A New Farm Implement

We are odd farmers in that we don't have a tractor.  Our garden is pretty big, but we normally either borrow a tiller from our neighbor to work up the garden or we turn it over by hand with a shovel and work it into rows with a hoe.  Hard work, indeed. 

Tricia recently went to the SSAWG (Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group) Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas about practical tools and solutions for sustaining family farms.  At the trade show, she bought me a new farm implement - not a tractor.  A hoe, but not just any hoe.  This bad boy is a SHW Friedrichstal Ulmer hoe.


My new hoe - behave, ya'll.

This tool is made in Germany with an oval shaped handle made of Ash.  You can Google the name and it will bring up their catalog where you can check out all of their neat tools.


Moving some dirt

It has a one piece forged steel blade.  Look how the handle is wedged.  This is a tool of quality and was made to last.

Quality

You can see the old hoe on the left.  It was made in China and cost $5 at Kmart.  It feels cheap and flimsy in my hand compared to Big Bertha on the right.  I 'test drove' the new hoe and then the old one.  Let's just say I'm gonna put the blue one away.  The Ulmer hoe pulls more dirts and it seems like you're exerting less energy to do so.

No comparison

I will be planting potatoes tomorrow and Sunday, so it was time to work up some ground and test out the new hoe.  As Russ picked peas, I started turning over dirt and pulling up rows.  In no time I had two rows pulled up.  I am very pleased with my new hoe.  It felt good to do some physical labor after sitting in an office behind a computer all day.

I had pulled up two rows in no time

Tomorrow I'll work up more land, pull up more rows and begin planting potatoes.  I know I'm late.  The rains in January and February really messed me up.

Dewberry Pie for Dessert

Life is Good!

When I came in from work this afternoon, I noticed a sight that made me salivate like one of Pavlov's dogs.  Friends, a rolling pin coupled with a rounded glob of dough is a happy sight that should warm the cockles of your heart.  An angry woman with a rolling pin, on the other hand, is a completely different story.

Good things to come...

Tricia was out milking Rosie, so I began to look around the kitchen for clues as to the identity of the mystery pastry.  Aha! Dewberries defrosting...


Dewberry Pie tonight

So Tricia adds a little sugar, flour and cinnamon to the bowl of dewberries. 

Mixing in the flour, sugar and cinnamon to the berries

She puts the homemade pie crust in the pie plate.  The secret ingredient in this crust is a whole stick of Daisy butter.  Gonna be goood.


A good lookin' crust

After pouring the dewberries and a tablespoon or so of lemon juice in the pie crust, we'll add a little more butter.

The pie's taking shape

Now she puts the top crust on the pie and pinches the edges together.


The upper crust

Then we put the pie in the oven and bake at 425 for 45 minutes. 

Lovin' in the Oven

About mid-way through baking, Tricia will put a ring around the outer crust to keep it from burning and then she'll remove it when it is about to come out to allow it to brown.  Now the pie is ready and is pulled out of the oven to cool.  This is an important step.  See that purplish, gooey, mass, flowing out of the holes in the pie?  Yep, that liquid dewberry 'magma' is hot like molten lava flowing from an active volcano threatening to incinerate anything in its path .  If you don't exercise patience and risk putting a forkful of pie in your mouth now, you'll burn all the skin off the roof of your mouth.


Hot Fresh baked pie

Time to call the crew for dessert.  The boys came running.  We had no visitors tonight, and I know it is not good table manners, but we literally licked the plates clean.  Emily Post would be disappointed.


Delish!

What a chore it is to use up this last gallon of frozen dewberries before the fresh crop of berries ripens a little later this Spring. \sarcasm

You can't "beet" this cake

So my oldest child, Laura Lee, turned 20.  Wow.  No longer a teenager.  This makes me feel really old.  She came in from college in Baton Rouge to celebrate her birthday and we went out to a scenic restaurant in Lake Arthur called Regatta and had a nice meal and then returned home for a special cake that Tricia made.  So what in the world is the farm tie in to a birthday cake, you ask?

Well, Laura Lee requested a red velvet cake, but we had a slight problem.  We had no red food coloring in the pantry and we don't really like to add artificial flavorings or colorings to anything we eat, if we can possibly avoid it.  Well, it just so happens that we have fresh beets that we are harvesting right now.  Beets are red.  Red velvet cake is red.  Coincidence?  I think not.  Tricia googled and found a recipe online for Red Velvet cake using beets.


Peeling the beets

Once the beets were peeled, sliced, and processed, they went into the moist cake and provided the wonderful red color and great flavor too.

Just look at the rich red color!

I won't bore you with each step of the cake baking, but it was a resounding success and was enjoyed by all. 

The finished product - You can't beet it!

My Mom and Dad dropped by to wish the birthday girl Happy Birthday and enjoyed cake with us.

Tricia poured sparkling Ginger Ale in champagne flutes to add some formality to the celebration.  You can see on the edge of the coffee table that we're sending my Mom and Dad home with some of the Dewberry Jelly we made the other night.

 Here's my kids with Mom & Dad:

 And here is our family with the birthday girl.


Smiles everyone.  Smiles!

And here is a close up of the cake.  We confirmed a little later that "You can indeed have your cake and eat it too!"  We also got a kick out of telling Benjamin to come eat his vegetables (those vegetables being cake). 

Happy 20th Birthday, Laura Lee!

Tune in tomorrow where we'll show you how we made ice cream with cabbage.  I'm just kidding...

A bird's eye view

We have a number of chickens that roam free on our pasture, scratching around for bugs, worms, seeds, or other snacks that they might find to eat.  They have about 3 acres to forage on and in the process they fertilize the pasture with chicken litter, ensuring the growth of green grass this Spring.  I have nesting boxes in the chicken tractor that is out on the pasture as well as in the barn and the hens provide us fresh eggs all year long. 



Part of our flock

We started keeping detail records of egg production this past December just so we could keep tabs on how many eggs the hens were giving us.  Here is the accounting of egg production:

• December 2012: 346 or 28.83 dozen
• January 2013:     394 or 32.83 dozen
• February 2013:   407 or 33.92 dozen

Looking for something to eat

We've seen several things over the years of keeping chickens.  First, their egg production varies with the seasons, meaning they produce more in the Spring and Summer and less in the Fall and Winter.  This is due to a couple factors - light and quality of food.  Shorter days (less daylight) means fewer eggs.  We don't feed them laying pellets and only give them rice to supplement the forage that they can find on the pasture.  As a result, during Fall and Winter, when quality food on the pasture is not as readily available, they're going to give us fewer eggs.  We've also noticed that chickens are a nervous bunch.  Events like dogs in the pasture, hawks or owls swooping down, or neighbor kids chasing the birds, or other stress-inducing incidents, will result in fewer eggs produced the following day. 



Chickens and Maggie keeping a watchful eye in the background

We have mostly Barred Rock chickens, followed by Aracaunas, followed by Rhode Island Reds.  They provide us with brown, green and blue eggs.  We have an adequate number of roosters to ensure that the eggs are all fertilized.  We'll likely incubate some to replenish the flock this Spring in our little incubator.



Big Red - the cock of the walk

And speaking of roosters, here is the Barred Rock rooster that oversees his flock in the barn.



The boss of the barn

Tricia always says that anyone with low self esteem should get some chickens.  Chickens will follow you anywhere and make you feel important!

A good cup of coffee

We love a good cup of coffee.  Normally, before we head out to the barn in the morning to milk the cows, we'll turn on the coffee pot so that we have coffee made when we get back inside.  We have a regular Black & Decker "Mr. Coffee"-style drip pot that we use every morning.  It makes good coffee, but I'll tell you what.  There are several things that can take a good cup of coffee and turn it into a great one:

• The type of coffee you're using, and
• The type of coffee maker you're using.

Normally, we'll use either Community Coffee Dark Roast or CDM (Cafe du Monde) Coffee & Chicory.   Both are pretty strong and the chicory takes a little getting used to, but both are good to us.  I already discussed the drip pot that we use, but this afternoon, on our quest for the perfect cup of coffee, we're pulling out the pièce de résistance, The French Press.

The French Press is a coffee maker that uses a simple process to make an exceptional cup of coffee.  In a way it is similar to 'camp coffee', if you've ever had that on a camp-out.  Here's what you do.  Our french press holds 32 ounces of water.  I pour 5 rounded scoops of coffee into the bottom of the french press and put 32 ounces of filtered water to boil on the stove. 


5 rounded scoops of CDM coffee in the bottom of the french press

When the water has come to a boil pour it directly into the press.  

Boiling water added to the press

The lid has a circular screen that can be pushed down by a plunger on top.  What you want to do is just put the cap on top so that you block any steam from escaping.  Don't plunge it down yet.  Let it sit and steep for five minutes.  Sometimes I'll wrap a dishrag around the french press to hold the heat in.


Put the cover on to block any steam from escaping

Once five minutes has passed, press the plunger all the way down.  Doing this will keep all (well, most) of the coffee grounds down at the bottom when you pour.  One of the secrets of the french press is that there are no paper filters to draw any of the oils that provide flavor.  All the flavor is retained in the coffee for your enjoyment.  Every Sunday we have "Truffle Sunday" or 'merienda' where we have a good cup of coffee along with some decadent dark chocolate truffles and visit and plan our up-coming week.  

Coffee's on!

And here it is, quite possibly the perfect cup of coffee!


Escaping the daily grind

One word of caution, though.  There is a national brand coffee that advertises that their coffee is "good to the last drop."  You don't want to drink the last drop of this cup as the bottom of the cup will have a few coffee grinds that the screen didn't filter out.

Time for Mint Tea

Right outside our back patio, we have some mint growing.  We planted it several years ago and it has kind of taken over about an eight foot stretch along the bricks.  When we get the strong summer thunderstorms, you can walk out back and the air is filled with the scent of mint from the rain beating down on the mint leaves.  Even though we're still in winter, the mint looks healthy right now.


Mint putting on new growth

I like all things mint.  I like the scent and I like the taste. 


Mint leaves

Instead of having a cup of coffee this afternoon, we decided on having a hot cup of fresh mint tea - easy and refreshing.  I broke off four stems of mint leaves and brought them inside.

If you take the stalks of mint and fold them over and rub them between the palms of your hand, you'll bruise the mint and release the oils in the mint that will flavor your tea.


Bruising the mint to release the oils

Get four cups of water boiling and drop the mint in the pot, both stems and leaves.  Leave the water boiling and remove the mint and put it in a teapot. 

Boiling water

Here is the mint sitting at the bottom of a teapot.


Teapot with mint

Now that you are ready, pour the boiling water over the mint leaves in your teapot.  Put the cover on the teapot and allow to sit and steep for 5 minutes.  I wrapped the teapot with a dish towel to keep the tea piping hot while it steeped.


Pouring boiling water over the mint

We originally set up our tea party on the back patio, but it was too cold outside for the ladies... 


Time for Tea

Plan B moved things indoors to the parlor.  We poured the tea into teacups sweetened a little bit with some local honey.  Laura Lee was in from college for the weekend and joined in for tea time.


Laura Lee and Tricia enjoying some fresh mint tea

 Ahhhhh.  Good to the last drop!  

We enjoyed tea time with mint tea

This was easy and so very good.  I'm going to read up on drying some of the leaves in the dehydrator and look at other things to do with mint (tabbouleh, jelly, etc.)  We'll definitely make mint tea again.

Spring Tomatoes & Potatoes

The weather is getting really nice, although still a little cool out as lows will be in the 30's this weekend.  I'll try to turn some soil and see if things are still too wet to get anything done in the garden.  It won't be long before it will be time to plant the Spring garden.  Let's take a look at the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant that I planted from seed on January 1st.

Here are some seedlings that I've re-potted into some larger containers and they reside on top of the freezer in the utility room.  With a Sharpie and some freezer tape, I've labeled each container as to the name of the plant as I have 7 different types of heirloom tomatoes planted and 5 different types of peppers.  They are all growing, but won't really take off until they are outside under the sunshine.  I'll have to 'harden them off' first.  This is a process where you bring them out and leave them for a while to acclimate them to being outdoors (sun, cold, wind).  Each day you gradually increase the amount of time they are outside.  If you don't do this, you'll put them into shock.  I'll probably start this process pretty soon.


Seedlings growing...

You can see the tomato plants reaching upward growing toward the fluorescent light.  I water them daily.  I want to try and get them in the garden soil outside as soon as I can.

Tomato seedlings

You say po-tay-toe, I say pa-tah-toe...

Tricia picked up some seed potatoes from the local feed store the other day.  She got mostly red potatoes, but threw in a few white potatoes for good measure.  I absolutely love new potatoes.  You know the ones that are about the size of a golf ball?  Put a few of those in a pot with some fresh green beans and a dollop of butter and you've got some mighty fine eatin'.  Here is a bag of seed potatoes.  I inspected them to make sure that there were no rotten places and they all look good.


Seed Potatoes

You want to inspect them to make sure that the seed potatoes have 'eyes', or good healthy sprouts.  Here is a good example of a healthy sprout on a potato.  A good seed potato will yield several healthy new potato plants.

Potato with a good sprout

On the potato below I'm cutting it so that it will make several new potato plants.  I just cut them so that I have one eye or healthy sprout for each chunk of potato.  You can see that each half has a good eye on it.  You want to ensure that when you cut the potato, you leave 10 - 14 days before planting them in the dirt so that the potato can heal and form a callous or scab.  If you don't do this, you run the risk of the potato rotting when you plant it. 

Cutting the seed potatoes

These are the red potatoes that I have cut into individual chunks that are healing:


Red seed potatoes all cut up and healing up

And here are the white potatoes:


White seed potatoes cut up and healing

My plan is to get them in the ground at the latest on Sunday, March 10th, which gives them 10 days to heal up.  I checked the Farmer's Almanac and March 6th and 7th are good days for planting root crops, so I'll plant on those days if the potatoes have scabbed nicely by then.