Catching Up ~ Fall, Winter and Spring

Zinnia on windowsill, fall 2014.

I can hardly believe it has been so long since I have posted! Last fall I grew zinnias in the garden like I usually do. A friend makes these beautiful little vases that are perfect for one or two flowers. I also grew dahlias for the first time. I loved growing the dahlias because they lasted for so long and were easy to take care of. I managed to keep the tubers over winter just fine and planted more this year.

Red dahlia from garden, fall 2014.

Shadow Cat dahlia from garden, fall 2014.

This is one of my favorite dahlias, called Shadow Cat. The deep color is fantastic!

Ginny and Maverick

Last winter was really overwhelming with two milk cows to care for so I sold Ginny and Maverick to a great family with lots of kids in the fall of 2014. Ginny had a great personality and I have to admit that the kids and I still miss her. Chores this winter were easier without Ginny and her calf. I will need a replacement heifer for Kit within the next few years, but I keep putting off breeding for another milk cow because every extra cow that is on the farm means extra hay and extra stall cleaning. At the same time, I don’t want to wait too long to breed a replacement heifer. I have always wanted to raise my own replacement heifer. I have Ruby, but she is going to be our beef cow momma. I might try to milk her, but she probably won’t give enough milk for her calf and the house.

 

Ruby in snow, winter 2014.

Here is Ruby, big, chunky and healthy. Will post a current photo of her soon – she looks like little miss piggy with legs right now!

Angus in winter of 2014.

Angus is big and beautiful now. He will be our beef cow for this year. I didn’t have very good luck breeding Kit with AI last year so she won’t be having a calf this year. I am so disappointed. So we are buying a beef heifer and beef steer this summer that will be our beef for summer 2016 and will be renting a bull for Kit.

Fish head soup, Chinook salmon, fall 2014.

My husband and son like to fish for salmon and we all like to eat it! We made fish head soup last fall with some of the heads. I think we only fit one or two heads in a big stock pot. The soup flavor was amazing and the salmon cheek meat was tender and yummy.

Summer Update

Kit and Ruby

Kit had a beautiful heifer calf on May 10th. I named her Ruby. She jumped right up and was nursing on her own without much help from us. Kit calved at about midnight last year and at about 11pm this year so this may turn out to be her yearly routine. Audrey helps me when the calves are born because she is strong and quiet and is good around the animals. One of us holds the momma cow and the other makes sure that the calf is nursing well and is full before we head to bed. We also make sure that Kit has a good dose of minerals to prevent milk fever, a bucket of warm molasses water and a manger full of hay before we go in.

Ginny and Maverick

10 days later Ginny had a gorgeous bull calf that Eli named Maverick. He didn’t want to nurse for the first day so we milked Ginny and bottle fed him. By the end of the day he was licking the barn post and we scooted him over to nurse and he latched right on. Having two babies so close together was a great opportunity to try a new routine to simplify chores for me. The babies stayed in a large covered area and I would bring Ginny in in the morning and evening, tie her up and feed her and let both of the calves nurse on her. She wasn’t too keen on this plan in the beginning. I learned that she liked her calf on the right side and if I put Ruby on the left and stood next to Ginny’s head to block her view then everything went smoothly. For the first couple of months I would milk out what the babies left and then let Ginny loose to bathe her calf. After about 2 months, each calf could nurse out one entire side and I didn’t have to clean her out afterwards. Meanwhile…I would milk Kit with the machine and put her calf in with her to get a bath after milking.

Greenhouse

This spring my husband, father, father in law and the rest of us built a 20 by 20 greenhouse. The plan was to plant tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers in it in the summer and then move the chickens into it in the late fall. This totally surpassed my expectations! More on the greenhouse later…

Hay!

I ran low on hay last year and ended up buying about 3 tons from a friend. I don’t want to run low this year. Audrey proved to be an excellent stacker this year and is also learning how to drive the old hay trucks. I estimated that I put up about 10 ton from a friend’s field and 5-6 ton from another field last year for a total of about 16. We put up 20 this year, not including alfalfa for the milk cow, Eastern hay for the horses in the dead of winter and straw for bedding. Hay always happens when it seems to be in the 90s and when we are most busy getting ready for the 4th of July. We take two trucks and put 2 ton on one and 1-2 ton on the other each night for several nights in a row. Luckily, the two different fields are at different elevations and are usually cut several days to weeks apart.

 That is the update for the spring and summer, more to come about the fantastic greenhouse and the beef steers!

Spring 2014

 

Rhubarb Berry Crisp

The rhubarb is finally up and I couldn’t resist adding some to a berry crisp we were having for dessert. Yum!  

Before I dried Kit up in January I made butter with the extra cream. Notice how light colored it is compared to spring and summer butter.

Parsnips from the garden (before washing off) for the cows. All of the cows love the parsnips but the horses don’t seem to be as fond of them. I grew quite a few carrots this winter too but I didn’t cover them up very well before they froze in the ground. We had colder weather this winter too. The parsnips survive almost anything and I like to put them in stews and they make excellent fresh food for the cows during the winter and early spring before the grass really gets going.

Kit perusing her minerals. I think she has her muzzle in the A-Mix from Advanced Biological Concepts. It has fat soluble vitamins in it that the animals need to support their immune system during the winter.

Ginny and Kit. Both due at the end of April. We will find a new home for Ginny after she calves and gets settled in with her new calf. Milking two cows at once is more than a full time job and I did it once for two months and really don’t want to do it again!

Minerals for the steers. Since the steers are separated from the cows I give them their minerals in a bin like this once a day. Redmond Salt, Fertrell’s Nutribalancer, Thorvin Kelp, A-Mix and some Hemocel from Agri-Dynamics make up tonight’s bin. Sometimes I put out a sulfur mix and occasionally have a different mineral that I offer them. They usually clean it up each day, but if anything is left or wasted I just skip it for a few days and then offer it again. If they suck the whole thing up right away I give them more.

Peanut usually gets first dibs on the minerals. One lick out of the Nutribalancer and now he is moving on to the A-Mix. I like to see which minerals they choose first and which ones they don’t pay much attention to. It gives me good information about what they need at different times of the year. For example, they will go through a lot more of the immune mixes like the A-Mix and BVC from Advanced Biological Concepts in the winter, but not use much in the summer. In the summer they like the sulfur mixes and sometimes things with garlic in them.

Peanut on the left, Ginny’s steer from 2012, and Angus on the right, Kit’s steer from last year. Angus needed to be weaned so that I could dry Kit up this spring and Peanut was still trying to nurse occasionally as well so they have both been separated from the cows. There were a few moos in the first couple of days but they have settled in to being big boys quite nicely. That is the update for now, more to come at the end of April when Kit and Ginny are due!

Bacon Wrapped Dates

We had these at a party a couple months ago and they were fantastic. There are lots of versions out there, so try these and then add your own variations. These are adapted from Food.com’s Easy Bacon Wrapped Dates. You will need:

Pitted Dates

Bacon

Toothpicks

It works well to pre-cook the bacon for 3-4 minutes in a medium-hot skillet. Then transfer the bacon to a baking pan.

Cut the bacon slices into halves or thirds depending on how long each slice is. You want the bacon to be able to go completely around the date and then overlap some so you can pin it with the toothpick.

Wrap the dates with the bacon and pin them with a toothpick.

Bake in a 450 F oven for 8 to 10 minutes until the bacon is crispy and has caramelized. They will be very hot when they come out so let them cool for a few minutes and enjoy! They are grain free, gluten free and very satisfying. Contrary to popular belief, fat is an important fuel for our brain and our body. In fact, our brains are 80% fat by weight! When our system gets enough fat, it triggers a hormone called cholecystokinin, or CCK. When this hormone is released it tells our brain that our body is no longer hungry and we can stop eating. Nutrient dense, traditional and stable fats like butter, coconut oil, tallow, lard and olive oil have been used safely for centuries.

Merry Christmas Eve!

Kit’s Christmas Coat

This is Kit’s new wool blanket. A company out of New Zealand called WoolOver makes them. Ginny had a size medium for last year and when the weather got into the teens a while ago I got it out and tried to stuff it onto Kit. Ginny didn’t have a calf this past spring and is in really good shape with plenty of weight to keep her warm even in the colder than normal weather so she didn’t need her blanket this winter. Alas, the medium didn’t fit and I quickly ordered a large for Kit. Fits good, she seems to like it now that the trauma of having something shoved over her head is over. Only improvement I wish someone would make to these great blankets is to make pleats or some sort of contour for their hip bones because the blanket starts to rub after a week or so of wear.

Kit and her calf, Angus.

Temp is almost 45 degrees today so Kit gets a break from her blanket.

Ginny, she loves to eat and is a busy body that is good at advocating for herself. I am glad to see her in good weight this winter. She is warm and comfy!

Peanut, Ginny’s calf from two years ago. He will be our first beef cow and I will be glad to send him to the freezer this summer! He lives a pretty lush life with yummy hay, minerals and his momma’s company.

My favorite Waterford stove. We had a beautiful royal blue one at our old home and when we moved in here we quickly found out that a fireplace was almost useless at heating any part of the house other than the living room. After keeping watch online we found two of these used stoves for sale and bought them both. We gave one to a friend who needed a wood stove and saved this one for us. When it is 20 degrees outside I do with I had both of them, or that I had one that was twice this size!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!

Food and Nutrition

This is the first year I have managed to successfully grow cauliflower. It takes a lot of nutrition from the soil to thrive. As a nutritionist, I am acutely aware of how the nutrition from the soil influences the food we grow and eat and in the end, influences our health. One of my mentors, Dr. Bob Marshall, thinks of the human body as a large battery. Food we eat, people we are around, and the thoughts we think on a daily basis are just a few of the things that either re-charge our batteries or drain them.

These are some Romanze potatoes I dug early because I was tired of buying them from the store. They are beautiful; so is the early garlic that I dug up! Each year I try something new in the garden. This item has to be something that I buy a lot of at the store and would like to grow on my own. Garlic was last year’s new crop. I bought seed garlic from a little farm just down the road and planted it last fall. I fertilized it with well composted manure and mulched the rows with local straw. The plants did wonderfully and I look forward to saving my own seed for this fall. Here it is hanging in the barn to dry…

Almost every day, I skim the cream off of a gallon or two of milk. I skim it by hand with a large spoon and put it in a quart jar to save for making butter or peaches and cream.

 

After I skim the cream, I take the skimmed milk and put it in a pot and warm it up to about 100 degrees F. Then I add a little rennet and leave it be over night. In the morning, it is ready to feed to the chickens. I love great eggs and the hens need plenty of protein to make eggs for us.

Salmon with mayonnaise, herbs and horseradish smothered on top. Yum!

Vegies from our garden. Potatoes, cauliflower, broccoli and peas with olive oil, butter, salt and pepper. Next year I will add onions to the normal range of vegies I grow and see how that goes. The more food I can grow in the garden, the better we will be able to “re-charge” our batteries. Keep in mind that food grown miles away from you and trucked or flown in, then kept in a grocery store and finally scanned as you buy it, has a significantly diminished “life force” and ability to feed you. Food grown from your own garden or purchased from local sources is fresh and hasn’t been exposed to a variety of electromagnetic pollution on its way to your door. Go re-charge!

 

Big Green

Big Green, my favorite hay truck and now our favorite stage. We have a party each summer for some of Eric’s networking friends. The dentist in this group is a member of a band called Jawbone Flats and they volunteered to play at the party this year. Thanks you guys!

Busy Bees!

Eli is holding one of our first frames of honey to be extracted. We are quite excited! This is a partially capped deep frame from the brood box. We had to make more space for the queen so we took two frames to spin. The bee story is a bit of a saga here. We got our first bees as package bees early in the spring. They were Italian bees trucked up from California. Package bees are just that, a small package of around 3-4,000 bees to start a hive with. We agonized over where to put the bees and even moved them once to make sure they had good cover from the East wind. The weather warmed early here in the Northwest and we were told to stop feeding them so we stopped feeding them. (When you first get bees you feed them sugar water to help make sure that they have enough food while they are getting established.) The weather turned cold and wet again and we didn’t start feeding them again and they died. Eric thinks the buttercup flowers in the backyard killed them, but we really don’t know for sure.

When our bees died, we started doing more research about where to get our next bees and what kind to get next. At the same time, a friend had introduced us to a local beekeeper that has roughly 400-500 hives here in the community. We bought a hive from him and have asked him to help us learn how to care for the bees. This has worked out much better, partly because the bees are local and haven’t been stressed by moving, partly because a full hive of bees is much better organized and able to care for themselves and partly because we have a bee expert on hand now.

The new bees are Russian black bees and are a bit more temperamental than the little Italian bees we had. Granted, there are probably around 30,000 or more bees in our big hive – a big difference from the few thousand package bees in the first go around. They are organized and efficient and buzz me frequently while I am in the garden. They started their first day here by stinging the dog while the Italian bees never seemed to notice her.

The bees were doing so well in the first hive that our friend came out and helped us split the hive so now we have Eric’s main hive and Eli’s little white hive. Eli insists that only his Dad’s bees sting!

This is the honey extractor we borrowed from a friend…

The inside of the honey extractor with two frames in it.

Pouring the honey, we should have used bigger jars!

Honey and butter, what more could you want?

Speaking of the birds and the bees, a friend’s bull named BB was dropped off this week to keep Ginny and Kit company for the next two months or so.

BB, short for Big Black, is an Angus and Brahma cross. He is about three years old and should continue to fill out some more in the next year or two. I have decided to breed both of the milk cows and sell my Jersey, Ginny this fall after she is bred. My goal is to have one milk cow and one beef mama cow and their calves each year. I tried milking two cows at one time a few years ago and it is just too much! I am not concerned with breeding purebred cows so was thrilled when a friend offered to bring his bull over until he needed him again this fall. AI works alright, but a bull is almost a sure bet that both cows will be settled soon. So far BB is easygoing and is getting along well with the cows, especially Ginny’s steer from last year, Peanut. That’s it for now!

Kit and Angus

Angus

Angus was born April 26th, at about midnight. He is a beautiful Angus/Guernsey cross bull calf. Kit was a bit perplexed after he was born, probably not sure what to do with this little package. She knew she needed to lick him and not step on him so that was a start!

Kit settled down the following day and was even more easy going the day after that. She is my favorite milk cow now! Ginny, my Jersey, is a great momma cow and is easy to milk, but Kit is so laid back that it makes every part of chore time so much easier. Because her back teats were so short I decided to learn how to milk with a machine this year. So after countless adjustments and switching back and forth from a Surge belly milker and a DeLaval style milker, we have finally got a good routine down. She has been patient and easy going through all of those changes.

Ginny and Peanut

Ginny is finally gaining weight and looking sleek and shiny, Peanut is just as tall as she is now and looking more and more like a Jersey every day. He is next year’s beef which will be our first year to have our own beef, yahoo!

Angus and Audrey

Angus is about 5 weeks old in this photo. He has already grown and filled out quite a bit. He has a white star and a white stripe down his belly! Audrey likes to take him for walks runs and tie him out to eat during the day. That is it for now, tomorrow is an early hay day for us. We will be picking up hay from the old home and will take some pics for the blog…

 

Spring!

The big news around here is that Kit, my Guernsey heifer, is due to calve any day now. I have moved her into the pasture up close by the house so I can keep an eye on her. This will be her first calf, of course, and the first time milking her. Makes me a bit nervous, but over all she is a really easy going cow.

She has quite a bit of edema in her belly, but thankfully not much in her udder. I have given her the homeopathic remedy apis which helps with edema and have taken her off of Eastern Oregon hay, which is heavily fertilized and can be a source of too much potassium which may worsen her edema.

It is finally dry enough to mow the garden so I took one last photo of these calendula plants that wintered over and are blooming!

We have two small raised beds and I planted peas, spinach and lettuce in this one. Chives are coming up on the right side and cilantro has self seeded from last year. I love peas and they freeze really well for the winter.

Garlic, planted last fall. Music is on the right hand side for several feet and the rest is Chesnook Red, both from local sources.

The kid’s sled has made a good way to transport the roots from the garden to the barn to be washed…

Turga parsnips, Rodelika and Scarlet Nantes carrots and Detroit Dark Red beets. They each held their own over the winter, but it was a really mild winter too. I am thrilled to have such beautiful vegies through the winter to feed to the livestock and for the kitchen!