English Shell Peas.. probably a holdover from having to eat canned green peas when I was little. I am sure if I opened up my mind and just sat in the garden with the orange tabby cat "Charlie", who is my constant companion out there, and maybe even share some with "Charlie", I would actually enjoy them.
Cut some wonderful colours of lettuce for my bf's mom and took it fresh to her this morning. FINALLY got the last of the re-prints done and they are being sent off to be stapled and trimmed tomorrow.
Wednesday we are rearranging the 3-hole rabbit cage and putting it in a different part of the woodshed so we can start bringing in wood for winter.I do not remember if I mentioned we got our last batch of wine bottled. I bought another primary fermentor today so I can get a batch of beer, Saskatoon Wine and mead going. Though I actually am rare to drink alcohol, I am fun building stuff for others to enjoy. It give me something to do in the kitchen before the harvest comes in for me to start canning, drying and freezing. We had a pair of hawks eyeing the turkeys and chickens today. After the one turkey attack and 3 chickens AWOL (probably dead), no one went outside today as I was not home to watch the situation at all.
We seem to have a spare cat this evening. "Teenager" went to go get his gf's animals from the pound where they were being held as a emergency shelter as she was right in the evacuation zone from the wildfires. They brought the animals here to pick up her laundry (her family does not have a washer/dryer) and the cat got out of the cage and is out in the bush somewhere. We will keep an eye out for him. Hopefully we can catch him soon. I probably need to go get my gosling out of the greenhouse.. though the cat can not get in, it is not impossible that he could get in if he tried very hard.
Dinner tonight was some sort of pork sweet and sour with ALOT of red pepper flakes in it from my "Thai Hot" pepper plant I grew a year or so ago and brown rice.. it was HOT and delicious.. I got a little carried away with the pepper flakes.. THAT will certainly burn the whatever-cold-it-felt-like-I-was-coming-down-with out..I did not see our piggies for a couple days as someone else fed them. I cannot believe how much they have grown in 48 hours. We changed their bedding and added a new bale of straw and they loved us for it. They are such funny creatures. I now understand how my bf likes pigs. They are starting to talk to me now and the one female still likes to be scratched, especially behind her ears. I have not gotten her to fall over on her side again though. We save up all our vegetable and fruit scraps for them and they get goodies every day. Yesterday morning though, I just fed them grain and they looked at me like "Ummm.... WHERE IS OUR FOOD!".. they were quite miffed. I have a lawn chair up there now to watch them now on a sunny day. Last night, the house was being too 'man-ly" (translation = PHEW!!!), so I went outside to go ride my mare for the first time since the accident and instead my bf's horse, a nice huge paint gelding (the one on the Summer 2006 issue), started to talk to me and was closest.. so he was the one who was caught up and I rode him for the first time ever. MAN.. is that horse smooth.. soft mouth.. does what you ask him.. stayed in a trot the whole time I asked him. My bf is afraid I am going to steal his horse.. though it is tempting, I will keep my little mare. One of these days I will get back on her, hopefully next weekend as I have people to ride with. It is not that I am afraid to get back on her, if I was physically able I would have gotten back on her the next day, but I know my balance is not what it usually is and I do not want to be caught sitting light as she is a horse that jumps first and asks questions later.
Tomorrow we are going to pick alot of Saskatoon's and then work on a project for the Fall issue.. and NOPE.. it has nothing to do with the Saskatoons.. we are just going to grab materials for the project while we are out there. "Kid" is going to help me build them, as this project is for kids of all ages Goodnight everyone...
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
Cut some wonderful colours of lettuce for my bf's mom and took it fresh to her this morning. FINALLY got the last of the re-prints done and they are being sent off to be stapled and trimmed tomorrow.
Wednesday we are rearranging the 3-hole rabbit cage and putting it in a different part of the woodshed so we can start bringing in wood for winter.I do not remember if I mentioned we got our last batch of wine bottled. I bought another primary fermentor today so I can get a batch of beer, Saskatoon Wine and mead going. Though I actually am rare to drink alcohol, I am fun building stuff for others to enjoy. It give me something to do in the kitchen before the harvest comes in for me to start canning, drying and freezing. We had a pair of hawks eyeing the turkeys and chickens today. After the one turkey attack and 3 chickens AWOL (probably dead), no one went outside today as I was not home to watch the situation at all.
We seem to have a spare cat this evening. "Teenager" went to go get his gf's animals from the pound where they were being held as a emergency shelter as she was right in the evacuation zone from the wildfires. They brought the animals here to pick up her laundry (her family does not have a washer/dryer) and the cat got out of the cage and is out in the bush somewhere. We will keep an eye out for him. Hopefully we can catch him soon. I probably need to go get my gosling out of the greenhouse.. though the cat can not get in, it is not impossible that he could get in if he tried very hard.
Dinner tonight was some sort of pork sweet and sour with ALOT of red pepper flakes in it from my "Thai Hot" pepper plant I grew a year or so ago and brown rice.. it was HOT and delicious.. I got a little carried away with the pepper flakes.. THAT will certainly burn the whatever-cold-it-felt-like-I-was-coming-down-with out..I did not see our piggies for a couple days as someone else fed them. I cannot believe how much they have grown in 48 hours. We changed their bedding and added a new bale of straw and they loved us for it. They are such funny creatures. I now understand how my bf likes pigs. They are starting to talk to me now and the one female still likes to be scratched, especially behind her ears. I have not gotten her to fall over on her side again though. We save up all our vegetable and fruit scraps for them and they get goodies every day. Yesterday morning though, I just fed them grain and they looked at me like "Ummm.... WHERE IS OUR FOOD!".. they were quite miffed. I have a lawn chair up there now to watch them now on a sunny day. Last night, the house was being too 'man-ly" (translation = PHEW!!!), so I went outside to go ride my mare for the first time since the accident and instead my bf's horse, a nice huge paint gelding (the one on the Summer 2006 issue), started to talk to me and was closest.. so he was the one who was caught up and I rode him for the first time ever. MAN.. is that horse smooth.. soft mouth.. does what you ask him.. stayed in a trot the whole time I asked him. My bf is afraid I am going to steal his horse.. though it is tempting, I will keep my little mare. One of these days I will get back on her, hopefully next weekend as I have people to ride with. It is not that I am afraid to get back on her, if I was physically able I would have gotten back on her the next day, but I know my balance is not what it usually is and I do not want to be caught sitting light as she is a horse that jumps first and asks questions later.
Tomorrow we are going to pick alot of Saskatoon's and then work on a project for the Fall issue.. and NOPE.. it has nothing to do with the Saskatoons.. we are just going to grab materials for the project while we are out there. "Kid" is going to help me build them, as this project is for kids of all ages Goodnight everyone...
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
July 14, 2006
We are still toying with the idea of going off grid here and I just came across this interesting wind calculator. I do not know how well this calculator works yet, but thought it was noteworthy enough to pass along. It opens weird, but it works. Rain Rain Rain Rain here.. we went from one extreme to the other. We have running streams of water running down the driveway and 3 pools in the middle of my new lawn. THAT will be needing to be remedied and slope it down a tidge to the ravine.
I am taking it easy today. I can feel myself getting run down. I am chilled as well. I have entertained the idea of lighting a small fire in the woodstove, but my brain keeps thinking "But it is July!!".. still I am chilled and not keen on taking a bath until it warms up. I think I will drag out my hot water bottle though.
I am thinking on Chicken Cordon Bleu for dinner, but then I am also thinking on something different like Lemon & Almonds, but I also got this HOT & SPICY cookbook at the thrift shoppe yesterday that I may just poke into and see if there is anything exciting for dinner tonight. I think spicy is something which may warm me up. The garden is loving all this water and my Purple beans are blooming. Peas are ready to pick this week I think. Onions are growing great and I was a looser with not hilling my potatoes this year. We shall see what I get. My herbs are showboating however. I love my Basils!!
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
I am taking it easy today. I can feel myself getting run down. I am chilled as well. I have entertained the idea of lighting a small fire in the woodstove, but my brain keeps thinking "But it is July!!".. still I am chilled and not keen on taking a bath until it warms up. I think I will drag out my hot water bottle though.
I am thinking on Chicken Cordon Bleu for dinner, but then I am also thinking on something different like Lemon & Almonds, but I also got this HOT & SPICY cookbook at the thrift shoppe yesterday that I may just poke into and see if there is anything exciting for dinner tonight. I think spicy is something which may warm me up. The garden is loving all this water and my Purple beans are blooming. Peas are ready to pick this week I think. Onions are growing great and I was a looser with not hilling my potatoes this year. We shall see what I get. My herbs are showboating however. I love my Basils!!
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
July 12, 2006
I took some time for myself last evening, it has been a wild and crazy week and I wanted some quiet. When I went up to feed the piggies tonight, I set the 5 gallon bucket down and sat on it in the pig yard with them. I have not got to spend very much time with them since they have been here. They are funny little things.. well moderate sized now. After their initial horror of someone staying in their pen longer than just merely feeding them, they finally got curious and came to see me. One of the girls was brave enough to let me touch her and I started scratching behind her ears. As she got closer to me, she really appreciated her back being done, and then I started really scratching her side.. and she promptly forgot she had legs and fell over on her side. Then she came back for more ear scratching and when I refused, she started to root under my tennis shoe.. then the other pig started munching on my shoe.
None of the other ones would let me touch them however. One of the others makes a funny whooshing noise and then I think the one I was scratching did it as well.. kinda a slurping/whooshing noise.. so much for "OINK". Aren't pigs supposed to say "Oink"?Well, I am off to do the morning chores and then go and work on the magazine at my 'other office'.
Evening Update:
I am NOT happy with the Canadian Mail Service. A few more magazines have not shown up. I think if I am paying postage, no matter how large nor how small, they ought to be required to deliver it or track it down. I have to go to the Post Office again today to see what I can do about this. I am frustrated and getting mad.
In the good news category, it has rained each and every day. I am now cold each and every day, but we need this for the firefighters to get a handle on these wildfires. Animals are still moving around and my dogs were flipping out all night, but just as my bf was getting home last night, he saw our HUGE black bear "VW". We thought he had moved on as we have not seen him for some weeks. My bf was driving his pickup and almost hit him actually. I asked how large the beast was as we have been pretty far away from his thus far. My bf said that "VW" is well over the hood of his truck when he is on all 4's. At that size, I am not convinced he is a black bear, more like a dark Grizzly? I would think that my bf would know to look for the hump on his shoulders.
Got our first batch of wine bottled up last night. Yes, it will be in an upcoming issue at some point. Maybe in the winter issue. I was raised on a vineyard, but I have never gotten to do it all on my own from start to finish before. I was always 'serf labour' before. My family harvested 3-8 tons of grapes a year from our vineyard, but my father and my brother did all the 'scientific stuff'. I think it is odd that I make wine and liqueurs and things when I do not drink, but I am making it for friends and family. I thought I was odd until I went to get a couple supplies from a winemakers shoppe and when I mentioned that I do not drink to the owner, she said, she did not drink either, as she is diabetic. THAT I thought was interesting that the owner of a wine shoppe did not drink, whatever the reason. "Kid" is here and interested in the bottling of the wine, but as it requires a "GADGET".. he loved corking them. However on 'offtime' he was putting corks in the floor corker and shouting "FIRE!!" and the cork would go bouncing across the kitchen floor. HeheheheheSince I have been up since 4 am, I had better go get a little more sleep, I have alot to do today.Everyone have a good one!!
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
None of the other ones would let me touch them however. One of the others makes a funny whooshing noise and then I think the one I was scratching did it as well.. kinda a slurping/whooshing noise.. so much for "OINK". Aren't pigs supposed to say "Oink"?Well, I am off to do the morning chores and then go and work on the magazine at my 'other office'.
Evening Update:
I am NOT happy with the Canadian Mail Service. A few more magazines have not shown up. I think if I am paying postage, no matter how large nor how small, they ought to be required to deliver it or track it down. I have to go to the Post Office again today to see what I can do about this. I am frustrated and getting mad.
In the good news category, it has rained each and every day. I am now cold each and every day, but we need this for the firefighters to get a handle on these wildfires. Animals are still moving around and my dogs were flipping out all night, but just as my bf was getting home last night, he saw our HUGE black bear "VW". We thought he had moved on as we have not seen him for some weeks. My bf was driving his pickup and almost hit him actually. I asked how large the beast was as we have been pretty far away from his thus far. My bf said that "VW" is well over the hood of his truck when he is on all 4's. At that size, I am not convinced he is a black bear, more like a dark Grizzly? I would think that my bf would know to look for the hump on his shoulders.
Got our first batch of wine bottled up last night. Yes, it will be in an upcoming issue at some point. Maybe in the winter issue. I was raised on a vineyard, but I have never gotten to do it all on my own from start to finish before. I was always 'serf labour' before. My family harvested 3-8 tons of grapes a year from our vineyard, but my father and my brother did all the 'scientific stuff'. I think it is odd that I make wine and liqueurs and things when I do not drink, but I am making it for friends and family. I thought I was odd until I went to get a couple supplies from a winemakers shoppe and when I mentioned that I do not drink to the owner, she said, she did not drink either, as she is diabetic. THAT I thought was interesting that the owner of a wine shoppe did not drink, whatever the reason. "Kid" is here and interested in the bottling of the wine, but as it requires a "GADGET".. he loved corking them. However on 'offtime' he was putting corks in the floor corker and shouting "FIRE!!" and the cork would go bouncing across the kitchen floor. HeheheheheSince I have been up since 4 am, I had better go get a little more sleep, I have alot to do today.Everyone have a good one!!
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
July 11, 2006
I have been craving chinese food.. but to feed all of us, it is expensive, the chinese food here in town is just passable and they do not have Szechuan. Usually most chinese restraunts only have Cantonese style.I am going to make Kung Pao Chicken, Fried Rice and Steamed Pork Buns which I love and do not get very often at all, like every 5 years, so I am making them today.. and I thought I would share the recipe (and make sure I could find it again easily *wink*)
Steamed Pork Bun Dough
1 cup plain flour
1/2 Tbs baking powder
1 Tbs caster sugar
about 1/3 cup milk
1 tsp vinegara pinch of salt
Filling:
150g Chinese roast pork
finely diced
2 Tbs chopped spring onions
1/2 Tbs vegetable oil
1 Tbs hoisin sauce
1 Tbs oyster sauce
1 tsp caster sugar
2 tsp cornflour
2 Tbs cold water
Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl, stir in the sugar. Add milk mixed with
vinegar and knead to a fairly soft dough. Cover and rest for 1/2 an hour.Filling:Stir-fry the pork with the spring onions in the oil. Add the sauces and sugar, then thicken with cornflour mixed with water.
Divide dough into 10 - 12 portions and mould each one into a smooth ball. Roll out on a lightly floured surface to a 10 cm circle and moisten the edges slightly with water put a heaped teaspoonful of the filling in the centre of the circle and gather the edges together folding and pleating to make a neat join. Twist dough to seal. Place each bun, join-side up on a small square of greaseproof paper Place in a bamboo steamer, not too close and steam for 10 - 15 minutes (adding a little vinegar to the water will help to keep the buns white).
Serve warm.
I do not have bamboo steamers anymore, but I do have an electric one.. so I will be using that tonight.. and probably my breadmaker to knead the dough. Let me know if anyone else makes this and how it turned out. I have used a recipe similar to this, though I have not used this one before.
Evening Update:
I just got done with a chicken head count to see what the chick order brought us, now that they are feathered out well and getting combs..
17 Plymouth Barred Rock Roosters
10 Plymouth Barred Rock Hens
4 Dark Brahma Roosters
5 Dark Brahma Hens
3 Rhode Island Red
Rhode Island Red Hens
Which means I am missing 2 Dark Brahma and 1 Rhode Island Red. I have no clue where they are or when they disappeared. I am presuming predators got them or they somehow managed to clear the 7 ft fence.
So for our Fall butchering for chickens, 19 will go in the freezer. I am a little upset where those 2 other Dark Brahmas went. If the hens are laying well in August, I think I will set some and get a December butchering as well.
Once again it poured this morning and just a second ago when I went out to do the chicken count and move the goat. We really needed the rain the clouds have brought the last couple of days.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
Steamed Pork Bun Dough
1 cup plain flour
1/2 Tbs baking powder
1 Tbs caster sugar
about 1/3 cup milk
1 tsp vinegara pinch of salt
Filling:
150g Chinese roast pork
finely diced
2 Tbs chopped spring onions
1/2 Tbs vegetable oil
1 Tbs hoisin sauce
1 Tbs oyster sauce
1 tsp caster sugar
2 tsp cornflour
2 Tbs cold water
Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl, stir in the sugar. Add milk mixed with
vinegar and knead to a fairly soft dough. Cover and rest for 1/2 an hour.Filling:Stir-fry the pork with the spring onions in the oil. Add the sauces and sugar, then thicken with cornflour mixed with water.
Divide dough into 10 - 12 portions and mould each one into a smooth ball. Roll out on a lightly floured surface to a 10 cm circle and moisten the edges slightly with water put a heaped teaspoonful of the filling in the centre of the circle and gather the edges together folding and pleating to make a neat join. Twist dough to seal. Place each bun, join-side up on a small square of greaseproof paper Place in a bamboo steamer, not too close and steam for 10 - 15 minutes (adding a little vinegar to the water will help to keep the buns white).
Serve warm.
I do not have bamboo steamers anymore, but I do have an electric one.. so I will be using that tonight.. and probably my breadmaker to knead the dough. Let me know if anyone else makes this and how it turned out. I have used a recipe similar to this, though I have not used this one before.
Evening Update:
I just got done with a chicken head count to see what the chick order brought us, now that they are feathered out well and getting combs..
17 Plymouth Barred Rock Roosters
10 Plymouth Barred Rock Hens
4 Dark Brahma Roosters
5 Dark Brahma Hens
3 Rhode Island Red
Rhode Island Red Hens
Which means I am missing 2 Dark Brahma and 1 Rhode Island Red. I have no clue where they are or when they disappeared. I am presuming predators got them or they somehow managed to clear the 7 ft fence.
So for our Fall butchering for chickens, 19 will go in the freezer. I am a little upset where those 2 other Dark Brahmas went. If the hens are laying well in August, I think I will set some and get a December butchering as well.
Once again it poured this morning and just a second ago when I went out to do the chicken count and move the goat. We really needed the rain the clouds have brought the last couple of days.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
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