The Changing Face of our Farm

For the past four years, we've been a vegetable farm.  And we also did pastured poultry and eggs.

This year, we're a grass-based meats farm and we also do vegetables.

Why the change?

Hubby and I had a crisis of philosophy in the gardens last summer.  Here we were providing 20 families with fresh produce every week for 15 weeks (end of June through first of October).  What did our members do come the middle of October?  How were they going to eat locally then?  What could we do to address that need?

As I've mentioned before, I'm a huge canner.  I love to can.  I love to teach people to can.  In our current production system, I wasn't getting enough for our family to can the quantities we wanted and I couldn't provide canning quantities to our customers.

This problem changed the course of our farm.  

We are not doing our vegetable CSA this year.  Not because we didn't love it, but because we don't think it's the solution to a year round local diet.

Enter in 2012 and The Canning Garden!

I only have one customer this year (that's all Hubby would let me have, and we all know he's the voice of reason around here).  She gave me a list in February of all the food she wants to have on her pantry shelves and in her cool storage.  (for example:  20 quarts of beans, 10 pints of beets, 10 butternut squash, etc.)  I translated that to row feet and am growing those quantities of those foods for her.  When they're ripe, I'll give her a call and she can have 2 bushels of green beans to can up or freeze or dehydrate...whatever method of food preservation rings her bell.  In short, I'm contract growing canning quantities of fresh, local produce.

I must admit, it's pretty exciting to work on a longer term solution to the how-to-eat-local-in-ND problem and still have the personal connection to our customers that we love.

This is one of our gardens ready for seed.  We've planted some early crops:  some peas, lettuce, chard, spinach, beets.  Potatoes will go in soon.  Onions after that.  

It is just a small step this year, but I believe an important one.  It always starts with one!

{I'd welcome your feedback on this idea!  Leave a comment, if you'd like to share your thoughts.}

Little One

We have three children.  They are a lot alike and also very different.  One thing Hubby and I have noticed with Kiddo3 is that her milestones kind of sneak up on us.  With our first child, we eagerly watched and waited and cheered on the "almosts".  But with the third, she catches us by surprise, "Oh my goodness, did you know she could climb up on the table??"

She's always caught us by surprise, the best surprises! 

Kiddo3 was the happiest baby of the three.  Only cried when she was hungry or poopy.  Made life pretty easy on her Mama.

See?  Even when tortured with stickers, still a smile on her face.

Her big blue eyes and curly red hair usually catch your eye first.  But then her sweetness takes over.

Even when things aren't going her way, she doesn't stay upset for long.

Hubby has already identified that she has a pretty unique sense of humor.  This is how she plays peek-a-boo.  Always has, probably always will.

And then there are times when she gets herself into positions like this and we, her parents, wonder "Really??!!  How??"

Then she sees us and offers a friendly wave.

She loves to play with her brother and sister.  Sometimes she doesn't know that she has a starring role in their latest game.  One day we had told the kids about a cousin shooting a coyote and how coyotes would eat our chickens and that's why we keep them safe, etc.  The next day, Kiddo1 and Kiddo2 were running through the house saying "Here comes the pink coyote!"  

(see below for pink coyote...)

And while she doesn't yet talk, she has a few motions that we know the meanings of and she can sing.  Which is the sweetest sound you'll ever hear.  And then she giggles, which is the second sweetest sound.

She's an almost independent eater, one of her favorite foods is eggs, over easy.  (This morning she ate three!)

Today we had a lot of work to do outside to get ready for the turkeys.  Kiddo3 was a trooper and came with us all over the place.  But when we came in, she was tired and went to her bed.  She pulled out her blanket enough to have it on her head (where it is when she sleeps, she has to have something on her head) and went to sleep on the floor beside her bed.

Kiddo3 has a lot of nicknames, but my favorite for her is Little One.  Her sense of wonder and awe is amazing and makes me stop, just watching her.  She is so attentive and learning so much each day.  For example, she's figured out that when I sit down at the table it's time to pray and she clasps her little hands and then reaches for my hand and Kiddo1's hand.  Even if I get up to get something and sit back down, she thinks we need to pray again!

Today she saw her first turkeys and the wonder was there again.  

See that sparkle in her eye, the smile on her face, the hand clasped in joy?  That's my Little One!

Easter skirts

I love to sew.  I love fabric.  I love shopping for fabric.  Ooohhhh, how I love shopping for fabric.  Especially when I have a super cute project like Easter skirts for my girls.

I chronicled the pattern saga HERE

The new JoAnn's store just opened in Bismarck and I happened to be in town for a meeting and thought I'll check it out and get the fabric and such there.  I hadn't shopped JoAnn's for a quite some time and I soon remembered why:  They don't stock their fabric by collection.  They stock it by color.  Which some people may prefer.  I do not.  I want all the coordinating fabrics together.

{In case you don't know how fabric production works:  A designer will produce a "line" of fabrics with a them of color, pattern, tone, etc.  The fabrics are designed to work together to achieve a look.}

Alas, time and again I would find two fabrics that were in a line, but could never find a third to go with them.  Now, had the fabrics been arranged by collection, there would be 6-12 fabrics that all coordinate.  Grrr....

I just about left when I decided to cruise the baby fabric aisle.  Where, for some rational reason, those fabrics were in collections.  {insert applause here}  And I just happened to find some super cute coordinating lady bugs, flowers and polka dots.  All things Kiddo1 had said she would want on her skirt!!

In an afternoon and with help from Kiddo1, I whipped up these super cute skirts for the girls.

 Kiddo1's on the left has a pre-pleated ruffle, but I didn't have enough to do Kiddo3's on the right.  Thankfully, at age 1 she doesn't notice those things yet!!

 Kiddo1 was just a little excited to have a new twirly skirt.

As life would have it, I didn't get a picture of the girls in their new skirts on Easter.  But I'm sure we'll be wearing them again soon!

Toddlers and Easter Eggs

In case you don't know, we raise chickens.  That lay eggs.  Lots of eggs.  We haven't bought eggs in almost two years and we sure aren't going to buy them at Easter when we're swimming in eggs around here.  

Some people believe that you can't dye brown eggs.  I set out to prove them wrong. 

(And managed to prove that I'm an idiot, always a plus to have a humbling moment!)

First, let's talk how to boil eggs.  Here's how I do it:

Most Important:  Use eggs that are at least a week old.  This is difficult in our house as our eggs are always fresh.  I literally have to hide a dozen so that I have week-old eggs to boil.

Why do they have to be a week old?  The shell of an egg is porous and some of the water in the egg will evaporate as it ages.  This leaves a slight separation between the shell and the white and makes them oh-so-much easier to peel.

Put eggs gently in pan.  Add water from the tap.  The temperature really doesn't matter.

Put them on the stove, turn the burner to high and wait for them to just start boiling.

Set your timer for nine minutes.

GO!

 After nine minutes, turn off the burner and immediately remove the pan from the burner.

Wait an additional 2 minutes and then drain the hot water from the eggs.  

And here's where I'm an idiot.  Normally, when I hard boil eggs I'm using them for deviled eggs, egg salad or kid-snacks.  I just toss them into the colander.  Who cares if they crack??  I'll just be peeling them in an hour anyway.

I was cooking eggs on autopilot and tossed the EGGS TO BE DYED into the colander and then yelled.  Because I had broken half of the dyeable eggs.  Good grief...

So I boiled up some more eggs.

 Then we got down to business.  We reached another milestone with Kiddo3 the day before the egg dyeing, she can climb up to the table now.  Which made this family-memory-making opportunity infinitely more difficult.

I set up nine different colors and we had fifteen eggs.  Before we started, I thought "Fifteen is definitely not enough."  Then we did it, and it was more than enough.

Kiddo1 is in charge of eight of the colors.  Kiddo2 only dyed one egg.  It was in the orange dye right in front of his cowboy hat.  It was the first egg in the dye and it was the last egg out.  He fussed over that egg.  He only did one egg, but he did it very well!

 Here are some of Kiddo1's eggs.  Notice the peeling on the yellow, red and light blue eggs?  We don't wash all of our eggs.  Only the ones that have ANY dust, dirt, hay, etc. on them.  When a hen lays an egg, she puts an anti-microbial coating on the shell.  We want to preserve that if we can.  Did you know you can't sell a washed egg in Europe for that very reason??

Anyway, those three eggs were not washed and the dye couldn't penetrate that natural coating.  Isn't that just the neatest thing??  This former science teacher and self-professed science nerd had an AH-HA moment right then...

We dyed 15 eggs, six of them ended up on the floor at various times, two were eaten right away.  Not too shabby for a three year old, a two year old and a mom with a one year old in a head lock under her arm to keep her from dumping nine cups of egg dye on her head.

I called my mom when we were done and said, "I think anyone who dyes eggs with three toddlers deserves some kind of an award."

She said, "Or a nap."  That's my mom.  Mother of three toddlers once herself.  Who also dyed eggs and has the pictures to prove it.  

Thanks Mom, for doing for us so that I could do for them!!

I make strangers feel bad about themselves

Two friends of mine (K and A) were telling another friend of theirs (whom I've never met) about me and our farm and our kids.  They told her all the things I do and share here and on facebook.  And how she should meet me or at the very least, read this here blog.

Do you want to know what she said?  "I don't want to know her, she'll make me feel bad about myself!"

K told me this as a joke and at first I thought it was funny.  But the more I thought about it, the more it bugged me.  I certainly would NOT want that to happen and I'D feel bad if it did.

Then I gave a seminar on canning and one of the women raised her hand and asked if I slept at night.  Again, "ha ha ha".  But putting these two events together has given me some food for thought (and apparently an intense desire to cook with tortillas...)

So to those of you who think that I do too much or wonder how I sleep or whatever it is that you wonder, I'd like to share why strangers should not feel bad about themselves:

1.  I am not successful.  There you have it.  Whatever projections you have put on what you think my life is like, it is very much a work in progress.  God is gracious with me as I figure it out.

2.  My house, most days, is a disaster.  I love a clean, orderly home.  I crave it.  It brings order to my mind when I have order in my world.  I used to have it.  When I was single.  Then I married someone who does not crave "a place for everything and everything in its place".  He's more of a "leave it out so I can see it" kind of guy.  If you think this may have caused some strife, you would be correct.  And then we had three children in three years who managed to inherit this gene from their father.  So I live with a desire for neatness and order and four humans who live to work against me.  {insert sigh and head in hands here}  And then there comes a point when I can't take it anymore...But (and here's a grace part) I'm married to a man who knows when I've reached my limit on chaos and spent the entire day while I was at work yesterday cleaning the house with three children age three and under.  (Which, if you've ever attempted that feat, is second only to the parting of the Red Sea under the heading of "Miracles God has Wrought".)  Even the bathroom!  You cannot know the joy of walking into my picked-up house, I almost wept.

3.  I don't watch TV.  That will be hard for 99% of Americans to believe, but I don't.  When we got married (and then quickly pregnant) and decided that I would stay at home with the kids, one of the ways we cut expenses was to not have TV.  As someone who was a faithful TV watcher back in my wild single day (and all the other non-wild ones), this seemed a bit extreme.  But guess what?  After a month, I didn't miss it a bit!  And now, after almost 5 years, I really can't stand TV.  When I travel and flip on the hotel TV, there isn't anything that interests me except maybe the History channel or the Food Network.  You would be amazed at the money you save and time you have to do all the those things you've always wanted to do.  I've had people tell me, "Well, I don't watch that much TV.  Just a couple of shows."  Well, then that's a colossal waste of money for just a couple of shows.  And if you're watching enough TV to justify the expense, then that's a colossal waste of time.  That will be hard for 99% of Americans to swallow.  But the most often comment I get is:  "I don't know how you have the time to do all that you do!"  There it is.  That's the secret!
One of my favorite quotes is from H. Jackson Brown Jr.:

“Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”

I can guarantee THEY weren't sitting in front of the television or playing on their iPad.

4.  As to the question of whether I sleep at night, you bet I do!  The only insomnia I have is a tiny red-haired person who sleeps in the next room and needs to eat every night at 2am.  Most evenings I don't do much.  I'm a morning person, so I get up and go and then crash after supper to read to the kids, play a game, snuggle on the couch before they go to bed.  Then I come downstairs and work on the computer for a while, blogging or farm bookwork or responding to emails.  I'm usually in bed by 10, read with Hubby for a bit, sharing good passages with each other.

5.  I love our farm!  I love gardening.  I love livestock.  I love cooking and baking.  I'm doing WHAT I love every day with the PEOPLE that I love.  If you can't say that, then change what you're doing and start doing what you love with the right people.  You can get a lot more accomplished in a day when you're motivations are right.  Just "puttin' in your time" and "cashin' checks" isn't the way to spend your life.

6.  When I come to the end of my life, I don't want to look back and say "I was always waiting for that big day".  EVERY DAY is a BIG DAY.  It's the only one I've got.  Ann Voskamp says, "Who am I to deserve another?"  Think about that for a minute.  That one will set you back on your heels and curb the "if onlys".  What if this is all you have?  Was the world a better place today because you were in it? I'm all for setting goals and having dreams and plans.  But we can't get so wrapped up in the future that we forget to live today, right here, right now.

7.  I'm married to my teammate and my best friend.  We work well together.  God certainly knew what He was doing when he brought us together.  If you don't feel that way about your mate, work on that.  Charles Stanley says, "If you're married, you're married to the right person."  Is it all sunshine and roses here on the farm?  Nope.  But as Hubby says, "There's no one I'd rather argue with than you!"

Well, there you have it.  Seven reasons why strangers shouldn't feel bad about themselves.

Homemade Quesadillas

I'm on a tortilla kick lately, I promise that's not all we're eating these days!

When Hubby and I got married, we received a quesadilla maker.  It was nice and worked fine.  But it only made one quesadilla at a time.  And as much as we love each other, it isn't SO romantic to sit at the table together and nibble a shared quesadilla as you wait for another one to be done.  Now add in three kiddos and I'd be making quesadillas for hours. 

And in the big cleaning out that is happening around here (at least with my stuff), the quesadilla maker was donated to the thrift store.

Does that mean we are now sentenced to a quesadilla-less existence??  It certainly does not.

Necessity being the mother of invention (and I'll add innovation), we now have BETTER quesadillas!!

In this particular batch, I opened a pint of canned turkey, shredded pepper jack and chipotle chedder cheese, picked some green onions and used butter.  (I know you're shocked about the butter.)

{As an aside, I recently gave a seminar on canning and someone asked, "How do you have time to can?"  I replied, "I don't have time NOT to can!"  Because I had canned turkey in my pantry, I got this hot meal on the table in less than 10 minutes.}

Put some butter in the bottom of your cast iron skillet, drain water/broth from turkey and add.  We want to heat the turkey thoroughly and if we get some nice crispy bits, that would be just fine!

 While the turkey is heating, grab some soft butter.  Go ahead, grab it!  And then spread it on one side of a tortilla.  This is wonderfully relaxing way to cook.

Flip that tortilla over and add a layer of cheese.

Then the turkey and green onions.

And then a final layer of cheese.  Why the cheese at the beginning and the end?  Because the melting cheese acts as a "glue" that hold the non-melting ingredients together and keeps your quesadilla from falling apart.

 You'll want to butter one side of another tortilla to place on top, using the same wonderfully relaxing technique.  Who says you can't have fun in the kitchen??

Slide the quesadilla onto a HOT griddle.  I can't stress that enough.  My griddle was at 400 degrees.  If the temperature is too low, the tortillas will get hard by the time the cheese is melted.  We want them crispy, not hard!

It only takes 3 or 4 minutes, so don't leave them.  When the bottom side looks like this, flip 'em!

I know I should have taken a finished shot, but we ate them just as fast as I made them.  All five of us thought they were great!  With some fruit, it made a great lunch.  With a salad or some rice, you're all set for supper.  

The filling possibilities are endless!  My niece and nephew would probably want peanut butter and jelly.  ICK!  I like peanut butter and I like jelly, but combining the two is a horrible thing to do to both peanut butter and jelly!

Go forth and make your own quesadillas!!

Veggie Patch Pizza

On Good Friday, our family tradition is to not eat meat.  But Friday is also our family tradition of homemade pizza and ice cream.  Enter veggie patch pizza!

I used grande burrito sized tortillas as my thin pizza crust.

Take some butter.  Only butter.

And smear it over one side of the tortilla.  Use both hands if you want!

Then flip it over so the buttered side is on the bottom.  Why do we do this?  It makes the bottom of the crust nice and crispy, instead of soggy.  

Meanwhile, I started sweating some veggies in my cast iron skillet:  zucchini, red pepper, onion and minced garlic in butter.  

 

 Take 2 Tbsp of homemade pizza sauce and swirl it around.  I don't like a lot of sauce so I use it sparingly.  Do whatever floats your boat.

Then I added some fresh spinach.  I didn't wilt this in the skillet as the heat from the oven will wilt it on the pizza.

Add your vegetables and prepare to add your cheese.

Doesn't it look great?  And we haven't even baked it yet!

This pizza is quick:  10 minutes at 425 degrees is all it takes to get awesome thin crust pizza at home.