Skip to main content

Heat, Humidity, Building, Canning, Weeding - is it worth it?

This summer will definitely be in my memory banks as a hot, miserable year. People who spend time by the water are likely thrilled to death with all the hot, sunny days, and I'm very glad for them. We are working on various projects here on the farm and the heat and humidity are making life tougher than it needs to be, in my opinion. Darrell is working, primarily alone, but sometimes with my help as needed, on building a new chicken coop. I've been wrestling with the garden, weeding, harvesting, processing, pickling. The kitchen is hot at night when, after supper, I'm processing corn for freezing, or heating the canner and various elements needed to pack jars . . . however, working against time and weather certainly gives you a sense of accomplishment and perspective! We, in our area, don't NEED to do all this - we could go buy whatever we want at a multitude of markets, stores, and specialty shops. Unlike Darrell's grandfather, whose family emigrated to Kansas, staked out a quarter section of land, and proceeded to turn over 10 acres of it by hand with shovels (this was virgin plains buffalo grass), plant and harvest wheat, then take that wheat to the nearest town to sell, in bags, in a wheelbarrow, because they couldn't afford a horse to work the land or pull a wagon until AFTER they had harvested and sold that first year's crop of wheat. And, while the men/boys in the family were busy with that 10 acres of wheat, the women/girls were scavenging, growing, and preserving every scrap of food they could find to feed the family. So, as we continue on with our house-recovery projects, farm improvement projects, and utilizing this year's garden, I'll try to keep focused on WHY we do this - for more healthy food!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Big turkeys from our farm - happy customers at Thanksgiving!

Well, our turkey raising experiment this year went well - probably a little too well. We had a lot of orders for birds in the 15 - 25# range and our smallest bird was over 21#. They REALLY thrived out in the pasture. We plan to raise more next year, but probably start them somewhat later (these birds were 22 weeks old) and manage their feeding protocol a little differently. We used the two biggest birds - 41.25# and a whopping 41.90# guy . . . whew! Darrell had written an informational piece about " How to Handle Roasting a Big Turkey ", and I had some of those big disposable roasting pans to give to people who feared their regular roaster wouldn't cut it. So, several of our customers shared their story of what they did with the bird and send some photos. There're also photos at the end of what we did with the two monsters. Leah C. sent these photos and a note about their experience. She had been leery of doing a big bird, so Darrell's instructions and ...
1 comment
Read more

Leftover Thanksgiving Turkey - fun with Corn Chowder!

Many of you who know us know we usually make Turkey Pot Pies (see the recipe on our blog) with leftover Thanksgiving goodies. We still love Turkey Pot Pie, but we still have so many from last year (an even bigger bird than this year!), we decided we would do other things with this year's leftover turkey (we roasted a 33# bird from the flock we raised). So I made a Turkey Corn Chowder that is savory and yummy out of part of the leftovers. Here's how it came to be: Finished Turkey Corn Chowder First, right after Thanksgiving, I put the turkey carcass, from which most of the large meat pieces had been removed, into our 22-quart stock pot, along with some carrot, onion, and celery, to make turkey stock. When the stock was done simmering, I had pulled the carcass bones and all the meat that had cooked off out of the pot, picking out bones from the meat. I had about 2 quarts of small chunks and bits of turkey, most of which was the very tender, sweet meat that is around t...
Post a Comment
Read more

The blessings of friends

Today we rented a huge wood chipper and had sent an email to everyone who had offered to help with cleanup. We needed to clean up a downed tree and tons of branches that were between our house and the pasture so that the professional tree people can take down the hazardous still-standing tree parts, and get the branches off the deck, which is what our insurance will pay for . . . all the rest is our problem. 32 people from 4 counties turned out at our farm today - some for 2 or 3 hours, some all day. Some were neighbors, some were people we work with, people from Barbershop who Darrell sings with, people we know through other affiliations, a cousin, her daughter and grandson and their friends - I'm completely awed by how hard everyone worked, in spite of the heat and brutal humidity. And even more amazing is what we accomplished with a Bobcat, a Kubota tractor with a bucket, chain saws, and just plain hard work feeding that monster chipper. Here's a photo of our side yard ...
2 comments
Read more