The Book Lady Online

LIttle Cabin Update

2011-09-22T07:28:00.000-05:00

I have such respect for those moms of the past who had no choice but to harvest and put up all of their family's food, no matter what obstacles were in their way (like a baby trying to walk and getting into EVERYTHING). Learning to produce some of our family's food and cooking from scratch and preserving much of it from farmer's markets while we have a baby in the house has been a real eye opener. We managed to accomplish a lot, but I am so thankful that we do not have to depend on what we were able to put away, because, while it was better than nothing, it was woefully inadequate for our family's needs. We froze or dehydrated many gallons of berries and figs, several gallons of squash and many quarts of other veggies. We also canned lots of salsa, tomato juice, figs and a few jars of various pickled veggies.

We have reached the one year mark on our hen's egg production and our girls are still laying well. We had a few weeks this summer when we were getting fewer eggs because we had a broody hen who was hoarding the eggs and sitting on any she saw, including all newly laid eggs. We handled the situation by sending her to live with my Dad's hens. She is doing very well there and has not tried to sit on eggs since her move. Our new hens are beginning to lay. We are finding pullet eggs in the laying box. So fun :) Our plans for chickens next spring include raising a meat flock and maybe trying our hand a turkeys as well.

Our peas are almost done producing as are the tomatoes. We put in lettuce a few weeks ago and that is growing well. I am behind on planting the spinach, kale and beets. I need to do that today.

Vocabulary Spelling City

2011-09-21T06:54:00.000-05:00

I've been given a premium membership to VocabularySpellingCity.com for a candid, personal, online review.

VocabularySpellingCity.com helps students study word lists using 25 different learning activities such as Crossword Puzzle, HangMan, and Handwriting Worksheets. Parents can create their own spelling lists, find published lists already available on the site, or use any of dozens of free teaching resources such as sound-alike words, and contractions. Be sure to come back in three weeks to read about my experience.

There might be more free memberships available for bloggers. If you're interested, find out how you can review VocabularySpellingCity.com.

Time4Learning Review

2011-09-01T05:20:00.002-05:00

Last month, our family was invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid curriculum review. Time4Learning can be used as an online homeschooling program or afterschool tutorial. We chose to use it for one month as a supplement to our homeschooling program. I am pleased to be able to offer this review of Time4Learning.

I'm not sure why, but until this opportunity, I had never considered using an online homeschool program. I suppose maybe I was a little biased against using the computer for teaching, thinking that my children would not learn as well if there was not a live teacher planning and implementing the lessons. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my children (both boys) have absolutely loved Time4Learning and have learned and retained so much.

I have always had a challenge with getting my children to dig in and work on phonics, grammar and math, the basic building blocks of learning. They knew enough to get by, but really didn't like any of the programs or methods we had used for learning these things. For them, school should be about science, history, art and creative writing. This last month has been such a blessing because my children have actually looked forward to practicing reading, math and grammar on Time4Learning.

Time4Learning teaches using interactive flash based animation. A concept is explained, examples are shown and then the child is given the opportunity to try out some examples. Following the lesson, the child is usually given a game to play which is designed to reinforce the lesson. The lessons are well designed and my children enjoyed them very much. My children also really enjoyed the games that go along with the lesson. In fact, as I watched them working on their lessons, I too found myself drawn into the games. They are well thought out and fun while still being challenging enough to satisfy my desire for my children to learn. At the end of each learning module, there is a quiz to test learning. The results of these quizzes are available to the parents, as are the times and lengths of the child's log in and the lessons covered.

This last month, we used the Language Arts, Language Arts Extension and Math modules. We did not use Science or Social Studies modules during this free trial period as we already use both science and history programs that we love. We are going to continue using Time4Learning in our homeschool now that our free trial is over and I would like to try these two modules at some point. Though we did not use them, I did look them over and I think that the science module in particular could bring up some interesting topics for my children. In addition to the online lessons, Time4Learning also includes a supply list for science activities. We did not try any of these during our month, but I intend to try some in the coming months. When we do I would like to try to post something about them.

Having never used an online curriculum before, I was not sure what to expect in terms of technical issues. When we log on to Time4Learning, a new window pops up. We then have to click on a link in that window and it takes us to that child's lessons. The pop up windows were a bit confusing at first, especially to my children, but after a few days, they got used to it and figured things out, though there was some frustration before we figured things out. We used two different computers, one for each child, and found that on one of our computers, Time4Learning worked great on Mozilla browser, but on the other, we had problems with Mozilla and but it works better on Explorer. On thing we love about Time4Learning is that as a lessons and games are completed, the program keeps track of where the child is in the work. Some of the lesson modules are long, with several parts. I love that Time4Learning keeps track of where my children are in their work so that if they stop or are interrupted, it is easy for them to find their place again.

Time4Learning has offers parent reports so that you can track your students' work, tech support so that you can get help with computer issues and a parent's forum to connect with other parents. Also available is something called the playground which is a fun games area of the website. Parents can set required lesson time (this month, I had the children do a minimum of 30 minutes in lessons) and after that time is completed, the children can then play games on the playground for a specified period of time, also at the parents' discretion (I set this time at 20 minutes). Some of these games are arcade type games, but others are learning games and my children have deemed them all fun.

As I mentioned previously, we have decided to continue using Time4Learning in our homeschool. We had a baby in January. Having part of our schooling planned and taught by someone else has been a blessing and this has freed my time up to work on even more amazing science, art and history lessons. When I told my children that I had decided to continue with Time4Learning both boys were thrilled. Thank you, Time4Learning, for this opportunity to try and review your site.

If you are a Time4Learning member and would like to add anything, please feel free to comment. If you are interested in Time4Learning and have a question, please include it in the comments. I will do my best to answer all questions.

Time4Learning

2011-08-01T07:26:00.001-05:00

I've been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid curriculum review. Time4Learning can be used as an online homeschooling program or afterschool tutorial. Be sure to come back and read about my experience.

Truely Blessed

2011-07-16T15:12:00.003-05:00

Fig preserves. In the back you can see salsa and tomato juice.

This summer has been a blur of visitors and food preservation. How blessed we are to have such wonderful friends and family to visit. With the exception of a few days, we've had visitors all summer. Boy does that ever help to chase away our homesickness. Our home feels so full (in a good way). In addition to being able to visit with and cook for, we've also been able to bring lots of our family and friends to our farmers market and introduce them to the idea of local food. So exciting.

We have also been blessed many times by our neighbors who have shared with us the abundance from their gardens. We've been blessed with tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, squash (by the truckload, it seems :), blueberries (literally by the gallon) and this week figs (25 pounds yesterday, plus another 15 pounds last week that we made into preserves to share with our extended family). We have been preserving this blessing as quickly as we can. Most days find the dehydrator going all day. We have veggies for soup, lots of tomatoes, figs, peppers both hot and sweet, potatoes and blueberries all dehydrated and ready to be used in the off season (mmmmm . . . dried blueberries in oatmeal - I can almost taste it now).

We've also frozen lots of fruits (peaches, blueberries, a few strawberries and some figs) and veggies (squash, zucchini, corn and even pesto). The fruit we will use in smoothies, pancakes and pies. The veggies will be used mostly as side dishes.

And it seems that at least a few times a week, we've been firing up the water bath canner to preserve something in canning jars. So far its been mostly the same thing over and over, but I'm grateful because it is stuff we eat a lot of and will need many jars of in the off seasons. We've made peach syrup, salsa - lots and lots of salsa, garden tomato juice (like V-8) and fig preserves. Once we take care of all of these figs we were given, I'm hoping to put up some more salsa and some tomato sauce/ puree. Then we are going to get to work on making some pickles. We've also been offered some pears (they are not yet ready to harvest) and hope to make pear sauce out of what we don't eat fresh. It is comforting to know that we have some locally grown and home preserved foods set aside for the time when there is less fresh produce available at the market or from the garden.

And speaking of gardens, my little garden is growing nicely. We have been able to harvest several cucumbers and yellow pear tomatoes and the peas are growing quite nicely. I think they will begin flowering soon. It has been fun having our garden survive to harvest :)

The chickens are still laying well, even in the heat. We are still getting an average of about 9 eggs each day. It has been such a blessing to have eggs to share with those who share their garden produce with us and to send home with our guests.

Making Salsa

2011-06-28T14:05:00.000-05:00

On Thursday of last week, we picked up 25 lbs of tomatoes from a farmer at the market and used some to make salsa.

We made two batches, 11 pints in all. The rest of the tomatoes are going to become juice. Canning season has begun :)

Garden/ Chicken Update June 2011

2011-06-26T13:50:00.005-05:00

I can hardly believe it! My very small garden is still alive and is producing veggies!! I know that I am inviting disaster by writing those words, but I can't help it - I'm that excited!! We have tomatoes and cucumbers on the vine and purple hull peas are growing well. The lone strawberry plant that survived the winter is trying valiantly to produce berries. About a month ago, the neighborhood dogs tore out our potato plants (they are why I am cautiously optimistic about the garden). The plants had been growing for about 6 weeks. I assumed that there were no potatoes, but when I dug more compost into the bed, we found a few pounds of new potatoes. Pretty exciting to me :) The fruit trees are doing well. We have an orange and a lemon tree, both which have fruit growing on them. The fig trees have no figs on them this year. Thankfully, we have a another source of figs for this year's preserves.

The chickens are doing really well. We have only one rooster and we've lost a few hens to the dogs, so we have 11 laying hens and 6 new chickens (they are about 3 months old). We get approximately 9 eggs per day, which is plenty for us to use and allows us some to share with our neighbors, friends and family. The new chickens should begin laying around the time the laying flock molts, which is great because then we should be able to keep getting eggs.

Harvested so far this month:
Eggs: 234
Cucumbers: 1
Potatoes: 2 lbs

Farmer's Market 6-18 & 6-23 - Playing Catch Up

2011-06-25T20:17:00.008-05:00

This summer is a blur of visitors and we are enjoying it so much. I think we have visitors scheduled every week but one through the start of school in August. What fun! We are managing to get most of our "groceries" from the farmers market and we are also getting a lot of food put up which makes me happy. I love that our fall and winter meals will include some local foods that we are getting from farmers right now.

Last week we were given lots of squash and we dehydrated a good bit of it along with carrots, peppers, and tomatoes from the market to keep as a soup mix. We plan to add it to a crock pot full of our chicken stock in the winter and enjoy local veggie soup. We also dehydrated lots of tomatoes for snacking (we eat them like chips - yum!!) and for pizzas later, and we made blueberry "raisins". We are over run with peaches and squash this week, so I'm thinking peach leather and more dehydrated squash.

Last week from the market, we got, clockwise from top left: Personal watermelons, a big watermelon (one of the BEST I've ever tasted), blueberries, cantaloupe, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, peaches, squash, cucumbers (with reddish brown skins), another cantaloupe, basil, zucchini, carrots and not pictured, milk. We enjoyed lots of it fresh and dehydrated or froze some.

On Thursday, a neighbor came over and brought us the lovely veggies pictured above. The tomatoes and peppers became salsa and the squash is in the dehydrator right now. The cucumbers are being enjoyed with meals.

We've been up to a lot at the little cabin. I'll try to post more soon :)

Farmer's Market and Menu Plan

2011-06-13T05:32:00.003-05:00

For the last year or so, I have been going to the farmer's market without my older children. It was a nice chance to have some quiet time, plus they had lost interest in a lot of the process of shopping for food and preferred to hang out at home and have some "Dad time". With watermelon coming in to season and me having to shop with the baby, it was either one of them come with me or we have no watermelon . . . so my oldest came with me and, as it turned out, enjoyed himself :)

Most of the above photo contains our farmer's market purchases, though the dairy and seafood (!!!) is not pictured (milk and mozzarella, fresh water prawns and catfish) and the items in the front right corner come from our wonderful neighbor's garden. From top left, clockwise: Cucumber, blackberries, basil (in the baggie), tomatoes, round zucchini, individual sized watermelon, green bell peppers, onions, blueberries, cantaloupe, watermelon, more onions, garlic and potatoes (in the bowl), squash, cucumbers, banana peppers (all three from our neighbor), and peaches. We also bought another fig tree. When we couple these items with the chicken and beef we have in our freezer from past farmer's markets and a few other items with have stored up, there are many meal options. Here is what I've come up with so far (local items are in bold):

Roasted Veggie Omelet - (eggs from our hens, butter, onions, squash, zucchini) with tomato and cucumber salad.

Pesto Chicken Sandwich on homemade foccacia bread - (basil, olive oil, walnuts, Parmesan cheese; chicken, tomatoes, mozzarella) with cantaloupe

Roasted Chicken, squash/ zucchini pasta (cooked pasta, sauted onions and zucchini or squash, butter, basil, Parmesan cheese), peaches

Stuffed Zucchini (ground beef, onions, butter, squash, bread crumbs, salt, pepper, cheese), blueberries

Burgers, browned potatoes, caramelized onions, watermelon

Spaghetti with meat sauce, bread sticks, steamed broccoli (we can't go without broccoli, even if it is not in season or local - oldest ds loves it), cantaloupe

Stuffed Green Peppers (onions, peppers, some of the prawns, rice, butter, some sort of thickener - probably corn starch - for a binder, cheese), peaches

We are also planning to use some of our peaches and blueberries for smoothies. In addition, we have family coming in today and they are bringing tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini from the garden. We will make salsa for snacking (not enough to can) with some of it (using our peppers and onions and some store bought cilantro). I also envision blueberry smoothies in our future.

It is so exciting to be in the early days of summer with so much available to us from local growers. At the market over the weekend, we were told that plums and figs will soon be available. We love these both for eating fresh and also for preserving. Can't wait!! In addition, we have made arrangements to buy "canner" tomatoes from a farmer so that we can put up salsa, spaghetti sauce and tomato puree. We also have blueberries and blackberries in the freezer that are destined to become syrup this week. I used to put up jam, but we don't really eat much jam here. Syrup, I think, will work better (we've already used up all the peach syrup I made a few weeks ago - we use it on pancakes and waffles, plus we use it in yogurt).

What's on your menu this week?

I am submitting this to Menu Plan Monday at Organizing Junkie.

Farmers Market: May 21, 2011

2011-05-21T12:12:00.003-05:00

Have I mentioned that I LOVE our farmers market? This was our haul for the week. Clockwise from top left: Milk (seven others not pictured), canataloupe, cornmeal (yes, its local!!), peaches approx. 10 lbs.), sweet onions, yukon gold and red potatoes, butter (wrapped in paper at the bottom), purple broccoli, purple onions, more red potatoes, squash, carrots, English cucumbers, blackberries, black and green olive hummus. Not pictured: several whole chickens.

When I got home from the market, we had eggs (from our hens) cooked in butter with potatoes and onions, blackberries and peaches.

Tonight, we are going to have leftover chicken from last weeks market with broccoli and caramelized onions and squash.

I LOVE the farmers market!!

New Chicks

2011-05-19T16:54:00.002-05:00

It seems that all chicken raisers are destined to have some loss. Since we got our first chicks last April, we have lost 5 hens, including one we lost this week. Because I am sure we will lose more before next spring, I thought it prudent to add a few to the flock. We were able to get six 6 week olds from the farm store today. They will begin laying sometime in late September, right around the time our current layers begin molting. Hopefully that will mean we continue to get some eggs this fall and winter.

Food Choices and Chronic Disease

2011-05-18T09:00:00.001-05:00

There are so many reasons that our family seeks to eat "against the grain" so to speak (non processed, locally raised, pastured and hormone free meat, etc). Supporting local farmers, food security, wanting better living conditions for food animals, concern over GMOs and all the antibiotics and hormones, are all important reasons to seek out better food, as is superior taste and nutrient profile. However, one very compelling reason to seek out better food is the link between an industrial food diet and chronic disease.

I think I've mentioned before that my Mom has Alzheimer's disease. When we were confronted with the undeniable reality that something was not right with Mom, we sought out help from a neurologist. The medication given by this doctor has helped to slow down the progression of her disease, and for this we are very grateful. But as time has gone by, we've begun to really be struck by the fact that we were simply treating symptoms and not addressing the underlying causes of her disease. Since no one really knows what causes someone to get Alzheimer's disease, addressing the causes becomes a guessing game.

We decided to have Mom see (in addition to her neurologist) another doctor, who treats not only symptoms but also the whole person. This doctor ran many extensive (but not expensive) tests and discovered that Mom has many deficiencies, both vitamin and mineral, as well as the fact that her digestive system was not working properly. In addition to an intestinal yeast infection, Mom was not producing enough stomach acid to properly digest her food and was lacking intestinal flora which are necessary for proper digestion and nutrient absorption. She had been slowly losing weight for the last 6 years. That information from this doctor has helped explain the weight loss.

This doctor has Mom on some supplements and is treating her digestive issues with diet. They are ridding her of the yeast infection by cutting out sugar and bread (for now) and by adding probiotics, both in supplement form and through daily servings of unsweetened yogurt. The great thing is that she can do all of this while still taking the medication from her neurologist. One does not cancel out the other. She has been on the new diet/ supplements for a little over a month, and though we are not seeing a cognitive improvement, we are definitely seeing a digestive improvement. She saw her doctor last week and for the first time in 6 years, has not lost weight between appointments!!

We can't help but wonder if there is not some connection between Mom's lifelong processed food diet and her disease (she avoids vegetables as much as possible and loves processed carbs - She is happiest eating a packaged orange cranberry muffin and truly has always believed it to be health food). There seems to be evidence that Alzheimer's is at least in part associated with a lack of nutrition in the brain. In some circles it is called diabetes of the brain because these doctors believe the brain of Alzheimer's patients is actually starving much like the cells of a diabetic. We don't have delusions that Mom will somehow be cured by a better diet and supplements, but we do know that she will feel better with proper nutrition. And we also know that by us avoiding industrial food (even if that is not the cause of Mom's condition - though I believe it is) and seeking nutrient dense real food, we can stack the deck in our favor and hopefully avoid this horrible disease for us and for our children.

Menu Plan Monday: May 16, 2011

2011-05-16T09:00:00.001-05:00

I love posting our menu plan on my blog because for some reason, it helps me stay on track. I have not posted our menu in months, mostly because of pregnancy then a new baby. I had a few minutes today and decided to put up our menu for this week. I hope I can start doing this more regularly.

As a family, we seek out hormone and antibiotic free, pasture raised or wild caught meat, eggs and dairy. We also attempt to avoid processed food and make our own from local sources. All local items will be in bold.

Breakfast (will repeat):

*Yogurt (homemade, from local milk) with fruit (strawberries, blueberries, blackberries or peaches) or maple syrup
*Smoothies (yogurt, strawberries, blueberries, banana, orange juice)
*Eggs and grits (local butter)
*French Toast (homemade bread, milk and eggs from our hens) topped with yogurt and preserves

Lunch (will repeat):

Egg Salad Sandwiches, carrots and cucumbers
Chicken Salad Sandwiches, cole slaw,
Peanut Butter and Honey Sandwiches, applesauce
Leftovers

Dinner:

*Crockpot Black Eyed Pea Soup (homemade chicken stock from pastured chicken), Homemade pickles or dilly beans (which ever my Mom wants - they are visiting)

*Hamburger Steak with caramelized onions and pan fried potatoes, side salad (local cucumbers)

*Pan Fried Fish (**hopefully** - the boys are planning to supply the main dish for dinner one night this week from our pond), caramelized onions and yellow squash, sweet potatoes

* Broccoli and Cheese Soup (broccoli from local farmer, chicken stock, homemade from pastured local chicken), sandwich or salad on the side

* Easy Broccoli & Beef, rice, smoothie

*Pizza with add your own toppings (will try to use up leftovers)

*Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, caramelized onions, cole slaw or cooked cabbage (depends on what we feel like having)

Locally Sourced Meats

2011-05-15T21:00:00.001-05:00

We are so blessed to have farmers near us that raise pastured poultry, grass fed beef and grass fed lamb. We also have a source for local shrimp, but not one for fish. Well, not until a few weeks ago. That's when we decided to see if we did, as promised, have stocked pond on our property.

We DO!! The boys caught several fish including bass and brim.

("I caught you a delicious bass." Points if you can identify that movie quote.)

My parents were visiting at the time, so N and my Dad cleaned them and we cooked them for dinner. Absolutely delicious!

My boys like fish, but I have never seen them eat so enthusiastically. We don't want to over fish the pond, so we are going to keep our fishing down to once a month or so. Since it has been a month, we are going to try again to catch dinner this week. Wish us luck :)

Farmers Market: May 14, 2011

2011-05-14T21:17:00.005-05:00

The market is offering better variety as the weeks go by. Today, I came home with everything in the picture as well as chicken, beef and milk. Clockwise from the left, we got bulb onions, peaches, purple broccoli, English cucumbers, red and Yukon gold potatoes and yellow squash.

Today everything we ate was local. In fact, the only thing consumed in our house that was not local was our coffee, and I soon hope to start getting it at the market as well, as we have a local coffee roaster at the market now. We had only two meals today, brunch and dinner. For brunch we had eggs from our hens cooked in butter from the market. On the side we had caramelized onions and yellow squash, also cooked in butter from the market. For dinner, we had hamburger patties with more caramelized onions (we could eat them with a spoon 3 times a day - we LOVE them!!), pan fried potatoes and peaches for dessert. Lately, we are finding it easier to have at least one meal per day and portions of the rest of our meals sourced from local growers or producers.

I am hoping that next week I can start buying from the market in quantities large enough to begin preserving. I want to start with peaches and yellow squash, prepping both for the freezer. Last year we had 12 quarts of yellow squash in the freezer and 6 quarts of peaches. We could easily double the amount of both, as we use the peaches in smoothies and the squash in soup and also to caramelize. I have already started dehydrating potatoes and have a quart jar filled with them. I plan to try dehydrating some onions at the end of the week if we have any left.

Are you preserving anything in your kitchen?

Farmer's Market Finds This Week

2011-05-08T18:11:00.004-05:00

Oh how I love our farmers market!! We are blessed with so many wonderful farmers, many of whom grow or raise "no spray" and "no hormones/ antibiotics". This week at the market, I literally could have used a shopping cart. I doubt I will need anything at the grocery store this week, except maybe one or two fresh fruit items, and only if we get desperate.

If you remember, last season we were getting in season veggies and fruit from the market as well as pastured heritage chicken, grass fed beef and lamb, goat milk and cheese (mmmm . . . feta!!) and on occasion seafood (mostly shrimp). This season, there are more wonderful farmers at our market including another poultry farmer and a dairy!! Yes, we can now get cow's milk, cheese, butter, cream and even cheesecake at our market!! I am so excited!!

This week we came home from the market with veggies, like squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, cabbage, and a beautiful purple broccoli. My kids pronounced the broccoli the best they have ever tasted, and that is saying a lot since they are broccoli lovers. We also came home with part of our spring beef order, some pastured chicken, milk, cream and butter. I was a little too late in arriving to get strawberries, potatoes and garlic, as the growers had already sold out of these items. Maybe next week :)

This is a picture of the reson I only manage to blog once a month.

And this . . . is baby feet :)

Hoarding?

2011-04-05T16:10:00.003-05:00

So, we've been a bit disappointed with the hens' output of eggs these last few months. Some of it, we knew was due to the shorter days, however, as the days grew longer, their output did not really increase. We were stumped. Why were 12 hens only laying 4 eggs per day on average?

I'll tell you why. Those girls were hoarding their eggs, lol!! They had been laying a few each day in the laying boxes and the rest were being laid on the ground, and then covered with hay. When we discovered their hoard, they had amassed 90 eggs!! Since no one was sitting on the eggs, they were not growing chicks, unfortunately. Now that we know their secret, we can prevent them from doing it again. We are now getting between 10 and 11 eggs per day; enough for our needs, to share with neighbors and even for a customer :)

Our flock has changed some in the last few months. We have lost 4 hens to the neighborhood dogs (including one to our dog) and we are getting rid of some of our roosters (2 down, one to go). That will leave us with 12 hens and a rooster. For now, that will work out fine for our needs.

More updates coming soon.

Homemade Chewy Granola Bars - Our Favorite Recipe

2011-03-14T05:10:00.002-05:00

One of my husband's favorite snacks for work are granola bars. They are portable, easy to snack on and calorie and nutrient dense. The kiddos love them, too. But with three guys in the house that love snacking, granola bars can get to be an expensive luxury if store bought. I've searched for years for a recipe that works for us, and finally, a few weeks ago, found one at the blog An Oregon Cottage. It is tasty, but not too sweet, and the bars stay together when cut (the biggest problem we've had with homemade granola bars). They can also be made with mostly local ingredients, which is important to us. The only problem I have with these bars is that my family eats them even faster than store bought bars. We are making some today, and I plan to put half in the freezer right away so that I can hopefully use them for hubby's lunches this week. I'll try to take some pics.

Check out the recipe at An Oregon Cottage.

Homestead Baby Steps

2011-03-03T17:38:00.003-06:00

I consider food preservation to be part of my homesteading adventure, so the banana chips currently in the dehydrator count as a baby step, at least in my mind ;) In addition, I was able to get some seed potatoes into the ground today, fourteen in all. The sprouted beans were ready today, so I fed them to the chickens who loved them. Success!! Outside of those three things, I did not accomplish much today. It was a day of itty bitty baby steps, and I'm okay with that.

Homesteading Baby Steps - Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

2011-03-02T14:04:00.003-06:00

As the titles of this post suggests, I have a lot of excuses for why I didn't accomplish much or post much for the last several days. First, the big boys spent all day Saturday and Saturday night with friends, so hubby and I and baby Evan spent the time just enjoying each other and our home. It was like a mini vacation and though unproductive, really recharged me. Sunday, after Mass, we picked up the boys and came home to greet my parents who were here for a visit. They stayed until yesterday, and when they left, offered my big boys the chance to go back with them, which they did. I knew my big boys were a huge help, but honestly, I am shocked at how much I depend on them every day to get things done. Wow!! Thankfully, they are coming back soon. :)

Still, with all these excuses, we still did manage to accomplish a few things from my list and many things not from my list .

1. We got some compost started again. Using a wooden frame we had here, we added some grass clippings (we planted rye on the property this winter), crushed leaves and rotting hay from the chicken run (which includes lots of chicken droppings) plus some of last year's compost. We wet it well and now it just needs to be turned and watered regularly. Temperatures here have been in the 70-80 every day, so we should have usable compost in a few weeks.

2. Chicken coop makeover baby steps have begun. We need to be able to access the eggs and food/ water containers from outside the coop/ run as well as need to repair the netting on top of the run. The first step to making the eggs accessible from outside the coop is to "renovate" the laying boxes. Baby steps we've accomplished in this renovation include removing one set of boxes and removing the back from it. I have hinges and a locking closure that I just need to add to the back to make a door before we can put the "legs" on it and then put it back into the run. I think I will be able to do this even without the big boys here to help with baby Evan, since I can work on it while he is in his sling (I hope, anyway).

3. I've begun collecting containers for indoor growing of micro greens. I plan to start some seeds today or tomorrow. We have also started some sprouts, including some bean sprouts for the chickens. This experiment is part of our investigation into a more natural and sustainable diet for the hens. We will also plant some squash this season just for the chickens, since they love it so much

4. We will be planting some of our garden on my parent's farm this year. They have agreed to water, harvest and store it in their freezer between our visits in exchange for us preserving it and sharing with them. We will also grow a lot of field peas, freezing some for people (us and my folks) and drying some for their hens and some for ours. I am excited about our arrangement!!

The lettuce we planted last week is up. If the nice weather continues, we should have true leaves soon. We have one part of our property, near the house, that gets good sunlight year round. It is getting some parsley and basil plants plus onion sets this afternoon.

Not on my list of things to do, but accomplished none the less, has been a lot of cooking for the freezer, and experimenting with homemade versions of snacks my family enjoys. We have lasagna, meatballs, meatloaf, burger patties, chicken stock, diced chicken, pancakes and cookies in the freezer ready to heat and eat. We also started making yogurt and granola again. Yum!! If time permits, I hope to post some recipes soon. We have also done a lot of decluttering, which feels great. I just love the way getting rid of stuff makes you feel so light :)

Homestead Baby Steps

2011-02-25T15:46:00.004-06:00

I started a list yesterday of things we need to do around the cabin to help it become more of a homestead. To help me remain accountable, I will post updates, hopefully daily or every few days, as we accomplish things on our list.

I have accomplished one thing on yesterday's list. I began planting cool weather seeds again. I just planted a 4X4 foot bed of lettuce and today will plant one with spinach seeds. I will take picture if/ when things start growing. Also, I have come up with a relatively inexpensive plan for the compost bins. Only time will tell if this actually works, but I am hopeful. In addition, since the hens are laying better again, we have begun sharing our eggs with our neighbors again. I am so excited to be able to to this again, as our neighbors are so wonderful and have been so generous in sharing their time and their garden surplus with us in the past.

But, as I complete things on the list, I find that there are many things to add to the list. I'm afraid that it will soon be much longer :) It will be important for me to focus on the baby steps if I am going to keep from becoming so overwhelmed that I just give up.

A Sense of Urgency

2011-02-24T06:15:00.002-06:00

Four years ago, when I began seeking to explore local food supplies and self sufficiency, one of my goals was to acquire land and begin growing/ raising our own food in a more deliberate way. Country living had always been on my heart, but at that point it began to be more about sustenance and less about scenery. Last year, we saw that dream begin to become reality when we moved to our little cabin in the woods. We love our little cabin, and in many ways it is meeting our food growing/ raising needs, but in other ways, it is falling very short.

Our cabin is a hunter's paradise. Too bad, we are just beginning hunters - experience would surely help us to have more success. It is also a nice place to raise some livestock. Our chickens are doing well and I could see adding a few more things such as ducks and fish (we have a pond) and maybe goats (lots of scrub), but anything requiring pasture, such as cattle, sheep and turkeys, is probably out.

The other problem we have with growing our own is lack of sunlight. We are literally IN the woods, so we get no sunlight from mid March to mid October. Fall/ Winter crops grow fine here, and once we have better fencing, I think we will have success in those seasons, but unless we can find a way to increase our sunlight, spring/ summer crops will fail here.

I am beginning to feel a sense of urgency in becoming more self sufficient. The world seems to be changing very quickly and it has me nervous. It could just be post pregnancy hormones or something, but I am becoming increasingly concerned about being able to feed my family. Food and gas prices seem to be rising daily and I am beginning to see empty shelves in the grocery store. We had been, as a family, transitioning away from the grocery store for a few years and over to farmer's markets and raising our own, that is, until last year when I became pregnant and spent those months so sick and so exhausted. Now that our little man is here, it is time to get serious about building our homestead. Here is a list of the things we are going to be working on in the coming weeks.

1. Repair/ renovate the chicken coop and run. The cold, rain and ice were really hard on the chickens' home. Much of the safety netting is torn and needs to be replaced. We also want to add a pitched roof to the run so that when we cover it next winter, rain does not pool in the tarp and tear the netting. First on the agenda with the coop, after replacing the torn netting, is to make the laying boxes accessible from the outside. The roosters are becoming increasingly aggressive with my husband and the boys and I think it would be safer as well as simpler to be able to get to the eggs from outside the chicken run. This would also be safer for the chickens, since there is a chance of them getting out every time we open the door. In fact, last week, two of them got out and we were not able to catch them or coax them back into the run, and the neighborhood dogs got them both.

2. Build a stronger fence around the garden. I am afraid we will need cattle fencing around the garden in order to keep the dogs out. For some reason, the neighborhood dogs enjoy digging up some of my plants and sitting on and crushing the rest of them. A stronger fence may keep them out.

3. Plant some fruiting trees and bushes. We have a small area on our property near the road that gets sunlight. We will be planting some fruit trees and berry bushes along the tree line in the coming weeks.

4. Repair the compost bins. The dogs destroyed the compost bins and scattered the compost all over the woods. I think we will have to make the bins out of wood and hope they survive the canine assault.

5. Remove some of the smaller trees on the property. Many of the shade producing trees are huge and much to big for us to remove ourselves. Since tree removal is expensive, we will only be removing the two that are near the house and that I feel are in danger of falling in the next few years. I do feel confident in removing the smaller trees, though. In fact, the boys and I removed many of them last year and cut them up for firewood. We plan to continue doing that this year.

6. Investigate indoor growing. We grew micro-greens indoors last year with some success. I would like to do that again. We also have everything we would need to grow sprout, except the seeds. I need to find a source for seeds. Anyone have a suggestion?

7. Get something into the ground outside. I plan to get some seeds into the ground, even before the new fencing is up. Lettuce and snow peas, as well as carrots and spinach are on my list right now. I hope we will see these last till harvest.

How about you? Are you feeling a sense of urgency about things lately? What are you doing around your home in terms of growing or raising food? Have you made any changes to your shopping habits?

Feels Like Spring - Little Cabin Update

2011-02-21T06:03:00.005-06:00

This past week we experienced many days of warm sun on our faces. What a joy after an unusually cold, snowy, wet winter. After such a dry summer (not a drop of rain for 9 weeks), we certainly welcomed the rain, but its continued presence for 3 months insured that we spent the winter caked in either mud or icy mud. Last week, it thawed, then dried up. Grass is beginning to grow around the little cabin, as are boys, both big and small.

The winter adaptations we made to the chicken coop worked well to keep the chickens warm. In fact, they seemed unaffected by the cold, even when it was in the 20's for days, even weeks at a time. The problem we had was that we simply draped tarps over a flat "roof" which did not shed rain, but instead allowed it to pool, causing our netting over the top of the coop to break. We will have to repair that before we can remove the tarp completely, in order to keep our flock safe. We are planning some modifications to the coop/ run in the coming weeks, including adding a pitched roof and outside access to the egg boxes, and their food/ water.

Our fall/ winter garden was destroyed by the neighborhood dogs (including our own, who love to "run with the pack"), as was our compost box. We are currently investigating some stronger option for fencing for the garden and stronger materials we might use to remake the compost. I am trying not to let these setbacks discourage me too much, though it does sometimes seem like between our animals, the neighbors animals and too much shade, I am destined to fail at gardening. You see, even with strong fencing, we still would not have a lot of success with a summer garden because of the trees that surround our house and cover almost every inch of our property. I am currently investigating options.

Things are slowly returning to normal since the baby arrived. My big boys are such a tremendous help, as is my wonderful husband. I have recovered well from the c-section, and feel great. The baby has a laid back personality and is pretty easy going, which helps, as well. We took a week off from school when he was born, then had a modified (just the basics) schedule for 4 weeks, plus co-op. Last week, we jumped back in full force and I think everyone was glad to get back to normal ( we all missed history and science). This week, I am trying to add menu planning and more cooking, as well as some additional work outside, on the property. I am also hoping to blog more, as I find that keeps me accountable. Even if no one else reads it, I still feel like if I commit here, I have to follow through.

And now, I'll wrap up with a picture of our littlest cutie. This is his default "serious" expression. He is extremely curious and spends most of his waking time looking around, taking in all of the sights and sounds of our little cabin.

He's Here

2011-01-09T14:11:00.004-06:00

Our littlest munchkin made his arrival last week. Meet Evan Thomas:

He was 7 lbs, 10 oz and 20 inches long. He is a nice mix of his older brothers in both looks and personality and we are all positively smitten. I think it will be a while before I am back to posting regularly, but I will try to pop in and update every so often.

Happenings around the Little Cabin

2010-12-08T06:03:00.002-06:00

Wow! It is COLD here! We've had several days of super cold weather and there is snow predicted for our area today. That's just crazy to me. We are not used to having snow in winter. Couple that with living almost an hour away from any major shopping, and we are having to think about winter preparations a little differently this year. I'm glad we took the time to cut some of our firewood this past summer. Next year, we will be more proactive and cut a lot more, I hope.

Our hens are really getting good at laying. In November, they laid 249 eggs! We were able to give away about 4 dozen a week, in addition to the eggs we kept and used for ourselves. What a blessing. So far, the winterizing we did for the coop/ run has been quite successful. We ended up adding a stronger tarp to the run and more hay around the outside (we had to use several bails inside the run, so had to make another hay buying run last week), but now it is toasty warm in there, even at night.

The rest of our food production has come to a grinding halt :( The neighborhood dogs have formed a "pack", led mostly by our pooch and they are all quite active BIG dogs. They get into everything and have torn down the small fences I had around my garden (every morning is an adventure as we discover what they played with/ destroyed in the night). The only garden item that has survived the assault is the parsley, though I am going to harvest it all today, as I noticed when I went out around 5:00 am to check on things, that they finally tore down that fence and have started smashing/ digging it up. I guess Tabbouleh is on the menu for tonight.

I am no longer really able to do any heavy lifting or much manual labor (less than 4 weeks to go before the baby arrives), so new fences will most likely have to wait until spring. My boys are a big help (doing almost all of the farm work plus taking care of all of the pets and a good deal of the house care as well), but I don't think they could handle building a strong fence by themselves and DH is working around the clock lately for his job (he gets calls at all hours lately, even when sleeping - as it is end of the year), so he really can't help now, either. In the mean time, we will try micro-greens indoors again, plus sprouted beans and seeds.

I think things are just about ready for the baby. This pregnancy has just flown by for me, and about 2 weeks ago, I was really hit over the head by the fact that we were not ready (we didn't even have a name for him, though, thank God, we do now). I think we are ready now, with the exception of cloth diapers, which we still need to get. I'm getting really excited about meeting this little guy and can't wait to see what he looks like.

I will probably not post much for a few months, though I do plan to post pics of baby boy when he is born (or have DH do it). I'm finding that I don't usually even have time to read my favorite blogs lately, much less post :( Menus have been very basic and not really worth posting. The focus for us has been stocking the freezer with meals and snacks to take us through about the first month with the baby. So far, we have lots of main dishes, a few side dishes that freeze well and lots of snacks (muffins, cookies, etc). We are trying to add at least one main dish and one snack per day for the rest of the month. We will see how that goes, because some days, it is really hard to motivate myself to cook instead of pulling something out of the freezer, lol. My hope is that once the baby is here, we will only have to take meals and snacks out of the freezer and add fresh veggies or fruit to round out the meals.

But We Only Have 15 Hens

2010-11-12T18:06:00.004-06:00

I put this on Facebook earlier this week, but could not help posting it here, too. We have 15 hens, but on Monday, they were quite busy. Between sundown on Sunday and 5:00 pm on Monday, our 15 girls laid 17 eggs :) Do you think they were motivated by the pumpkin we gave them?

Or do you think it was "chicken eye" from the dominant rooster?

Menu Plan Monday (Nov 8, 2010)

2010-11-08T06:16:00.003-06:00

This week, we are going to continue our doubling of recipes to get more cooked meals in the freezer for when the baby comes. The boys were a great help last week, with Nick, our oldest making the lasagna with minimal help from me. WTG Nick!! This week is going to be COLD, so we will focus on soups and other warming meals, most of which freeze beautifully. As usual, we include all locally grown or homegrown items in bold. Here is our menu:

Monday - White Bean Chicken Chili (making a double batch - will freeze extra), green salad

Tuesday - Caramelized Onion and veggie omelettes (gotta use up those eggs!! The hens are laying an average of a dozen a day now) and sliced oranges

Wednesday - French Onion Soup (local beef was used to make the stock - making extra to freeze), grilled veggie and cheese panini

Thursday - Chicken Noodle Soup (hoping to try our hand at homemade noodles - making extra to freeze), green salad

Friday - Cheese Burgers (will make and freeze extra burgers), mashed sweet potatoes, apple slices

Saturday - Chipotle & Beef Chili (will freeze extra), cornbread, green salad

Sunday - Leftovers

I am also hoping to do some baking and get some of that into the freezer. My boys are big snackers and it will be nice not to have to think about snacks for a few weeks with a newborn. Do you have any favorite snack recipes that freeze well?

Menu Plan Monday

Winterizing the Chicken Run

2010-11-03T17:12:00.003-05:00

We are expecting below freezing weather this weekend and that coupled with the rain we are getting and will continue to get has prompted us to winterize the coop. Cold, wet chickens are not what we want.

Here is the coop/ run as seen from our kitchen door. It really is in the woods :)

A close up shows that we added a painting tarp over part of the run and then stacked some hay bales on two sides to create a snug corner to keep out rain and wind.

In this picture, you can see some of the hay bales and in the background, the laying boxes and a few chickens :)

Another close up from the side. We only covered the top and two sides with plastic so that we would still have ventilation. They have a warm coop, but all of them prefer to be outside of the coop in the run. This will hopefully help them stay dry and warm when the weather gets cold and wet.

Menu Plan (Nov 1)

2010-11-02T05:52:00.004-05:00

This baby will be here before we know it. If I'm going to accomplish getting a freezer full of meals and teaching the boys to handle more in the kitchen, I've got to start doing this now. So this week, I had the boys help to plan the menu (they chose main dishes and I filled in side dishes) and they are going to help make the meals, including doubling of recipes for the freezer. I am only posting our dinner menu this week. As usual, I am putting locally grown items in bold. Here is what the boys planned:

1. Lassagna (making one for the freezer) with sauteed squash (we found locally grown summer squash at the farmer's market on Saturday :), a green salad and breadsticks (if there are any left,we will freeze those,too)

2. White Chicken Enchilladas (with some for the freezer), sliced sweet potatoes in butter and sea salt, green salad.

3. Turkey Meat Loaf (doubled for the freezer), green salad, mashed potatoes, green peas

4. Sloppy Joes (local beef), caramelized veggie blend, cut up apples (sloppy joes freeze really well, so we are doubling that recipe and freezing extra)

5. Burgers (local beef - we will make double what we will need, so that we can freeze some for later), caramelized onions, potatoes (probably using the recipe for breakfast potatoes from The Pioneer Woman's cookbook), steamed broccoli with butter and sea salt (so yummy!!)

6. Chicken Salad sandwiches, chicken corn chowder, green salad (if there is any extra chicken, we plan to freeze it in meal sized portions for later use)

7. This will either be "You are on Your Own" or leftover day.

I am submitting this post to Menu Plan Monday at OrgJunkie.

Harvest Totals October 2010

2010-10-31T19:06:00.005-05:00

Well, October has been much better, harvest wise, than July, August or September. The garden has consistently provided enough greens for a salad about 3 times a week, and I was even able to bring a salad to a family gathering for 11 and I only had to add a cucumber from the grocery store. I was pretty excited!! These greens include mesclun (looks to me like only red and green leaf lettuce), romaine lettuce, baby kale, parsley and occasionally baby swiss chard. It is so nice to have homegrown greens again.

This was taken early last week. The eggs are usually bigger, more like the size of the green one, and we usually have more than 7 as well.

The hens have really hit their stride egg production wise. Their eggs are getting bigger, averaging large size, though there are two who are laying the equivalent of jumbo eggs. They are also averaging 9 eggs per day now, up from about 6 last week. This month, they laid 186 eggs!! I am extremely pleased with this number. It comes out to an average of 6 per day for the entire month, and that includes days with only one egg and even one day with zero eggs. In fact, we have so many eggs, I'm not sure what we will do with them. We gave away 3 dozen this week, ate or baked with 2 dozen and have 4 dozen left in the refrigerator. I wish I knew where to find one or two customers. I don't think I could support more than two, just in case they don't lay well one week, but it would be nice to have an outlet for these eggs.

In the meantime, I guess we'll be eating lots of omelettes, like the one above, which is made with caramelized veggies and cheese. Yummy!!

Real Food Deals - Mambo Sprouts and Kroger

2010-10-29T06:05:00.002-05:00

We love Real Food over here. As we define it, real food is "non-processed" food, for the most part, though there are some "processed" foods that my family does enjoy. One of those foods is Lifeway Kefir, which my husband loves (he drinks it for energy during workouts). So I was very excited to see it on sale for $2.99 per quart at our local Kroger (Delta Region). When we combine that with the printable coupon from Mambo Sprouts ($1.00/2 Lifeway Kefir), the price comes out to $2.49 (there was also a paper coupon from Mambo Sprouts that I received in the mail a fee weeks ago). The regular price for this product is $3.99, so between the coupon and sale we will save $1.50 per bottle. Hubby will be very pleased to find a few bottles of his favorite workout snack this week :)

This post is being linked to Real Food Deals at Premediated Leftovers.

What's Happening Around the Little Cabin

2010-10-28T17:41:00.005-05:00

Today was a pretty busy day at The Cabin. It has been raining most of this week, which meant we could not get much done outside, and there was lots to do outside. Today, we were blessed with cool weather and sunshine, so we got outside and got stuff done :)

First, we put wheat straw in the chicken run (they were so thrilled) because all that rain had turned things to mud. While we were in there working, we had the opportunity to see one of the hens lay an egg :) That was pretty exciting for the boys and for me, especially because she's my favorite hen (very friendly - she lets me pet her and she "talks" to us). It was also neat because now we know which eggs are hers ( the really jumbo sized army green colored ones - WTG girly).

Next, we put down some stepping stones to make a path between the house and the shed. We must walk that path a lot more than the previous owners. We had walked a dirt/ mud path through the grass and decided it would be better for the lawn and for our shoes if we had stepping stones.

We also put a temporary fence up around my garden, as all of the animals in our neighborhood seem to think of my garden as their own personal beds and they have been crushing my lettuce. Hopefully we can fortify it in the next day or two and make the fence more permanent.

Finally, we put compost in the new bed and then started some new compost with some leaves and chicken manure. Phew! I'm tired and so are the boys. Busy, busy day!!

What's happening at your place?

Garden/ Chicken Update - October 21, 2010

2010-10-21T20:03:00.005-05:00

We finally got some rain, after 9 weeks with no measurable rainfall. The ground was so dusty that we could barely walk outside some days, with all the dust flying around. The ground, and my garden are enjoying the deep drink of rainwater provided earlier this week.

The little fall garden is really beginning to feed us more substantially (finally!!) and I could not be more happy. Our greens have reached the baby stage so we have been enjoying some nice "gourmet" salad mix with our meals and even as meals. I don't weigh the "harvests" but I have taken pictures of a few of them. Our mix includes mesclun (a few green and red leaf lettuces), romain, parsley and kale. The spinach is still too small - only about 4 true leaves and not many plants - so we are not harvesting it yet. The above photo is pretty representative of a harvest and we are able to pick this much a few times a week. This amount will make 3-4 side salads or two or so meals.

This week, I planted some more mesclun and spinach. The spinach plants that have been growing for several weeks are still so small, and most of the seeds did not germinate yet plus two of my chickens got out a few weeks ago and ate half of the mesclun seedlings. Having a staggered planting will be nice, so I guess things have worked out for the best, in that regard. I am hoping that we can keep all beasts from eating, squashing or digging up the garden so that we can continue to enjoy it in the coming months.

The hens are laying pretty well (except for today when they laid a grand total of ZERO eggs - weird). So far this month, they have laid 113 eggs and we have been able to use almost half for ourselves (we enjoy eggs, plus we bake a lot) and have been able to share the rest with our family and neighbors. I've really enjoyed that part of having laying hens. It is nice to have something our land has produced to be able to share with our "community".

We are getting ready to add compost to a new bed that we will use for herbs and tomatoes, plus probably a few caning berry plants (blackberries, maybe) in the spring. I'd like to get the parsley transferred there before it gets cold here. If I can get to that next week, then that will free up another 4 square feet of garden for more spinach. I also still need to plant the sprouted potatoes and garlic. We have a micro climate (where that new bed is going) that is significantly warmer than the rest of our place and gets lots of sunlight, too. The potatoes will be in containers in that area, so I think they will grow well into winter and produce a small harvest. Not a lot, but home grown potatoes are so worth the effort :)

I have a question for all my gardening friends. How often do you add compost or fertilizer to your garden? I've been adding compost (made with leaves, garden plants, grass clippings, kitchen waste, chicken and rabbit droppings, wood shavings and hay) about once every 2 months or so. Is this often enough or am I depleting the soil? Any advice?

Tell Me Thursday - Dancing

2010-10-21T05:37:00.003-05:00

I took this picture a few weeks ago for my husband's birthday at a Cajun restaurant "back home". My oldest son asked my Mom (she has Alzheimer's) to dance. It seemed to be lots of fun for both (though neither are smiling in this picture - they were concentrating, lol) and will definitely be a special memory as well.

Tell Me Thursday

Wordless Wednesday - Dancing

2010-10-20T06:17:00.003-05:00

Wordless Wednesday

5 Minutes for Mom

Real Food Deals

2010-10-19T05:30:00.001-05:00

My blogging friend Alea over at Premeditated Leftovers has started this wonderful blog carnival, Real Food Deals. Basically, its a place to share any ways we save on Real Food, either at the grocery store, local foods or even just general tips for saving on real food or healthier foods, as we define it for ourselves. I missed the first week, but am hoping to participate fairly regularly from now on. This week, I'm just going to share a little about how we save on pasture raised meat.

We chose to begin eating pasture raised meat a few years ago after reading Nourishing Traditions and The Omnivore's Dilemma. You can read some the reasons we believe pastured meat is right for our family here. As I mentioned in my earlier post, pasture raised chicken is EXPENSIVE. It can be up to four times more expensive than grocery store chicken when bought on sale, and depending upon the breed of chicken raised, may be much smaller than grocery store chickens, as well. We've had to get really creative with our chicken meals in order to keep their use within our budget.

We are raising some meat birds at this time, though definitely not enough to keep our family fed yet. Therefore, we are buying pasture raised, organic heritage breed chicken from a local farmer at this time. We pay between $6 and $8 per dressed bird, depending upon their size and most of them are about one pound smaller than grocery store chickens. What they lack in quantity of meat, they more than make up for in flavor and of course, we believe they are better for us as well.

One way we make the most of our chicken meals is that we do not usually eat chicken as a main course anymore - you know, meat and potatoes. Most of the time, we use the chicken as part of a main dish such as stir fry or enchiladas.

We get our birds whole from the farmer. I start out by seasoning a chicken with a dry rub (usually celtic sea sale, onion powder, garlic powder and cayenne pepper) and then putting it in the refrigerator over night to "marinate". The next morning, I usually roast the chicken in a 300 degree oven for about 2.5-3 hours or until a meat thermometer reads 180 degrees in the meatiest part of a thigh. Next I allow the chicken to cool a bit, and remove most of the meat from the bones, reserving the pan drippings. Some of the meat will then be used as part of a main dish like chicken enchiladas, tamales, chicken spaghetti or stir fry. The bones and pan drippings will then go into the slow cooker along with some onions carrots and celery, if I have it, to make chicken stock. I usually cook it on low for 6-8 hours. When the stock is rich and flavorful, I strain it and once cool, put it in the refrigerator (or freezer, if I won't be using it right away). The bones are then picked for more meat - usually enough for soup which we usually have at least once a week. We use the stock also to make rice and especially when we make beans and rice dishes, as the stock adds a depth of flavor and a richness that makes eating meatless dishes much more filling. The remaining chicken skin and bones are given to our dog who loves his special treat.

If we are careful, we can usually get about 3 meals from one chicken. A stir fry will usually cost us about $4.00 for the main course, assuming we paid $8.00 for the chicken ($2.50 for the chicken, $1.00 for the veggies and $.50 for rice and sauce - or we serve it on lettuce leaves if we are low carbing) and will serve 4-6 depending upon how hungry my family is that day so about $1.00 per serving, on average. Chicken Enchilladas will usually cost about $7.50 ($2.50 for chicken, $2.00 for tortillas, $2.00 for cheese, $.50 for veggies, $.50 for sauce) and this usually will serve 8-10 depending upon how hungry everyone is, so between $.75-$1.00 per serving. Soup is even more economical, costing only about $4.00 ($2.50 for chicken and stock, $1.00 or less for veggies and $.50 for a handful of rice or pasta and seasonings), and it will usually serve 10 for approximately $.50 per serving. From that same chicken, we might also make Cuban black beans and rice for approximately $2.00 ($.50 for beans (cooked from dry - about 2 cups), $.50 for stock, $.50 for rice and $.50 for chipotles, onions and spices). We can usually have this for supper with a side of veggies and it will serve 5 (supper for 4 plus I will have it for lunch the next day), so about $.40 per serving.

Our grocery budget has gone up over the last few years, especially since we began eating pastured meat, but by working at it, we can at least keep things more affordable. Some weeks this works better than others of course, but for the most part, if I can stay organized, we can stay within budget and enjoy pastured meat as well.

This post is being submitted to Real Food Deals at Premeditated Leftovers.

Menu Plan Monday (Oct 18th)

2010-10-18T09:19:00.002-05:00

We had a nice long (3 day) weekend at home and for a the first two of those days, hubby and the boys were off in the woods leaving me with the house all to myself most of the time. I took the opportunity to get ahead on some of this week's cooking :) A great deal of this week's menu is either in the freezer or refrigerator, ready to heat and eat :)

Here is our menu plan for the week. As usual, all locally grown and homegrown items will be listed in bold.

Breakfast (with repeats):

*Eggs and Grits
*Oatmeal with pecans , coconut oil and honey
*Egg and cheese biscuit sandwiches (these are handy for that one morning when we have an early obligation in town)
*Smoothies (blueberries, bananas, yogurt, peaches or strawberries)

Lunch:

*Peanut butter and honey sandwiches
*Sliced Turkey sandwiches (cooked a turkey breast and made gravy to go with it - too bad there is no cranberry sauce, lol)
*Green Salad (homegrown greens) with boiled eggs, pecans, carrots and cheese
*Leftovers

Snacks:

*Yogurt (with maple syrup)
*muffins I made over the weekend
*Smoothie
*Homemade bread with honey butter
*Grapes
*Sliced Apples
*Carrots and herb cheese dip

Dinner:

*Italian Crock Pot Black Eyed Pea Soup and homemade bread

*Roasted Turkey Breast, Homemade Mac & Cheese (feeling the need for warm weather comfort food, I guess ;), green salad

*Meatloaf (grass fed beef from the farmer's market), steamed broccoli, green salad

*Fiesta Chicken (pasture raised chicken from the farmer's market, mixed with salsa - I think we have ONE jar of homemade salsa left-, corn and black beans) served in tortillas, with a green salad

*Crustless quiche (to use up random leftovers), or this Egg Puff from Premeditated Leftovers, green salad and mashed sweet potatoes

*White Bean Chicken Chili (pastured chicken and stock from that chicken), with a green salad (our garden it putting out lots of lettuce and other greens now )

*BBQ burgers, potato salad (kids have been asking for this) roasted mixed veggies

Once a meal has been eaten, all leftovers will go into the freezer for later meals.

This post is part of the Menu Plan Monday Carnival at OrgJunkie

A Couple of Firsts this Fall

2010-10-15T18:00:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I had the opportunity to make our first apple pie of the season (Paula, I always think of you and Heather when making apple pie). I think it must have been much anticipated, because the boys cut into it before I was even able to get a picture. With all of the moving, I misplaced my usual recipe, so instead, I used this crust recipe from All Recipes and this filling recipe with some adjustments (I used Gala apples, so I left out about half of the sugar in the recipe and I substituted butter for the shortening).

This morning we had temps in the low 40's and so we decided to get a fire going in the fireplace. So cozy. It was nice to be able to cuddle up and enjoy my morning coffee in front of the fireplace.

We are really going to enjoy this wood burning fireplace this fall and winter.

Pumpkin Oatmeal Recipe

2010-10-14T15:55:00.003-05:00

I cannot remember where I saw this (I read lots of food blogs and belong to lots of foodie yahoo groups), but we just had to try this really cute recipe for pumpkin oatmeal (please don't look at my dirty stove - keepin' it real here, lol).

It starts with a sugar pumpkin, top cut off and hollowed out (remove all the strings and seeds). Add to the pumpkin one cup of oats, one cup of milk and any sweetener you might like (we used about 1 tablespoon honey and a little brown sugar). In addition, put a pinch of salt, 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon and I also used a couple of grates of nutmeg. We like a little crunch in our oatmeal, so we added pepitas (roasted and shelled pumpkin seeds). Once all of this is inside the pumpkin, put the lid back on and put it into a preheated 350 degree oven for about 45 minutes. Before serving, scrape some of the pumpkin off the sides and mix it in with the oats. We added a little butter and coconut oil right before eating.

This was a fun little recipe and got another orange veggie into my kids first thing in the morning. If anyone else saw this online and remembers where it came from, please let me know so that I can give proper credit.

Menu Plan (Oct 4) and Farmer's Market

2010-10-03T17:04:00.004-05:00

I visited the farmer's market on Saturday and was pleasantly surprised at some of the wonderful things I found. There was a wonderful "no spray" lettuce farmer there with an amazing array of lettuces. Its been a long time since we've had lettuce from the farmer's market. We are enjoying the red leaf and green leaf lettuces so much. I also found some cooking pumpkins, some "no spray" butternut squash and some sweet potatoes in addition to our beef order (we are getting several this fall to carry us through until spring/ early summer when there will be more available).

Our beef order comes with each cut individually wrapped in butcher paper and the hamburger is wrapped up in one pound portions. Each time we get slightly different cuts and different amounts of hamburger. This order had a few t-bones, a few sirloins, two roasts, some ribs and lots of hamburger (what we use most). We also got soup bones.

This is the cooler I bring it home in. Each order is somewhere between 25 & 30 pounds. It takes us between three and four months to finish off one order.

We are going to use some of the local food we have in the freezer, as well as the farmer's market finds for our menu this week. As usual, I will put the local items in bold.

Breakfast (with repeats):

*Oatmeal with coconut oil, pecans, honey and blueberries
*Eggs and grits with cut up fruit
*Fruit smoothies made with homemade yogurt, blueberries, peaches and bananas
*Homemade granola with pecans, honey, butter, coconut oil, pepitas and dried bananas

Lunches:

*Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and applesauce
*Peanut butter sandwiches and cut up fruit
*Green Salad with feta cheese, walnuts, pecans, kalamata olives
*Leftovers

Snacks:

*Pumpkin bread or muffins (eggs are from our hens)
*Smoothies (blueberries, peaches)
*Apple slices
*Pears
*Cheese cubes
*Oatmeal cookies
*homemade bread and honey butter

Dinner:

*French Onion Soup (beef stock from soup bones - also will include small amount of beef; the dog was THRILLED with his jackpot when I gave him the bones earlier) with grilled cheese sandwiches and a green salad

*Roasted Chicken, sweet potatoes (probably just cooked in some butter - so yummy!!), green salad

*Dinner Salad with leftover roasted chicken, pecans, cheese, boiled eggs, cucumbers, carrots and some homemade bread

*Cheese Burgers with caramelized onions, green salad, mashed butternut squash

*Soup (not sure what kind, but I'm leaning towards Italian Black Eyed Pea Soup) and homemade biscuits

*Pizza with leftovers (some of which will be local) and maybe caramelized onions and black olives as toppings and a green salad

*Crustless Quiche (eggs) to use up any veggies that need to be eaten before they go bad and a green salad (if we still have lettuce or if ours is ready to begin using).

Our hens are consistently laying 7 eggs a day now (1 blue/ green, 1 dark brown and white speckled and 5 light brown). That means we are getting about 4 dozen a week - plenty for us to use and enough to share with our neighbors, too :) Earlier, when dh and I were out feeding/ watering the chickens and collecting the eggs, a katydid flew at me and I jumped/ screamed (eek!!) and dh laughed (because it was really funny). My response? To begin crying - so out of character for me. I am obviously experiencing some sort of pregnancy hormone thing. I am now entering my third trimester (time is flying for me this time) and I think we are having a really big boy - check out that profile:

To me, I look much farther along than just 6 months, lol. I think I better get to work with farm projects, Christmas shopping and freezer cooking!! It will be here before I know it.

I will be submitting this to Menu Plan Monday at OrgJunkie.

September "Grow Our Own" Totals

2010-10-02T13:34:00.005-05:00

We finally have something (though just a very little) harvested to count, so I'm going to try to keep track of what our little cabin/ farm is producing for us.

In September, we grew a lot of baby lettuce that we did not get to consume, but that the chickens did get to consume and that we will ultimately consume as eggs. The only green stuff we harvested in September was parsley and basil. The parsley was used in Taboulleh and most of the basil was dried (5 plants - dried to about a cup of crushed leaves). In addition to the small harvest, we planted lots of fall crops including Romaine lettuce and Mesclun, Kale, Beets, Swiss Chard, Broccoli, Snow Peas, and Spinach. We lost our bunching onions to something (I think it was our dog who dug them all up) and those will be replanted soon.

Not food, but we also harvested some hay (about 3 wheelbarrows full) and have some more to harvest. We also cut some trees (3) and made firewood.

The chickens began laying eggs on Sept. 19th and the total egg production for the month was 60 eggs. We used many of them ourselves and have also been able to share some with our wonderful neighbors. We also harvested a rooster who dressed out at about 3 or so pounds. He is still in the freezer.

All things considered, I am quite pleased with our very small harvest. I am hopeful that October will be even more productive.

How about you? Harvest anything in September?

My Current Obsession (its a book)

2010-09-28T11:00:00.002-05:00

For my birthday last month, I received some money as a gift. As usual, that money was spent on a book. I am enjoying the above book for a few reasons. My favorite part of the book, I think, are the beautiful pictures. Really, they inspire you to try things for yourself. I also love that there is a little bit about almost anything and everything associated with growing or raising your own food and caring for your home. I've really enjoyed the tips on building automatic watering systems into your garden using rain barrels. I'm going to think on that one a bit and see if I can't start taking steps to make it happen by next spring/ summer.

Are you enjoying a book or books right now?

Little Cabin/ Garden Update

2010-09-27T09:54:00.006-05:00

I'm sitting here this morning with all of the windows open, listening to the sounds chickens make when they are busy laying eggs. The trees have been losing their leaves for weeks, though our temps have been in the 70's at night and 90's during the day. It may have looked like fall around here, but it has not felt like it, at least not until this morning when we woke up to a lovely 51 degrees :) Fall makes me happy.

This is the path to the pond on our property. In the summer, it was so dark on this path that it looked like evening all the time. With the leaves falling, we are starting to see the sun again.

We've been keeping the chickens inside their run instead of letting them run around in the woods and yard. Trying to grow a garden with them running around was futile. Even with netting and fencing, they still managed to eat most of my seedlings, and what they did not eat, the dog would dig up, so this summer did not boast much of a harvest. After losing two plantings of my fall garden, I finally have something to show for my efforts.

The small plants in this photo are some kale I just planted. The larger plant in the foreground is ginger that I planted from a sprouted ginger root I had for cooking. It is about 3 inches tall right now. Its really fun to get free plants from the kitchen :)Here are a few of our broccoli plants. We have nine, which will not be enough to supply us with broccoli for even a few weeks (we go through tons of broccoli here), but still, it is worth the effort of planting some.

Here is our "spring mix" lettuce that is just coming up. I have lost count of how many times I replanted this as the chickens would eat this up as soon as it sprouted. We like to harvest a few leaves from each plant every day to make a salad. That way, they just keep growing all season. These usually are ready to start harvesting by about 3-4 weeks old. We've got about 2-3 weeks to go.

Here is our romaine. I think we have 12 plants. They are growing nicely and I am hoping we will be able to start using some of them as baby lettuce soon.

We have not had measurable rain in over 6 weeks. The garden is surviving because it is small enough for me to keep up with watering. The rest of the yard is not doing as well. Most of the grass is brown and the trees that still have leaves are looking pretty thirsty. We had about 15 minutes of rain yesterday, but it was definitely not enough to make any difference. Hoping for a little bit more soon.

I think that this week I will pull up the rest of the basil and either dry it or make one last pesto with the harvest. In its place, I think I will plant some of the sprouting potatoes that are in my house waiting for a place to grow. Potatoes grow pretty well here during fall and even winter, if they are kept in a warm-ish area and get enough light.

We have a very small area with cut hay that we have slowly been raking and bringing in. Right now, all that we have 'harvested" is in the chicken coop, but I am hoping to get a little put away for later when the pen needs to be refilled.

We also built the girls two more laying boxes and they are putting them all to good use. When they first started laying we were getting about 4 eggs per day, on average. They have slowly increased their numbers and are now averaging about 8 per day. Not only are they laying more, but their eggs are getting bigger.

The middle egg was laid last Wednesday and the other two were laid on Saturday ( you can see the date I wrote on the green/ blue one-I date the eggs as I bring them in so that I can be sure to use the oldest ones first-learned that from my friend Kathleen ). At first they all looked like that little bitty one, but now most of them are like the big ones and we only get one or two of the little ones per day.

At this point in my pregnancy, I am still feeling really great and have lots of energy, so I am hoping to get some more of our projects done in the next few weeks. We are hoping to build some beds to help with erosion where our yard does not get enough light and water for the grass to grow. I am also hoping to chop down some more small trees and cut them into firewood (not only is it great exercise for me but the boys love this chore and will happily help with it for hours at a time). We are also hoping to get some limestone put down in the driveway/ parking area so that when the rain starts up again, we are not walking through mud to get to the house.

Inside the house, I am hoping to get the school room back into shape - it has become the school room/ dumping ground for anything that does not have a home. I also hope to organize the pantry.

What is going on over at your place?

The Hens are Finally Earning Their Keep :)

2010-09-19T16:12:00.003-05:00

This morning, we were running late for church, so while I was inside helping the boys to get ready, Bryan went out to feed and water the chickens. He returned quicker than usual, looking like the Cheshire cat, then pulled 3 eggs out of his pocket :) Our FIRST EGGS!! This afternoon, when I went to fill their water, there were two more :) Five eggs on day one!! Those girls sure do copy each other, lol. Having chickens just became even more fun.

Yard Advice Needed, Please

2010-09-12T16:27:00.003-05:00

As I've mentioned many times before, we live in the woods. Our yard does not get much sunlight. Things do not grow well here except for trees. We also live on top of a hill with many ravines all leading to the streams or creeks on our property. Erosion is an issue for us. And some of the erosion is happening pretty close to the house. Now, add a very active dog and a bunch of chickens who love to eat grass and scratch around, and we are beginning to worry that all of the dying grass may make erosion a bigger problem than it is currently.

We have tried miracle grow on the bare spots (didn't help at all). We are also running the sprinkler sometimes as we have not had rain for a few weeks. And we have decided to keep the chickens in the coop for the next 7 days, then only letting them out every other day (hoping this will allow the grass time to recover between chicken feasts).

We've talked about putting in planting beds instead of grass in those areas that seem to die off easily, though they would have to be fenced in to keep out the dog and chickens and hubby is not really crazy about fences all over. We've also talked about compost and St. Augustine plugs with a fence around them only until they are established. Perhaps even hostas or other shade loving plants, though if the chickens will eat hostas, then we will just end up back in the same place we started.

Anyone have any experience with erosion and planting to prevent erosion in shady areas with lots of animals all working against you? Or, if not, do you still have opinions or suggestions?

Looking Your Food In The Eyes - Part Deux

2010-09-11T17:45:00.004-05:00

Well, we did it. We "harvested" meat for the first time. I did NOT cry like I thought I would. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but it definitely was not "fun" nor is it something I want to do often.

The hardest part, outside of the actual taking of life was plucking the feathers. Sheesh, but there are a lot of feathers. Since we were doing it all by hand, it took quite a long time - I'd say 20 minutes or so just on the feathers and we were squatting that whole time - because after the initial feather removing, we had to remove the "leftover" feathers one at a time. These were mostly pin feathers, so they were hard to reach and took time to remove. If we ever decide to do it en masse, I think we will try to rent or borrow one of those feather plucking "machines". It really was challenging. Also, if we decide to do it again en masse, we will need a better set up. We really were not rigged for it and we did not have any tables or chairs. Basically, we had a camping stove for the hot water and a #3 tub and some rope. We stood or squatted for everything. I think sitting would make it easier to do more than one. We spent over an hour and only managed to butcher one (the one who had begun "attacking" us) and I was exhausted by the end.

I also think that if we ever decide to raise lots of meat birds, I think we'll raise Cornish X instead of heritage birds (if we have the option). For the effort, it would be nice to have a bigger finished product. This guy was 5 months old and huge, yet he only dressed out at about 3 lbs, including bones.

Boy do I have a new appreciation for my poultry farmer :)

Looking Your Food In The Eyes

2010-09-09T05:41:00.003-05:00

I've known for some time that I wanted to raise both laying hens and meat birds. About 5 years ago,we began buying pasture raised poultry from a farmer who grew the chickens naturally and treated them humanely. This kind of poultry is expensive (depending upon the farmer, it can be up to 4 times more than grocery store chickens) but it was something I knew we needed to do for our family for several reasons.

First, pastured poultry is better for you. Our bodies require EFA's (essential fatty acids) such as Omega 3 & Omega 6 in order to survive (that's why they are essential) and we need them in an approximate 1:1 ratio in order to maintain our health and avoid chronic diseases. The standard American diet of processed food contains a large amount of Omega 6 (found in abundance in all corn and soy products) but very little Omega 3. Pastured meat and dairy products from pastured animals contains a nice balance of the two EFA's. It seems that animals that eat lots of green grass have the right balance of Omega 3 & Omega 6. This is one of the reasons we go to the extra trouble and cost of seeking out locally raised chicken, beef and eggs. Knowing the farmer allows us to know how the food was raised, thereby knowing what is in our food, so to speak.

Second, pastured meat and eggs taste better - a lot better. In fact, even 5 years after we started buying pastured chicken and beef, I am still blown away by the taste difference. The difference between conventionally raised, factory farmed chicken and pastured chicken is literally equivalent to the difference between pale watery store bought tomatoes (in January) and garden fresh tomatoes in July- no contest!! And even though these meats cost more than grocery store meats, our food bill did not go up much when we started eating them because between the amazing taste and added nutrition, I find we need to eat less of it to feel satisfied. Meat has become part of the meal, not the main focal point.

Between the health benefits and the taste benefits, there are reasons enough to make the switch to locally raised pastured meat, but there are still more reasons we made the switch and keep seeking it out. One of those reasons is that buying locally from farmers you know helps out the community you live in. Buying from the farmer, instead of the grocery store means that not only does your farmer get to make a decent profit for their work (hard work, I might add), but it also means that they will get to keep doing that work year after year and thus supplying your community with healthy food.

But the other side of the coin is that we want to avoid factory farmed meat both because of its toxic environmental impact and because of the conditions the animals live it. I won't rehash details of what its like for these animals for their short lives, but you can read about it in The Omnivore's Dilemma or watch Food, Inc to get a good idea. Its not a pretty picture. But of course, even after reading about it or seeing film, I still didn't fully understand just how poorly these animals were treated. Then we moved to our new home, which is about 30 minutes from a poultry processing plant. We don't travel in that direction often, but we do have to go out that way sometimes and we've seen the trucks carrying the chickens in for processing. It really is shocking and puts a whole different spin on those pretty rotisserie chickens.

So, we buy our poultry from farmers who raise them on green pasture and allow them to live the way chickens want to live - foraging for at least some of their food. I know first hand that chickens want to live this way because our chickens call to us and practically ask to be let out into the woods to forage. They run around in the fresh air and sunshine eating grass and leaves, bugs and even sometimes small reptiles like lizards or toads (I've seen it with my own eyes, otherwise, I'd never believe it, lol). It really is something to see.

Our hens and roosters are 5 months old now and hopefully the girls will start laying eggs soon. As mentioned in other posts, the guys are getting pretty amorous, so I'm hoping it wont' be long before we start to see some reward for our efforts at chicken raising. But, the guys are not only getting amorous, they are also getting pretty aggressive, at least some of them are, and not only with the hens, but also with us. After one of them came at me with wings spread and clawed feet bared, well, I just know that I am not allowing that around my kids. So, we set their date with destiny. The two aggressive roosters are moving on Saturday - one to the Bar-B-Que and one to the freezer.

Yeah, I am a little nervous. I will probably cry. I am glad someone who knows what they are doing will be here to help with the "hard" parts. But I also know, deep down, that this is right. These roosters have had a good life - better than most chickens and much, much better than most roosters who do not live more than a day or two in factory farm settings (google it - pretty disturbing). And I know that my family does not take lightly the raising or the eating of meat, so, over all, I feel good about it. Wish us luck.

Disclaimer: These are the rambling thoughts of a very pregnant woman at 5:30 am. Please don't just take my word for any of this - do your own research. The above mentioned book/ DVD as well as the book Nourishing Traditions are great places to start.

Menu Plan: August 30-Sept 5, 2010

2010-08-31T14:36:00.003-05:00

This week, we are having a "clean out the freezer" week as our fall beef order is scheduled to be ready this weekend and we are also getting 6 fryers and a duck (!!!) from our pastured poultry farmer this weekend.

Here is our menu. Locally grown or raised items are in bold.

Breakfasts:

*Oatmeal with pecans and honey
*Yogurt with honey or maple syrup and sliced pears
*Granola (local honey and pecans) and milk
*Scrambled Eggs and grits (someone now raises and grinds several different corn products and sells them at our farmer's market).
*Pancakes or waffles with maple syrup or honey and cut up fruit
*Peach and blueberry smoothie

Lunch:

Leftovers
Baked Potatoes
Freezer Meals that have been packaged in individual servings

Dinner:

Grilled T-Bones and Sirloins (using up the last of our spring beef order) with baked potatoes and steamed broccoli

Spaghetti (we are using rice noodles since regular noodles do not agree with hubby - i hope we like them), green salad and sauted squash

Homemade Pizza (plain cheese or cheese and black olives for the boys and what ever we can find in the freezer to use as toppings for hubby and I) and a green salad

Roasted chicken, sweet corn and sweet potatoes (though I may try Alea's sweet potato recipe if I can get my hands on some cauliflower)

Tuna burgers with home grown micro-greens (if they are ready to use by then) and cut up fruit

Soup (probably chicken noodle that way we can use up lots of our frozen local veggies) and cornbread (cornmeal and eggs from the market)

Ok, so while I am excited beyond belief to be getting a pasture raised duck from our poultry farmer, I am unsure of how to prepare it. I'd really like to just roast this one to keep it as simple as possible to see if the family likes duck. Anyone have any tips? TIA :)

Chicken Update

2010-08-26T05:59:00.000-05:00

The nesting box is built. A few weeks ago I mentioned that since the girls will begin laying eggs soon, I had decided to build nesting boxes to put into the existing run until we can get something else built. I am pleased with the results and so are, it appears, the girls, who jumped up to investigate our work as soon as we finished. We put it in the run and filled it with bedding, now all we need are some golf balls or other fake eggs to encourage the girls. I think we will probably also paint it, at least the outside, to help prevent it falling apart since it will be "outside" the coop (but inside the run) for at least a month or so.

Its a . . . . . .

2010-08-25T05:48:00.003-05:00

BOY!!!

We are so excited!! Its funny, I thought I really wanted a girl, but when he said boy, this sense of relief washed over me. He looks like he is growing great. All things appear to be as they should. We think he will be a big one, like boy #2, since he is measuring a little big for his age.

I am also doing well. Being over 40, we are concerned that I might have more problems than usual, and considering my history (pregnancy induced hypertension with #1 and borderline gestational diabetes with #2) we would not have been surprised with some issues. But we had a great check up - blood pressure fine, blood sugar great, weight gain minimal; all in all good news.

We are a little over the half way point, so I guess now is the time to get some of my projects completed. I'll post about things as we get them done.

Granola and Tomatoes

2010-08-19T10:53:00.004-05:00

Last weekend at the farmer's market, I bought more cherry tomatoes from the heirloom grower than we could eat before they went bad, so I put the rest in the dehydrator this morning. They will be so yummy on pizza in the coming months.

I rarely buy cereal anymore and instead we make granola in the crock pot (it goes cooks more slowly so if I forget about it for 15 minutes, it does not end up a charred mess). I've got some of this going in the kitchen right now.

Here is how we make it:

Turn slow cooker on low and add a stick of butter, abut 1/4 cup coconut oil, about 1/4 cup brown sugar, about 1/4 cup local honey and a pinch of salt. Allow the butter to melt and then stir everything together. Add 6-10 cups oats (I use quick oats because my family does not like the results when I used old fashioned rolled oats, and we lean towards the high end - almost 10 cups of oats, as my family prefers the granola more dry and less sweet) and stir to combine. Add nuts if you like them. "Cook" with the lid off, stirring about once every 15 minutes or so for about 1.5 hours then turn off the crock pot and allow the granola to cool. Once cool, you can add all kinds of "goodies" like coconut flakes and dried fruit, if you like. Store in an airtight container. Don't know how long it will stay good, as it usually does not last very long at the cabin.

I am hoping to try a sprouted cereal soon. I just need to make time to get to the health food store for the raw materials. If I ever get around to doing it, I'll post pics and such.

edited to add finished granola picture.

Garden Update: Fall Garden and Garden Addition Plans

2010-08-09T19:57:00.004-05:00

Well, there is not much to take pictures of right now in the garden. The only things growing now are parsley, mint, basil, bunching onions (and they died back when it was so hot and dry), a pineapple top I planted as an experiment and one or two lettuce plants that survived the assault by the 60 lb puppy.Mint that has started growing again after all of the heat lately.

I put the fence back up and planted some seeds for fall. So far, I've planted broccoli seeds, swiss chard, kale, spinach and some sprouting ginger. Still to go in are beets, potatoes and carrots. I'm also thinking of adding snow peas which we've grown during winter before, though not in this planting zone.

This was a pineapple top I planted several months ago. It is starting to grow new leaves (lighter colored than the original)

We also did some planning over the weekend and decided that while the location of the garden will be fine during the winter, it does not get enough sunlight during the summer when the trees have leaves, so we are building more raised beds in other locations of the property that get more sun. These will need to be built in the next few months since I may have a high needs baby in the spring.
I know the chickens are not technically part of the garden, but since they fertilize it and eat so much of it, I'll put the chicken update here with the garden. After much debating, I've decided against building a new coop for the layers. Instead, I am going to add laying boxes to the existing run. Not only will this be easier for me, but the chickens will probably like it better, since they are creatures of habit and do not take very well to change. Another bonus is that the girls will probably start laying as soon as the weather cools a bit and there is definitely more of a chance I will have laying boxes built in time. We will build a chicken tractor with an enclosure for the little group of hens and rooster that we are hoping will become parents, but that can wait since I really don't want little ones while the weather is cold.

The roosters are getting so beautiful. Their long draping feathers are growing in nicely and they are becoming so colorful. One of them is a dark red with iridescent dark green tail and shoulder feathers. The boys call him "Pawski" after my Dad. He is in the picture above surrounded by his girls :)One of the others (Casanova - he is the most amorous) is a beautiful gold color with lots of rust and dark greenish black tail feathers. He is pictured above with the Dominique rooster who is so huge. The one below is a Barred Plymoth I think, (based on his coloring and comb). So pretty, don't you think? Can you see the pretty colors this one has on his sides. They boys call him Hawkie because his comb looks like a mohawk, lol.

Most of the time, Pawskie (the Rhode Island Red) is the only one to hang out with the girls. He is a wonderful protector. The other Roos usually just act like frat boys hanging out together unless they are feeling amorous. Usually. It is actually quite interesting to see the flock dynamic beginning to develop and to watch the guys taking care of the girls, but that's another blog post.

Edited to add pictures.

Menu Plan Monday, August 9-15, 2010

2010-08-09T05:25:00.002-05:00

School is starting again, and I can tell by the fact that our schedule is slowing down. We are not visiting anyone this week and no one is visiting us this week. Summer is always so busy for us that even when I'm not pregnant I can barely keep up. I am looking forward to the regular routine and the slower pace - oh and also the cooler weather :)

We try to eat locally as much as possible, so I will highlight the local items in our menu in bold.

Breakfasts (with some repeats):

*Stuffed French Toast Strata with fruit from the farmer's market
*Homemade Waffles (we have some in the freezer from last week) and local fruit
*Eggs and grits (local eggs are harder to come by now that the weather is so hot - hoping for cool weather soon!!)
*Oatmeal with pecans and blueberries or peaches

Lunches:

*We were gifted with several pounds of sliced deli meats and cheeses so we will make sandwiches for lunch on most days and have them with fruit and cut up veggies or pickles.
*Baked Potatoes with broccoli cheese soup or just butter and cheese

Snacks:

*Homemade Yogurt with maple syrup and/ or fruit
*Zucchini Bread (need to start using up some of that zucchini in the freezer :)
*Smoothies (blueberries and peaches)
*Cantaloupe
*Watermelon
*Cucumbers and carrots in dip
*Hummus and pita

Dinner:

Monday: Gyros, hummus (garlic from the market) and pita and tabbouleh salad (parsley and mint from the garden, tomatoes, cucumbers and onions from farmer's market)

Tuesday: Roasted Chicken Pesto (basil from the garden) Panini, cucumber and tomato salad

Wednesday: Tuna Patties with sauted squash and cut up fruit

Thursday: Soup (probably Minestrone - chicken stock, squash, zucchini and corn from the neighbor's garden), homemade breadsticks and Caesar salad

Friday: Mongolian Beef with Stir Fried Veggies over rice

Saturday: Leftovers unless we find something amazing at the market that we cannot wait to have.

Sunday: Crustless Quiche with ham and cheese plus farmer's market veggies, tomato and cucumber salad and fruit.

Menu Plan for the week of Aug 2, 2010

2010-08-04T08:15:00.003-05:00

I have not posted our menu in many months, but this week, I've had the time to plan a menu and the time to post it. I like posting it because then I feel some accountability and am more likely to stick to it and not rely on deli chickens or take out.

I have been so tired this pregnancy, that it has been difficult to cook, much less plan for meals. In fact, many time in the last months, I've wondered how women through the centuries have survived having to prepare everything from scratch while exhausted and extremely nauseated in pregnancy. There were a few weeks when I could not even walk through the kitchen without retching. The family had a lot of chicken nuggets and deli chickens those weeks.

We are eating as locally as possible so I mark the local items in bold.

Breakfasts (with repeats):

Granola (homemade in the crock pot using local honey and pecans)
Yogurt (homemade and flavored with maple syrup or honey)
Waffles (made with local eggs)
Baked Oatmeal (made with local eggs)

Lunches:

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
Muffalettos on homemade bread with cut up fruit
Bake Potatoes with butter and cheese
Leftovers from Dinner

Snacks:

Carrots and dip
Herb Cheese and crackers
Watermelon
Chips and Salsa (homemade with local ingredients)
Gingerbread (a favorite of our nephew who is visiting for the week)
smoothies (peaches, blueberries, strawberries)

Dinner:

Monday - we had roasted chicken with a green salad (cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes)

Tuesday - Homemade Pizza (some of the veggie toppings are local - banana peppers, for one) with sliced cucumbers and cantalope.

Wednesday - grass-fed beef burgers with steamed broccoli, fruit and sweet corn (in the freezer - our neighbor grew it and gave it to us).

Thursday - Leftovers

Friday - Roasted Chicken, black beans and brown rice and caramelized mixed veggies (most of the veggies are local - zucchini, yellow squash, red peppers, onions)

Saturday - Soup made from the leftover chicken - probably white bean chicken chili,but the final soup will depend on what we have a lot of and what we find at the farmer's market. We will have it with cornbread (probably) and anything fresh I can find a the market.

Sunday - Probably leftovers to clean out the fridge.

Preserving:

I have not preserved much so far this week since there were only 2 vendors at the market yesterday and they mostly had what I already have preserved in abundance. I have frozen more zucchini and am drying blueberries and peppers. Hopefully, there will be more tomatoes at the market as I'd like to can more sauce and salsa and maybe dry some, too. I am also eager to find the first figs of the season - hopefully this week.

Preserving

2010-07-28T18:55:00.002-05:00

What are you preserving this week? It has been "Pickle Week" here at the cabin. Over the weekend, we were the recipients of a plastic grocery bag filled with cucumbers (from some wonderful friends), many of which became dill pickle spears (pictured below). We also were given some tomatoes by one of hubby's co-workers and those became the jar of tomato puree pictured below.

Also in this picture are banana peppers, okra (both from our neighbor), peaches (from hubby's co-worker who sent a whole shopping bag full) was planning on putting up peaches in syrup, but we ended up eating most of them), some cucumbers (friend), a huge squash (from our neighbor - she said it is wonderful seeded and cubed and cooked with some brown sugar and cinnamon. I hope to try it, as that sounds wonderful), and another huge zucchini which will also be shredded and put in the freezer for zucchini bread.

Today I made pickled banana peppers and processed 6 half-pints (to the left in the photo). I also put some, unprocessed, in the fridge to use in the next week or so (big jar in photo) - yum!! I still need to decide what to do with the okra. I will probably just cook it down with onions and peppers and put it in the freezer for gumbo this fall.

It is harder to get to the farmer's market this year because we are 40 miles away from the closest one, so our wonderful neighbors' gifts have been such a blessing.

What are you preserving this week?

It Sounds Like A Farm Around Here

2010-07-17T18:08:00.005-05:00

The roosters have started crowing every morning. They are far enough away from the house that we can't hear them unless we are outside, so I guess that's why I still love to hear them crow. It sounds like a farm :) They have also found their libidos and we've witnessed much chicken romance around here in the last few days. Hopefully that is an indication that they girls are getting ready to start laying eggs.

The chickens have been getting more and more destructive with my garden lately, so we finally put up a little fence around the part that is planted. It is working very well, because even though the chickens could easily fly over it (we find them in the trees many evenings, now) for some reason, they do not think of that and stay out of my basil, parsley, and lettuce. The remaining beds received compost last week and will probably be planted with potatoes (some of the one's my Dad grew have sprouted), beets, swiss chard and kale in the next week or two.

I only got to the farmer's market once this last week, as we had several appointments that coincided with the market preventing us from going and we also had surprise guests (which we were thrilled to have). I did not do any canning this week but a neighbor gave us a ton of okra which I cooked down and put in the freezer for okra gumbo this fall. He also gave us an absolutely huge zucchini (the boys were pretending it was a baseball bat) that he said we could shred in the food processor and use for zucchini bread.

The picture does not really give good perspective. Its hard to tell, but its bigger than my forearm from fingertips to elbow.

This morning at the market, I needed eggs and by the time I arrived, an hour after it started, most of the egg farmers were sold out. I got two dozen by absolute luck, as one farmer still had some. I also met a farmer who grows heirloom tomatoes, so we had those (delicious!) with cucumbers (from the market) and some homegrown potatoes and onions for lunch. So yummy. We also got a lot more peaches, some of which we had for desert at lunch and some of which will go into the freezer.
I'm hoping to get to the farmers' market at least twice this week. I am also hoping to do a better job of making a menu plan and sticking to it. The budget has been busted far too many times this pregnancy. We are also having family over for the weekend. They have lots of kids and my kids are so excited as they love playing with their cousins!! I'm hoping to get most of the cooking done before the weekend so that I can enjoy the visit, too. Maybe I'll be able to post my plan in a day or two.

Happenings Around the "Little Cabin In the Woods"

2010-07-09T15:48:00.004-05:00

I can hardly believe that I am already in my second trimester of this pregnancy. I can no longer fit into my regular clothes, even with a rubber band attached to the button at the waist. In fact, I look like I swallowed a whole cantaloupe, lol. Thanks be to God, I am beginning to get some energy back and can get a little more done around the house. We have been gifted with several pounds of squash, zucchini, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, green beans and sweet corn throughout the season both from neighbors and hubby's co-workers. A lot of it was eaten fresh and even more was put up in the freezer, while the tomatoes and peppers became salsa and the green beans became dilly beans. I have not been putting up as much as I had hoped, though I am going to try to put up salsa and tomato puree next week and if I can muster up the energy, maybe some pickles, too, before all of the cucumbers are gone.
Peaches are in season right now and last week, I put a few quarts in the freezer for smoothies and Popsicles. In season, local peaches are some of my favorite fruit and we have eaten a ton of it out of hand as well. Yum!

Our chicken flock has experienced a few changes. First, they have grown so much. They must be full grown now as they look to be a little bigger than whole chickens from the grocery store or farmers' market. Second, a few months ago, we realized that one of them was a bantam since it was about half the size of the others. She was small enough to slip out of the run and would do so any time she pleased which led to the change in our flock - Indiana, our dog, got her one day when he was having his "off the leash" time. That left us with only 18 chickens, 14 of which are hens. Then last week, my Dad decided that his two hens (Australorps -such beautiful birds) should come to live with us, so they moved here over the weekend.
That makes 16 hens and 4 roosters. The Australorps are 4-6 weeks older than the other birds and should start laying in about a month. That means I need to finish up the second coop/ run. We are planning to move a rooster and the laying hens into a coop with laying boxes that have access from the outside. We also plan to have one rooster and 3 hens in the current coop/ run to see if they will raise babies. Yeah, that means two of the roosters will no longer be welcome here, except maybe in the freezer.

Our list of pets is growing as well. A few days ago, we found a baby kitten out in the yard in the rain, cold and scared. It took a while to catch it because it was afraid, but we were finally able to bring it in from the rain. It is currently residing in our sunroom, getting used to us, eating and growing like a weed. They boys have named it Whiskers.

Cutest baby kitty ever!

We are hoping to put it back outside in a few weeks, once it is a little bigger and better equipped to take care of itself outside at night.

The summer garden is done. The yellow beans became dilly beans, the potato plants died back and when I dug them up we had about 8 potatoes, which I think is pretty good, considering the garden only sees about 4 hours of full sun a day. That is about to change as we are currently taking bids for removing several of the trees surrounding the house. The onions all died back but did not bulb up much because of the lack of sunlight. Next year, we'll put the onions in another location. We had two heirloom tomato plants which were determinant, so they produced one batch then were done. The pumpkin plants are still growing and have finally started putting out female flowers, so we may hopefully see pumpkins soon. During the week, I pulled up all the dead stuff and put in 6 basil plants and 4 parsley plants. I also added a fence around the new plants because the chickens will eagerly devour anything they can get. We are going adding compost to the remaining beds and getting them ready for fall planting. I need to sit down soon and plan the fall garden.

I guess that's all for now. I'll try to post more often, now that I'm not constantly exhausted.

Wordless Wednesday - Nest

2010-06-23T05:00:00.001-05:00

Wordless Wednesday

5 Minutes for Mom

Menu Plan (June 21st)

2010-06-22T07:47:00.002-05:00

As I mentioned in a previous post, we are expecting a new addition to our family in January and I have spent the last 3+ weeks being quite sick. I'm finally felling somewhat better and am ready to get back in the kitchen. One of the things I've noticed about myself this pregnancy is that I have an increased need for carbs - not a lot, but definitely at least one per meal. Without it, I was hugging porcelain, with it, not as often. So, with that, here is this week's menu:

Breakfasts:
French Toast
Baked Oatmeal
Ham and Cheese Omelet with hash browns
Eggs and grits

Lunch:
Hummus and homemade flatbread
Pizza Rolls (trying something new-will try to post instructions later)
Sandwich braid filled with any suitable leftovers
leftovers from supper

Suppers:
*Lassagna, steamed broccoli, cut fruit (we had this yesterday)

*Chicken Noodle Soup (lots and lots of veggies, especially squash, lol), bread (cooked this last night in the crock pot)

*De-boned Shrimp Stuffed Chicken (got this in Louisiana when we were there for my grandmother's funeral last week), steamed California Blend Veggies (this chicken is currently cooking, before it gets too hot to run appliances in the house)

*Mongolian Beef and Broccoli with rice (using some leftover beef stew for this instead of thinly sliced skirt steak)

*Chicken Salad Sandwiches, green salad, chickpea salad

We are also having family in for the weekend. We will cook for them once and they want to take us out the rest of the time (nice!! )

*I will also cook crockpot chicken cacciatore and freeze it for later if we don't need to have it right away.

A Secret I've Beeen Keeping

2010-06-21T05:38:00.003-05:00

I've had a really difficult time posting lately. There have been many reasons, but the most challenging one has been this news I've been trying to keep quiet. But now, we have made the news public, so I can post it here. We are expecting a baby in January.
We have a history of miscarriage and being over 40 also increases the risk of miscarriage, so we decided not to say anything, especially to our kids, until we had seen/ heard a heartbeat, which we did last week. The kids are so excited and so are we.

.
I was really sick for about 3 weeks - extreme nausea, extreme tired, extremely heightened sense of smell. I spent a great deal of the last few weeks sleeping or lying down and doing my best to avoid walking anywhere near the kitchen. Before I became pregnant, I didn't notice any smells in the kitchen, but now I do - funny. And unfortunately, for some reason I don't notice pleasant smells, only unpleasant ones, lol. The result of all that kitchen avoidance was not cooking for 3 weeks. Thankfully the nausea has subsided.

I actually made a menu plan for this week. I'm hoping to actually follow it. If I get a chance, I will post the menu later this week.

Weekend Farmer's Market Finds

2010-06-07T05:45:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, I was delighted to find a pastured chicken farmer at the Farmer's Market. I placed an order with her that day and we were able to pick up our first chickens this past Saturday. These were game hens (under 2 lbs each). We will be picking up heritage fryers next weekend. I cannot wait! This week at the market we also found sweet corn, plums, blackberries, blueberries, cherry tomatoes, spring mix lettuce, swiss chard, a purple bell pepper (it has a nice spicy taste), two dozen eggs and (I couldn't help it) a sunflower bouquet.

Between the market we attended this weekend and another in a nearby town, we now have access to farmer's markets on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. Ahhhhh . . . summer :)

Neighborly-ness

2010-06-07T05:32:00.005-05:00

We have some of the most amazing neighbors here at "The Cabin". They are friendly, kind, generous and always offering help. For the last few weeks, I've answered the door more than once only to receive bags and bags of fresh veggies.

This was the contents of the most recent veggie gift. Between this and the first gift, we've put up lots of dilly beans, grated zucchini, and 8 quart sized freezer bags of sliced summer squash and zucchini (to use as a substitute for pasta in lassagna or to saute with a little butter and salt - yummy!!). The cucumbers, we ate fresh and the peppers are going to become pickles, hopefully today. I cannot wait until the hens start to lay so that I will have some way to return the favor besides just baking bread.

Its Blueberry Time!!

2010-06-01T05:25:00.002-05:00

Chickens in The Compost

2010-05-26T07:08:00.005-05:00

Since the chickens have gotten bigger, we have started letting them out of their pen for several hours in the late afternoon so they can forage in the woods. They really enjoy this and if it were possible to keep the cat away from them, I'd love to be able to let them out more. We will probably build a movable pen for them at some point so they can spend more time out in the yard.
Their day looks something like this: at around 6:00 am when I let them out of their coop, into their run and feed them their "grow" and "scratch". Around noon, we bring them all of the fruit and veggie scraps from the kitchen as well as more grow and scratch if the kitchen scraps are sparse. We let them out into the yard around 4 pm each day. When we let them out one of the places they enjoy visiting is the compost bins.
They really love kitchen scraps and I usually put some in the compost, so they head over for that and to see if there are any bugs or worms as well. It is amazing to watch them clear an area of bugs.

Here is a close up of "Susan" enjoying herself in the compost.

They are about 2/3 grown now. Its hard to tell from this picture because I was standing above when I took it (can't squat down near the chickens because they will either try to eat the camera or hop up on my lap - funny girls).

Here are two of the roosters hanging out near the dog. They have already figured out that he cannot get to them as long as they stay outside of a certain range. They are much more adventurous than the girls, who tend to stay in the woods, near the coop/ run. In fact, the four roos can usually be found together roaming the property, like a little gang of boys. The roosters, by the way, have already begun their first attempts at crowing, which are pretty funny - half crow, half choke.

I Really Hate Exercising

2010-05-13T05:47:00.003-05:00

I was very fit in high school (I guess most of us were). Not only was I in ballet approximately 3 days a week, but I was also on a National Champion competitive cheerleading squad and we practiced every day, unless we were practicing twice a day. So how could I possibly hate exercising. I wondered about that for a long time. I wondered why I could not make myself get on a treadmill every day. Why did I avoid the stationary bike like the plague? We have a small stair climber, and I do use that sometimes - maybe once a week. I enjoy yoga, but can't make myself do it more than a few times a month. Why? My husband works out faithfully at least 3 times a week and he loves it. As an adult, I've often felt like a lazy failure because I could not make myself do it too.

For a while now I've thought that maybe it had to do with the exercise not really having a purpose outside of just the exercise. Its really hard to stay motivated to do something you really dislike just because you need the exercise. In high school, I enjoyed ballet, so I took classes. I didn't take classes because I wanted to exercise. It seems I may have been right. I spend approximately an hour and a half a day cutting, chopping, hauling, building and digging. I sweat more than I've sweat in years. I'm sore every day and I love it. I have not felt this healthy and in shape in 15 years or more and I am even slowly beginning to see the effects of all of this "farm" work on my arms, legs and waist. Very cool But to be honest, I'd continue with all the work even if I were not getting into better shape by doing it. I take care of the dog because we all love him. I dig and haul to build an organic garden so that my family has lots of fresh naturally grown fruits and veggies. I take care of the chickens so my family will have vitamin packed, healthy eggs in a few months and I cut down and chop up small trees on our property so that we will have firewood next winter. My "workout" has a purpose and I know that is what is keeping me going.

Do you enjoy working out? What do you do to stay fit?

Wordless Wednesday - Bug!!

2010-05-12T19:00:00.002-05:00

5 Minutes for Mom

Wordless Wednesday

Farmer's Market Finds -Woo Hoo!!

2010-05-08T10:47:00.005-05:00

Just got back from the farmer's market and I am so excited. The produce farmers were there today!! With produce!!! I came home with pastured eggs, broccoli, spring mix salad greens (can you see the edible flowers?), english peas, baby zucchini and baby yellow squash!! Woo Hoo! I am so excited. They all said that they were expecting to have even more next week - yay!

This is what the market looks like from the outside. Its a really nice building dedicated strictly to the farmer's market which is just Saturdays right now, but during the summer it runs Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday.

This is what it looks like inside. I was standing in the middle when I took this (blurry) shot. Behind me was a mirror image of the side you can see.

There is an outdoor market in another town, a little closer to us that will open on Saturday and Wednesday starting in two weeks. Last year, that market had even more produce than the one I went to today, in particular, homegrown fruit. I cannot wait!!

Did you get anything at the farmer's market this week?

Another E Coli Outbreak

2010-05-07T07:03:00.003-05:00

I just heard on the news that there has been a recall of romaine lettuce associated with an e coli outbreak that has 12 people hospitalized, two in critical condition. This frustrates me on so many levels. First, I am frustrated because e coli is so dangerous. It is not the "bad stomach bug" most people think it is. It is a deadly infection that, in children especially, often causes something called Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome or HUS. This is scary stuff, folks. Basically, the body's systems begin to shut down, one at a time and may or may not start working again. Hospitalization lasts for MONTHS. I understand why the media does not explain how deadly e coli can be - if they did it would shut down our food growing and distribution industry. But still, it frustrates me that it is portrayed so lightly.

I am also frustrated that our congress will most likely "respond" by passing legislation that does not actually help anything, and might actually make things worse. This sort of problem is caused by large scale industrial agriculture-farmers who do not have to look their customers in the eyes; farmers who must compete on price alone, so they must cut corners elsewhere just to keep from going under. These kinds of things rarely happen in small scale farming, so why does our government try to solve the problems by tying the hands of the small farmer?

I'm also frustrated because this kind of thing makes me more scared to buy from the grocery store. My garden is small this year and the farmer's market is still not offering much in the way of produce; mostly just lettuce and strawberries, for which I am very grateful. But, thank God we are in May and last year the farmer's market had more fresh veggies and fruit than we could want by the beginning of June. Thank God!!

Stepping down off the soapbox, now.

We Have Roosters!!

2010-05-05T14:45:00.004-05:00

My Dad, who lives in town, bought 4 straight run chicks a few months ago, figuring at least some would be hens. Surprise! All four were roosters. He decided that he wanted to keep his neighbors as friends, therefore, the roosters had to go. So, the guys moved here to the woods and are hanging out with my girls now. They are about a week older than the girls, but are so much bigger. We are holding out on naming them since we are planning to select the one who seems to be the best protector and keep him, and the rest will most likely end up in the freezer. Although . . . As luck would have it, they are the same breeds as the girls; 2 are Dominques, 1 is an Americauna and 1 is a Rhode Island Red. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could get them to raise chicks :) Ah . . . farm dreams . . .

Garden Update - May 5, 2010

2010-05-05T05:52:00.004-05:00

Our little garden is coming along. We are harvesting a little something almost every day now (mostly peas and strawberries). Here are a few pictures and updates:

Here are some blueberries. We have two bushes and they are loaded down with pretty silver-blue berries. We are really going to enjoy these in a few months.

These are our yellow bush beans. They look a little droopy because we had just watered them with the hose and that usually temporarily knocks them down. Behind them, you can see russet potatoes which are growing like crazy.
These are "Small Sugar Pumkins" the boys planted a few weeks ago. If they fruit, the boys want to make pies from them.

These are "Sugar Snow Peas". We have been harvesting a few each day and some of them even make it all the way into the house before they are eaten :)

This is my parsley plant. It has been eaten down to the dirt several times by the adorable little woodland creatures, so I put this hardware cloth around it until we get the fence built. It seems to be working well.

These are our little "Black Prince" Russian heirloom tomatoes. This picture is almost a week old, and I cannot get over how much they have grown in that time.

These are some bunching onions that my Dad gave me from his garden. These never develop a full bulb, but serve nicely as green onions. He originally got these from my grandfather who was a farmer. Dad has been growing these for years without ever having to get new plants, since they make new onions by growing "babies" around the "mama".

These are the garden boxes my Dad built for us last year when we were in a rental. The tomatoes are planted here as are the snow peas, some bulb onions (red, yellow, white and sweet), some carrots, a few strawberries and spinach.

I do not have pictures of the rest of the strawberries, nor the pear tree with its thousands of little pears, nor the fig tree. For some reason, I also don't have a picture of the Swiss Chard, which is ok, since it is still pretty small. When there are more leaves on the new raspberry and blackberry canes, I'll post pics of those, too. Also, we have recently been gifted a loquat tree, which has the boys thrilled. It is still really small, but when we find a place for it, I'll post a pic, too.

The garden is small this year, but I am really hopeful. We are planning to remove some of the big trees near the house, which may free up some more space to garden. Do you have a garden update on your blog? Feel free to post a link in the comments, since most of my readers love to read garden updates. I know we'd all love to see what's going on in your garden. :)

The Woods are Full of Creepy-Crawlies

2010-05-02T10:01:00.004-05:00

I am a girly-girl. Not a pink princess kind of girly-girl, but a "honey, come quick and kill this bug for me", or standing on the chair screaming when there is a mouse, kind of girly-girl. I'm not a big fan of that kind of thing. Creepy-crawlies are interesting to read about or look at from behind glass, but definitely, not to touch. But living in the woods has slowly begun to cure me of those tendencies. I mean, there are bugs everywhere. I either have to get used to them or stay inside ALL of the time, so I am getting used to them. So used to them in fact that I now catch some bugs with my bare hands in order to feed them to my chickens :)

There are two creepy-crawlies in particular that I am getting used to, but still really don't like very much. The first is ticks and the second is snakes. We live in the woods and these woods are filled with deer, so we have to contend with ticks. I've already spoken with our doctor about it to make sure we are not in danger of contracting diseases and he said that we are too far south to be in danger (the infected ticks are several states further north), so we are not resorting to chemicals to deal with them. We are employing the hungry hen method of tick elimination, hoping that our girls will rid the area immediately surrounding the house of those creepy-crawlies. Until they do that, though, I am getting some experience with removing ticks. I'm hoping to soon post some interesting stuff I learned about tick removal.

Regarding snakes, we've only seen a few and they have all been rat snakes which are non-venomous, so I'm trying to be ok with it :) Here is a picture of the first time we saw one (you will need to enlarge it to really see anything).
We've since seen a few more, once even in my compost, but each time, they were gone when I returned with my camera (I guess they are shy ;). So, in order to make sure we don't have any bad snake encounters, we are doing a few things to keep safe. First, no one goes out into the woods without their boots. Second, we are learning to recognize the difference between venomous and non-venomous snakes. And third, we are working on increasing our situational awareness - really being on the lookout for snakes.

I recently read that chickens will eat mice and small snakes, so my girls are going to help us with the snake population as well as the tick population, I hope. Love my girls!!

I'm going to try to get a garden update posted in the next few days. Its going to be a small garden this year, but its still such fun!!

The Changing Seasons

2010-04-30T18:02:00.004-05:00

Our sunroom offers a beautiful view of the woods behind our house. We cannot help but take pictures from the windows and we have many of them. As I was looking through them a few days ago I was struck at how the different seasons each posses their own unique beauty. When we first moved in, the view look like this:

If you look really hard you can see my dad and A, our youngest. They were looking for the rabbits that live just over that hill.

Here is the picture postcard perfect image we saw that weekend in February when we had more than 6 inches of snow. It was so breathtaking we spent most of the weekend looking out the windows.
Here is the view from the sunroom now. Its hard for me to believe it is the same woods we looked at all winter because it looks so different.

In fact, the woods are all around our house. We are literally "in" the woods, as it completely surrounds the house. And because the house is in a clearing, it grows very thick right around the house. So thick, in fact that we could no longer see the dog house turned chicken coop from the house. We decided we needed to clear some of the smaller trees and brush so that we could see the girls. As you can see in the picture below, though we took out over 30 small trees, we barely made a dent in our little woods.

We decided to keep the trees since they were all quite tall and straight. I figure we can use them for a decorative fence for a cutting garden or, if I don't get around to that, we can always burn them next winter. We've also cut down a few larger trees and plan to cut a few more. We are cutting them to size and saving them in our wood pile for next winter as well.

And yes, I am sore. All the time. It feels great!!

The Pond on our Property

2010-04-30T08:28:00.003-05:00

When we bought this property, we were drawn to several things; the woods, the streams and creeks throughout the property, the cabin look of the house, but most of all, we loved the pond. We share a nice sized pond with our next door neighbors, but have not had much opportunity to explore it because we moved here in winter. As the days have warmed, we have begun to explore and discover what our pond has to offer.
First, we've had the opportunity to see many beautiful birds including blue herons, a pair of wood ducks, egrets and others. We've also seen the typical pond life such as turtles, bullfrogs, minnows (my kids had NEVER seen minnows - I was a little sad when I made that discovery, but we have since played with many minnows) and tons of bugs. The boys also discovered crawfish in the pond yesterday and those Cajun boys are planning to catch and cook them up for their mama :)
The pond is also stocked and we've seen some fish big enough for catching so when the weather cooperates (we are expecting severe weather for several days), we will do a little fishing.

What else should we be doing to utilize this pond to the fullest? I've never lived anywhere near water, so I don't really know all that a pond has to offer.

Where I've Been and Chicken Update

2010-04-29T10:19:00.004-05:00

I just turned on my computer for the first time in almost 2 weeks. Its been a wild few weeks. My grandfather, who had been ill for quite some time, became critical about 2 weeks ago, so we went home to Louisiana to see him. It was bad and we knew he didn't have much time left. We came home on a Monday and he passed away that night, so we headed back for his funeral. He was a veteran of WW2 and his funeral was the most beautiful one I have ever seen. The military presence was so respectful and the ceremony so beautiful. The soldier who played Taps was obviously very talented - it was so beautiful, and when they presented the flag to my grandmother, the soldier presented it "from a very grateful country" which brought tears to all eyes. Just beautiful.

When we returned, there was so much catching up to do. Our girls (what I call our hens) were still living in a cardboard box in our sunroom. When they were babies, it took days for the box to get soiled and smelly. Last week, they could soil up and smell up their box in hours! Our girls are getting big! So, we needed to get their home built. We decided to convert the kennel/ dog house into a chicken coop/ run and it is working beautifully. The girls love it and run around and fly around to their hearts' content.

Yesterday, my SIL (who has those "stray" chickens and a rooster in her yard) called me to say that her chickens hatched babies and would we like them, too? Woot! There are 2 hens, one rooster and 11 chicks, plus the one hen is still sitting on eggs. I'm sure most won't survive, but I'm pleased that we will have a few more and that the hens know how to hatch and raise chicks. I'm hoping these can be a source of meat birds for us (until I had chickens, I always thought I would be squeamish about eating what we'd raised, but now that I've had some, I know we could do it!!). We are hoping to have the new birds late next week, so I will post pics when/ if we get them.

There are so many other updates, that I am going to make separate posts. Hopefully, I'll be able to post more tomorrow.

Farmer's Market Haul :)

2010-04-12T06:00:00.001-05:00

We went to the farmer's market in the nearest big city this past weekend and met many wonderful farmers we had not met before. We met a grass-fed beef/ lamb farmer who also raises pastured chickens. We bought eggs from them and got on their waiting list for beef.

I didn't get many pictures, but I did get a pic of these beautiful eggs.

We also met goat farmers who make cheese and also sell milk. This time, we tried their Greek Feta (so delicious) and some of their goat milk (my children LOVE goat milk). We also met a strawberry farmer, some farmers who grow lettuces and such and we bought a fig tree from a farmer. It was so great to get back to the farmer's market!

Its Strawberry season!!

2010-04-11T09:57:00.005-05:00

We've been eating lots of strawberries and now that we are starting to get tired of eating them fresh, I'm starting to look for ways to preserve them. We made a batch of strawberry jam (5 half-pints and 1 pint) which will be all the strawberry jam we could possibly eat in a year. We are going to freeze some whole for smoothies and make fruit leather out of some. Hopefully we will also have the opportunity to go to a U-Pick strawberry farm in the next week or two. In the picture below, you can see the jars of strawberry jam and also two jars of something else.
Those are two pint jars of red onion pickles. Well, technically, the Ball Blue Book calls it Vinegared Red Onions, but we just call them pickles. We (especially Hubby) like these on sandwiches and salads. Yummy!

Isn't that pretty :)

I have a couple of questions for comments. First, do you usually do anything else with strawberries to preserve them? The only other thing I can think of is maybe strawberry syrup, which I think would be nice in lemonade. My second question is are you preserving anything now?

What's Happening Around the Little Cabin

2010-04-06T19:13:00.005-05:00

Things are blooming here at the Little Cabin. Its been so fun because we are discovering that we have all sorts of beautiful things. For example we have

wisteria,

beautiful dogwood blossoms,

and lots of Redbud trees.

Here is a picture of two cuties, Indiana and hubby.

And speaking of cuties, looks what we got today.

There are 15 of them - 5 Americana, 5 Dominicker (they are the black and white checkerboard looking chickens) , 3 Rhode Island Red and 2 Leghorns. They are approximately a week old. We are having such fun with them. Already they are showing signs of personality and some of them are even flying around the brooder (watering tub). One of them, an Americana, has already figured out how to jump/ fly out. Better finish up the coop as soon as possible.

This one has been named "Hoppy" by the kids.

The four adult chickens we were hoping to have this week will have to wait a little. They are actually living on my SIL's property but she did not buy them, they just showed up one day. She tried to see if they belong to someone, but no one is claiming them. They are foraging for all of their food and have survived there for over a year. Since they live in a neighborhood and the rooster is a problem with the neighbors, she is trying to get rid of them. We hoped to have them here, but they are very good at avoiding capture. We plan to continue trying to catch them.

Some of the garden plants are coming up - more sweet peas, yellow bush beans and potatoes are up as are spinach and some lettuce. There are blueberries on the bushes, strawberries setting on the plants and wild blackberries growing everywhere. I am hoping to get a second garden bed put in this week. I also bought two heirloom tomato plants. These will go in that second bed. I plan to only grow a few tomatoes and get most of what I am going to preserve at the farmer's market this year.

Well, enough blogging - there are dishes that need to be done. :)

A Few More Pictures

2010-03-29T05:51:00.005-05:00

Last week flew by in a blur - there was so much to do, and unfortunately, not all of it was outside. But at least now, our taxes are done :) I had hoped to spend Thursday outside working on the garden, but instead, spent the day inside because of rain. Well, most of the day, anyway. I did get to spend some time outside in the rain, raking and digging wet leaves and branches out of the ditch near the driveway. It must have rained really hard that night because that morning, I noticed that the street was flooded in front of our house. When I investigated, I found that it was because there were leaves and sticks blocking the flow of water through the ditch. Ahhh . . . country living :)

We had guests over this weekend, so I spent most of Friday getting ready for them, but I did have time to plant 4 asparagus plants. From what I can tell, moles have already dug up one of them, but I am hopeful that the others will make it.

Saturday, our guests were interested in going to town to check out some garden centers, so we did. We came home with a Japanese Magnolia, an Azalea bush (an interesting variety that blooms most of the time), strawberry plants, blueberry plants, raspberry plants, a few heirloom tomatoes and a flat of pansies that we received for free (I am sure it is because they were looking kinda rough and would have been hard to sell - and aren't they going out of season, too?). We put them to good use filling some terra cotta pots with them.

This one is my favorite.

The garden is slowly getting built. I am hoping to spend today working on it and maybe get it built and at least one raised bed planted. This is what it looked like late yesterday afternoon. The plan is to cover the area we are building it on completely with hardware cloth (moles) then lay weed blocking paper (most likely newspaper) over that. We will lay the beds on top of that and build a fence around the entire area. I'm hoping to get the hardware cloth and weed blocking done today so that I can start filling the beds. As you can see in the picture, I had to purchase compost this year as there is no way the compost I am making will be ready in time for spring planting. I guess that means we'll have to build more beds in the fall :) The fence around the garden may have to wait until early next week because I have another pressing building project that I must finish soon. I need to build a chicken coop.

Yes!! A chicken coop!! We were offered 3 hens and a rooster and if we are going to take them, they need to bring them by next weekend. Since they are full grown and already laying, they need a coop and not just a cardboard box, so I better get busy. I will post pictures of them some time next week. I do have some pictures of my Dad's chicks. He got 4 of them last week from a farm supply store in a town near where they live. They are such cuties!!
His choices were the commercial variety of white egg laying chickens or a mixed variety, so he went with the mixed, though he does not know what kinds they are or what sex. We think the gray one is a rooster, but the others are probably hens. The chicks (oh, and my parents) were our visitors this weekend so the boys fed these chicks lots of our farm bugs and my compost got a nice little (well actually, not so little, these guys can produce some manure!!) boost of chicken manure. Just a few short years ago, I would NEVER have believed I would be glad to have poop, lol. Ahh . . . country living :)

Projects and Happenings at the Cabin Update (Pics)

2010-03-24T06:03:00.003-05:00

I have a few pictures. I'll add more as things get done :)

We are having much success, as you can see, in growing a puppy. He is getting so big. And, he has a natural hunting instinct already, which I can appreciate. He has already caught (and ate) a mole that was digging around in the area we are prepping for my garden. Love that dog!!

This is the pear tree. It does look somewhat like a Bradford Pear, but the branches are more spread out. Only time will tell if we will be putting up our own pears this year.

Between doctor's appointments, vet appointments, homeschooling and math club, I have not been able to get outside to work on the many projects I had planned. I have something else pressing to do today, but tomorrow, after school, I am hitting the yard and getting some work done :)

Projects and Happenings at the Cabin

2010-03-22T05:39:00.002-05:00

When the sun comes up, I'll try to get some pictures. For now, here are some of the things we've been working on around here.

Taking up most of our time and energy these last two weeks has been the puppy. I have never had a puppy before and was blown away by the amount of work it took the first week or so. He literally pooped 12 times a day, and if we did not clean it up right away, before we knew it, he had run through it and then we had lots to clean. Things have gotten better on that front and he is growing like a weed. We are all crazy about him, especially me, which is quite surprising to me since I don't particularly like dogs, lol.

A few weeks ago, I put together a monthly menu and started making extras and freezing it. We now have about a weeks worth of meals in the freezer (breakfasts, lunches, suppers and snacks) and the monthly menu is, so far, a success.

We were recently reminded of the importance of storing some water for emergencies. Wwe usually do this, but with the move, I had forgotten to replenish our supply. A few weeks ago, the pipe carrying water to our house and the rest of our road developed a leak, then broke and we were without water for 12+ hours. Definitely, it was not a huge deal, since it was more of a localized emergency and we were able to buy water at the store, but it was a good reminder that those kinds of emergencies can happen without warning, and sometimes the stores can run out of what you need, so we are keeping a few day's worth of water on hand from now on.

A farmer's market in a nearby city is now open, though there is very little produce yet. It is mostly crafts and baked goods/ jams/ pickles. There is one farmer there with fresh flowers who also has eggs, so we once again have local eggs. We are also using our lettuce that is growing in a sunny window. We are using it mostly on sandwiches as it some of it is still "micro greens" and some of it is "baby greens" though it is nice added to a salad made with romaine or other lettuce. We are also adding home grown sprouts to sandwiches, salads and stir fry.

We were given 10+ pounds of homegrown carrots recently. We ate lots of it for snacks, made soup with some and the rest is about to be fermented as ginger carrots (as soon as I can get to town and pick up some fresh ginger- note to self, find a place to plant ginger). Our scoby is cranking out kombucha as fast as we can drink it and we are making yogurt as I type.

We have two garden beds built and will be filling them with both soil and plants/ seeds this week (if the weather cooperates - we had snow yesterday). I am hoping to put in two more this week as well. The containers I was growing my garden in before we moved here also have some things planted in them. The onion tops that were eaten by deer or rabbits have grown back It will be interesting to see if they still make usable onions. The sweet peas I put in a few weeks ago are up and growing. One of the new beds will be getting spinach and more peas. Another one is getting strawberries. Sweet potatoes and fingerling potatoes are also being planned on, though I think they will probably go into containers since they grow well there. We are planning an asparagus patch that I am hoping to work on this week or next, if at all possible. This year I will probably not focus much on things like peppers and tomatoes since so many people grow these to sell at the farmer's market . I am planning to get most of my tomatoes and peppers for sauce and salsa at the market this year. We will probably also get summer squash and zucchinni from the market though we will try again to grow cantaloupe, pumpkins and watermelon.

As things begin to bloom around here, we are beginning to put names to some of our trees. We discovered last week that we have a big pear tree. It looks like a fruiting tree, though it will take a few weeks to know for sure. If it is, we may have more pears that we can reasonably use in a year, provided the adorable little woodland creatures don't eat them all before we can. We also have many dogwood, which don't produce anything we eat, but are so beautiful and we are thrilled to have them. A few of the bigger trees around the house will need to come down, I think, both because some of them are older and may fall on their own (did I mention they are close to the house), and because we need to remove some to make sure the garden gets enough sunlight.

Well, that is some of what is going on around here. The sun will be up soon, so I will try to get some pictures and try to post them if I can.

What I'm reading

2010-03-12T18:03:00.003-06:00

Its been quite a week. Between Mom and her bad days, the new puppy and all of his pooping, an overflowed toilet (and accompanying plumbers bill - it was quite a clog), broken water line on our street and no water for 12+ hours, and our first brush with ticks, well, lets just say I'm ready to escape into a good book :)

Right now I'm reading a few books (I usually have on average 3 books going at all times). I got An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon from the library. Although it is one of the smaller of her books int he Outlander series, I am having more difficulty reading this one than any of the others. I think maybe part of the reason is that this book is less about Claire and Jamie and more about Lord John and William. Honestly, if I wanted to read about Lord John, I'd read one of the books from that series. Anyway, I'm not sure I will be able to finish it before I have to return it.

I also got Going Rougue by Sarah Palin from the library. This one is much easier to read. The story is interesting and the writing style is easy to read - just what my overwhelmed brain needs right now :)

Also, with my MyPoints points, I was able to get a $25 Amazon gift certificate code and I ordered Independence Days by Sharon Astyk. Sharon's writing style is so enjoyable both in her books and on her blog. This book combines "how to" with "why" in an easy to read and interesting book that I was tempted to read cover to cover in one sitting.

Since I am almost done with Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, I am looking for a some fiction suggestions. What are you reading?

Aren't They Cute

2010-03-07T19:36:00.002-06:00

This is our youngest son and our new puppy, Indiana. He's a German Shepherd and he is 5 weeks old. He is a lot of work but we are enjoying him a great deal. I am looking forward to when he is out of the puppy stage, though :)

I disappeared again

2010-03-02T11:22:00.003-06:00

I haven't posted in over a week mostly because Mom has started having some major memory issues again and between that and homeschooling, there just was not time for blogging. With the unpredictably nature of her illness, it seems that life will be a bit unpredictable for us now - the new normal, as they say. I am going to have to figure out a new way of menu planning and shopping because the old way (weekly menu plans) has not been working for us with all of the back and forth and such. Maybe its time to go back to freezer cooking. Hmm . . . food for thought.

Anyway, I do appreciate the prayers that I know so many of you have offered for her and will continue to offer. Thank you. I'll update as I am able.

Garden Update - Feb 22, 2010

2010-02-22T14:16:00.004-06:00

Here is a picture of my indoor garden. I have 4 containers of lettuce planted and sitting in a sunny window growing like wild. The container in the foreground was newly planted. The one you can see in the background is almost 2 weeks old. So far we have only used it as micro greens on sandwiches, but it is growing really well and I am hopeful that some will grow past the micro stage and we will get some baby greens. I am very pleased with how well this is working out. I hope to continue growing these indoors all year, since we eat a great deal of lettuce - more than I would be able to grow outdoors (for now, anyway).

I've also pulled all of our carrots and since the adorable little forest creatures at the rest of the garden, I've planted new seeds in those containers and put a screen on top (pictures coming - its raining right now). So far I've planted one 2X2 box of kale and one of sweet peas. I'd love to try beets again, and I have one 2x2 that is not yet planted, so I will probably put beets in there. The garden beds will be ready for planting in a week or two, and I'd like to put some cool weather crops in one 4x8 bed. Lettuce, spinach and carrots for sure and if I have enough room, cabbage and broccoli, though I'd have to buy the last two as plants for them to have enough time to mature before the heat kicks in.

The onion tops are starting to grow back and I am hoping that they will still be usable this year. In addition, the parsley is growing back. I hope that I can keep the local wildlife out of them both long enough to be able to harvest.

Its hard to believe that it will be time to start planting the summer garden in our area in anther month or so. Have you started planning your summer garden?

Living Room Pictures

2010-02-21T18:51:00.007-06:00

If you've ever been to my house, you will know that I'm not much of a decorator, but I did a little "arranging" of some things around the new house and I like it. Here are a few pics of the living room.

This wicker chest was in the boys room in our old house. Our coffee table from our last house is too big for this living room, and we needed something else, but I did not want to go out and buy something. Since the boys didn't need the chest, we put it in the living room with a tray and candles that were in the master bedroom in our last house. We tossed the throw on it to add a little contrasting color.

I'm still looking for a way to break up the dark brown in this picture - the sofa and the wall are almost the same color. I was thinking of hanging curtains on the wall, even though there is no window there, just for the color. I have some green sheers that are 80+ inches and so would reach to the floor. If I got a pretty curtain rod with some sort of pretty scroll work on the ends, I think it would look nice. I would keep the picture but hang it a little higher.

I love this pillow. We are using green as an accent color in the living room, dining area and kitchen. I like the way a pillow can add a splash of color to an area but I really don't like how much they cost. So I was thrilled when I found throw pillow covers at Target yesterday. The above pillow was blue and brown before the cover and $4.99 later, it goes with our living room :) I really love that!

Peek-a-boo!

We are still looking for an area rug for the living room and maybe another lamp, but I think other than that, we are done and happy with the results. We love our little cabin in the woods and it is really beginning to feel like home.

Menu Plan Monday 2-22-10

2010-02-21T17:53:00.004-06:00

Key:
homemade
locally grown/ raised

Breakfast this week will mostly be either scrambled eggs, yogurt with maple syrup and pecans or smoothies made with frozen fruit and yogurt.

Lunches this week will be either leftovers from supper, or (for me) mixed greens salad with some kind of protein(and lots of olives) and (kids/ hubby) turkey or chicken salad sandwiches.

Suppers:

Monday - roasted chicken, asparagus and rolls

Tuesday - BBQ roast sliders (I will have mine in a lettuce wrap - I'm trying to limit carbs to one serving a day during lent - the others will have theirs on leftover rolls) with steamed broccoli

Wednesday - Thin crust pizza (either BBQ Chicken or Plain Cheese) with a side salad and roasted veggies

Thursday - Muffaletto sandwiches on focaccia bread with a side salad.

Friday - baked tilapia, sweet potatoes and a green salad

Saturday - Celebrating our oldest son's 10th birthday - his choice

Sunday - probably leftovers or a sandwhich

Check out hundreds of menu plans at Organizing Junkie.

Can you compost Valentines Day flowers?

2010-02-21T17:51:00.002-06:00

I know you "can", but I guess my question is actually, should you compost them. Is there anything in them that would make it unsafe to use them, composted, in our veggie garden?

Lego Rock Monster Cake

2010-02-21T17:38:00.004-06:00

Our oldest is having a birthday this week and requested a Lego Rock Monster for his cake. Feeling adventurous, when he found a picture of a 3-D cake online, we decided to give it a try. We decided to make a "test cake" and if it worked out we would make it for his birthday party. It turned out cute, but was not stable enough to stand for long. It is definitely not Ace of Cakes, but for two novices, I think it came out pretty good.So we are going to keep the parts (face and upper body) that worked and put it on a sheet cake as though it is crashing up through the ground. I will try to get a picture of it and post it once we make it.

Lent 2010 - I really need some advice

2010-02-18T05:59:00.004-06:00

As usual, though I knew it was coming, I didn't really think about how to prepare for Easter until yesterday - Ash Wednesday. I'm not sure why I do that every year, but I put it off until I don't have any other choice, then decide what to do. Maybe one day I'll work on that.

As I thought about it yesterday, I really felt called to stop being so lazy about our health. I know that I do more than many to have healthy foods here to offer to my family but I know that I could do more. I know that I rely too much on carbs for all of us, but especially for me. I know that we could eat less meat than we do and I know that I could try harder not to let a processed food cross our doorstep.

Last summer, thanks to MotherHen68, I learned about adding unrefined coconut oil to my coffee which helped me to decrease my carb consumption by at least 50 percent. At the same time, I lost a whole dress size and saw other health benefits as well. Slowly, though, I have been adding back some of those carbs and I can feel the difference, not only in my clothes, but also in my health. My sinus have beens stuffy since before Christmas without much relief and that is about the time I started adding back a lot of bread and other baked things. If it is doing this to me, what is it doing to my family? I really want to make this change again, and I really want it to be permanent.

So, one of my goals for Lent is to drop most of the carbs from my diet again. In lent, this can be a challenge because of the meatless days. In the past, we always filled meatless requirements with carb heavy foods. It will require a change of mindset to come up with alternatives, but I must do it. And I also want to stay away from the typical Cajun Catholic Friday in Lent crawfish or fish fry scenario. I really don't find that kind of eating to be very sacrificial, at least not for me, lol.

So, I am asking for your help. Do you have any ideas for lower carb or carb free meatless meals? Salads and brothy soups are the only things that have come to my mind so far. Thank you in advance for your help :)

King Cake - Yum!!

2010-02-08T15:59:00.003-06:00

Today we made a yummy, yummy King Cake. In case you haven't experienced a King Cake before, it is a sort of cinnamon roll ring usually with green, purple and yellow icing. Where we are from, they are a staple from the Feast of the Tiphany all the way to Mardi Gras day. They are not sold here, so we decided to make our own. We used this brioche recipe for the bread maker to make the dough. Once the dough was finished, I took it out of the machine, rolled it out into a rectangle and added the filling. I wanted a caramel sauce inside, so we used 1/4 cup of softened butter, 1 cup of brown sugar and a dash of cinnamon. We mixed it together and spread it over the rectangle of dough then started rolling it up along one long side. When it was all rolled up, we sealed (or at least I thought we did, but that's another post) the ends and the seam and put it seam side down and connected the edges. We baked it for 30 minutes at 350.

Then, as if there was not already enough sugar, we mixed some powdered sugar with a little milk and vanilla and made a thin icing to drizzle over it. Yummy!

Menu Plan Monday 2-8-10

2010-02-08T06:16:00.004-06:00

We are getting settled in our new place - it feels more like home every day. Shopping for groceries two weeks at a time is working out wonderfully for us - we are spending less time shopping because we don't go to the store every time we are missing ingredients, plus we are spending less because we don't go to the store every time we are missing ingredients. Instead, we are using what we have either to substitute ingredients or to substitute a different meal and it is working really well.

This week, breakfasts will include:

Baked oatmeal,
French toast (from the freezer)
Yogurt (homemade Greek style with maple syrup and pecans)
Berry smoothies

Lunches

sandwiches (including some of our "micro greens" we have growing inside the house)
leftovers
Salad with feta, kalamata olives ,etc

Snacks

homemade bread and honey butter
homemade king cake (Mardi Gras is next week)
homemade yogurt with add-in's
smoothies
homemade crockpot granola with milk or yogurt
cookies (probably some sort of sugar cookie that we can make into hearts and decorate for valentines day and also some sort of breakfast cookie)
carrots and cucumbers with ranch dip
Chips and salsa
pecan/ fig pinwheel cookies
apples
pears
cheese cubes

Supper:

Pizza - will do individuals that everyone can top as they like - with a green salad

BBQ Chicken Sliders with broccoli slaw

Baked tilapia, steamed broccoli and homemade bread (all three with lots of butter :) )

lasagna from the freezer with caramelized mixed veggies and bread of some kind

white bean chicken chili

We will probably do breakfast for dinner one night since we have a lot of eggs - either scrambled eggs, hash browns and ham or a ham, hashbrown and egg fritata.

Go check out everyone's menu plans at OrgJunkie.com

Busy Weekend and Dogs

2010-02-02T05:36:00.003-06:00

We had guests over this weekend and had such a great time. Our guests were one of my best friends and her family, which are some of my kids best friends. It was such fun. We enjoyed their company for several days and after they left, we were slow in getting back to reality, so, as of yet, I have not posted our menu plan, though we do have one this week. Hubby was off yesterday, so the menu did not get posted then and it won't get posted today either because we have a very busy day with homeschooling friends. Maybe tomorrow :)

Yesterday, instead of posting the week's menu, we went out to shop - for furniture and for a dog. We found some furniture we like, but need to measure to make sure it will fit and we need to think on it to make sure it will end up being what we really need and not just what we want.

On the other hand, the dog search was much more successful. We visited a private animal shelter with definite ideas of what we wanted, but at least somewhat open minded. We wanted a young dog, preferably a German Shepherd or a Shepherd mix. We found a few that met that description, but ended up falling in love with some lab mix puppies. Two, lab mix puppies, in fact. Sisters. We (me) could not bear the thought of separating them (lame, right, lol), so we applied for both of them. This shelter is extremely particular about their adoptive families and how the dogs will be kept, so I am not sure they will agree with our plans to keep the dogs outside some of the time. In other words, we may not get them. But we are hopeful. We should know something by the end of the week.

Garden Update January 29, 2010

2010-01-29T06:16:00.005-06:00

Look how pretty! The previous owner planted lots of bulbs all over the "yard" and things are starting to come up. These daffodils bloomed just yesterday. Aren't they pretty :)

Last week, I posted about the "no longer so cute" little woodland creatures who are eating my container garden that we brought with us when we moved. At first, I joked with my husband that I hoped it was a deer because with all of the onion tops and parsley it had eaten, my sausage would already be seasoned. We discovered though, that it is probably rabbits. We found a rabbit "village" - lots of rabbit holes and lots of rabbit families - just a few feet from the location of the container garden. My Dad is planning to take the boys rabbit hunting soon, but really, there is no way to keep them completely out of the garden, so I think we are going to have to try to contain the entire garden somehow to protect it.

The plan is to build 4' X 8' raised beds (hoping to have the first one finished by next weekend) with a hinged lid composed of 2 4X4 frames with hardware cloth stretched across the top and sides. The lids will fasten to the raised beds with some sort of clasp so that they cannot be opened without an opposable thumb, lol. Under each raised bed we are going to put hardware cloth to help keep out the diggers. I don't know if we will be able to completely outsmart the critters, but we will start here and add more reinforcements if necessary.

I am also planning to add lids to the container garden, as the onion tops and parsley are growing back. Hopefully we will still be able to harvest and use these at some point. And speaking of harvest - I harvested 8 carrots this week (5 orange and 3 white) and used them in a soup - well, only what the kids didn't eat right away made it into the soup. Very yummy! I hope to plant more as soon as the new beds are ready.

While my parents were here last weekend, my Dad helped me to make a compost bin, and he, Mom and our oldest son helped to fill it with leaves. I'll get a picture of it soon and post it. It is nothing special, just posts and hardware cloth, but we definitely need it for the garden and we have more than enough leaves to get one started.

I also mentioned last week that I wanted to work on getting some salad greens to grow indoors. We have many East facing and many South facing windows that get so much beautiful direct sunlight. A week ago, I planted the first small container (an old bowl) with mesclun seeds and they are up.

We will probably harvest some as micro greens and let some continue to grow to the "baby greens" stage. If they look to be growing well, I'll let one or two plants get bigger. I planted a second container yesterday - in a lettuce container from the grocery (thanks for the idea, Alea!!).

In another week, I should be able to tell if they are going to grow well. If they are, I will plant another container and then a fourth the following week, maybe with spinach.

Do you have a winter garden growing? I love to read about other people's gardens and would love to read an update of yours. Please post a link or update in the comments :)

This post is linked up to Fertilizer Friday.

Tell Me Thursday

2010-01-28T14:49:00.003-06:00

This was Monday at our new house. I guess since the weather has been mild, they thought it was time to grow and bloom. I'm glad I got pictures because it is supposed to be below freezing again for a few days. Here is a picture from today - so pretty!

Tell Me Thursday

Updated Menu

2010-01-27T08:50:00.003-06:00

In an earlier post, I asked for help with menu ideas as I had not had a chance to plan the menu and was hoping to avoid the store this week (we live 30 miles from the grocery).

My friend, Alea, from Premeditated Leftovers (go visit her!!) left a comment with some great ideas which we are going to incorporate into our menu. In addition, I found another bag of dried beans, this one black-eyed peas, and I decided to incorporate those into the menu as well. Here is some of what we came up with:

Snacks:
Pumpkin bread (in the oven as I type)
yogurt with pecans (from my Uncle's trees, so local) and maple syrup
Coconut macadamia nut cookies
homemade crescent rolls
homemade granola bars
some sort of scone (printed about 6 recipes - will try to update when we decide)
pear sauce muffins (local, homecanned pear sauce) - if we have any eggs left

Supper:
tortellini with red sauce and steamed veggies

Crockpot Black-eyed pea soup (made some veggie stock with odds and ends from the crisper)

chili as Alea suggested in her comments with the dried beans and diced tomatoes and some of the ground turkey

"blackened" tilapia over caramelized onions and veggie blend.

If I have any black-eyed peas left over after the soup, we'll have hoppin' john with the rest of the ground turkey, rotel tomatoes and some brown rice.

If we have sausage left over after the soup, we will also make pasta salad with it as suggested by Alea.

We will probably eat the ham for breakfast instead of incorporating it into a supper meal.

I'll try to update the blog as the week goes and let you know how the meals are going.

Wordless Wednesday

2010-01-27T08:44:00.002-06:00

Wordless Wednesday

5 Minutes for Mom

Menu Plan Monday 1-25-10

2010-01-25T13:09:00.004-06:00

Well, it is already Monday afternoon and I still don't have a menu plan for this week. We had guests over for the weekend (yay! We were so homesick and it was great to have a little bit of "home" come to visit.) and as soon as they left, we started unpacking boxes again. The boys and I continued the trend this morning after a really abbreviated school (just the basics today) and got 4 boxes of toys unpacked and sorted (and some even boxed up for donation) and at least 6 boxes of books sorted. So I guess now I need to start thinking menu. Any ideas? We live out in the "country" now and are trying not to have to drive 30 miles to go to the store this week. Here is what I have in my fridge/ freezer:

4 slices of ham (large slices for frying/ breakfast)
3 lbs of ground turkey
1 lb ground lamb
1 lb tilapia
1 lb smoked sausage
1 lb black beans
1 lb kidney beans
1 lb cheese tortellini
1 Box Cous Cous

4 eggs
1 lb sharp cheddar
1 wedge parmagiano regiano
2 oz. feta cheese
1 quart heavy cream
1 pint yogurt

2 pints salsa
2 jars spaghetti sauce
3 cans diced tomatoes
2 cans rotel tomatoes (with chilis)
1 can creamed corn
1 can black olives
1 jar kalamata olives
assorted pastas
Puff Pastry
2 lbs butter
Olive Oil
Coconut Oil
Soy Sauce
Teriyaki Sauce
Pizza Sauce

2 lbs asparagus blend stir fry veggies
2 lbs broccoli
lettuce
6 small onions
1 lb california blend veggies

1 lb almonds
1 lb walnuts
2 lbs cashews
2 grocery bags full of in-shell pecans (from my Uncle's property)
typical pantry items like baking items, oatmeal and such

We have a few things left over from the weekend, so tonight we will probably have those. Anyone have any idea what I could do for the rest of the week? Thanks :)

Menu Plan Monday

Tell Me Thursday

2010-01-21T13:06:00.003-06:00

About a month ago, I happened to glance at myself from the back in a mirror and discovered that my hair reached all the way down to my waist! I had not realized it was so long. For some reason, seeing it that long really spoke to me and I felt called to cut it shoulder length and donate it. The pony tails in the picture were an entire foot long and she cut more off when she shaped it. Hard to believe it had grown that long without my realizing it.

Tell Me Thursday

Wordless Wednesday

2010-01-20T06:54:00.003-06:00

Wordless Wednesday

5 Minutes for Mom

Garden Update January 19, 2010

2010-01-19T14:57:00.004-06:00

Can you believe that even after a hard freeze (low of 18 Degrees for 5 straight days), a lot of neglect before the move, and then moving, my container garden survived! That is until something in our woods ate about 1/3 of it, including some of our onions. I am disappointed to be sure, but I'm trying to chalk it up as a lesson learned BEFORE I actually build and plant the spring/ summer garden.

I have several different plans for a garden floating around in my head. One includes raised beds with small holed chicken wire under the beds and a mesh covered hinged top on each. This would be expensive to build and would only really work for things that don't get really tall or spread out too much, which means I'd need another option for those items. A second idea is a fenced in area with small chicken wire covering the entire ground inside of the fenced area and tall fences since deer are everywhere on the property and they jump regular fences as easily as I walk.

If you have experience gardening in this type of environment, I'd love to hear your experience and what you've done to help your garden efforts make it to your table. Does a dog help? We are getting one in a few weeks, but it will most likely be indoors or in the kennel at night, which is when I think our uninvited dinner guests are dining.

We are also ordering chicks soon, so if you have thoughts on breeds, coops, etc, I'd appreciate hearing your advice.

In the mean time, I think I will stick to making compost from the acres of leaves we have scattered all over the property, and trying again to grow salad greens indoors. At least I know the deer won't get that salad. :) I'll post pics once I get that experiment started.