A Quick Tip on Freezing Food

Reflections

While I was freeing strawberries this morning I remember this post from 2015 and thought it was worth sharing again.

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If you want to freeze food in a plastic bag and don’t have or don’t want to use a seal-a-meal, try this. Put the food in a zip lock bag, zip the bag most of the way closed, stick a straw in the corner that is still open, zip the bag until it is tight around the straw, suck the air out of the bag through the straw, quickly remove straw while sealing the bag. You can remove a good portion of the air using this method and reduce the chances of freezer burn.

I used this method for freezing kale, swiss chard and green beans. It is such a clever idea and so easy, I can’t believe that I never heard or read about doing this before. 🙂

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Strawberries At Last!

Dehydrating Starwberries, Reflections, Starwberry Jam, Strawberries, The Farm

We picked our first strawberries of 2018 this week so I thought I would repost this from 2016 to show you some of the ways we will be preserving strawberries this year. We are now praying for a bountiful season like we had in 2016.

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It’s been my dream for more than a decade to grow a nice strawberry patch, ever since the first year I made homemade strawberry jam and my family loved it so much that store bought strawberry jam was no-longer welcome in our home. Since growing our own berries would lower the cost involved in making homemade jam, we decided to put in a strawberry patch. We started with a few plants in a raised bed, and over the next several years made several strawberry beds in our yard. We never yielded more than a few handfuls of small berries, so every June, when the strawberries were ripe, I would go to one of our local strawberry farms and buy at least 2 (10 quart) flats of fresh, Michigan grown strawberries and make most of them into jam.

When we bought the farm in 2011, having a nice strawberry patch was still one…

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Spring Happenings

Asaparagus, Bees, Dandelion Soap, garden, Planting, Pond, Reflections, spring, The Farm, Weather, Weeding,

The last weekend in May is known as the unofficial start of summer and the weather last weekend played right along. Temperatures were around 90 degrees Fahrenheit for several days. Time seems to being going so fast that I am wondering how I missed spring.

I went back and looked at some of my photos from the last few weeks for a reminder.

IMG_4094The fruit trees, including apple, pear, and tart cherry all blossomed and are now setting fruit. Berry bushes, including our blue berry, raspberry, currant and grapes are setting fruit as well.

IMG_4091The dandelions blossomed and my husband helped me pick a bunch for soap making before they went to seed. I have enough for two batches of sweet dandelion soap. Trooper didn’t help pick dandelions but he enjoyed being there.

Speaking of Sweet Dandelion soap, I had just made a batch in May when I received the Mother’s Day gift my girls bought for me. It is a soap stamp. So I began playing with it as this batch was curing.IMG_4128It will be tricky to figure out when the soap is the correct degree of hardness for the stamp to work just right and challenging learning to apply the right amount of pressure to the stamp so I don’t squish the soap. I thought about using some type of coloring to add contrast, but it has to be something natural since I do not use artificial coloring in my soap. In the above photo I used cinnamon in one and turmeric in the other. Learning to use this will be a lot of trial and error.

The dandelions have now gone to seed and last week when I was mowing the lawn I was getting bombarded with dandelion seeds. They were flying everywhere and they were stuck to my clothes and in my hair. I told my husband I wouldn’t be surprised if I end up with dandelions growing out of my ears. He thought they would probably grow from my belly button because “you know everyone has a little dirt in their belly button.” LOL!IMG_4106We have been hearing  pheasants a lot on the farm and in the neighboring field and every now and the we get a glimpse of one. We are glad to see them as it had seemed that the pheasant population had all but disappeared over the last thirty or so years.

IMG_4102We have spotted many new nests around the farm this spring mostly they have been empty when we looked but one had robin eggs in it and I did spot this momma sitting on hers.

IMG_4127We also have a pair of ducks who have been frequenting the pond this spring. My husband and I agree that we will not be surprised if we find out that they have a nest in the woods next to the pond. I guess we will know if they show up with babies.

IMG_4097This past winter was a bad one for bees in our area. We lost four of our five hives so we bought two more packages and installed them into hives. Since my husband installed them on his own I didn’t get any photos.

The garden has been planted. We have tomatoes, bell peppers, hot peppers, egg plant, potatoes, cabbage, cucumbers, cantaloupe, water melon, lettuce, Swiss chard, celery, basil, parsley, carrots, beets, green beans, corn, winter squash and pumpkins.

Along with the hot weather came a dry spell – we weren’t really expecting it because the weather forecasters had predicted that we would get rain and storms as the remnants from tropical storm Alberto made it’s way North into our part of the country. Somehow all that rain missed us.

IMG_1233Fortunately my husband had put the pump in the pond and we were able to take advantage of the wind that we had last week to get the tanks filled and keep things watered as we awaited the rain.

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We finally got rain this morning and what a blessing it is. Not only will it give all of our crops the boost that they need right now, and give us a break from watering, it makes pulling weeds much easier. Pulling weeds is one of the thing we have been spending much time doing this past week as weeds were threatening to take over the strawberry patch, the garlic field and the asparagus patch. Pulling weeds out of dry clay soil is next to impossible so that task will go much quicker now.

IMG_4124.JPGSince the temperatures were so warm (hot) I did spend some time last Friday raking the beach area. If I have to work on a hot day cleaning the pond is the perfect job. 🙂 After I raked the leaves out of the beach area and used our small rototiller to rough up the sand we set up our beach chairs and umbrella. Woo hoo we are ready for summer!!!

The following day when the sun was high in the sky and temperatures soared, a dip in the pond was a refreshing treat.

Thus far we have picked and eaten and froze lots of asparagus and I picked some rhubarb and put several packages in the freezer as well. When I was freezing the rhubarb I discovered one small package of rhubarb from last year. I decided I needed to use it up. I also found the last of my strawberries from last year – another small package. Since there were only about a cup of each there was not really enough to make this into a pie or crisp, so I decided to make strawberry-rhubarb sauce. I put both the strawberries and the rhubarb in a sauce pan then added a bit of water – maybe a half cup. I wasn’t too worried about having too much because I could cook it off to get the sauce to thicken. I simmered this until the fruit was soft. I then mashed the mixture with a potato masher. I continued cooking it until it was thick and added sugar to taste. I can’t really tell you how much sugar to add because everybody likes a different degree of sweetness and some strawberries are much sweeter than others. I just started with a couple tablespoons and tasted until it was right. While this fruity dessert was good eaten plain, my husband used some as an ice cream topping and I mixed some with some vanilla yogurt as well.

They say that time flies when you’re having fun, and I have always believed that time seems to go faster as I get older, so I think both of these combined explains why it is June already and I feel like I missed Spring. Thanks for sticking with me for this recap.

Just curious – does time seem to be flying by for you as well?

I’m Not Gonna Wait To Tell You

Reflections

I was looking at my blog stats this morning  and this is what I saw – 9891 views, 3994 visitors, from 86 countries over the life of my blog. Wow! Nearly 4000 people have visited my blog. Many of them returning for more than one visit and even signing on as followers. This may seem like just a drop in the bucket since there millions of potential readers of my posts as they are published on the World Wide Web, but to me this is huge.

I thought, “I should do a special thank you post when I hit a magic number, 10,000 views perhaps”. Then it hit me, “why should I wait? What makes 10,000 that much more special then 9891? What if something happens between now and the time that number reaches 10,000 that prevents me from writing or publishing that post? Should not all those individuals who are reading now know how much I appreciate them?”

I decided not to wait, because I really want to say “Thank You” to everyone who reads my blog. Yes, if you are reading this I am talking to you.  Just like with potential readers, there are millions of potential blogs to read on the World Wide Web, so it humbles me when you take the time to read my words. Honestly, even if I did not have readers I would probably use this blog to journal bits and pieces of our life, but knowing that you are reading my posts and like what you read motivates me to keep writing. When you take the time to leave a comment or sign on to follow my blog I can’t help but think that my words matter. To think that you have found value in my blog is a great feeling – it makes me happy, and it inspires me to keep writing.

I would love to return the favor, to in some way inspire you. Perhaps this post can do that. Is there something in your life that you want or need to say or do ? Are waiting for just the right time?  Would you have regrets if you never got to say or do it? If so then why wait for the perfect time? I encourage you to say or do it while you have the opportunity. I believe you will be happy you did – life is just too short to live with regrets.

Until Next Time My Friends – Be Well!102_0895

 

Blueberry Patch Upgrade

Blueberries, Fencing, Reflections, The Farm,

If you read my recent post about how we work with nature on the farm you may recall that we have had problems with birds eating our blueberries. Birds have an unfair advantage over us as they can seemingly sit perched on the nearest tree branch or fence post and wait until the berry reaches the perfect degree of ripeness then swoop in and gobble it up. We on the other hand schedule blueberry picking in between all of the other chores that need to be done in a day and it seems if we leave a partially green berry to ripen for one more day the birds get it before we get back.

For the last few years we have used netting over the bushes to keep the birds from eating the fruits of our labor. Our methods have worked to some degree but for various reasons have been less than ideal.

For a couple years we just wrapped each bush with the netting. The problem with this is  that  every time we went to pick berries we had to unwrap each bush then rewrap it after we were finished. As you can imagine this was not very efficient.

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Last year we used a different approach. My husband put wooden stakes around the outside of the blueberry patch and covered the whole patch with netting.

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This was also largely effective, but again less than ideal as in order to pick blueberries we crawled under the net on our hands and knees. With both of these method an occasional bird might get in and steal a few berries, but we were able to harvest most of the berries for our own sustenance and enjoyment.

The netting that we have been using for these projects came in a large roll, maybe 150 feet long by 20 feet wide, (it’s hard to tell because it is stretchy) and was something that my husband found sitting along the roadside at a neighbors house waiting for the trash men to carry it away. He picked it up and brought it home thinking we would probably find some use for it. We have used it over and over for project like this.

This year we decided it was time to give the blueberry patch an upgrade. We needed a screened, fenced or netted structure to keep birds out but allow us in to pick berries (standing up).

We first thought that we would need to use chicken wire as fencing to get the grid small enough to keep the birds out, but when my husband went to the  farm store he discovered a plastic fence that he thought would work well. This fence had a small grid, was light weight, and more affordable than chicken wire.  He also bought 12 – 7 1/2 foot t-posts. He set the t-posts around the perimeter of the patch with each side having two corner posts and one post midway along the side. On one side he set an additional two posts about three feet apart where we wanted our entrance to be.

The plastic fence was light weight and easy for my husband to manage by himself. He started at the t-post to the left of our entrance he attached the fence to the t-post using zip ties. (They are so very handy.) He then rolled the fence to the left and attached it to the corner post again using zip ties. He continued rolling the fence and attaching it to each t-post until he arrived back at the starting point. The plastic fence fit snuggly and looked very nice. When he was back at the final t-post he cut the fence leaving just a small amount to over lap. Instead of using zip ties to secure it at this point he clipped the fence to itself using clothes pins (also handy to have around). We can now enter the blueberry patch (standing up 🙂 🙂 ) by unclipping the clothes pins and opening up just a three foot section of fence.

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To keep birds from flying in through the top we used the same netting we have been using all along. Before draping the netting over the top my husband placed one taller t-post in the middle of the blueberry patch to keep the net from sagging too much. He also wrapped the tops of the t-posts with duck tape, or maybe it was gorilla tape, I’m not sure, but it was to keep the metal t-post from snagging and ripping the netting.

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Once he had the netting draped over the t-posts and fencing, with at least a few inches of overlap on each side, he tied the netting to the fencing with string. He placed ties  wherever he noticed there might be a gap.

While I won’t be surprised to see a determined bird finds it’s way in now and then, at least we should be able to efficiently and comfortably harvest most of the crop. We will keep this fence up year round and hope that it will last for many years – at least until the blueberry bushes out grow it. 🙂