Vegetable Stock

Recently Jenny sent me a recipe for vegetable stock, so I thought I'd give it a try. It's amazing we pay for this stuff when it's so easy to make and for a fraction of the cost. I started with a base of carrots, onions and celery then added a few other things like a leek, some scallions, garlic, bay leaf, parsley, and mushrooms. I sauteed all that in a tablespoon of olive oil for about 10 minutes just to bring out the flavors then added 2 quarts of water, brought it to boil and then let it simmer for about an hour. A little salt, pepper and Taa Daa!!!! Soooo easy and soooo good. After straining it through a colander then again through a very fine strainer I pulled out the carrots to put in Annie and Rory's food later. No reason they shouldn't get some reward after having to smell those wonderful smells all afternoon. I can't wait to use it. I think I'll make the Split peas soup recipe Jenny posted awhile back and maybe cook up some brown rice. Yummy!!!!

Christmas is over!!!

Well it's all over now, but it was a great one. Christmas day was very enjoyable. We opened presents, ate and then went out to visit the girls. I think everyone visited with the chickens. Irene even held one, although I'm not really sure that was her intention. Irene was sitting down and one jumped up in her lap. I think she liked it though. Jenny liked to watch them run, which is kinda funny. They half run half fly and pop a couple of wheelies now and then. It really was a great Christmas.

A trip to the farm!!!

After satisfying our growling tummies, we decided to take a ride up to a farm. This farm is owned by Vince's boss and it's huge. He's building two ponds and it has acres of field. The 4 of us and Broch crowded in the VW Golf and off we went. Broch loved it. He ran and ran and then found the water. He jumped right in, brrrrrrr!!!!! After swimming after a few sticks, we let him run around some more to dry off a bit. Then we all crowded back in the car for the drive home. Broch laid his head on Jenny's shoulder for a couple minutes then curled up in a ball and that was the last of his consciousness till we got home. It was a fun time. I think we'd like to have a farm some day, we'd have some goats, chickens and a big garden!!!!

Non-traditional Christmas food!!

Well I can't say anything we ate for Christmas is what you would call "traditional" for other people but it is becoming our tradition. We started Christmas Eve with some veggie subs. We had a foundation of homemade french bread, layered with some baby romaine lettuce from the garden then as many other veggies as we could pile on. For a side we had fresh steamed broccoli from the garden, yummy!!!! Then on Christmas day we cooked up a large pot of veggie style Brunswick stew, a pot of veggie beef soup for Matt and Irene brought over a really good spinach lasagna. So I'm guessing our food doesn't really meed the traditional standard but it was delicious. And as an added bonus there's lots of leftovers that freeze well so we can pull it out later.

Gotta have dry feet :-)

Poor chickies!!!! Their run was just so wet and it's not good for them to have wet feet all the time. Parasites and insects and stuff get to be a problem when there's too much moisture. So I shoveled out all the wet leaves and stuff, ahhh, 5 wheelbarrows full of decaying leaves and bedding. Then I put down clean fresh kiln dried wood shaving. To help keep it dry I put clear plastic over the part of their run that wasn't covered. I used clear so I wouldn't cut out any more light than I had to. Well they danced around all afternoon. I looked out several times and they were dancing and bathing. There were about 4 taking a bath all at the same time. I think they like their dry run. Now I need to take a long hot bath.

It's a 3 egg day!!!

Yippie!!! It's a 3 egg day!!! We've been getting 1 a day but today there were 3 little eggies. And what is that?? Do I see an egg in a nest? Well yes I do. Good girls. They are starting to get the hang of this egg laying thing. We're still finding them on the ground and in the corner of the coop but more often than not they are starting to be in the nest. It's kinda hard to tell but the egg in my hand may have been a first egg for whichever little girl laid that one. It was very long and skinny and sometimes the first few eggs can be funny shaped. They sure do brag very loudly after they finish laying one too. One girlie came out of the coop, definitely announcing that she had just done her duty. We may just have to have an egg dinner tonight :-)

Have you hugged a chicken today?

Oh go ahead, hug one, kiss one even, just don't let them kiss you back it might hurt!!!! It's really funny how they want attention. I have one that is just content to sit in my lap the whole time they are out. She'll snuggle way down and tuck her head under the crook of my arm. It's also funny to watch their interaction. They have a certain "language" all their own. They do okay for chickens :-) Anyway it's a lot of fun and also a lot of work but the kind of work that's worth it.

Fall veggie stew, Yummy :-)

Well, I wasn't quite sure about this one but thought I'd give it a try. My mother-in-law clipped this recipe from our newspaper. It turns out it's definitely a keeper. It was yummy!!!! It is slightly spicy and has a smooth texture, and it has peanut butter. I thought the peanut butter would be strange but it's really interesting. Not overpowering but you can taste it. Here's the recipe:

2 large onions, chopped
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt or powder
1 1/2 cups chopped cabbage
1 cup apple juice
3 cups tomato juice (I used V-8)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes
1 40 oz can of sweet potatoes, cut into chunks or cubes
( I used some I had baked the previous day)
1 (15 oz) can black beans, drained
1/2 cup peanut butter

Saute onions in vegetable oil until tender, about 10 minutes. Stir in cayenne pepper and garlic powder (or salt) and saute for two more minutes. Add chopped cabbage, saute, covered, for three minutes. Mix in apple and tomato juices, salt, ginger and tomatoes. Add sweet potatoes, and black beans. Simmer for five minutes. Stir in peanut butter and simmer gently over very low heat until ready to serve. Stir frequently to prevent scorching. Add more juice if stew is too thick.

A new book!!!

I'm so sad :-( I kinda guess I knew with all the recent hype about "organics" that the big industrial giants would eventually just take all that over. But knowing it and "knowing" it makes me sad. I'm reading Omnivores Dilemma by Michael Pollan and it's really a good book in fact I got this one from the library but it's going on my list of books to buy. It is very informative about the sources of our foods. He traces different meals back to their origin, like his organic meal for instance. His chicken which he bought at Whole Foods, (which he names Rosie) apparently lives a life not much different from those raised on a factory farm. During an interview with Gene Kahn, owner of Cascadian Farms, which is owned by General Mills, Kahn makes the statement, "everything eventually morphs into the way the world is." Oh boo, so true and so sad. My favorite part is his adventures at a place called PolyFace Farms. The owner runs things so opposite of the way the big industry says you should. Their website shows video clips of their farming methods. Oh well, I guess I am turning more towards supporting the local farmer instead of the industry giants.

French Bread

So today was bread baking day. I made 6 loaves of whole wheat, 6 whole wheat and buckwheat and decided it was time to try something new. Since we love veggie sandwiches from Subway but have a hard time getting them to put any veggies on them I thought I'd make our own bread to make them on. The recipe says it makes four loaves but they are giant loaves. I think next time I'll try to get six out of it. I saved a little piece of the dough to bake a bread bowl for serving chili or stew. It turn out nice. We had French toast for breakfast this morning and I used Agave instead of maple syrup, yummy!!!! Next time I think I'll try pitas!

Drinking carrots!

I don't think I ever thought I'd be drinking carrots. We've had our juicer for probably 20 years. I can't even remember what got us into juicing. I know healthy eating has been a lifelong process for me. I do remember going to the Brownstone downtown Raleigh for the demonstration. Over the years it's been the thing we pull out when one of us are feeling a little sick and honestly it does help with colds and such. Lately though I've been trying to have at least a glass a day sometimes two. Today I added an apple and a beet from the garden. I had no idea the beet would be so sweet. It was only about half the size of a golf ball but it gave a lot of juice. I think I might try some pears soon.

Scones Yummy!!!

Yummy Yummy!!!! I love to eat scones. I wanted to find a good recipe so I went to the perfect source. I have a friend from South Africa and not only does she have a wonderful accent but she's a great cook. So I find out that we (Americans) put a lot more sugar in our scones. Does that surprise you???? I used my fresh ground whole wheat pastry flour and added dried cranberries and some orange zest. I also juiced the orange for some delicious fresh juice. The scones turned out wonderful. Just like she said they should, more like biscuits. I like them just the way they are but I also want to try one with pumpkin butter. Maybe I'll do that with my afternoon "tea."

The "First" EGG!!!!!!

Yea!!!! It's finally here. One of the hens laid the first egg yesterday. It is so pretty, if eggs are pretty. We had been raking leaves all afternoon and redoing part of their run (more about that later). We finished up and decided to check out the coop to make sure everything was in order. There it was laying on the poop shelf. Fortunately Vince had cleaned off all the poop earlier that day so it was clean. It weighed 1 and 1/2 ounces, was 2" long and 4" diameter. We brought it in and cooked it. Vince fried it over medium. Yummy. I had forgotten what a bright colored yolk fresh eggs have. The flavor was more intense also. So there should be more to come. They are supposed to start laying between 16 and 20 weeks and this is 18 so they're doing pretty good.

Thanksgiving day was great!!!

Thanksgiving day is over but giving thanks continues. We had a wonderful time with Matt, Jenny, Kevin, Kelley, and Irene (aka Gwama.) We cooked all sorts of food and enjoyed a very relaxing afternoon. Even Rory was tuckered out.

It is such a blessing that we know our son-in-law's parents and can have a holiday with them. I know it makes it a lot easier for Matt and Jenny too. Plus they're really cool people !! We even took them on a tour of the chicken condo.

Making Laundry Soap

Here we go again, another experiment. I like trying new things so I thought I'd try making laundry soap. I'm not a big fan of strong scents and most detergents now have very strong scent added to them. First I tried the liquid method where you melt the shredded soap in water then add 1/2 cup borax and 1/2 cup of washing soda, mix well then add hot water. This recipe makes 2 gallons and it works fine. I didn't really have room though in my laundry area for the two gallon bucket so I thought I'd try the powdered. I shredded 1/2 bar of Fels-Naptha soap and a little bit of Dr. Bronners all natural soap mixed that with 1 cup of borax and 1 cup of washing soda. You use 1 tablespoon per load, 2 for extra soiled. It works great. You have to get use to not seeing a lot of suds. I'm told that's all just for selling anyway. But if you put your hand in the water you can feel the slickness which is what allows the cleaner to slide through the fibers. Most exciting is it's pennies to make. I haven't calculated yet, I'll get our family mathematician (Jenny) to do that and I'll let you know exactly but it was hardly what you'd pay for commercial brands. Off to do some more laundry!!

Closing the Pool :-(

Oh boo, it's time to drain the pool :-( Rory really isn't too sad, she prefers lounging on the deck just in case a morsel of food should drop. Annie is sad though. She really loves her pool. She even had a friend stay a week this summer and play with her. Her friend, Cody liked the pool too. It actually stays pretty clean. You can't see in the picture but Vince made a filtering system using two barrels and a pool pump. The black hose is from the gutter so the rain water kept it pretty full this year. I'm sure Annie wouldn't mind if it froze over. She would still be ready to jump in. But we don't want to take a chance on it cracking, nor do we want the dogs "cracking."
That's what happens to them when they go swimming and the water freezes on their hair, they crack as they walk.

Raking leaves with the chickies!

Raking leaves isn't much fun unless you happen to have children (or old people that act like children) or chickens that like to climb into the piles and begin to spread them back around from where you just raked them. I read that about a 6 inch layer of leaves makes good bedding for their run so since I have a yard full of leaves why not. Well chickies see the pile and can't wait for it to get into the pen so they jump right in. They seemed to have fun, if chickens have fun that is. At least it keeps them busy for a while. Then after I put it in their run I tossed in some scratch grains and they got really busy trying to find it. That is actually good for them in the winter as it helps them warm up.

Operations Christmas Child

Our church decided to be a relay center for Operation Christmas Child this year, and it's been loads of fun. Since we are an Age Intergrated Church our families chose a night to come a serve together. It's a lot of fun to see the people come in and there are sooooo many boxes and yet probably still not enough :-(

Pizza Day!!!

AAAHHHH, my house smells sooo good. I baked my usual 12 loaves of bread today and decided to try the pizza dough. I hadn't tried it in the mixer yet so I thought why not. I tripled the recipe and used the hard red wheat, prairie gold and just a couple cups of the soft wheat or pastry. I added a few tablespoons of herbs de provence for flavor. The outcome was 8, 12" crusts. We gobbled up one right away, wrapped 5 prebaked ones for the freezer, put one ball of dough in the fridge and one in the freezer. The last two are experimental. I want to see how they recover. The only bad thing is once you make your own dough it kinda spoils you and it's hard to get take out again. But oh well. Now I'm just plain tired but good tired.

Garlic is in!!!

The garlic is in!!! After reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, I am very excited about planting different varieties of vegetables. I just thought garlic was garlic but there are so many different flavors. I chose the Organic Polish Softneck in honor of my hubby's Polish heritage. It boasts to be for lovers of hot garlic (that would be Vince) and I am not sure I have ever had "hot" garlic. We planted 64 of the little buggers. That should be enough to hold us for a little while. We took a little of the wonderful compost that cooked over the summer, mixed it in the boxes and just poked them in. I ordered a milder one too, but it was already discontinued. We got it in the ground just in the nick of time. Next year we will plant it a few weeks earlier.

That, That cat, That cat!!!!

This is Daisy, or better known around here as "that cat." Vince has a love/hate relationship with this gorgeous little fur ball. We actually bought her 19 years ago, then about 6 years ago we gave her to my son-in-laws parents and a 2 years ago she disappeared. We all thought she had either died or been killed. Well then a year ago they pulled up in their driveway (it was at night) and they opened the car door and hear "MEOW." They shut the doors looked at each other and said "you don't think, no it can't be." Well it was and it just so happened they were moving and couldn't keep her but I had been wanting another cat so I dashed over and brought her home. She was so skinny. Well now she's a fat cat. The only problem is she poops where Vince doesn't want her to poop. She started under the deck so he fenced that off, then she went in the finished compost so he covered that, now she's going in the gravel walkways in the garden. All this wouldn't be so bad except the dog just happens to like kitty candy a lot. So as he passes Daisy where ever she is I always hear him saying "that cat." Bottom line is, he loves that cat and will miss that cat when she's gone.

Cleaning the chicken condo!!

Condo cleaning day!!! We wanted to put in some fresh pine shavings before the cold weather gets here. So we scooped all the old out into the run and put fresh on the floor. Underneath the shavings vinyl flooring to make cleaning easier. The buckets are old paint buckets complements of D&J Painting (my brother) in Thomasville. They have shredded paper in them to make the chickies comfy while they lay their eggs. The shelf above the buckets catch the dropping from the roosts which helps make clean up a breeze plus it helps keep the shavings dry. There are a couple of chickens that are a little scared to fly down in the morning so Vince has been helping them. Ha! now they are "waiting" for him to help them. There's a slide door over the hole where they go out into the run. This way we can lock them up safe and sound at night. No chicken dinners for Mr. Fox or Mr. Raccoon. Mr. Raccoon got into our last coop. So now the chickies have a nice clean house for the winter. Oh did I mention the chicken poop gets scooped into a pan every couple days and goes into the compost barrel. Boy does it make for some nice fertilizer.

Good "whole" Food!!!

Since planting the garden it's been a lot of fun to watch things grow. In an attempt to get back to eating "whole" food, real food, the Farmer's Market is getting to be my favorite day trip. Here is a picture of the dinner we recently had with some yummy food most of which was purchased at the Farmer's Market. There are roasted beets, which we had for the first time, sauteed brussel sprouts, rutabaga also a first timer, black beans and rice and a slice of my homemade wheat bread with a butter and roasted garlic spread. Not in the picture but also delicious was a "sweet" potato. Can't put these things in a box and still have them taste so good. I can't wait to start planting in the spring.

Me and my girls :-)

Here are a few of the most beautiful chickens ever. I think, they think, I'm the mommy cause they follow me everywhere, or maybe it's the food:-) It looks like Mr. Bird may have gotten his claws into the back of one of the hens. I was out with them today and noticed what appeared to be blood on her back. I picked her up and looked around but couldn't see anything. Then when I sat her down she walked with a little list to the side then kinda shook it off and continued scratching around. That won't happen again though, they'll just have to be happy in their run unless I'm out in the yard with them. Gotta protect the babies!!!!

Yummy food!!!!

Oh my the garden is doing great!!! I'm not so sure about picking off the cabbage worms but otherwise it's like magic. I look at each plant and it's like you can see it grow right before your eyes. We've had a couple pickings of peas already, the broccoli is beginning to head up and so is the cabbage. Vince put a cooker on the deck so I can cook up the collards outside, not really the best scent for inside, but good to eat. The chickies get the worms and the leaves that we cut off but don't use. That's one of the great things about having chickens, nothing goes to waste.

SPA Day!!!

I'm not really sure Rory fully appreciates her spa treatment. After battling her allergies on and off for two years, we took her to the vet. Before we could say a word he had a steriod shot in her and said come back in 6 weeks for another. Well I do not like steriods and I definitely can't afford them every 6 weeks. So into the bath with tea tree shampoo, finely ground oatmeal and all natural peppermint shampoo for a little tingle and good smell. We washed and massaged and even had a little blow dry.

We will try some topical ointments and attempt to keep these allergy issues under control without "steriods." I'm thinking it's an environmental allergy, with my luck I probably have a dog that's allergic to grass. So for now Rory will be getting a spa treatment about every 6 months and in between wet wipe downs. Poor Rory monster.

Oh my goodness!!!!

Poor chickies!!!!! This chicken is safe and sound after a traumatic experience, but I think she's a little "ruffled." I had let the chickies out to hunt for bugs and taken my favorite spot on the deck when all of a sudden I hear squawking and flapping like crazy. I look up and see a bird, a very large bird diving for my babies!!!!! I jumped up and screamed as loud as I could several times and he aborted his mission. The chickens managed to run under two holly trees in the edge of the wooded area of the yard. I was able to call the ones from the front tree to join the ones in the back tree closest to their pen. Well from there they weren't moving at all. Some had hunkered down in shock the others just kept looking at me like what the heck was that. I started coaxing them to me one at a time and carried each one of them to the pen. When it got down to the last five they had more room to get away from me so I fetched the pruners and cut away a couple of smaller branches enough so I could crawl in, yes crawl in to a prickly holly tree. I kept moving them and when I took the next to the last, the last realized she was all alone and started cackling and telling me what she thought. Next thing I know she was "flying" to the pen. Whew!!!! I immediately counted heads (about 10 times) just to make sure they were all present and accounted for. The ones I had carried either "purred" or peeped grateful to be back to safety. Don't think they'll be out again unless I can stay down in the yard with them. Now I need to take some Advil for the sore legs I think I will have in the morning.