To Ghee Once Again

It has been a few years since I made ghee. Time is so constrained with so much to do. I am trying to figure out ways to save on our grocery bill and I do have lots of cream. I have made ghee each week from freshly made butter but now I can see the next batch will come from the freezer. I was wise and froze quite a bit. The goats are quickly drying up as the low temperatures drain their bodies. Calories are being spent on keeping warm, not producing milk especially since they are pregnant.

The plan is to have enough separated milk to keep buttermilk, and yogurt going. I usually use whole milk but not during this time of year. I will use separated milk and hopefully have enough to drink also since we don't drink much milk. I  put away some canned milk for cooking earlier this fall and hopefully that will help ease the need for frozen milk. The cream I froze will become sour cream of which I have not started culturing. It will probably have to wait until Christmas gifts are done. I also will make ghee and cook with cream. It will be interesting to see if I have frozen enough. What would have been better is if I had already made my ghee and canned it as I wish to eliminate one of the three chest freezers we have. I also want to play with making cultured butter. The butter I make now is not as flavorful as I like so I buy less expensive butter to cook with and Amish cultured butter to eat.

Someday I hope to be making all my own butter and ice cream but energy, time and enough cream is a problem.  Problem is winter is when I have the time to do the most things with our milk and it is at its lowest supply. I could make lots of butter and pack it away in the freezer. I could make lots of ghee and can it for the rest of the year in the winter IF there was more milk. 

 It is impossible to do everything all year long. Winter I could also try my hand at cheese and freeze some. Maybe dear little Ellie can fill that winter void. I hope to calve her in September of 2018 allowing her to raise her calf for five months. She would produce more milk than the calf needs so the extra would supply us with milk during the winter along with the plethora of things that it can be made into. I know how to make Feta and mozzarella, and want to start making Monterey Jack. The last being a cow's milk cheese. I would continue to milk the goats fall and into December and hopefully this would help create that freezer surplus along with milk from Ellie.

One of winters tasks this year will be trying to figure out when different tasks can be done and how to push others into a season when the tasks can more easily be done  because things are just a hair bit slower.We need a cellar I can see to help with the vegetable side of this.

Ghee lately has been substituted for most of the olive oil we once used. That is definitely saving us some money. Ghee is now what we fry with since it has a higher smoke point. It is what I use in bread making too. It is not the best in pie crusts and cookies - rather greasy. It would be good if it was except I would never be able to keep up making the stuff because unfortunately we love our sweets. We want to use ghee because it is even more nutritious than olive oil. We don't use it because it is cheap. It is only less expensive for us because the base (whole as in cream and all milk) is something we already have.

The children who dislike the smell of it cooking don't dislike the taste. Some of the children think it smells like buttered popcorn, others think it stinks.

What I learned is that ghee comes at a price. These two half pint jars that I figure is equal to a wide mouth pint jar is what is left after cream is separated from over two gallons of milk. I get about three quarts of heavy cream from 2 gallons of milk this time of year. This cream is then made into butter. The butter is then cooked down removing the dairy part. The dairy forms a clump on the top of the oil and sticks to the bottom of the saucepan.What remains is this pint of ghee. I saw one person feeds the butter cast off to her dog. I think I will start feeding it to our barn cats. An area I am working on saving money too is buying less cat food.

If you wonder why ghee is so expensive at the store. Over two gallons of milk down to just one pint is the reason. The health benefits make it worth the effort but I don't recommend that you go to the store and buy organic butter to make ghee from except as an experiment to learn how. I have been going through about a pint and a half a week - pricey indeed. But this is all a part of self-sufficiency. What I have not done yet is use this oil for light. Yes, that is possible. Ghee is indeed nutritious and versatile.

The Latest House Tomato Plant Experiment

Babies see them? They are on the left and there are lots of them. The main plant on the right is from last winter. Note it is blossoming for its third time.

1. The first winter I grew Tiny Tom heirloom tomatoes under grow lights and all but a couple ended up dying from neglect in the summer. That was the first summer the grandkids came to stay. 

2. The second winter I cloned the plants and started some from seed to see the difference in growth.

3. The third winter is around the corner. Right around the corner as we are suppose to get down to 16 degrees F. mid this week. My new experiment for this fall and winter has been cutting the existing plants down and letting the scraggly things grow from a stub. The plants looked pretty sad due to neglect in August and September which is really a hectic time with trying to get kids in school, canning season, and getting everything ready for winter which never fully happens. The plants are presently under the grow lights since the sunlight hours is decreasing and the plants would simply begin to die if I did not. I tried leaving them in the window some plants in the window area last fall. Our sun hits our house from a lower in the sky from a southern direction in the winter months. Then it moves overhead in the summer months and the same winter plants that produced  in the southern window sills had to be moved to the back deck to get adequate sunlight.

 The plants after producing a total of 80 to 100 tomatoes per plant (40 to 50 at a time) died back with neglect. I picked the best plants and reduced the number. They are once more under grow lights as the sunlight decreases. I hear we won't have such a warm winter this year so I'm guessing grow lights is where they will remain  instead of the window sill.

It was not until recently that I started paying serious attention to the poorly neglected plants. I badly need to get some lettuce, spinach, etc. along with herbs growing. We miss the fresh produce and economically could really use them so I'm slowly working on getting things in production once more. Several of the tomato plants had come around and after showing a great deal of new growth were looking pretty sad once more but in a different way. Aphids took over. The cause I know was improper watering and the soil was depleted leaving the plants weakened. I hosed the plants down thoroughly with the water spraying off the kitchen sink, cut away much of the diseased area, pulled a good portion of the soil out from around the roots without completely disturbing the plants since they are blossoming, and rubbed my fingers firmly against the top and under side of the leaves to squish the bugs several days in a row. A week later, the remaining leaves looked pretty healthy.

 In their neglected stage, I had let some of the tomatoes rot on the plant and the seeds fell to the soil and new plants sprung up. As I worked over the parent plants, I transplanted some of the volunteers to smaller pots. Sometimes wonderful things happen all on their own. What a blessing! These new plants I will put in large pots around the south and west side in the windows or in front of them when the sunlight hours increase.

I love the fact that the tomatoes nurtured their own young. I've got more things to do than energy and time to do it. Our goal is to create a permaculture where nature does part of the work. Plants will produce their young or at least seed. Livestock will produce and rear their own offspring. We are finding it impossible to do all things ourselves in a self-sufficient scenario and is that really self-sufficient anyway?

A new experiment idea has sprung up from these neglected tomatoes. The plan is to clone a few of these tomatoes which I know is much faster than starting from seed. A past experiment showed that these cloned tomatoes are smaller than the ones started from seed. Handy when they are needed in the window sills.

 So far the plant size of the tomato plants cut back to nubbins and a few leaves is smaller yet but is it because of the depleted soil? I do know that nubbins, and cloned size works best under my grow lights. The started from seed plants reach at least 4 to 6 inches taller than the cloned and nubbin plants. My sun room plant stand has four horizontal shelves stacked high. It is the same type of shelves I use in the food room to put my canning jars on. Though adjustable, the height between shelves is limited.

My theory has proven correct that the plants started from the nubbins will produce more quickly than the cloned ones. Stands to reason since they have their root system established. Will they produce as many tomatoes as those cloned still remains to be seen. I did notice that even when taken care of the tomato plants after producing their tomato crop naturally die back.

Cloning tomatoes this year will have to wait as I lack room under the grow lights. The transplanted tomatoes, I plan on putting in front of the south windows later in the winter when the sunlight hours increase and they are too tall for the grow light area. 


My next hurtle is figuring out a way to keep this indoor garden going. I must coordinate when we need this garden most, when I an available to do the heavier work load times, and the cycle of the plants. That will be by far the hardest part of this self-sufficient project.

What Makes Beef Tough?

I have had to buy -- or should I say have chosen to buy some meat from the store lately. Roasts in particular as we are out and I refuse to buy lunch meat loaded with chemicals and a fake flavor. The scary thing is I bought some chuck steak to cook roast like for lunch meat and the stuff increased in size instead of shrunk -- scary! What are they putting in our meat these days? Since the fox cheated us out of some chicken, we have purchased a little of that also. We don't eat much store chicken anymore and interestingly our cholesterol levels are lower than they have been in many, many years. Makes me wonder what they put in them? Motivation to do our own crops up everywhere. Much easier when you are feeding 2 but with the grandkids here most of the week it is 6, making it a much more difficult task.


As I walk the isles on sale day, I notice the only roast in my budget are the tougher cuts. Good thing I like them and know how to cook them to a tender point. The cooking of tougher cuts of beef, pork, and lamb and wild game is the same. We have eaten lots of wild game, yak, and bison which all are cooked in the same manner.

I knew very little about meat and the various cuts until we began cutting our own. Before that I found the meat section of the store confusing. What cuts do you purchase to do what with? In this confusion you might have had a very chewy meat experience because the cut was cooked wrong. Yes, there is some meat that no matter what you do it will be tough but with this meat there can be a flavorful broth made. You just don't want to pay 6 dollars a pound and have something not chewable when you are done. My mom was a pro at cooking a roast to the tough leather stage. She cooked it at too high a temperature, without enough moisture and for too short a period of time. Of course it was a tougher cut of meat to start with.


https://www.angus.org/pub/beefchart.pdf is a great site to see just where different cuts of meat come from. What we learned when we started cutting up our own beef was that you could get different cuts from the same section of beef. Customizing is a great lure of do it yourselfers. For instance, pork chops is the cut from which Canadian Bacon also comes from. Either you cut a little of the section for chops and make Canadian Bacon from the rest or you choose between the two. 

If you look at a beef, the top center of the beef and top of the hip is where the choice cuts come from, the loin, rib, sirloin etc., most of your steak cuts. Prices reflect this. The bottom section is where the animal gains its locomotion, hence, locomotion muscles. This is the hip and shoulder where the legs propel the animal forward. The top of the shoulder is where my favorite tougher cut comes from, Chuck. Chuck has the most awesome flavor. It is my absolute favorite beef meat and I will take it over T-bone steak any day.

There are other factors besides locomotive versus support muscles (the muscles that aren't locomotive muscles) that determine the tenderness of beef. They are Marbling, Stress, Feed, Aging, Slicing Across the Grain, Marinating, and Proper Cooking.

Marbling may be something you avoid because of fears of cholesterol. It is marbling though that gives meat a perceived tenderness because fat acts as a lubrication when chewing and aids in the separation of fibers. Fat lubricates between meat fibers making the fibers easier to pull apart giving those molars an easier time. Fat also stimulates the production of saliva which further stimulates taste. Fat also helps protect against over cooking. Don't avoid fat, just be smart about it and don't over eat.


Stress tightens the muscles and produces tough meat. Most animals travel a long distance to the butcher and if they are not left long enough in pens in order to relax some, then you taste the results. Our livestock die where they lived so they have no travel stress or stress from being corralled in a strange environment. They are placidly eating grain and then dead. It is that quick.


Feed plays a part in that corn fed beef is usually more tender because it increases fat levels and the animal gains weight quicker so it is butchered at a younger age. Younger animals are more tender. Our animals are closer to 2 years of age instead of 18 months. Pasture fed along with hay and a small amount of wheat is what ours eat. The increase in age gives us more natural flavor and because of the relaxed environment, taste testers have all chorused saying the meat is tender. My cousin and her husband came and had steaks with us but complained about how large they were thinking they could never eat it all. To their surprise they devoured it. They buy a half a corn fed beef every year but had not tasted anything quite as good as our beef. Feed choices equates to different flavors and different people like different flavors. In lamb this is especially true as it feed makes a large difference in flavor.


Our favorite beef is Coriante but they are not fun to keep in as they are wonderers by trait and they are much slower growing. This means lots more feed to meat ratio and time, lots more time to get to butcher size. Unless you have mild year round weather so little hay is need plus lots of pasture, it just isn't real cost effective. We bought a good sized Corianted to begin with and may do that again one day because I'm craving it. We eat mostly Angus since it is readily available. That is what will go into the freezer this year and a Angus /Semental calf that will grow and do the same.
 

Aging, marinating, proper cooking, and slicing across the grain, all help to tenderize meat. There are two kinds of aging, wet and dry. We do only dry and our meat does not hang as long as traditional corn fed beef. Diet plays a role here as does time in order to be able to process the beef. We have to coincide our hanging time with days off in order to get the job done - not necessarily when it is best for the meat. Yet we have been blessed with very tender beef. Dry aging does not work well on pork, lamb, and veal as they do not have the marbling to protect the meat from rotting. Corn fed beef can be aged longer because of the increased fat levels. I have to say our pasture, hay fed are not any less fat but they are babied. Most of you don't process your own meat so I won't go into aging. Marinating and cooking I will talk about in another post.

That leaves slicing across grain. That makes a huge difference as it cuts up the connective tissues in the meat. Fibers in the meat run in a direction. You cut in the opposite direction that the fibers run in order to break up the connective tissue. We cube a lot of our meat, almost all of our wild meat. We have a cuber that has knives that cut through the meat tenderizing it. Unlike the butcher or store meat that runs the meat through once. We run ours through from top to bottom and flip it so it runs through side to side so it gets really tenderized. Great if you have sever TMJ like I do. I have no trouble with mine but the dentist cringes when he works on my teeth.

How to Hatch Out More Females

I was looking up why I might have had so many hens hatch this year in comparison to roosters. If I could figure that out I would repeat the process next year. This is what I found.

A study done in Australia (Australian Journal of Agricultural Research) has shown that eggs stored at 40 degrees Fahrenheit rather than the recommended 60 degrees will hatch out more females. The ratio of female to male eggs does not change. What changes is the colder temperatures kills off more of the male embryos than female. 

I gathered eggs a bit all day and tucked them under the hens so how much they chilled I don't know. The only thing I can figure is that the hens were all young and therefore inexperienced. My ratio of eggs under the hen and those that hatched was not nearly as good as my friends who has old, old hens. That might have caused some of the eggs to not be turned as well or not rotated in placement under her as often as they should have and caused chilling of the eggs. Whatever the reason, I hope we get as good a hen crop next year. I hear the coyotes a howling nor far behind the barn tonight as I tucked in the stock. Yes, we will need replacements if  this predatory problem continues. 

Score Card for Beans

Once more a blog on beans. Remember, I'm addicted. Don't worry, my obsession with beans, brought on by my autism, I'm sure will soon be interrupted by the weather and my A.D.D. I can already feel it waning and I admit, I'm trying to hold on tight. I'm not finished.

I need to:

.

1. Type up the results for each of the eleven kinds of beans I've experimented with. Plus write notes on changes I think will improve growth and production.

 

2. Form a scoring card. You might think this is silly but it keeps emotions out of the equation and clarifies things. It has done so with the goats where I am much more emotionally attached. I give a certain number of points for different items on a list. Things of greater importance to me like udder design and milk production have a greater number of points allowed. The same would be for the beans. 

 How can I can get emotional about beans you might wonder but if the Scarlet Runner beans had done well you can bet my four year old granddaughter would have insisted we grow them each year because of their gorgeous deep rich purple color.

 

When I ran my fingers through the Tongue of Fire beans to turn them for drying, I swear their plump Christmasy feel had me hearing sleigh bells. They may not look Christmasy to you but I swear that is what they said to me. They are a bit slower to dry on the plant and when I picked part of the pods when yellow and shelled the seeds to dry, brown spots appeared. They will go in the garden next year but in a smaller quantity. Our summer was extra long and hot and still no frost, very unusual for us. We shall see what next year brings and how they react.

 

The Kennearly, Jacob's Cattle, and Ireland Creek beans did not turn brown when the pods were picked yellow which is a big plus. I also tried picking the whole bean plants with yellow pods to see if that made a difference. I could not see one. They did take up lots more space though.

As for the Jacob's Cattle beans, they are simply alluring with their kidney pod shape splotched with deep burgundy and white. Each bean unique in color pattern. I found them a great substitute for kidney beans in chili as they stayed firm when cooked. Kidney beans do not like our weather. The Jacob's Cattle production was half of Kennearly and Tongue of Fire but I need them for chili so I will try a few things to see if I can't up the production level.  

Kennearly beans out produced all but the Tongue of Fire beans which came in a close second. Kennearly was the earliest to reach the dried bean stage, and are great in ham and beans with their buttery flavor and soup thickening quality. A suitable substitute for Navy. Kidney and navy were two things I've been trying to find a replacement for as I love those two beans.

 Ireland Creek, did very well but I only tried one packet so they can not be fairly judged to the other beans which had an equal amount of space. I really liked the long pods and upright growth BUT lime green. I'm sorry but that is a non food color. Right at home on the Star Ship Enterprise but on my kitchen table. I'm going to have to work on that idea. Hmmmm..... how about lots of barbeque sauce. I love barbeque beans with hamburgers, that might do to hide the color. How firm will they stay when cooked? They have the kidney pod shape like Jacob's Cattle and Kidney beans, hmmmm. ...They might change color when cooked and be alright. The purple ones turned a brown color. We shall see. 

 

3. Formulate a new growing plan. This year I had the dried beans next to plants that needed watered at the end of the growing season. Not at all a handy way to do things. Also I want to put in two rows instead of three per section as they matured quicker when planted thinner. What to put in the middle is the question, keeping in mind space and watering constrictions.  

 

I also have one more bean to try or maybe two. I will only put in one packet a piece as I've learned my lesson. Experiments should be kept small.

Now this blog was suppose to be about how to tell old beans from new. It took on a life of its own. I will say that if you view the picture of the kidney beans at the top of the blog you will see they are a brighter red and shiny and last years beans.

These are dull and darker and two years old. Dull and darker means older in beans. It also means fewer vitamins so I'd better use them up quick. 

Dried Bean Trials

Five years has passed. I've tried eleven different kinds of dried beans trying to come up with ones that complete the cycle to the rattle in the pod stage. I'm finally having a little bit of success. Our soil is better than our former location but now we have cooler temperatures and a sun that goes down early because we are by the mountain. That means less daylight hours and more hours of cooler temperatures. A bean may say 90 days to the dried stage but it is  more than 90 days under our conditions.

 

One sure fire winner this year was the Kennearly bean. It matured and the pods turned yellow faster by far than the other seven types of beans I had growing. I learned that if I want dried beans I need to space my plants further apart. If I want green beans closer together works best. It was something that just naturally happened in different parts of the rows and the performance difference was quite profound. Where they came up thick, the pods stayed green. Spaced further apart, they turned yellow and matured faster.

 

My husband says I am possessed with beans. Yes, I have spend a great deal of hours on this project and I've learned that I love shelling beans. It is so relaxing for me. Just a repetitive motion that allows my mind to wonder unfettered. With the hectic schedule I find I am naturally drawn to them.  Kirk also told me that I would have a great deal to talk about with my diceased grandfather who developed a type of yellow wax bean. I can't wait to compare notes with what I've learned and what he learned. That same bean, Kinghorn Wax, will undergo trials in my new location next year. It did wonderful where we lived before. It just put on more and more beans as the summer went on. This bean that was a staple for Del Monte in my grandfather's time, now has to be ordered out of  Canada. This tells you how fast our seed diversification is dwindling.

 

 I have research and researched dried beans on the internet the past few weeks. Yet with all the hours spent looking things up, I'm still observing things amongst the seven different kinds of beans in my garden that I've not read anywhere.

 

It is frustrating but the university sites don't give enough detail. If it is not a very large commercial crop they don't study it. When they do study things it is only for a year or so and hence, a whole lot gets left out because the weather is not the same from year to year so those changes are not reflected in the study. Last year we had frost on the 23rd of August. This year it has yet to freeze. As for blogs people seem to grow them where they are easy to grow so nothing is said about really tough regions like ours. My frustration has been huge. I'm determined though because dried beans were a pioneer staple.

One thing I learned from my research is that beans have a load capacity. They stop adding beans when the limit is reached. That is why they tell you to keep your green beans picked. Picking allows room for other beans to grow on the plant. I'm going to pay attention to this of different kinds of beans.

 

This is Ireland Creek beans. Not only are the pods really long with on average six beans per pod but the load capacity is impressive. They have earned a spot in our garden next year. I only planted one seed packet full.

 

The other thing I noticed is that the Kenearly beans had most of their pods turning about the same time on a given plant. The Ireland Creek beans came in second in this area. Some other types of beans had everything from really green beans to dried and leathery looking at the same time. With our short, short season this is a huge plus to mature all at once and early.

 

This has to do with genetics I suspect. I quit raising Kentucky Wonder because the green beans came on in a small picking and then two large pickings and then were done. A great thing for the commercial field but not so good for a home gardener who wants the harvest spread out over a long period of time.

 

My Contender beans have a very long growing season and since I start harvesting the end of July I had weeks of picking before frost. When the beans slowed way down, became small, and curled badly I quit picking. I should have kept picking as the plants blossomed again and when I pulled them today to feed to stock they had lots of over mature beans and quite a few blossoms. I would have gotten quite a few more green beans to can in a later harvest time - live and learn.

 

The lovely Scarlet beans from my sister, you remember the pretty orangish red blossoms I showed you, barely gave me any beans. This is the sum total of beans that dried on the plants. There were tons of blossoms and hardly any bean pods. I ripped them out in disgust and canned 8 pints of shelled beans. That was one of my goals this year was to do shelly beans. I had never heard of canning at this stage until this year. I thought it might come in handy on one of those early frost years. It was a guess as you go experience since I could not find detailed information on how to do shelly beans until I read a garden forum where people chit chat back and forth. You know a university did not do a study on it as they aren't canning a field of half grown beans. 

 

 I was smart with these Ireland Creek beans. I used only one package unlike all the space and seed I used on the Scarlet Runners. What a waste. The Ireland Creek beans did alright. I just have to get used to the strange limy yellow coloring. Dried bean varieties that do alright here are rare indeed and they have a chance to acclimate and do better with selection.

They earned a right to a second year of trials. We shall see what the weather does to them next year.

 

I also learned in my studies that dried beans at the store can be up to six years old. Older beans take longer to cook and are less shiny but just how old the package does not disclose. Even if you store your dried beans in #10 tin cans, with oxygen removing packet thingies, they will not retain vitamins. Proteins and carbohydrates yes but after 2 to 3 years the nutrients are pretty much lost. Who knows if the store beans have any vitamins by the time they reach you. This is another push for self-sufficiency as a steady supply is worth far more than a vitamin deprived stock pile. The stock pile might keep you alive but barely. 

My Tomato Plant Experiment Just Became Bigger

 

I went to see our oldest daughter. Unbeknownst, I seem to have included her into one of my experiments. One of my tomatoes grown from seed needed a home. Our oldest grows a few vegetables in pots wherever she happens to be renting. This time she has a lovely enclosed back porch that has two big windows flooding the place with warm sunlight. Her lemon tree is there and I figured it needed a companion.

That tomato plant has grown like crazy. I swear the thing has doubled in size in one week and not just up but out. She thinks she can actually tell a difference each day. It is gorgeous. I was feeling rather guilty as none of mine look that good or big. Then reality set in. There is no way I have room for pots that large let alone eleven of them for just the tomatoes. A closer inspection of the lush plant revealed that it had only three blossom clusters in the earliest stage of development. Is all the energy going toward the plant and not fruit? When I gave it to her it was one of the smaller tomato plants. Question - will the larger, healthier plant of our daughter's produce more fruit in its lifetime compared to my own smaller plants? Even if it does, I do not have room for such a large pot let alone eleven such pots. I have a few round pots and I think I will try and use a few on the porch but round does not fit in as small a space as square or oblong. With trying to grow plants in the house to eat and a number of plants started for the outdoor garden space is a big problem. It is why I do not recycle pots such as cottage cheese containers and vegetable cans.

 

With her inspiration I took three tomato plants started from seed in a big pot and set it in front of the side window by the front door.  I put them wa....y down in the pot to bury more of the stem so as to grow more roots and give the plant more support. The tomato plants from seed get tall and bend over especially when loaded with fruit. To only allow it to grow more roots but give them more support. The plants are suppose to get only 12 inches tall but mine from seed are more like 20 inches or they were last year. Right now we are at 15 inches.

The plant on the left is smaller I  allowed the blossoms to develop earlier than the plant on the right. At this stage the plant on the left has more tomatoes. Will the one on the left end up producing more tomatoes or the larger plant on the right? I definitely won't have a problem with the plant on the left breaking because it is too tall. Right now it has over 40 blossoms or tomatoes on it. Some on the window side are turning red. Not bad when you think I started this plant the beginning of January. Definitely faster than tomato plants grown and set outdoors. The cloned tomatoes having a few more blossom clusters per plant than the tomatoes started from seed.

 

So really I have three experiments going now. Cloned versus started from seed, allowing blossoms to form earlier or later, and small pots versus large. I may end up deciding that a combination is best . That way the develop of tomatoes will be extended over a longer period of time.
 

Part of this experiment is how many tomato plants it will take to keep us supplied with tomatoes. Not sure it can be accomplished as how can one get enough of summertime fresh flavored tomatoes? 

 This is this years experiment but next year it might be too cold a winter to grow the tomatoes in the window and they will have to go under grow lights. Then I will switch to cold hardy lettuces in the pots in the windows. I started removing more BIG rocks from the front flower bed. It was truly a ROCK garden. Not much room for much else to grow. In will go a long box to transform into a cold frame. It was a box a heavy piece of equipment came in. I'm always looking around to recycle. One of those recycle projects is bent T-posts that will be changed and used in the garden. Another one is using feed sacks to make tarps for the garden. Things are truly a hopping.

 

 

Chciken Glasses

 I saw these glasses about a year ago pop up on the internet. Don't remember what I was researching at the time but I could not believe they actually made glasses for chickens. I would suppose there is such things as near and far sighted chickens but to actually test a chicken and put glasses on them seemed ludicrous to say the least. There just had to be something more to it so I researched.

Those of you with chickens know they can be cannibalistic. I have had a few die not from their injury but from the rest of the flock pecking at them until there is a large hole that causes the chicken to go into shock and die. Therefore, I sometimes remove the injured chicken from the coop until they heal and other times depending on the wound, I have used hot sauce to great success. I just pour a heavy dose of a homemade concoction of hot peppers on the bloody spot and sit back and watch. Yes, the stuff is uncomfortable for the chicken but not half as uncomfortable as having a flock go after them pecking at a very sore spot. 

The hen who peck at the blood colored wound  shake and shake their head, then rubs their beak in the dirt trying to remove the offensive liquid. They do not peck again unless they are really stupid. I usually keep applying the hot tasting liquid until the wound has sufficiently healed and I see that the other hens are leaving them alone.

If there is one hen in particular that has a habit of picking on the other hens then she gets the tip of her beak clipped with my goat, hoof clippers. Or she ends up in the stew pot depending on how ornery she is.

The glass's lens changed the color of the blood therefore removing the urge. The hens could still see their food and so all was well.

You can no longer buy the glasses with lenses. I wish I had pair of those. They are just too cool! I guess they were once quite common and used especially when raising large flocks. Crowd chickens and give them free choice of food  so they have little to occupy them and the chickens will grow bored and find someone to pick on. Some breeds of chickens are more susceptible to this habit than others. Of course it is the more nervous breeds as the laid back ones just don't care enough to put forth the effort.

 

You can  still buy blinders which forces the chickens to look down in order to see. Of course that is where the food is so they get along fine. But then where is the entertainment in that? We love watching the chickens darting after a flying bug. It can be hilarious. Or watching one chase a Robin. Ours don't go after any of the other birds but that red is so.... alluring.

 

Wondering how the glasses stay on. They fasten in the vents on the chicken's beak. Wouldn't it be a hoot to see a flock of chickens running around with glasses on. I sometimes think I was just born too late.

New Lessons Learned About Yogurt and Buttermilk

A little reminder, using a dry erase marker on your glass jars helps you remember the date the milk was taken. This way I know which milk to use first and which to give to the chickens. The oldest of course. Feeding milk to the chickens saves financially as I do not have to buy as much oyster shell to increase their calcium levels. Egg shells are mainly calcium and we like hard egg shells. If I have an abundance of old milk then the garden gets fertilized with it.

I also label my buttermilk cultures and yogurt with the date cultured since they are in glass jars. When you do something like this week after week the brain gets muddled or mine does as to the exact day you did it last. Of course if you had a nice calm life you could do it on the same day of the week. What would that be like? 

Yogurt and buttermilk I've done quite well keeping going. Not perfect but pretty good. In doing so I have learned heaps. My yogurt quality has increased. One gal asked me when I first blogged about it if our goat yogurt turned out slimy like hers. She had quit making it. Ours was indeed a bit slimy but I've learned the solution to that problem and it wasn't through research. It was experimentation and time. I have learned that you need to warm your milk very slowly. I put my electric stove, I wish I had gas, on 2 and the milk takes nearly an hour to come up to the 180 F it has to reach. The length of time it takes depends on how much milk you are heating at one time. Then I either cool the milk quickly or slowly according to whatever is happening around here at the moment and when it reaches the proper temp, I add the culture.

I usually make yogurt and buttermilk at the same time, something new from the first blog post on the subject.  One pot holds all the milk. I pour a quart worth of the heated milk into a sterilized quart jar to cool as the buttermilk needs to be 85. The rest of the milk I let cool in the pan to 115 before adding the yogurt culture, mixing it in, and putting it in the yogurt maker jars.

The buttermilk jar when cooled to temp., I wrap with an old heating pad that does not have an automatic turn off switch. Mine is set on medium. I can do two quarts if I plan on making lots of recipes that week with buttermilk. My family LOVES homemade buttermilk pancakes and biscuits.

The texture of the goat yogurt done this way is smooth and creamy. Time spent culturing varies with the particular milk I'm using. This varies as to the period of time we are in the goat's lactation as the cream level changes. And what the goat's diet is also makes a difference. Right now they are getting orchard grass hay but later it will be a orchard grass alfalfa mix for later in their pregnancy.

 Sometimes it takes longer to reach the desired thickness and sometimes shorter. Keep in mind that store yogurt has gelatin or powdered milk to thicken it but I can do it pretty well with fiddling with incubation times. Greek yogurt is thicker because of the additives or some strain the liquids off of the yogurt to desired thickness.  Right now the cream level is really high at about 1/3, which seems to equate to a thicker yogurt. I sometimes make yogurt with milk that has run through the separator and then the cream runs through again once more which gives a heavy cream.  The lighter cream run off is then mixed back into the milk. 

Did you know that 2 percent milk sold in the USA is only one and a half percent less fat than whole milk? Yes, it was a great sell campaign that made it popular - not the facts. Buy whole milk and add water if you want 2 percent. You are just buying more water with 2 percent anyway. Better yet get a milk goat. 

I can use yogurt instead of buttermilk in many of my recipes and often do. Depends on how many fruit smoothies or buttermilk pancakes were made whether I have more buttermilk or yogurt in the refrigerator.

The other thing I have not done is to freeze buttermilk and yogurt. The learning just never ends. This is handy when the goats are dry as you just freeze milk and then culture once a month to keep things in reserve. Or better yet if you have the freezer room you just keep thawing milk and culturing.

The other thing I want to try is on this site where you use a powdered milk to mix with a culture and it keeps for a year in the freezer. This is often used to ensure a pure culture. http://www.leeners.com/yogurt/how-to/yogurt-culture.shtml
Things to learn just never ends. The problem comes in on how to keep everything going not just trying it once.

Growing Peas, Carrots, Lettuce and Garlic Indoors

(Tomatoes growing in the sunroom. The flavor is divine. We may never be able to eat tomatoes from the store again.) 

Wednesday when I went to the grocery store. I became VERY motivated about growing our own food. Cottage cheese was over 5 dollars a container along with a significant price hike in all other dairy products. Unfortunately it did not stop there and one of the shockers was cereal up over 5 dollars a box. Boxes that keep getting smaller along with bags of chips.

This fall I tried bringing in more money with sewing and lets just say it ended in disaster and my Addison's Disease in full blown anger from the stress and lack of sleep. The slap in the face turned me in a new direction. Why was I trying to make more money when I will never keep up with inflation. Kirk's work income has not. The answer has to be to watch our spending more carefully and make more of our needs ourselves. 

(Garlic is peeking up their heads.)

The area in which this would make the largest difference is in food production 12 months of the year. 12 months of the year though in Wyoming with a zone 3 growing season is not going to be easy. Yes, I know what the map says, zone 4, but they have got to be kidding. If you look at just the area around us you can see a big enough difference in temperatures, elevation, and growing season length that you can quickly see you need to figure out your own growing zone. 

I am presently studying winter gardening. Something I am told was common in our great grandparents day. Most of my books are from  milder climates but they still have good information in which we can adapt to our situation. I admit when they talk about it being tough in zone 5 or 6, I laugh out loud. With books in hand and searches through the internet I have been scouring the seed catalogues and thinking on how we can economically put in cold frames and greenhouses. The actual building won't begin until summer because right now we have a calf shed to tin.

 What I'm doing right now is planning. I'm looking at cold hardy varieties of crops. There are very, very few. Not surprising if you think about it. How many people do you know that garden in the winter? Demand equates to supply and no demand equates to extinction.

(We are picking fresh lettuce right before we eat, YUM!! Who knows how many vitamins are left in the lettuce you buy at the store after it has taken the long journey to your table?)

I am looking at locations in the yard where we might push a zone 4 or 5 growing area like the front flower bed which is on the south side and protected on the north by the garage and west side by the house. The south side of the house under the kitchen window might be a second place. We grew tomatoes and peppers this summer in the kitchen spot and found the season was extended for them by the protected, south location and heat that radiated off the house.

(Carrots, I think I planted them a bit thick. The seed was older and I questioned how well they would sprout. Oh well, I can thin them.)

I am trying new seed varieties in the house and with the night temperatures in the fifties in the sun room, I am getting an idea just how fast they sprout along with having a taste test. We have decided that we like Arugula with its peppery taste. I have three lettuces going right now. One I grew last year, Tom Thumb Lettuce, and a couple new varieties. Cardinale I am not impressed with so I will use up the seed and not reorder but Cimaron is doing very well and with Tom Thumb will go into the winter cold frames next winter for the second leg of trials. They are suppose to be cold hardy. I have others I am going to try first in the house to see their growth habits, texture, and flavor; how close together I can plant them and how quickly they grow.

(These peas are to grow between 6 and 8 inches tall with leaves that are great in salads along with the peas themselves.)

This first stage of experiments will give us a small bit of immediate relief nutritionally and economically. Plus it will test the limits of what I can grow and how much I can grow in the sunroom. This still leaves quite a bit up to outdoor gardening.

It isn't just lettuce that the sunroom is growing but Tom Thumb peas are sprouting, the garlic has peeked its head up, the spinach is showing its first leaves, and the carrots are up. More of the herbs has poked their heads through the soil and I have a few more to start. I am for sure going to start a cucumber but which one is not yet decided. I also am thinking about a zucchini and an eggplant just for the sunroom, not ones for the cold frames. 

I am having so.... much fun with my indoor garden. I think the satisfaction and joy is much greater with the contrast of snow covering the ground outside. It is a reminder of just how bland the vegetables from the store are. My husband emits a loud, MMMM!!!! when he bites into the cherry tomatoes with their burst of summer. I don't think we will ever be able to go back to bland.

It is not easy to find miniature varieties that are cold hardy. The second concern is how to coordinate the growing of crops for us to eat and the starting of vegetables in the house for planting the first week of June. It could get rather crowded and complicated with a few years needed to work out the problems.

Will all of this come to fruition? The motivation is sure there for each bite pushes us forward. Some things may have to be postponed to a more distant future. Isn't that the way of things? Some other more pressing matters will raise their heads but as long as we keep moving forward, though at times at a snails pace, we are still moving forward none the less and year by year we are becoming a little more self-sufficient.

Stay tuned for an update on the tomato project. The pictures will tell it all amazing difference. Plus I grew my first wheat grass for the rabbits and with the knowledge I'm tweaking my second batch to hopefully perform even better. The stackable cages came and the rabbits are indoors in the chicken coop. You just have to see.

 

Wheat Sprout Update

 Since I am doing updates I will continue and tell you about what I have worked out on sprouts. Once more the temperatures are dipping into the single digits and there is no green in sight, okay except the evergreen trees. Even though the chickens are free range there just isn't much to scrounge up.  I do find them in the hay stack pecking at the alfalfa leaves but with slim pickens, I think I need to supplement their diet. That means I am back once more sprouting wheat. It does not make sense to do so in the summer since they barely eat any grain during that lush time of year but now they are heavily downing the grains in the coop and the pocket book feels it. That ups their maintenance costs especially when they are laying fewer eggs because of the decrease in sunlight.

Just three plastic gallon ice cream buckets at a time though because it seems to be about all I can squeeze in time for. It is hard enough to keep them rinsed once a day let alone any more and keep up with the needs of the grandkids. This means that the stock does not get sprouts daily but a few times a week instead. This isn't all bad since it helps keep their interest peeked.

The change is that I am not only feeding the chickens but some to the goats and a handful to each of the rabbits. It satisfies their hunger with less feed in comparison to the same feed dry. With the increase in nutrients and lower costs it is a win, win deal.

Whitey, our buck, goes nuts when I pop the lid and he gets his first whiff of the wonderful stuff. With life waa.....y too busy recently I fed too much commercial feed and my rabbits are obese. One of my New Year goals is to feed the rabbits a little less packaged rabbit food and a whole lot more of a natural diet. That means for now a big helping of alfalfa / orchard grass hay each morning. I also started trying my hand at growing wheat grass this week. Just one tray at first. The blades are barely up so we shall see how that goes. I am hoping the kitchen garden will have some extra produce along with some from the winter and summer gardening planned in the future with rabbits in mind.

Most things are still in the planning stage but for sure rabbits will be a part of our diet. I butchered a few and was really impressed with how much meat I got in a short period of time. It also was yummy and needless to say nutritious.

Three new indoor rabbit cages came this week and when I have them assembled then we can put all the rabbits in the chicken coop. Yeah!!! for I will seldom have to worry about their water freezing or if they are comfortable enough when I know I definitely don't want to go outside. I have one rabbit hutch to rebuild and one already in a spot in the garden so that will bring the total to 7 cages. I would like a couple more outdoor ones and we shall see how that goes since the one outdoor one I need to rebuild is quite large.

I asked at the feed store today if they had any millet or barley for I have not tried sprouting those grains, alas, they did not have any. I will head the other direction in a few days to a different feed store for my favorite rabbit food. It put weight on far, far better than the other three varieties I tried. I will inquire there. They say that rabbits like black oil sunflower seeds. My goats do too and the chickens also. Maybe I should pick up a couple bags as two of my daughters are wanting totes made from the empty bags.

I think I will try oats again and start one bucket tomorrow. They were not quite as easy to sprout as wheat but variety is always a good thing. Maybe I should try some oat grass too. Hmmmm..... so many things to try and so little time. Good thing there is a time and season for everything under heaven because one simply can not do all things all the time.