Something Broke in the Pasture: UPDATE 11/23

Last week we were busy trying to get the chicken house finished so the girls would have a roof overhead and a safe place to roost and lay their eggs.  They had been roughing it long enough in the lean-to we set up near the house and it was time to give them a new, permanent home.

We ended up buying a kit since we had run out of wood scraps and pallets and didn't really have enough time to waste while we figured out how to build it.

By 3:30 pm we had gotten the four walls raised and were ready for a break.  On this occasion a break was exactly what we got, and a bit more than we had planned on.

We gathered Sophie and she and Nick started out for their daily walk around the pastures.  At the last moment I changed my mind and decided to join them instead of going inside to begin preparing dinner.  We were barely five-minutes into our walk when Sophie decided to go for a run, which she did, right around from behind us and in a blink she was in front of us and I was up in the air!  Just a quickly I was down on the ground writhing in pain.  Just before I hit the ground I heard the unmistakable sound of a bone snapping.

I knew immediately my leg was broken near the ankle.  Well, that put a quick end to our evening walk, and all walks for quite a while to come.  Neither of our cell phones have a signal in the pastures, but my cell phone is from "Jitterbug" and it has a red button for emergencies.  I have never used this button, in fact, I never signed up for the service so I had very little hope that there would be a response when I began depressing that key several times in quick succession.

To my amazement there was voice on my cell phone asking if I needed help.  How many ways are there to say "yes I need help"?  As calmly as I could possibly be under the circumstances, I told him I was lying in a pasture and my leg was broken... please send help... and I gave him our address.

In no time at all, but what actually felt like hours, he said help was on its way and would arrive in ten minutes.

Meanwhile Nick had tied Sophie to a tree and was still trying to get a signal on his cell phone. He also got a pillow and jacket from the car to try and make me comfortable while we waited for help to arrive.

To make a long story short.... help arrive and drove me to the hospital about 40 minutes away.  After spending a long, painful evening in the emergency I was finally delivered to my new home away from home on the fifth floor the Sentarra Hospital in South Boston, VA where I sit now writing this post.

I have had surgery to repair the damage done to my ankle and leg bone, and have been slowly recovering from a very bad day.

Tomorrow I leave this hospital for a stay at a rehabilitation hospital for an undetermined length of time.  The next weeks will be filled with doctor visits and daily bouts of physical therapy.  The sooner I finish with rehab, the sooner I can go home and hopefully resume "Life on the Farm".

Until then, I will post updates when I can.

UPDATE 11/23/2016

Well, the last four weeks have been awful, bedridden and with no cell or internet service, but the good news is I have just gotten the okay to begin using crutches and start trying to get back to normal.  Although the leg won't be totally healed for months, at least I can start moving around again and get back to life at the farm.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Never Too Old to Start Life on a New Homestead

While most of my friends have retired and moved to Florida or other places of warm temperatures, sunny beaches and golf-courses, I have started building a new life of hard work, broken fingernails, and a never ending to-do list.  But it is a life I had always imagined living, especially as a child living
in a rural town where there was a farm around nearly every bend in the road.

All those farms which my bus passed on our way to school have now disappeared and have been replaced with expensive new homes whose owners probably don't know and wouldn't care to know about the history of the land on which their home sits.  It always had, and still does break my heart to see those hundreds of acres of pastures and gardens dug up to make way for homes, industry or commercial ventures such as shopping malls.

Now that we are able to have our own little homestead, our farm will not be used for anything except growing a new life and the food to sustain it.

Today when very little in life is under our control to the quality of the food and clothes we buy, to the integrity of the leaders of this country,  it is good to know that there is a place where things can be the way we choose them to be.

We do not use chemicals or hormones, but instead choose to grow our food and raise livestock that is much the same as they were during the days of the Founding Fathers.  Heirloom vegetables and heritage livestock are being bred to retain their purity and traits that have made them strong and flavorful.

Instead of relaxing on a beach during my retirement years, I am learning to raise and breed Heritage cattle, hogs, geese, chickens, ducks and goats.  By doing so, I hope to help save these breeds from extinction.

Rather than spending hours browsing through shopping centers I  browse through seed catalogs.

Instead of sitting in the shade of an old tree, reading about the latest Hollywood divorce, I am sitting beneath an old tree reading about the way homesteaders of the past had dealt with matters such as trying to grow an orchard in soil that is mostly heavy clay.

The day begins early, by tending to the animals.  Once they have been fed and watered, then we can have our own breakfast.  Collecting eggs, milking (when the time comes), weeding the garden, baking bread, collecting firewood, and the list goes on.  In the evening we sit and talk or watch a movie.  We do not have television, but we do have movies that we enjoy seeing over again, or we read.  We sleep like we did when we were young and awake each morning refreshed and ready to begin, again.

Before coming to live on our farm I had to cope with the pains of aging.  Arthritis had me dependent upon pharmaceuticals in order to live pain free, but at the cost of constantly worrying about what damage those drugs could be doing to organs while it was making my joints function properly.

Now, here at the farm I have discovered, quite happily, that I can live quite well without those prescriptions, and have replaced them with herbs.  Perhaps not for everyone, and not for every condition, but for me, the exercise from having to be moving nearly all day has done more to aid in the quality of my physical life than all the pills in the pharmacy could have done.  And the only side-effect is that I no longer fear that my vital organs are being irreparably damaged by the treatment.

We raise most of own food including meat, eggs, and vegetables.  We are preserving a way of life that is quickly disappearing from the world stage, and we are as self-sufficient as we can be.

It is indeed a good life and an excellent retirement.

Pumpkin Fruit and Nut Loaf

This is a large quick-bread which I  have been making every autumn for as long as I can remember.
It is moist and full of flavor from the wildness of the Black Walnuts and tartness of the fresh cranberries.  Fresh or dried apples provide a bit of sweetness along with the raisins, all with a fresh pumpkin base.

Enjoy!

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
Combine and mix in a medium bowl and set aside.

1 cup sugar
1/3 cup soft butter
1 cup pumpkin puree
2 eggs slightly beaten
In a large bowl, beat sugar and butter together until well beaten.  Beat in pumpkin, then add the eggs.

1/3 cup milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla
Mix together and add alternately with the flour mixture to the pumpkin mixture.

Fold in:
1/2 cup pecans or walnuts
1/3 cup raisins
1/3 cup coarsely chopped cranberries
1/4 cup dehydrated apples or 1//2 cup fresh apples
(If using dehydrated apples let them soak is either water or apple juice for a while before adding to mixture)

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Pour into greased loaf pan and bake 1 hour until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Pigs Feet for Dinner

Nick is quite fond of reminding me that there is no part of a pig that cannot be consumed or used. This dish is made from the feet of the animal.  It is one of those dishes that I believe one either loves or hates, having never met a person who was indifferent to it.

This is not by any stretch of the imagination one of my favorite dishes, but it is one of Nick's, for some reason.  My grandmother and aunts used to cook pig's feet and it was always thought of as somewhat of a special treat and everyone looked forward to the couple of times a year it would be served.  Everyone, that is, except me.

My folks would cook the pigs feet, and while they were boiling in the pot, the cook would brown flour in the old cast iron skillet.  A process that seemed to take forever, and was never to my liking.

For Nick I found my grandmother's recipe, and doctored it up a bit, and prepared him a meal for which he has had a hankerin', as he says.

If you have a hunger for pigs feet, give it a try and let me know how you liked it, or not.

Place 8-10 pigs feet in a heavy pot.   (be sure all the hair has been singed off and the feet scoured
clean)    I use a cast iron Dutch oven.

To this add:

2 chopped onions
2 stalks of chopped celery
2 tbl red pepper flakes
1 bay leaf
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp garlic powder or granulated garlic, or a couple cloves fresh garlic
salt and pepper  (about 1 tsp each or to your liking)

Cover with room temperature water.  Cover.  Set to boiling, then simmer until the meat falls off the bones.

Check frequently and skim off the fat.

When done strip the meat off the bones and serve with bar-b-que sauce and corn bread, the way Nick likes it.

Or, with browned flour gravy and vegetables, the way my grandmother and aunts prepared it.

To make the gravy:
Measure the amount of flour you would use for the amount of gravy you want.  It takes 1-2 tbl flour to 1 cup of water to make 1 cup of gravy.

 Heat up a cast iron skillet and add the flour, turn down the heat to low.  Using a wooden spoon or spatula, keep the flour moving, gently scrapping the bottom of the skillet.

You want the flour to brown slowly and not burn.  When flour becomes a nice shade of brown, not tan and not dark brown, somewhere in between.  When it is the shade you want remove it from the heat until you are ready to make it into gravy.

Add cold water to the flour, and mix well with a whip to avoid creating lumps.  Return the skillet to a medium heat and stir constantly until the mixture becomes the thickness you prefer.

Serve the meat with mashed potatoes and green beans and spoon on the gravy.

Enjoy.... if you can

p.s.  there really isn't much meat on these things, mostly fat..... the dog loves it

Weiners .... Another Comfort Food from My Hometown

Having been feeling a bit nostalgic and hungry for some food from home I found this recipe from one of the many weiner joints I frequented during my teens and onward.  More than a hot dog, and in my opinion, better than a hamburger, these weiners covered with a layer of hot weiner sauce, finely diced, raw onion and sprinkled with celery salt is my idea of heaven in a bun.

By the way, it may be spelled weiner but it's pronounced weenee.

If you have never had one of these tasty morsels, you owe it to yourself to give it a try..... soon.

Enjoy!


New York Style Weiner from the RI New York Style Weiner diner

This hearty, flavorful wiener sauce is like the kind you'll find in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. It may be frozen until ready for use. Use premium grilled wieners cooked in butter, steamed hot dog buns and the fancy mustard of your choice. Spread with mustard, the sauce, chopped onions and celery salt... in that order. If you have a delicate digestive system, use with caution.
Prep Time: approx. 20 Minutes. Cook Time: approx. 1 Hour . Ready in: approx. 1 Hour 20 Minutes. Makes 12 servings.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3 pounds ground beef
2 teaspoons chili powder
2 teaspoons dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon onion salt

it is not unusual to see weiners like this
all the way up past his elbow!

1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon celery salt
1/4 teaspoon minced fresh
ginger root
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon soy sauce
10 ounces ketchup

Directions
1 Place ground beef in a large, deep skillet. Cook over
medium high heat until evenly brown; drain.
2 Mix the chili powder, dry mustard, allspice, nutmeg,
onion salt, garlic salt, celery salt, ginger root, cumin,
Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce and ketchup into the skillet. Simmer
at least 1 hour, until a desirable consistency has been
attained. Serve hot.

__
For more versions of this sauce recipe, from tame to wow! visit them here: weiner recipes

Dynamite My Way

This substantial sandwich is a Rhode Island classic with a few adaptions of my own made over the years.  Make it with as much kick as you want and serve it up on a sturdy roll or in a bowl.   This was the #1 food found in our picnic basket when we went to the beach to dig for clams throughout my childhood.  And then it became the #1 hot dish for family cookouts and get togethers, it's especially good for tail-gate parties and watching football games.

Enjoy!


Dynamite Sandwich Recipe

Makes a lot but it freezes and reheats beautifully.

5 lbs ground beef
4 lbs green peppers diced  (I sometimes us red, yellow and orange peppers just for their color)
3 lbs onions diced
Salt, pepper and red pepper, a dash or two (or 3-4) hot sauce
About a tablespoon Italian spices (combination oregano, basil, etc)
1 large can tomato sauce (this can be a #10 can, or a combination of smaller cans of kitchen ready, chopped, or pureed tomatoes)

Fry the hamburger and drain well. Place hamburger, pepper s and onions in a large pot. Add tomato sauce, adding until mixture is completely covered. The mixture should be nice and thick. Add salt, pepper and slowly add red pepper to taste. Let simmer until peppers and onions are cooked throughout, stirring often. Taste to adjust the amount of kick you want from the red pepper and hot sauce.

This always tastes better if made the day before and slowly reheated the next day. Make sure it's completely cool before refrigerating.  Serve over grinder roll (traditional) or other sturdy roll.

Making Hay and Other Things Before the Hurricane Hit

Until now the only time we saw those big round hay bales weighing around 500 pounds was as we were driving by.  Now, we have our own bales, cut and baled from our own grass on our land.  It was, at least for us, an exciting few days.

Farmer John came to help us by cutting and baling our grass in exchange for keeping the hay and providing us with all the hay we need for our animals until next haying season.  For us this was a great trade.  We don't need all that hay, 77 bales in all, but we did want all that grass cut and we did need hay for our livestock.

He started cutting the grass on Monday and by the time he began raking it on Wednesday morning we knew there was a hurricane making it's way up the coastline.  When he left us to go for lunch on that day we had no idea of what was to come for the remainder of the day.  He returned with several other farmers right behind, all coming to finish getting the hay raked and baled in one afternoon!

This was our first week living at the farm and so much has been happening.  The neighbors pitching in to help the newcomers tops the list, by far.  Then the first hurricane of the season strikes and we were lucky to escape it with just 20 mph wind and 4" of rain.  Our neighboring states to the south were not as fortunate.

Nick added sheathing to the goat shelter in time to keep them dry during the torrential rains.

And has also added an addition which is a shelter for Sophie.  At some point in time she will be sleeping out there with the goats and she will need her own space.

Last night was her first all-nighter.  We missed having her indoors with us, but she is a farm dog after all, and needs to be with the livestock.

The shelter is far from finished.  It has a good floor high and dry.  It also has a small area that has been sectioned off with a bit of cattle fence, and will be used to stack up hay during the coming winter months.  It will be easier than lugging the bales in from the little barn.

We are still debating on how to finish the exterior of the shelter.  I want one thing, Nick wants something else.  So until that is settled it will remain as is.

Last night we moved one of the solar powered spotlights to one of the fence posts and pointed the light to shine toward and slightly inside the shelter.  The goats are afraid of the dark and won't enter the shelter if it is dark inside.  They chose to sleep outside, huddled together against the wall, the previous night.  So we are hoping this little light will give them a bit of piece.  Even with the light, Nick had to convince them it was safe inside before they would enter for the night.

At least they were dry and safe during the storm.  Now to paint that sheathing so it doesn't fall apart from the weather.


The chickens have been hard at work clearing the land close to the house.  It was filled with weeds, brush and thorny vines.  They have been there for a little more than a week and have it nearly totally cleared, and fertilizing it at the same time.

The chickens scratch and eat up the greens and all the grasshoppers, while the ducks work their beaks into the hard ground for other bugs.

They are improving the soil all the time.  They don't have their chicken coop yet, but they do have a make-shift shelter at one corner.  Crazy chickens they stayed outside during the storm and had a feast with every bug that dared to come out of the wet earth.  Now if they would just get back on track with laying eggs.

Rocky, the rooster, has been happy.  The first thing we did upon arrival was to remove his "crow silencer" and since then he has been free to crow for as long and as loud as he pleases.  It's great!

The goats are happy too, they finally have plenty of forage and much bigger yard.   When we prepared to build their shelter the grass was waist high so we needed to cut it back in order to start construction.  But we only cleared the area around the shelter and to one side where we would be coming and going.  The remainder of their paddock was left tall.

They have been happily munching away at all that goodness since arriving at their new home.

Next week we will need to move them to another area for fresh forage and to clear for us.

That dead tree in the photo is on the to-do list to be removed as soon as possible.  For now, we continue to pick up bits and pieces as they fall to the ground.

Thank You!

When I first started this blog it was primarily to just keep a record, a sort of diary, of my little garden and what I would learn while developing it.  Before I knew it, my little garden had expanded to a backyard farm complete with chickens, ducks, and goats, and my garden was producing enough food to feed our household most of the year.

Along the way, people, both here is in the US and around the world, began discovering my blog and visiting regularly.  I have made some new friends, and have learned much from all of you.

In the past few months my audience has increased exponentially and from many countries.  It is far more than I ever expected would develop when I wrote my first post.

Thank  you!
~Kathleen

Well Water .... boil, filter or purify?

Now that we are settling in we need to address a few of our basic needs, especially drinking water.

We have an old, bored well which has not been used in at least three years.  There is no septic system so we aren't concerned regarding possible contamination.  But, wells that just sit idle do grow bacteria and we don't need to be ingesting any of those miniscule varmints.

We will be replacing the pump and tank, but in the meantime we use a clean container at the end of a long rope to retrieve well water.

When it was just the two of us we could easily get by with a couple gallons of purchased water daily.  But, now that the livestock is here they use about 5 gallons a day which means the water bill is increasing.

After carefully researching using our available, free, water I have found that making certain our water is pure is as simple as boiling it for 1 minute.  Basically, all pathogens are killed at about 140 degrees F, so by the time the water gets to boiling (212F) they have all been killed and the water is safe to ingest.

Although the pathogens are killed during the boiling, their "bodies" remain in the water and it should be filtered before drinking.  The boiled water can be filtered through coffee filters, or other fine filter.

The only problem I have found is that, believe it or not, water doesn't keep well and should be used within 24 hours.  On the other hand, it is okay to process in mason jars just as we would process food, then it will keep and remain safe to use, indefinitely.   This will come in handy for our emergency stockpile.

Thank goodness for huge stock pots!  I have no problem in putting large pots on a fire to boil everyday.... at least until we get the water system up and running.  The house will be fitted with water filters on faucets, as well as a filter at the well before the water even enters the house.

The plan is to run water pipes from the well to the inside of the home, as well as running water pipes in trenches to hydrant at the animal shelters and also the garden area.

Fortunately, the water "pipes" (the red and blue flexible hoses) are already installed in the bath and kitchen, and the "pipes" for the hydrants are also already installed at the well.

If, for some reason, there is no way to boil the water, such as during a state of emergency and a stove or fire is unavailable, water can be purified by using bleach, without color or scent. It takes only about 6 drops of fresh chlorine bleach to each gallon of water and let it sit for 30 minutes.

For more information on disinfecting drinking water follow this link:  Safe to Drink

Settling In ... Well, sort of.....

soon it will be just a
regular backyard again

It has been an exhausting week so far, having started by taking apart all the fences at our backyard farm, loading all the lumber and household stuff as we could squeeze into a 16' rented moving truck; driving the 600 miles to the farm and then unloading it all.  Nick, along with Sophie as company, drove the truck, and I followed behind with a carload of chickens and ducks.

The chickens were well behaved the during the ride, but those ducks .... two of them kept bickering and pecking and jabbering at each other the entire way!   The only time they stopped the noise was while Cher's voice came through the radio singing "If I Could Turn

the little farm

Back Time".  My thought exactly.

The goat transport arrived a day early, so that allowed us extra time to take down all the fencing and

the pergola is gone

the pergola for supporting
the Kentucky Wonder vines

the pergola which was used for supporting my Kentucky Wonder

green bean vines.

The yard seemed so empty afterward.  Well, no looking back now.

Now, we are at the farm and beginning our new life journey.  The landscape is barren of farm buildings and fences and all those things you'd normally envision on farmland.  But, with persistence, hard work and a bit of good luck we will change that.

unloading

It took two days to unload that truck which carried only the barest necessities to see us through the winter.  Since there is no place to store anything, we must wait until we have the house ready before bringing furniture and those other things that turn an empty house
into a home.

For this year, however, we will be living in the motor-home. What better incentive could there be for getting the house completed as quickly as possible?

The goats have been settling into their new surroundings, and we still must keep the little buckling

Dawson

apart from them.  Penny keeps head-butting the little guy and overdoes it sometimes sending him across the yard with one push.  So, in order to protect him from her, until he gets a little bigger, he must sleep in one of the large dog kennels we placed inside their shelter.  During the daytime, their yard is big enough for him to run away from her and hide-out behind their building or in the tall grass.

lots of bugs make happy
chickens and ducks

The chickens are happy in their temporary run tucked near a corner of the house.  They are doing an excellent job of getting rid of the weeds and vines that we have been unable to eradicate.  We had hoped to have their chicken
built and ready for them, but with the threat of  Hurricane Matthew we decided to wait until the storm passes before putting up those walls.  No need to go through all that work just to possibly have the building blown away.

Only half the flock came with us, there wasn't enough space in the car for all of them, so we brought the best layers.  The remainder will join us later.

Farmer John, our neighbor from a couple of miles down the road, came by with his hired hand and cut all our hay for us.  He and Nick have worked out a barter where we get our hay cut, the goats get enough hay to last until next hay season, and Farmer John gets a few large bales of hay in exchange.

The garden area is in need of more cardboard to go beneath the mulch in order to kill off the grass that lies below.  Where there is cardboard there is no sign of grass, where there isn't any cardboard, the grass is growing up through the mulch, which is as I expected.  I have been collecting cardboard, in as large pieces as I can find and will begin spreading them this week, weather permitting.

The latest weather report has the storm heading out to sea off Cape Hatteras, but we will get about 2"3" of rain, maybe....

For the remainder of this day I am resting and trying to make space to put things away inside the motor-home which seems to have gotten somewhat smaller.   Nick will be adding a few finishing touches to the goat fence, he has found a few places where the little buck could sneak through, or a predator could enter.  It's also time to move the chickens temporary run to another area along the side of the house that needs clearing.  They will be getting a temporary home today also.  Nick is building them a small shelter from pallets,  just a safe place to sleep until the storm passes and their new house is up.

The biggest excitement this week, at least for me, was getting the Internet set-up here at the farm.
Nick needs to have internet access since he will be working from home.  So yesterday the satellite dish was installed and I am now re-connected .... hurrah!  Well, at least for so long as the generator doesn't run out of gas.