Monthly Archives: August 2022

A Summer Evening at the Farm

Apple Trees, Dogs, Dragon Flies, garden, Nature, Pond, Reflections, Summer, Sunflowers, The Farm

Tuesday evening as we headed to the farm I didn’t really have a plan as to what I was going to accomplish. I knew there were things that need to be done, like cutting some grass, weeding in the prayer garden and cleaning garlic, but I didn’t feel an urgent need to get any of those things done.

So, I took the evening off and just enjoyed being at the farm on a beautiful summer evening. It was a great time for picture taking so grab your favorite beverage and join me.

*For anyone who is burned out on nature pictures you can play a game as you read ” Count the tennis Balls” let me know in the comments how many tennis balls you saw in the pictures. *

As we arrived at the farm shortly after 6:00 P.M. the first order of business was to feed the chickens the kitchen scraps we had collected throughout the day. As usual Ruby had to sniff though the goodies to see what she might like. Since it was mostly watermelon rinds and peach peels (I canned peaches that morning), I’m not sure if she actually found anything good to eat.

The weather is still very summerlike but there is a feel that fall is fast approaching. Late summer/fall flowers, like these black-eyed-Susans and purple loosestrife, are in bloom.

The hibiscus are beautiful this year.

I’ve been waiting all summer for these volunteer cosmos to blossom. I am reminded of my maternal grandma, who loved these flowers.

I’ve also been waiting for the opportunity to photograph a dragonfly. As I wandered through the prayer garden, this one posed on a lily leaf to oblige me.

The balloon flowers continue to blossom, but I think I need to add deadheading them to my to-do list to keep them flowering longer.

After photographing the balloon flower, I looked toward the beach and was pleasantly surprised to see our green heron. Long time followers might remember that each year in late summer we begin seeing a green heron dining along the edges of our pond. In past year I have speculated that there were a pair perhaps living in our woods since on some occasions I had seen two of them.

A couple weeks ago my husband first mentioned seeing “that bird” and he has talked about it, and how good it is at catching fish, a few times since then. Until Tuesday night I had yet to see it this year.

My husband and I agree in thinking that this is not the same bird we’ve seen in past years as it looks younger.

It also did not seem as skittish as in past years.

I was probably within 15 feet when I took this photo,

and as I stood on the edge of the prayer garden it continued to comb the shoreline making its way right past me,

on the hunt for a minnow or a frog.

Check out that hair do. Looks like a rock star. LOL!

After my rock star friend flew to the other side of the pond, I began making my way to the main garden, AKA puppy playground, to take some photos. I passed this patch of wildflowers near the beehives. I’m not sure what they are but the patch has spread each year and they make a grand showing.

When I got to the main garden and was approaching these sunflowers, I noticed two hummingbirds that seemed to be playing near the flowers. Unfortunately, they flew off before I could get my camera.

A few weeks ago my husband noticed that birds had begun eating our unripe apples. He at first was blaming it on crows but we have since witnessed sparrows flying out of the trees as we approach. He chose the tree with the most apples on it and put netting over and around it. While none of the apples are visible in this picture rest assured, we can now leave them on the tree to fully ripen.

We did leave the rest of the apple trees un-netted, so the sparrows have plenty to eat (unless the crows get there first.)

Before I continued my garden tour, I had to play a game of fetch with Ruby.

I threw the ball several times and each time she brought it back to me to throw again.

When she decided to take a break, I continued on my way.

The sunflowers, a beautiful variety that we had not planted before, were buzzing with bees.

Melons (not tennis balls)

Cantaloups were planted late and are not yet ripe, but we should get a few nice melons from these plants.

Green Hubbard

The squash are still growing as well. I expect it will be at least another month before we harvest any.

Some pumpkins are beginning to turn orange.

After leaving the garden my husband and I sat at the picnic area for a while. Ruby decided it was time for another game of fetch.

The chickens don’t play fetch, but I have seen a curious hen walk up and peck a tennis ball.

I have seen Peanut play with a tennis ball, but fetch is not his game either.

When the flies started biting my ankles we decided to relocate. We sat on the beach to enjoy the scenery. Thankfully there were no flies there.

The wind was calm, and the water looked like glass.

Until my husband threw some fish food in. The minnows began feeding almost immediately leaving rings on the surface of the pond.

The sun was setting in the west. The green heron was still fishing along the edge of the pond but was beyond the cameras reach. It was peaceful feel just relaxing and soaking up this environment.

Then the entertainment began.

Ruby and Ranger began ruff-housing.

Running and chasing each other, barking and kicking up sand.

It’s funny to watch them play like this knowing they are BFF”s.

My camera battery went dead after this photo, but you really didn’t miss any of the good stuff. I hope you enjoyed our evening at the farm. Thanks for spending time with us.

One last photo for those who are counting.

Are you making the most of the last days of summer?

How many tennis balls did you count?

Blessings Abound

Chickens, Cucumbers, Eggs, Peppers, Pickles, Reflections, Tomatoes

Hello and welcome.

Today I’ll be canning. I expect to produce about 10 quarts of tomato juice but since my canning kettle only holds seven quart-size jars I will cook down the excess into sauce to be used in a meal later this week. Likely stuffed cabbage. Before I head to the kitchen to begin cutting up tomatoes and sterilizing canning jars let me tell you about the results of last week’s efforts.

Cucumbers Are Abundant This Year
Pickled Peppers

Last week I canned:

6 quarts garlic dills

4 quarts hamburger dill slices

6 pints pickled peppers

4 quarts sauerkraut (still fermenting)

7 quarts tomato juice

6 pints bread and butter pickles

Some of our garden meals.

We also continue to include some of the fresh-picked bounty in our meals daily, something that only happens this time of year.

Steak, Potatoes, Steamed Swiss Chard, Glazed Carrots, Beets

Grilled steak with boiled potatoes, steamed Swiss chard, glazed carrots and boiled beets.

Pasta and Clam Sauce, Sauteed Swiss Chard and Eggplant

Pasta and clam sauce with sauteed Swiss chard and eggplant.

Not pictured: Tuna salad sandwich. I love to mix lots of veggies into tuna salad – chopped lettuce, diced tomato, shredded carrot, onion, diced celery, shredded or diced radish – mix it up with some mayo and spread it on your favorite bread.

Also not pictured: Another of my favorite summertime dishes is sliced cucumbers covered in a sour cream, dill and garlic dressing.

Other News

Last week our young hens began laying as evidenced by the tiny egg(s) my husband collected. First time layers usually lay a few tiny eggs before they begin laying regular size eggs. Inside the tiny egg is mostly or all egg white (there might be a small speck of yolk as well.)

The hens beginning to lay was kind of bitter-sweet as we lost one of the young hens to a prolapsed vent. Apparently, the egg she was trying to lay was too big for her. We are now down to just 5 of the 12 hens that started out as baby chicks this spring. Farming can often be heartbreaking.

Thanks for stopping by and I wish you a beautiful day.

Rehydrating Potatoes and Our Garden Meal

potatoes, Recipe, Reflections,

Hello and welcome!

We dehydrated a second batch of potatoes over the weekend. This time rather than slicing them we decided to do shredded potatoes – like would cook up into hashbrowns. After peeling them my husband boiled them until they were nearly done. He then used the food processor with the shredding blade to cut them up. It took about 6 hours at 125 degrees in the dehydrator to dry them.

We packaged the shredded dehydrated potatoes in two-ounce packages.

I had found instructions online that said when rehydrating vegetables, a rule of thumb was to use two parts water to one part vegetable so that’s where I started. I’m not sharing the link because I found out it was inaccurate.

I put the dehydrated potatoes in a metal bowl on the scale. It read 1.9 ounces.

I then reset the scale to zero and added twice as much boiling water as I had potatoes – 3.8 ounces. (I know the scale says 3.9 – .1 ounce over is acceptable.) Hot or boiling water speeds up the rehydration process. I stirred the potatoes and water together and found that once all of the water was absorbed some of the potatoes were still too dry. I again zeroed out the scale and added another 1.9 ounces of water.

I again stirred the mixture and once all of the water was absorbed I had perfectly rehydrated potatoes to make into hashbrowns.

I learned that in order to rehydrate these potatoes I need a 1:3 ratio of potatoes to water.

I put some butter in the cast iron skillet and cooked up these wonderful hashbrowns that tasted as fresh as if I had just dug the potatoes.

It was a breakfast for dinner night, so I cooked up a garden omelet to go with the hashbrowns and sausage. It’ not pretty but it was delicious.

I started, of course, with farm fresh eggs. Added some sautéed Swiss chard, a diced banana pepper, a diced jalapeno pepper and a diced tomato. I then topped it with American cheese which did not come from our farm but was the perfect finishing touch.

Yum!!!

Thanks for visiting.

Preserving Pickles, Peppers and Potatoes

Applesauce Cake Recipe, Cucumbers, Peppers, Pickles, potatoes, Preserving, Reflections, Stuffed Peppers

Hello and Welcome! Good News – We got rain 🙂 I’m guessing somewhere around 2 1/2 inches between Wednesday and Thursday. The gardens, the lawns, the trees – everything needed that rain. So while we get at least a few days off from watering let me tell you about some of the preserving we’ve been doing.

PICKLES

Dill Pickles

Dill pickles – It’s been many years since I’ve made dill pickles using the water bath (canning) method. In more recent years I have fermented pickles and made refrigerator pickles, but both take up space in the refrigerator, so I decided to try canning dill pickles again. One of the reasons I had not canned pickles recently is because they tended to get mushy. I did some reading about making crisp dill pickles and one of the suggestions was to use distilled water since the chemicals (chlorine) added to water can cause the pickles to become mushy. I canned three quarts of dill pickles so far using distilled water. I also used our home-grown dill and garlic. We will try them in a couple weeks to see how they turned out.

Bread and Butter pickles – Yesterday I made bread and butter pickles – a tried and true recipe from the Ball Blue Book. The yield was 5 pints and my husband, who loves these pickles, is thrilled.

Bread and Butter Pickles and Red Hot Sauce

PEPPERS

Cayenne – Another recipe that I found in the Ball Blue Book was for red hot sauce. Hot sauce is not something we use a lot of, but my husband likes to add a few drops to certain foods. The recipe that called for two quarts of tomatoes and about 24 cayenne peppers made two pints of sauce. That will likely be enough to last us through the year.

Cayenne Peppers

Cayenne plants tend to be heavy producers and somehow we ended up with a bunch of cayenne plants this year. Rather than use the dehydrator to dry then We decided to string them and hang them to dry. I think I have some daughters that will appreciate a string of hot peppers. Once they are dry they can be used by adding a whole pepper to a pot of chili or similar dish or they can be ground in a spice grinder or food processor to make red pepper flakes or crushed red pepper.

Notice they are turning red (continuing to ripen) as they hang.

Jalapeno and Banana peppers – Thus far I used banana and jalapeno peppers to make poppers. I have several packages of these in the freezer. They freeze well and can easily be cooked up in the oven or microwave. If we continue to harvest a lot of these, I might make up a batch of pickled peppers as well.

Bell peppers – Tuesday night I made stuffed bell peppers for dinner. I also made an additional five packages of stuffed peppers to freeze for future meals.

POTATOES

In past years storing potatoes has been a challenge for us as we don’t have a root cellar so we must try to eat them before they go bad. This year we decided to experiment with dehydrating them. My husband peeled and par boiled the potatoes than sliced them in the food processor to get and even thickness. The took about 4 hours on 140 degrees to dry to a crispy texture (much like the potatoes you would find in a box mix of au gratin potatoes). We then vacuum sealed them.

I have found directions for rehydrating them, but we have yet to try it. I will let you know when we do.

Of course not everything we harvest is being preserved. We are enjoying fresh vegetables daily. I do plan on writing about some of our garden meals but soon, but I don’t want to drag this post out too long so I’m just going to share a recipe I came across that we are REALLY ENJOYING.

I still have several jars of applesauce that I canned last year and wanted to use some up, so I decided to look for an applesauce cake recipe. I found this recipe for Land o Lakes Applesauce Spice Cake. I omitted the pecans in the recipe as I didn’t have any on hand. I also cheated and used a can of store bought frosting. Even with these changes this cake turned out sooo good.

Thanks for reading