Oct 31, 2011

Horehound coughdrops

Hey-one more post.  This is a record for me, four posts in one day.
I made a batch of horehound coughdrops last weekend and thought I'd share the recipe with you.
1 cup boiling water
3/4 dried horehound-I used 2 cups of fresh horehound
2 cups sugar
1/3 tsp. cream of tartar
Pour boiling water over horehound and let steep for 1/2 hour.  Strain the infusion into a saucepan.  Add the sugar and cream of tartar and stir over low heat until the sugar is dissolved.  Then cook the mixture over high heat, without stirring until it reaches 300 f. or when drops form brittle threads in ice water.  Butter a cookie sheet and pour mixture on the cookie sheet and let cool a bit, score with a knife and then when cool break along scored lines.

These coughdrops do not tast like candy.  Horehound soothes sore throats and coughs.

And the Winner is...

Nancy and Tara.  With only two entries, I can send you both fiber.  One will be the spring shearing from Darcy.  So just click on my profile info and send me an email with your snail mail info.

Thanks for entering!

Caramels....

We're still milking our cow and getting a little extra cream for butter and such...such as in caramels.
Here's what's left of our caramels.  I melted some today to eat with my apple-

So if you're interested here's the recipe from my old Betty Crocker Cookbook.
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup butter
2 cups light cream
Butter square pan.  Combine sugar, corn syrup, butter and one cup of cream in large saucepan.  Heat to boiling over medium heat, stirring constantly.  Stir in remaining cream.
Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, to 245 on candy thrmometer or until small amount of mixture dropped into very cold water forms a firm ball.
Immediately spread mixture evenly in pan to cool.  Cut into 1-inch squares.

Eat!

More on the Barn

Just thought I'd post pictures of the barn now.  We've been working on it, but it's not done yet.  The barn itself is up but still needing more bolts in it.
Here's a shot of one of the end walls that's just about up.

We're putting in a sliding door and a window on this end and a roll up door for the other side with a man door with a window in it.
Still hoping to get this done before the snow is here to stay.  lol

Oct 24, 2011

A Contest for Felters and Spinners

I'm going to have a contest.  I've been trying to think up some clever new way to do this, but-clever, I'm not.  So this contest is pretty simple.  Comment on this blog to get your name into the drawing once.  Blog about the contest to get your name in a second time.  I don't have Facebook and I don't Twitter so I guess I can't do that.
Anyways, the prize???
It's a kind of specialized thing and probably not appreciated by a lot of people--
Remember Darcy from the last post?  Well, this is her fall shearing and it weighs in at about 2 1/2 pounds.  This mohair is skirted, but not washed.
So that's it.  I'll draw the name next Monday.   :o)

Oct 22, 2011

Meet My Herd

Okay, this is getting frustrating.   This is the third time I've tried to post this and I keep losing it.  I'll try one more time--
I'd like to introduce you to my small herd of Angora goats.  They provide us with fiber for our mittens, socks, sweaters, etc.  They also satisfy my spinning addiction.
This is Bear.  He's the buck to my herd.  This is his last year with us, he's moving on to bigger and better farms.  He has a very nice caramel color.

Here is Big Mama. She's been with me since I started this endeavor.  She's four years old now.  She is a silver/gray/black color.

That's Darcy on the left.  Can  you tell Big Mama is her mother?  Wonder how they can see where they're going?

Lydia, this year's doeling.  She is only 1/2 Angora.  She has fiber a bit different than the others.  Hers is more kinked and not so curly.  Very soft, though.

And here's Sassy.  The last one in the herd. She's also been with me since the beginning.  She's Lydia's mom and my only white goat.  White fiber is good as it can be dyed to whatever color you'd like.

I'm expecting to have a mess of new kids this spring, Lord willing, and will take lots of pictures.  Is anything as cute as a baby goat?

Oct 17, 2011

Third Day

I'm a country girl.  I don't get out much. :)  That's why my trip to the Cities is such a big deal that I'm going to blog about it. 

My dear daughter invited me to a concert down in the Twin Cities and I accepted.  She knew I'd probably never take the time and money to go see my favorite band on my own so she got the tickets and away I went.

My favorite band?  You can tell by the title of this blog-Third Day.  It was a great time of worship and a lot of fun.  We actually got two concerts for the price of one.  We were invited backstage for a continued jam session after the regular concert.

This is a picture of the backstage concert.

Guess who?  The pretty one is my daughter Beth.  :)

Oct 10, 2011

That's Farm Life

Life on the farm isn't always pleasant.  Things happen.  We had one of those things happen last Friday.  One of our cows went down.  She appeared to have a spinal injury.  We treated her with an anti inflammatory and waited.  Well, she never showed any improvement and today we put her down.  No, I'm not particularly attached to these cows.  They're pretty cows, nice, friendly cows, but they're our income on the farm.  We had this girl butchered today and it looks like she's going to be good hamburger.  I am so thankful that she's not going to be wasted.  We had no cattle to butcher this year and now we do.  Thank you Lord.

You should  have seen my children out there with the butcher as he showed them the organs and explained his findings.  Seems our cow had a heart problem and had some calcification causing a large blockage in her heart.  So went the biology lesson today.

 Later, after the butcher had left, my children went out and cut up the gut pile and hauled it away into the woods.  My son said he doesn't thing anything will ever gross him out again.  Way to go guys. 
So, no pictures today, and I'd be pretty thankful for that.

Oct 4, 2011

A Day in Pictures

I like pictures.  I got up Saturday morning,((COFFEE)) grabbed my camera and decided to document my day.  My life isn't exciting, so you're not required to read the text, you can just look at pictures.
First thing after breakfast, I headed down the road to a farm I'm taking care of.  They have a batch of collie pups there right now.
Not a good picture.  Puppies are hard to get to sit still.  You'll just have to take my word for it, they're adorable.
Next, Honey and I pull started the grader for a friend who had to grade his driveway.

Nice grader, eh?
Went home,((COFFEE)) jumped in the pick up and started loading bales off of some of our fields to bring them home.

This is one ugly load.
Time to get home for milking.((COFFEE))  My view. :)

Thought I'd show you the bright trees around us.  They are rapidly losing their leaves.

Back to the house to get the raspberries trimmed and the fruit trees pruned.
Next pumpkins ready for the cellar and corn hung to dry.

((COFFEE))
Back to the collie farm to do chores and then down the road to take care of someone's cattle.  These ladies didn't have any water and I spent awhile trying to figure out why not.  Finally got my honey and he was able to get the water out to the trough.

This was my view as the sun went down.  Time to get home and get supper.

Honey said "Let's go out to eat."  Yeah! 
Told you it wasn't exciting.  It's just life.

Oct 1, 2011

Sugar Beets

My newest experiment is complete.  I grew sugar beets for the first time and turned them into syrup. 
Did you know sugar beets are white?  I found that out--
This is my harvest.  Somewhere around 35 sugar beets.

Took the tops off of the beets and fed them to my buck.  Then washed up the beets and sliced them somewhat thin.
Put them in a pot with enough water to cover and boiled them until they were good and tender.

After straining out the beet pulp, I put the liquid in a pan and simmered it until it became thick and syrup-like.
The beets were quite sweet.  Here's the finished product from all of those beets.

Less than a pint of syrup.  It's sweet, but it has a bit of a beet flavor to it.  Not sure if I like it.  Anyone else know how to process beets?  Is there a way to get it to taste a bit better?
Well, there are the results of my latest experiment.  Now it's out to bring home hay bales.
From Glory Farm

Oct 31, 2011

Horehound coughdrops

Hey-one more post.  This is a record for me, four posts in one day.
I made a batch of horehound coughdrops last weekend and thought I'd share the recipe with you.
1 cup boiling water
3/4 dried horehound-I used 2 cups of fresh horehound
2 cups sugar
1/3 tsp. cream of tartar
Pour boiling water over horehound and let steep for 1/2 hour.  Strain the infusion into a saucepan.  Add the sugar and cream of tartar and stir over low heat until the sugar is dissolved.  Then cook the mixture over high heat, without stirring until it reaches 300 f. or when drops form brittle threads in ice water.  Butter a cookie sheet and pour mixture on the cookie sheet and let cool a bit, score with a knife and then when cool break along scored lines.

These coughdrops do not tast like candy.  Horehound soothes sore throats and coughs.

And the Winner is...

Nancy and Tara.  With only two entries, I can send you both fiber.  One will be the spring shearing from Darcy.  So just click on my profile info and send me an email with your snail mail info.

Thanks for entering!

Caramels....

We're still milking our cow and getting a little extra cream for butter and such...such as in caramels.
Here's what's left of our caramels.  I melted some today to eat with my apple-

So if you're interested here's the recipe from my old Betty Crocker Cookbook.
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup butter
2 cups light cream
Butter square pan.  Combine sugar, corn syrup, butter and one cup of cream in large saucepan.  Heat to boiling over medium heat, stirring constantly.  Stir in remaining cream.
Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, to 245 on candy thrmometer or until small amount of mixture dropped into very cold water forms a firm ball.
Immediately spread mixture evenly in pan to cool.  Cut into 1-inch squares.

Eat!

More on the Barn

Just thought I'd post pictures of the barn now.  We've been working on it, but it's not done yet.  The barn itself is up but still needing more bolts in it.
Here's a shot of one of the end walls that's just about up.

We're putting in a sliding door and a window on this end and a roll up door for the other side with a man door with a window in it.
Still hoping to get this done before the snow is here to stay.  lol

Oct 24, 2011

A Contest for Felters and Spinners

I'm going to have a contest.  I've been trying to think up some clever new way to do this, but-clever, I'm not.  So this contest is pretty simple.  Comment on this blog to get your name into the drawing once.  Blog about the contest to get your name in a second time.  I don't have Facebook and I don't Twitter so I guess I can't do that.
Anyways, the prize???
It's a kind of specialized thing and probably not appreciated by a lot of people--
Remember Darcy from the last post?  Well, this is her fall shearing and it weighs in at about 2 1/2 pounds.  This mohair is skirted, but not washed.
So that's it.  I'll draw the name next Monday.   :o)

Oct 22, 2011

Meet My Herd

Okay, this is getting frustrating.   This is the third time I've tried to post this and I keep losing it.  I'll try one more time--
I'd like to introduce you to my small herd of Angora goats.  They provide us with fiber for our mittens, socks, sweaters, etc.  They also satisfy my spinning addiction.
This is Bear.  He's the buck to my herd.  This is his last year with us, he's moving on to bigger and better farms.  He has a very nice caramel color.

Here is Big Mama. She's been with me since I started this endeavor.  She's four years old now.  She is a silver/gray/black color.

That's Darcy on the left.  Can  you tell Big Mama is her mother?  Wonder how they can see where they're going?

Lydia, this year's doeling.  She is only 1/2 Angora.  She has fiber a bit different than the others.  Hers is more kinked and not so curly.  Very soft, though.

And here's Sassy.  The last one in the herd. She's also been with me since the beginning.  She's Lydia's mom and my only white goat.  White fiber is good as it can be dyed to whatever color you'd like.

I'm expecting to have a mess of new kids this spring, Lord willing, and will take lots of pictures.  Is anything as cute as a baby goat?

Oct 17, 2011

Third Day

I'm a country girl.  I don't get out much. :)  That's why my trip to the Cities is such a big deal that I'm going to blog about it. 

My dear daughter invited me to a concert down in the Twin Cities and I accepted.  She knew I'd probably never take the time and money to go see my favorite band on my own so she got the tickets and away I went.

My favorite band?  You can tell by the title of this blog-Third Day.  It was a great time of worship and a lot of fun.  We actually got two concerts for the price of one.  We were invited backstage for a continued jam session after the regular concert.

This is a picture of the backstage concert.

Guess who?  The pretty one is my daughter Beth.  :)

Oct 10, 2011

That's Farm Life

Life on the farm isn't always pleasant.  Things happen.  We had one of those things happen last Friday.  One of our cows went down.  She appeared to have a spinal injury.  We treated her with an anti inflammatory and waited.  Well, she never showed any improvement and today we put her down.  No, I'm not particularly attached to these cows.  They're pretty cows, nice, friendly cows, but they're our income on the farm.  We had this girl butchered today and it looks like she's going to be good hamburger.  I am so thankful that she's not going to be wasted.  We had no cattle to butcher this year and now we do.  Thank you Lord.

You should  have seen my children out there with the butcher as he showed them the organs and explained his findings.  Seems our cow had a heart problem and had some calcification causing a large blockage in her heart.  So went the biology lesson today.

 Later, after the butcher had left, my children went out and cut up the gut pile and hauled it away into the woods.  My son said he doesn't thing anything will ever gross him out again.  Way to go guys. 
So, no pictures today, and I'd be pretty thankful for that.

Oct 4, 2011

A Day in Pictures

I like pictures.  I got up Saturday morning,((COFFEE)) grabbed my camera and decided to document my day.  My life isn't exciting, so you're not required to read the text, you can just look at pictures.
First thing after breakfast, I headed down the road to a farm I'm taking care of.  They have a batch of collie pups there right now.
Not a good picture.  Puppies are hard to get to sit still.  You'll just have to take my word for it, they're adorable.
Next, Honey and I pull started the grader for a friend who had to grade his driveway.

Nice grader, eh?
Went home,((COFFEE)) jumped in the pick up and started loading bales off of some of our fields to bring them home.

This is one ugly load.
Time to get home for milking.((COFFEE))  My view. :)

Thought I'd show you the bright trees around us.  They are rapidly losing their leaves.

Back to the house to get the raspberries trimmed and the fruit trees pruned.
Next pumpkins ready for the cellar and corn hung to dry.

((COFFEE))
Back to the collie farm to do chores and then down the road to take care of someone's cattle.  These ladies didn't have any water and I spent awhile trying to figure out why not.  Finally got my honey and he was able to get the water out to the trough.

This was my view as the sun went down.  Time to get home and get supper.

Honey said "Let's go out to eat."  Yeah! 
Told you it wasn't exciting.  It's just life.

Oct 1, 2011

Sugar Beets

My newest experiment is complete.  I grew sugar beets for the first time and turned them into syrup. 
Did you know sugar beets are white?  I found that out--
This is my harvest.  Somewhere around 35 sugar beets.

Took the tops off of the beets and fed them to my buck.  Then washed up the beets and sliced them somewhat thin.
Put them in a pot with enough water to cover and boiled them until they were good and tender.

After straining out the beet pulp, I put the liquid in a pan and simmered it until it became thick and syrup-like.
The beets were quite sweet.  Here's the finished product from all of those beets.

Less than a pint of syrup.  It's sweet, but it has a bit of a beet flavor to it.  Not sure if I like it.  Anyone else know how to process beets?  Is there a way to get it to taste a bit better?
Well, there are the results of my latest experiment.  Now it's out to bring home hay bales.
From Glory Farm