Bartering, Borrowing and Blessings

  Most of our neighbors are farmers and they seem to be open to bartering for things.  My honey can fix about anything with a motor or engine and there aren't any farm mechanics around here, especially ones that make house calls.  See how God works?  My honey is trading labor for use of an excavator and some gravel to do our septic mound.  A neighbor's brother just gave DH a small blacksmith's forge.  My cousin tore down his cabin on the lake and let us scavenge tongue and groove, windows and doors, and firewood.  I have a friend with whom I traded hay for use of her ram to breed my ewes, now she's looking into getting me some free llamas, (blessing or not?)  We borrow equipment and lend equipment.  We help each other.  Lately, I have been stressing over finances.  I do this a lot.  (God is still working on me.)  So this morning I'm counting just a few of my blessings. 

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Today I get to...clean the barn, pick tomatoes, teach my children, perhaps trim goat and sheep hooves, find a buck for my dairy goats, check fenceline, stack firewood, this and maybe more.  How blessed to have sheep and goats, tomatoes and firewood and especially children.  A grateful heart is fertile soil for the Lord to work with.  Lord, I want You to harvest a bumper crop.

Homemade Blueberry Soda

Yesterday's list on my blog did help me to get more done.  I didn't want anyone to see all of those items still there.  I had an additional blessing yesterday.  My honey came home from work, sharpened my shears and said "Let's go and try them out."  So I got one sheep sheared.  Two to go. He also showed me how to run the splitter, so I can go and finish splitting the firewood!

It's raining today so it's a get stuff done in the house day.  I like this down time.

There is a site called Learning Herbs, which I discovered from one of you nice gals here at homesteadblogger.  They send out herbal recipes to my e-mail every once in awhile and I thought I'd try the last one.  It's instructions on making fermented berry soda.  Here is the site-  http://www.learningherbs.com/news_issue_20.html If you go there, you should be able to find this newest recipe.  It's also a great site for anyone who likes to forage, like we do.

Have a blessed day.  Don't forget to include God.

Lists

Thought I would post my list on here.  Maybe give me more incentive to get it done?

• Bake-bread and sweets


• Make huckleberry jam


• Pull carrots pull 3/4 of the carrots


• pick corn


• Take care of animals


• Clean goat room


• Unload two one truck of firewood


• Clean out cubby and rearrange


• Homeschool, of course


• Pick up dd from piano


• Make and can applesauce once honey comes home with more sugar


• Clean bathroom


• Do Laundry

Do I think I'll get it all done?  I never get everything off my list in one day.  Usually two or three.  The garden needs to be pulled and manure spread and then disked.  Garlic needs to go in for next year.  Barnyard and barn need to be cleaned with a friend's skidsteer, fenceline moved, big rounds stored in the yard.  My honey is overwhelmed, which I've never seen happen before.  He's had a couple of logs fall on his toes and his boots were so old that the steel toe became unattached.  Now it hurts to walk.  He has a problem finding boots that fit.  His feet are very wide and it's hard to find him boots.  This is causing his back to hurt again and I think he's just miserable with everything happening at once.  Join me in praying for him, if he comes to mind. Thank you.

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I'll come back tonight and see how many of those things I can cross off my list. 

On my mark-

Get set-

Go!

Let Winter Begin?????

I wanted to share some good news. 

Long story-Our home is 100 years old and has a couple different additions on it.  Not very air tight and when we had it tested, we had the equivalent of 200 softball size holes in it.  Needless to say, we didn't have to worry  about carbon monoxide  poisoning.  It was COLD.  Last winter we went through enough propane to run a small town.  Well, for the last two weeks we've had work done on it.  Winterizing.  They finished yesterday and ran the test again.  They cut the amount of airflow down to about 20% of what it was before!  Better than they even thought it would be.  I was told that we should go through less than half the amount of fuel we went through last winter.  And when I woke up this morning, I was warm!  We don't have any furnace hooked up yet, and it was about 38 degrees outside!  How cool is that?  Or, I should say, how warm is that?

Thank you Lord!  You are so good to us.

Another Tutorial-Horseradish Sauce

This is a post from a couple of years ago, but I thought I'd run it again, as this is what I'll be doing today.

It's one of those days when the list is longer than the amount of hours.  I HAVE to get to shearing today and no matter how nice it is out, we have to have school.  No more playing hookie.  Carrots need to be pulled and homes found for a few cabbages. 

I was up early and made some horseradish sauce, so you guys get another tutorial!  How blessed are you?

Warning-This stuff is strong and you may want to wear safety glasses.  No joke.

I dug up the horseradish yesterday and ended up with some nice straight roots this year-

Next peel these, either with a knife or a peeler.  I like a knife better-

Now chop these into smaller pieces.  You can process them in a blender or in a food processor.  I used my food processor because it goes faster and chops finer.

I added a teaspoon of vinegar for each batch that I chopped.  If you're using a blender, you may need more.  This is the horseradish all chopped-

I ended up with about four cups of ground horseradish. If  you're using a blender, you can just keep the ground horseradish in there as  you add the rest of the ingredients.  Next, I ground up a bulb of garlic and added it along with about 1/2 cup of olive oil, 1 cup of cider vinegar, 2 teaspoons salt, and 1/3 cup honey.  If you'd like your sauce to be more saucey, add more vinegar.

The finished product-

I don't can horseradish.  Just stick it in the fridge and it'll keep for months.  It does lose it's bite the longer you keep it. 

I use horseradish on all types of meat and on some sandwiches.  My dad loves it and I usually give him at least half of my harvest.

Enjoy!

This Fine Day-It Is a Gift

In honor of the great weather we're having today-school has been canceled.  It has been replaced with gardening, barn cleaning and hopefully shearing some form of livestock.

I got a pic of dd3's new kids-These are Boer, Nubian, Oberhaasli cross doelings, born June 2.

I thought I'd post a pic of some Icelandics that really need a shave:

These are my furry girls.  I guess wooly would be the correct term.

Well I'd better get going. 

Enjoy your day, whatever the weather.

From Glory Farm

Of goats and pumpkins

Sunshine this morning.  But, boy is it cold.  We had another 20 something degree morning.  We covered the tomatoes last night, but I didn't have enough plastic to cover the pumpkins,too.  I hope they survived.  Whatever is still out there has to be picked today.

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Dd3 bought two goats yesterday.  They're Nubian, Oberhaasli, Boer cross.  She hopes to have them bred and milk them.  I don't think they'll be big enough to breed this fall.  They were born June 2.  I'll try and post some pics of our ever increasing herd.

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Today we need to start shearing.  Angoras and Icelandics.  I may post pics of us fighting with sheep, also.

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Lots of jobs today.  Our new furnace isn't in yet, but we got the old wood burner out of the basement.  This involved a couple of chains, a big tractor, a come-along, thick planking and abundant prayer.  God was so good and up the steps and out the front door it was winched.  I didn't think to take pictures.  I did discover that I pray more when I'm scared.  That furnace had to go at least 800 pounds.

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Off to make good use of my time....I hope to be back later with pictures.

Bless the Lord.

Dehydrated Soup

My dehydrator is running constantly this harvest season.  I'm putting together soup mixes. 

Onions

Squash

Beans

Peas

Carrots

Lovage

Basil

Bay

Garlic

Dehydrating these, mixing them, and putting them in plastic bags.  For soup in the winter, just add meat and stock of your choice, or even just meat and water. 

I hope to dehydrate some tomatoes, also.  We had a killing frost last night.  My garden is too big to cover everything, so we lost the squash, pumpkins,  corn, and sunflowers.  I covered the cukes and tomatoes and have yet to check to see if they made it.  Corn, tomatoes and squash weren't even done yet.  Such is life.  We do have a fantastic cabbage crop.

Well, off to school we go.

From Glory Farm

Homeschoolfreebieoftheday.com

Every Monday, I receive a list of five free homeschool resources.  One available each day of the week.  I find something I can use almost every week.  We especially enjoy the history lessons.  I've also downloaded great organizing helpers.  This week there's a  resource that has bath and body recipes.  Lotions, creams, etc.  I'm posting this because it's a great resource and they would like more people aware of it.  You don't need to buy a thing, but they do have great deals on stuff from time to time.  Actually, I first found out about it through someone's blog here at hmesteadblogger. 

So check it out.

Drying Onions and Garlic

I love garlic and I grew a great crop this year.  I've decided to put up a lot of it as garlic powder.  This isn't hard to do, but I thought I'd post on it.

First the onions and garlic-

(the out of focus onions and garlic)

Peel skins off of garlic bulbs and then off of cloves.-

I slice the garlic in my ancient food processor.  It goes much faster.-

Then I peel and slice the onions.  I do this by hand as my food processor doesn't like onions.

Next, place onions-

and garlic-

On the drying trays for your dehydrator.  I think you can also dry them on screens or in your oven on low.

I dry them until they are brittle and crisp and then back to the food processor to grind them into powder.-

Yes, I should have washed this off before taking a picture.

And-VOILA! 

Out of focus onion and garlic powder!

I think I just wanted to take pictures today.  I'm making beet pickles now, but I promise, no more tutorials.

Have a blessed night.

Making Sauerkraut

We've been blessed with wonderful, large cabbage.  We grew 40 of them and now I get to make sauerkraut.  I've never made it before and I don't really like it, but I've been told that homemade tastes better than storebought.  So here goes...

Get approximately 20 lbs. of cabbage-

(pay no mind to the date on these pictures)

Next you chop it up five pounds at a time and add three tablespoons of salt to each five.

You could use a kraut cutter-

But as you can see, mine is old and needs sharpening so I just used a knife-

After you have salted five pounds and stirred it, let it set several minutes.  It should get wilty.  While it was setting, I cut another bowl full of cabbage.  After it gets wilty, put into crock-

Pack it down with a wooden spoon or your fist-

Continue to fill the crock with the salt and cabbage mixture until it is about 3-4 inches from the top-

If the liquid isn't at the top and going over the cabbage, make some more.  One quart of water to 1 1/2 tablespoons of salt.  Bring to a boil and then let it cool.  Pour over cabbage so there is brine up to the top of the cabbage.  I ended up making about 2 more quarts of brine.  Next cover the cabbage with cheesecloth.-

Then it will need to be weighted down.  I used a plastic bag filled with water.  This will keep air out and form itself to the top of the cabbage.-

Store in a cool place.  Remove and discard scum from the top every day.  It takes 3-6 weeks for fermentation to be complete.  To can it after it's done-bring it to a simmer-not a boil- and put into hot jars.  Put on lids that have been heated.  Put in hot water bath for 30 minutes.  This is for quarts.

I'll let you know how it turns out.  I've never done this before.

Pressure Canner

My mom went and bought a brand new pressure canner from Lehman's.  I know that she bought it for me, even though she's just borrowing it to me for an indefinite period of time.  What a blessing!  I canned some beans yesterday.  Today I hope to can some pears.  I also want to put up some pear jam and can some carrot juice.  Lord willing, I will also start some sauerkraut and dry some oregano and thyme.  Can you tell it's harvest season.

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Tonight they're predicting frost.  It'll be the second of the season already.  My plants were nipped by it a week ago.  Corn, tomatoes, winter squash, pumpkins, none of these are done yet.  A bit early even for us.

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Best get going.  School time.

From Glory Farm