I used to enjoy that little show.
Star-spangled time on the July homestead
I haven't posted much about my garden so far...
Yukon 'taters are a bust. Moles/voles got about half and potato beetles got the rest. The sweet potatoes have something that likes the tender leaves and leaves the stem. Rabbits maybe. So I don't know if I'll actually harvest any sweets either.
Only 4 plants of the bush haricot verts (skinny, skinny french green beans) survived and 3 of them have been very productive. I've blanched and frozen several individual portions, and have some newer seedlings to get in the ground today.
I put in 4 zucchini plants and they ALL survived, so I'm awash in zukes. I even started some zucchini wine that is said to taste like a dry white table wine when it's finished. (It has white grape concentrate in it along with the zukes.)
My volunteer winter squash are coming along nicely; I've already picked 3 that had hard-enough skins to cure. They are Thelma Sander's Sweet Potato winter squash, said to taste like chestnuts. I grew them last year but they rotted so I didn't actually eat any... just threw them in the compost pile.
Only one of the tomatoes I planted is doing well, but the volunteers are going crazy. I may actually get some tomatoes this year, after 2 years with none... 2 years ago blight got them all, and last year the brown marmorated stink bugs. The volunteers are all jumbled around in my flower beds and it's hard to see them, but they are producing!
I never plant cukes... they don't agree with me. But somehow 3 large clumps of cukes have sprouted in various places (including one in the lawn), and I have no idea where they came from. I may have to make lacto-fermented pickles if they fruit! (Actually I did buy a 4-pack of burpless cukes that are barely struggling along.)
My chards are doing middlin' (if I get them before the bugs). I hope to make some chard chips this week, and lacto-ferment some of the red stalks. I also have (or had) about 40-50 leeks that are now overgrown by the sprawling winter squash. I have no idea how they are doing since it's now a thick jungle in there!
The garlic I harvested is curing nicely in the root cellar, and the culinary herbs have been cut back... some I froze, and some I dried.
My fall seeds should be here today or tomorrow and they will get started asap, the time until fall is fast upon us! Once those are started, I need to get busy making sausages and brats from the pork and venison in my freezer. Who ever said retirement was lots of free time? LOL.
Caj, here's a recipe for pepper jack... you could make it with goat milk!
http://www.littlegreencheese.com/2011/07/pepper-jack-son-of-monterey.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LittleGreenCheese+%28Little+Green+Cheese%29
Thanks. If I leave out the peppers will it be MJ? I lone MJ!
Yep. ^_^
Mmm It will take me a while to get 2 gallons of milk saved up. I am a slow milker. Can I freeze each day's milking until I get enough?
"They" say you can freeze goat milk, but not cow milk for cheese. Lots of folks on the cheese forum make cheese from frozen goat milk, but a few don't like to...
You can use Junket tablets, available in the grocery stores, for the rennet. It's not the best, but I started with it myself. Probably half or less of of 1 tablet would be enough for 2 gallons. OR... you could cut the recipe in half. I've made several 1 gallon batches of various cheese types. Right now I use berry buckets for my molds. I drilled holes in one so the whey would drain, and use the other as a 'follower' filled with water and placed on top of the cheese-cloth wrapped curds, and then a weight on top of that bucket.
Meant to say I'll get a link for you later to his 'make' process, which is pretty much the same for most types of cheese. Only the additives, time and temps vary.
cocoa_lulu can tell you how to make the meso culture from buttermilk...
I was talking with another Texas gal that makes cheese and I told her to come on over to the homestead forum and share with us. I'm not making cheese this week, but wondering if you didn't mind starting a thread on cheese alone..whadda' think? I'd like to be able to keep track of recipes better :0)
Darius, I've been wondering about that bunny you saw.lol Sounds like you have enough good stuff for it to stick around.
All my fall seeds have germinated, but the leeks. I don't know what to do about the rest of the garden. Everyday is a challenge to determine whether or not the pond water it takes to keep alive will provide enough food. It's getting desperate for us Texans. 98 percent of the state is in a burn ban. Lakes are drying up. 20 plus days of triple digits....I don't remember the last good rain :0( I don't have it as bad as others, but it looks bleak across the state.
I have 4 hens missing, well 3, I found one dead yesterday. I couldn't tell exactly what killed her and I had just seen her a few hours earlier, so it wasn't sickness. Then this morning, the dogs were going nuts around the coop. They trapped a raccoon inside the side of the coop with the baby chicks. Luckily it didn't get them...that is when I recounted the birds and realized other hens are gone. I hate coons.
Sure :0)
To make it from store bought buttermilk make sure it says on the label "active live cultures". Keep it out of the fridge overnight to multiply the good bacteria, the next day freeze in ice cubes trays. After they're frozen, I put them in zip lock baggies. It'll last for years.
From raw milk, just leave the days milking out of the fridge. You'll want to cover it, I use a plate sort of tilted on top of a bowl, some use a cloth to cover.
It needs air to multiply the natural bacteria. BUT, I find when I use cloth I have harder time keeping mold and yeast spores from ruining it. If this happens, it will stink or smell like bread, you'll know it's bad. It will take 1-3 days to form a soft jello-like texture. Whisk and this becomes cultured buttermilk which can be used as a meso culture. Freeze like the other method.
Well, the bunny has or had a family. My outside/inside cat brought me her trophy yesterday, a 6" bunny, feet to nose stretched out. Shug never eats them or the moles/voles, just plays with 'em until they are lifeless and cold. I should have skinned and gutted it and partially cooked it for my cats. They will be in a world of hurt if our system goes down and there's no cat food to buy.
I don't mind the bunnies... or any other critters except Jap. beetles and stink bugs. I have told them they may have 10% of the garden. And I told them that does not mean 10% of EACH fruit or vegetable, just 10% of the total.
Linea, if you start a cheese thread (good idea BTW), maybe call it 'homestead cheesemaking' so it sounds like it belongs in this forum and not recipes or cooking?
I got a job the other day; starting Monday morning I am the new projects manager at Ridgway hatchery in LaRue, Ohio. I guess he figured if he hired me he wouldn't have to compete against me. Not that the competion was much-I hatch 300-400 eggs a year. He hatches 5000 or more a week. I asked for a job there every time I buy chicks from him. He always takes my number but never calls. I went to speak to him about a new rooster (fox got my old one) and we talked awhile. The next day he called and asked if I could come see him. So, after talking and him showing me around he made the offer. This will be awesome. It's working in Agriculture, but it will involve a little traveling as they buy eggs from all over the country. Maybe I can afford to pay off my tractor supply bill now.
Cook Beans, Nik!
Sounds like it was made to order. How many hours a week?
Excellent news Nik. That's right. Nothing better than a job you love doing. Congrats.
My bull hasn't got out of the fence in about two weeks.... He is growing so fast that I am wondering if he
has out grown the nooks and crannies that he use to squeeze through.......plus we did do a lot of mending.
Not that I need the extra work or chores , I have been growing some Variegated Cane for several years now. I left it to grow and did not chop it down. Each old cane grew little side shoots of cane all the way up the main cane . Hubby got curious one day and removed a few and put them in a large bird bath to see if they would root.......and they did.
Recently I was wishing I had a privacy fence between me and the property next door but that would be expensive and shoved the thought away for a later date.......Hubby came up with the idea to root enough cane to make a living Privacy Fence and then sell what ever was left over.......I think we have about 400 rooting now in a bird bath and very excited about seeing a 300 foot living privacy fence of variegated cane.
Whoooeee! Sounds like a great plan!
I didn't think to take a picture of the large cane that we harvested the side shoots off of but I have several other young patches of variegated cane growing. The oldest patch grew 12 feet tall plus it would have seed feathers at the top that reached a few more feet higher. In the spring, new shoots grow from the soil and it is variegated. As summer approaches, it turns more green but the tops still have their variegation.
Picture= a patch that has been established for a year now but grew from a good stock of rhizomes.
not sure how long it will take for rooted side shoots to grow nice size rhizomes and large canes.
(looking on photobucket for an old picture )
This message was edited Jul 24, 2011 3:10 PM
im normally not an emotional person = but its heart breaking to see this photo... It was our home that burned down.
The variegated cane grew about 14 ft total. I don't have my elephant ears anymore either. They died after a very surprisingly long deep freeze.
since this photo it thicken and was solid patch with larger cane
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii105/CricketsGreenhouse/102_0570.jpg
This message was edited Jul 24, 2011 3:19 PM
I take it is not a 'sugar' cane, then?
Your house was lovely!
That cane should make a dandy privacy hedge.
not sugar cane
thank you porkpal
This message was edited Jul 24, 2011 8:42 PM
couldn't find the guinea hen eggs. and a few guineas are missing. Haven't found eggs in over a month.
son was lifting a floor from the burnt home to burn it and found this
chicken snake= full of guinea eggs
big ole snake
Glad he found it and not me!
sorry= got distracted while i was posting=
May be TMI for some.
he banged the snake against the garage wall causing the eggs inside to crush. Then chopped its head off and yoke ran out.........
dunno how long the snake was==close to 6ft.
This message was edited Jul 27, 2011 5:22 PM
Oh no, hope you find the guineas. Ours would always seem to be missing, the show up out of the blue..they loved nesting and hiding out in the tall grass. But then my mother always lost her guineas, because they would stand in the middle of the road and watch the cars come towards them. Hard to tell with those birds.lol
Somebody's Guineas eat breakfast with my horses. I have no idea where they supposedly live. I think many Guineas are their own birds.
LOL on the guineas. I've wanted some for ages.
I've been busy in the garden and kitchen since I'm getting a few things from the garden (no tomatoes quite yet). Getting a few haricot verts blanched and frozen in individual portions, and dehydrating a bunch of other stuff. I'm also making sausages, hoping to free up a little freezer space even though the sausages will go back in.
Plus, down the road to town there is a tiny 'honor system' veggie stand has early apples so I've started 2-3 half gallons of quick apple cider vinegar. A half gallon mason jar will hold 10 chopped apples, then filled with water to ferment... it will produce a quart of ACV in 2-3 months. I pay 10¢ each for the apples, and would be making more except I have no more jars!
I like your blog darius.
I have never drank ACV. . I was afraid it would taste like vinegar. Does it?
It is vinegar.
Yes, it's vinegar, but not like ordinary distilled vinegar. Because it's raw fermented, it has a lot of nutritional enzymes from the bacterial cultures. When I haven't had any in a while, I put a teaspoon in a couple of ounces of cold water to drink. I have found that if my body really needs what's in the ACV, I always feel like I need to drink more.
Some nutritionalists recommend a teaspoon in water at least once a day, if not twice a day. By the way, this vinegar becomes alkaline once in the body, not acidic. So it doesn't make the throat and stomach feel like they are burning...
let me ask a few other questions===
What makes a juice considered Cider? Example= Blackberry Cider. Does that mean it has apples in it or is it the way it was prepared?
What makes Apple Cider cider?
I am making Muscadine Wine and Juices this week. I do not like strong wine. I like it soft and trying to figure out
how to make it soft= having just a touch of alcohol flavor..........
I made Muscadine Wine 2 years ago and it was so strong that I couldn't drink it.
I guess i should find the appropriate thread for this topic.
I googled it.
And I was actually shocked at what apple cider vinegar is good for =etc......
Other than drinking it- I am a fan already.
Yay Cricket!
I wonder if you could can or freeze some of the Muscadine juice, and later dilute the wine with it so the alcohol content would be lower when drinking? I'd think you might have to do it one bottle at a time as you open one to drink, because the alcohol content might not be high enough to be a preservative once diluted, except refrigerated.
I was thinking along the same line darius..... Making Juice and the Wine and combining the two when its time to drink it. My other problem with the muscadine juice was it always turned brown after a few weeks in the jars and me and mom think I should put fruit fresh in the juice so it keeps the pretty semi clear color. Me and a few other country folks bottle the muscadine wine in canning jars. If I use pint jars, then I can combine them later.......so there isn't too much combined at one time.
I got some not so good news today. The people who lease our land for their cattle are out of grass and water at their other pasture. They usually give our pastures a break during summer to bale. So they are bringing over fifty head tomorrow. They paid for the right and it's theirs. For us, it's the beginning of what I consider the worst case scenario. He needs 800 bales and only has 87 left, and will give us 4 bales. He needs all the acreage at once, no rotations. That means my girls either run with his cattle or confined to 4 acres. Our ponds won't last much longer with 50 head. It's a bad dream and spiral. All I can do is pray for rain and hope I can keep my dairy cows. Got to take each day as it comes and see, but have a plan for the worst. sucks.