Today's Take - 4/4/2015

The chickens and ducks have both been doing a nice job laying as of late. Despite one duck and several hens going broody on us, practically overnight, we've been managing to average a dozen or better eggs per day between the clucks & quacks.

We also just harvested our first garden produce of the year, some humongous stalks of Victoria rhubarb. I wish that I had some of last summer's blueberries still in the freezer, because a "bluebarb" cobbler sounds fantastic right about now. Ah well, the 'barb is in the freezer now, waiting on berry season. :)

For the record -
Chicken eggs - 13
Duck eggs - 2
Rhubarb - 1 1/2 pounds

In the Garden -
Planted 3-25 gallon root pouches with a little more than half of our seed potatoes. We're growing Yukon Gold, Purple Majesty and Rose Finn Apple. I put about 3" of our homegrown compost in the bottom of each container, followed by another 3-4" of Gardener & Bloom "raised bed" soil, with a handful of kelp meal mixed in, then the seed pa-tay-ters, followed by another 3" (more or less) of very loose G&B soil. The Purple Majesties already had good 2-3" sprouts on each of the tubers, so I'm hoping to see some foliage from them first.

I'm planting the remaining half of the seed potatoes (again, in root pouches) next to our back balcony. Come harvest time, we'll see which batch performed the best.

Puttin' it Up

My boo had the day off from work. The plan was for him to go salmon fishing in the Sound, just down the road a piece. Well, some bozo's boat had come untethered in the night and blown ashore at the boat launch, preventing Bill from putting in until the tide came back in, allowing the bozo in question to move his errant boat back where it belonged. And so, the day meant to be spent slaying fish was out. Instead, he came home and helped me do some serious catching up and putting up re: our garden landslide.

Socked away/made today -

Chelle -

Processed (washed, cut and froze)
*5 gallon bags of carrots
*6 gallon bags of summer squash

Picked and thrown in the dehydrator
*1/4 cup +/- bread poppy seeds
*1 cup German chamomile
*1 cup calendula blossoms

Bill -

Made
*1 pound goats milk mozzarella
*1 pizza dough
*1 beautiful Apple Pie (with our apples, of course)
*1 gallon apple cider (fermenting now)
*1 loaf white sandwich bread

Bill's homemade apple pie, bread and pizza (with his mozzarella)

Tomorrow I need to make a decision about what I want to do with our 10(ish) pounds of rapidly-ripening pears. Maybe jam, cider, pear sauce or ???

The pumpkins and tomatillos cometh SOON so I need to get ready for a wallop.

Today's Take & Booze News - 9/23/12

Today's take isn't really much to speak of, except to mention that Sidney's milk production seems to finally have begun its decline. We "only" got about a quart and a half from her for the past few days, instead of the usual half gallon. Drying off time is approaching.

Drying the girls off to give their little bodies a break, and, to prepare them for breeding back, is a bit of a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the milk will definitely be missed for the 6+ months that we won't have it. On the other hand, milking during a cold, wet, dark Washington Winter is zero percent fun for the farmer and the goat both, so it makes sense to take a break then.

The hens have been laying a bit less too, not on account of the weather, as we have a pleasant Indian Summer going - for now. Most likely, it is because some of the gals have begun their molt. Molting is the yearly bad-haircut-grow-out phase of chicken adulthood. In years past, the gals have left it 'til much later in the season, counter-intuitively commencing their feather loss just when the temperatures take their great initial dips. This year, it seems that the hennies & roos are slightly ahead of the game.

The real news for today is the booze. ;) Bill and I did our first racking of this year's ciders. My batch is about 2 gallons of blackberry apple cider, made from the juice of 30 pounds of apples and 6 pounds of wild blackberries, and using a packet of Lalvin V-1116 Montpellier cider yeast. Bill's is  nearer to 3 gallons of all-apple cider, made from 70 pounds worth of homegrown apples, and a packet of Nottingham ale yeast. Both tasted very promising, with mine having a very full body, sort of the cider-y answer to a Merlot, and Bill's being very light and crisp, reminding me a bit of champagne on my tongue.

I can't wait to see how these babies finish out!

*Eggs - 4
*Goats Milk- 1 1/2 quarts

Apples & Pears

Today's and yesterday's combined take from our tiny "orchard" -

*Apples - 141 1/2 pounds! (Our previous record was 50 pounds.)

*Windfall Apples for critters - 13 pounds

*Pears - 20 pounds, 6 ounces (Our previous best was exactly one pear.)

Cider Futures :)

We also got -

*Eggs - 10

*Blackberries - 10 ounces

Happy, happy, joy, joy!

Today's Take - 8/31/12

*Eggs - 6

*Apples - 4 pounds for us, 3 pounds of windfalls for the critters

*Blackberries - 1 pound

Today's Take - 8/23/12

More of the same - it's high blackberry season, which will soon give way to apple-mania.

*Eggs - 4 (What's up with that, laydies?)
*Wild Blackberries - 1 pound, 1 ounce
*Windfall apples - 8 or 9 (unweighed) that went straight to the goaties, who appreciated their under-ripe yet bruised texture very much. ;)

Today's Take - 8/17/12

Well, it seems like our extended, super wet Spring, followed by these past two weeks of miserable heat may have finally paid dividends in the form of a berry landslide.

Today the girls, some friends and I went back to the u-pick blueberry farm just up the street and managed to pick 2 pounds of berries from just 5 or 6 bushes. They were chock full! We'll try to get back and pick a few more once or twice at least before the season wraps up, because at $2.25 per pound for organic, I intend to fill up on berries for eating fresh, making jam and freezing for use in baked goods and breakfasts throughout the next year.

The marionberries and blackberries are also pretty epic this year. Just today I picked a pound of berries from a bush that grows in the chickens' yard. I also got a lot of unwanted attention from the cluckers while picking, and so shared a berry with them for every 4 or so that I picked for myself. They would scramble and race each other to every berry that dropped with the winner then high-tailing it away to a secluded place in which to snarf down their prize. They haven't been waiting on my kindness though - they've been helping themselves to all of the berries that they can reach. You can definitely tell how high they are able to jump, based upon the total absence of berries below about 18 inches off of the ground. ;)

As much as I whine and complain about this crazy weather, I sure am thankful that it has provided us with so much beautiful food.

P.S. - The apple trees and pear tree are loaded too! YAY!

*Goat Milk - 1/2 gallon
*Eggs - 15!
*Marionberries/blackberries - 1 pound
*Blueberries (u-pick) - 2 pounds
*Garlic (from Lisa) - 28 heads!
*Potatoes, squash, basil & beans (also from Lisa) - Lots!

Today's Take - 7/28/12

I know it's been like, forever, since I've posted a "Today's Take", but I'm finally getting up and around enough again to finally go outside and actually see what there is for the taking.

Not a ton today, but Summer is late in coming this year, and we never got our garden up and running, so the pickins are slim yet. The next few weeks should pick up a lot, between the Himalayan (wild) blackberries finally ripening, the u-pick blueberry farm opening for the season, and the garden-sitting that Bill and I are doing for our friend, Lisa. Happy Chelle. :)

*Goat Milk - 1/2 gallon
*Eggs - 7
*Marion berries - 4 ounces

Look how big these puppies are! :)

In the next day or two, we'll also be harvesting some rose petals and lavender flowers to throw in the dehydrator and/or steam juicer for adding to our homemade soap, someday. ;)

I've been a busy little Farm Girl

Earning my housewifey stripes today, I -

*Knitted a dishcloth and started a set of bike helmet earmuffs
*Turned 15 pounds of "junk" pears into 1/2 gallon of pear cider - which will likely eventually be wine. :)
*Juiced 10 pounds of apples
*Made 4 quarts of chicken broth (thanks, Thunder!)
*Washed 4 dozen eggs
*Am making two loaves of bread/a dozen+ eggs worth of French toast for freezing.
*Wrote two posts

Not too shabbeh! ;)

Today's Take 9/29/11

-Goats Milk, 64 ounces
-Eggs, 7
-Hawthorn Berries (haws), foraged, 5 pounds between my friend B & myself. ;)

Today's Take 9/20/11

Goats Milk - 4 ounces - A whole half-gallon jar got kicked over and spilled by Fritzen. :(
Eggs - 9 (Still not edible, due to antibiotics)
Blackberries - 1 pound
Sugar Pie Pumpkin - 4 pounds, 8 ounces (1 pumpkin)

Today's Pickin's 9/28/10

This past weekend we "harvested" our pears - all 4 of them. I used one tonight in a pear-ginger-white wine reduction that I served over pork chops. Yum!

We also somehow managed to get 5 eggs today, though I don't think that any of them are from our banty pullets. Every once in a while one of our girls will lay one in the evening just after they're tucked in for the night, then another late the next day.

We're very much looking forward to the "little girls" first eggs. Since the boys from the same hatch date are crowing and sexually harassing all of the hens now, I figure that their sisters' coming of age cannot be far off either. Hopefully we'll soon be getting 8 or 9 eggs per day. :)

Today's Totals (including this weekend's pears)-
5 eggs
4 pears (5 oz each)
4 apples (12 oz total)

Today's Pickin's 9/14/10

We got the usual 4 eggs, plus our first pear AND Liv & I found a blueberry bush that we didn't know existed. It's on the fence between the chicken yard and the bog. It's sort of a miracle that the chickens didn't find a way to pick it clean before we got to it, but I did notice that they've made a little dust bathing hollow right under the bush.

Today's Totals-
4 eggs
1 pear (6 oz)
3 oz blueberries

Slowly but surely, this land will feed us, someday. ;)

Apples & Cider - A Family Affair

First, we picked our apples - 50 pounds worth!







The girls were in charge of the sorting, washing and drying.



Bill and I pared and cored the lot. God bless the inventor of the Yankee Apple Peeler!





Chillaxin' while the steam juicer works its magic



Finally, Bill adding the sugar and pitching the yeast to get this cider brewing.




It's hard to believe that it took 50 pounds of apples (cored, but not peeled) and a day's worth of labor to make roughly 2 1/2 gallons of juice. We all enjoyed some of the fresh cider before handing the remainder off to our brew master, Bill, for "hardening". ;)

He added some sugar and half a packet of yeast, and into the man cave/basement it went to ferment a while. Our fingers are crossed that this will be fermented, bottled and carbonated by the holidays. See you in three months!

The Good, the Bad, and Cherries that Weren't

Today was just one of those up-and-down type of days. For every highlight, an annoying downside that nearly negated the good stuff. Am I the only one who seems to have these sort of days a lot?

For example, my shipment of plants from One Green World came today - yay! Woo! Unfortunately, only half of what I ordered was in stock. Thumbs down.

The whole reason that I placed this order was to get some pie cherry trees in the ground ASAP, so that I might, might be able to score enough cherries this coming summer to make my beloved Summer Solstice jam. The rest of the trees and plants in my order were impulse buys of a kind. Oddities and experimental goodies that I just couldn't resist, thrown in just to try. Guess which trees they didn't have in stock, and won't have until January? The peach tree and Heavenly Blue grape were unavailable too. Well, poo.

On the ol' chicken front - Strawberry laid an egg this morning - FINALLY. On the downside there, the other two Americaunas have now taken their second day off in a row. Fussy little stinkers. What's a girl got to do to get some consistent egg action around here?

Today's pickin's-
5 pounds assorted apples
1 pound +/- blackberries
2 eggs (Strawberry is back, baby!)

From Summer to Fall in one Day

Today was a rather blustery day, the first of it's kind so far this season. Between the abruptly gloomy weather blowing in and school starting next week - glory, hallelujah! - Fall is definitely on it's way. :)

Autumn is my favorite season. I love the window-pounding rainstorms, hot apple cider and lazy afternoons spent reading and knitting in front of the fire. Yes, ma'am, I'm ready for it!

But then there are the chores. ALWAYS THE CHORES. I'm in complete denial of exactly how much leaf raking there'll be. Most of our trees are deciduous, the neighbors' trees are deciduous and the wind through our little hollow is strong, which I suspect will mean that our yard and pasture will be the area's leaf repository. On the upside, it makes lovely compost fodder. Try to focus on the positive, that's my motto. Or it should be.

I picked a few of the ripe plums today. Grandma J says that they might be the Damson variety. All I know is that they are tasty. :) I also picked up a few apples knocked down by the wind. I thought I'd gotten them all until I saw a black-tailed doe and her fawn munching away under my apple trees - and on my rhododendrons. We watched them, and they, us, from about 20 feet away. They were beautiful and quiet enough to almost seem surreal. I'm sure that the thrill of their nearness will be gone once they've had one of my roses for lunch, but seeing them today was pretty wonderful.

The chickens are well. Strawberry is still not laying, or if she is, not where we can find them! I think she may be starting a molt, though, as her feathers are looking a little on the sad side lately. Hard to tell when she's windblown and soaked to the bone, though, as we all were today.

Today's (and yesterdays - oops!) totals-
6 eggs
2 pounds windfall apples (varieties unknown - saved for critter food)
3 plums (about 4 oz total)

Building our Orchard

Since most of the items that I eventually want to grow/raise must wait until Spring to be bought, planted or born, I'm focusing my energy on the few things that do best when begun in the Fall, which around here means primarily, trees.

My sister-in-law turned me on to a very cool nursery out of Molalla, Oregon, called One Green World. They offer a pretty diverse selection of fruit & nut trees, native plants, berry bushes and more, all acclimated to the weather of the Pacific Northwest. Here's what I ordered-

*2 Montmorency Cherry trees (These are the classic sour "pie" cherry, which are impossible to find in any store.)
*1 Autumn Rose Peach
*1 Arbequina Olive tree
*1 Himrod (green grape) vine
*1 Heavenly Blue (blue/purple grape) vine
*1 Highbush Cranberry
*1 Bigtop horseradish

An olive tree! Can you believe it? In western Washington?!? I can't wait to see if this pans out for us. How cool would it be to be able to make my own olive oil? :)

The four new trees will bring our "orchard" up to a whopping 10 trees! We currently have some nice old apple, pear and plum trees which are presently fairly heavy with fruit, with the exception of the pear. I think that they would all benefit from an expert pruning, so I guess that I'd better start saving my pennies.

As for the grapes, these particular varieties are intended mainly for eating fresh, drying for raisins or cooking down for jelly. That doesn't necessarily mean, though, that I won't be trying to eek some wine out of them. ;) The other big benefit to having a grape vine or two is of course, the leaves. They are not only delicious in dolmades, but can be used in place of most any cooked greens. My rabbits also adore them!

I'm so looking forward to getting these in the ground. I don't know if they will be established enough to bear fruit for us this coming spring, but as long as they thrive, I can be patient - if I have to.

Today's Take-
2 eggs (Strawberry and Amelia seem to have taken the day off.)
1 plum - YUM!