Digging out the Chicken Coop

I am definitely feeling the farm girl lifestyle today. In fact, I just came in from plowing our lane (again) after all the snow drifted back over the plowed areas. We received somewhere between 12 and 15 inches of snow over the past 24 hours. The biggest problem however isn't the snow but the wind, upwards of 40 mph! It seems like as soon as you scoop or plow the wind just fills it right back up. You can practically watch all your hard work get covered up! The funniest thing about today however has to be the chicken coop.

Let me preface this story with some background information. Unfortunately, through first time farmer ignorance, our coop design isn't really the best one for our needs. I simply cannot fit the water station in the coop. A few weeks ago I went out to the coop only to discover that the waterers that I was using were not really meant for winter. The water was frozen solid! So I hoofed it to my friendly neighborhood tractor supply for an answer. Apparently, there are these little devices called "de icers" that you can place in water to keep it from freezing. However, it will not work in my suction based waterer so I had to settle for a deep metal pan.

Now, before the storm hit yesterday I went out to make sure that the feeder and water station were full. This morning I look out and realize that the chickens are officially "snowed in" with a drift of about 3 feet tall in the run. I therefore have to bundle up and tread out there to dig them out and give them access to their water. So after falling down a few times, I finally had a path for them to get out of the coop, get to the water, and for me to get in :-)

So now it is just keep feeding the woodstove to stay nice and toasty, unpack from our Christmas trip and get some laundry done. Oh and wait to see if Best Buy braves the elements and delivers our new TV...my guess not so much!

The Pleasures of Homemade

We have decided to do a pre-Thanksgiving. As we will not be able to celebrate on the actual date we have coined tomorrow evening as our holiday. We have a healthy crew coming to join in and we are preparing a feast with all the usual suspects, turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, etc. I have chosen this year to make it as "from scratch" as possible. I am finding that the more I make myself the more I enjoy the process. So with preparation in mind I have begun my homemade adventure! I made a fresh loaf of white bread two days and cornbread tonight to make stuffing with, homemade mac and cheese is just waiting in the fridge, the cream of mushroom in the green beans will be from scratch, and the pie is next on the agenda. My mother always makes the best walnut/pecan pie. I will be trying to replicate it for my Thanksgiving table out here on the coast. She has a fantastic and fairly foolproof pie dough that I am impatiently waiting to get from her tonight ;-) I encourage everyone to try something homemade this holiday, it really is a wonderful thing.

Life As Usual

I think that this time of year may be my favorite so far on the farm. The colors in the woods were magnificent! In fact, about a week ago I was sitting out in a tree stand for a few hours...no deer to report unfortunately...and it was just so beautiful. Being out here in such a rural setting has allowed me to see the beauty of nature over and over again. I think that the restoration process we have been going through in and outside of the house has clouded my view day after day but seeing the wildlife and trees change has captured my attention again.

We had wood delivered to heat our home through the cold winter months and the hubs and I have been stacking it with fervor...and sweat! Its really rustic using the wood stove but so homey. Of course, it forces you to see just how much you are using to keep warm. Its not just flip a switch or turn the thermostat up a few degrees and get a bill, its bring in armloads of wood and see the pile shrink knowing exactly how much that pile cost.

Trying to finish up odd jobs around the farm before winter hits. Mulching the new and old beds, cleaning up the garden and amending the soil, general cleanup around the house and barn, the list seems to be never ending. But all in all, I really love it out here.

Some Pics...

The infamous Town hall, of which I was not permitted to enter. Sigh...

The John Rylands library, created by his wife as a tribute to his life during a time when Manchester was trying to re-create itself as a cultural area. Inside are the most amazing stone archways!

The Manchester Cathedral on an actually very sunny warm day. I really liked the tiered pots in the front, might have to try something similar on the farm some day.

A rainy day in Manchester...

Well its been 6 days into our trip so far and I find that I am now saying thinking things in my head with an English accent. Even while I am writing this it is all I can do not to laugh at that little voice in my head, and to be honest the voice needs to work on the accent a little too :-) I do not think I could live abroad for that very reason actually. I tend to start picking up accents like other people pick up fashion advice. I have a few choice things that I say now strangely simply because my roommate in college was from Kentucky, and doesn't Jon love to make fun of me when I say each and every one of them!! Anyway, my neurosis aside, it really has been a lovely trip so far. Well, for me at least. Jon has been working everyday obviously, and he has also not had much luck with the food. I have to say, the English really aren't known for their food and I can certainly see why. The worst of it is that attempting other nationalities food is often worse than the traditional English variety. The other night Jon had a calzone that tasted like they used ketchup rather than spaghetti sauce. Ewww... On a happier note, the one culinary tradition that I absolutely adore in Britain is high tea. To my surprise, I had a time of it finding a place that actually served a real high tea but through free public wifi and google I was able to achieve success. So yesterday afternoon it was tea at Harvey Nichols, one of the UK's premier department stores. I had tea, scones, little sandwiches, and lovely petite fours all while staring out the big picture windows. Absolutely wonderful.

I happened onto a great little market here in Manchester as well. Apparently its only there for the next two weeks and has all these vendors with homemade cheeses, salami, cakes, and all kinds of foods like pasties, curries, and even a whole roasted hog! Not exactly something that you usually see everyday in the States.

I've toured the cathedral, the John Rylands library, and tried to tour town hall but unfortunately there was a labour party conference occupying it all week. All absolutely stunning buildings full of great architecture. Really architecture is the reason I love Europe so much. When I came back from my first trip to Paris I found that I had taken more pictures of roof lines and windows than almost anything else!

On the home front, well I am pretty upset with myself. I have a friend picking the garden for me so that nothing goes to waste and she discovered that I seemed to have left the freezer door a bit ajar and everything in it thawed and leaked all over the floor!! Now the waste is awful, the mess is disgusting, but I am so very frustrated because the last time I opened that stupid freezer door was hours before leaving on our trip when I was attempting to put up all those tomatoes coming out of the garden!! So not only did I cause serious problems but everything I was rushing to do right before we left is now a loss!

It also seems that all New Jersey needed was for us to leave in order for it to get some much needed rain. In fact, it looks like we are getting quite the storm these next few days. So I am grateful to know that the garden is still producing and the plants I put in the perennial bed will likely be lush and green when we get back from holiday...see there is that Englishy thing coming out again....

Away From the Farm

So I realize that I have been MIA the past few weeks. Unfortunately, we had a little country problem with the Internet and it took awhile to figure it out. As we live out in the boonies of NJ we have to use satelite Internet because it is the only high speed option. Apparently, our wireless router doesn't like our Internet service and the two of them were fighting. So the router is on time out right now until we figure out how to make them play nice! A lot of interesting things happened during this time though, the main being that the water on the farm seemed to stop working, not once but twice! If I could have posted that first morning that we tried the tap and nothing came out it probably would have been sounded very dire and anxious. I was quite worried that our shallow well had gone dry from the drought this summer and that we were looking at a fairly lengthy and expensive solution. Our water pump/well is located in a small shed-like structure on the outside of our little cottage. I have to admit, I am scared to death of this spot mostly because I feel it is pretty likely that snakes will be waiting for me when I open the door. Now to be fair, the only snakes I have ever seen on the farm are gardener snakes, not exactly the most dangerous and ferocious creature. However, I have an illogical fear of snakes and cannot get past the fact that the creepy little thing is not poisonous and will likely eat mice and other nasty things for me. So, when the water stopped and I had to go out to the shed to look at the pressure gauge and generally see what I could about the problem I definitely suited up. Ok, so I basically just put on my hunting boots and hoped for the best, but I did take a shovel with me!! My plumbing knowledge is pretty basic and I was only able to tell that the pump was running continuously and so I turned that off. I called in the professionals and fortunately, it was a simple faulty switch problem and was resolved easily. The second time was just as simple and I am pleased to be able to say that we are showering these days :-)

It has FINALLY started raining fairly regularly and for that I and the plants are grateful! The garden is just producing gangbusters still, probably due to the high temperatures that plagued our area all summer and have only started to drop off. That basket is only half of what I pulled out one day, the other half was green beans and a ton of beautiful black cherry tomatoes. I actually did all of this picking the morning that my husband and I were leaving for a two week trip to Europe. So what was a farm girl supposed to do with all this lovely organic produce? Well, i chose to freeze it. I usually chop all the tomatoes and freeze them in bags but I recently read an article on the organic gardening website that said you could freeze tomatoes whole for use later in stews, soups, sauces, etc. So, I simply washed and dried all the tomatoes and froze them on cookie sheets to be put in plastic bags later. I am anxious to see how these tomatoes taste in comparison to the chopped that I put up earlier in the season. I also froze tomatillos, green beans, and winter squash. I planted some fall crops as well, including Swiss chard, radishes, carrots, lettuce, and kale. I am excited to see how they progress when we get back.

Now, onto the trip. I am in Manchester England right now with my hubby while he works. In fact, I get the days to sight see and shop while his nose is on the proverbial grindstone. I thought is might be interesting to highlight some of the trip on here so stay tuned for that!

Harvest

The harvest is coming in full force now. The tomatoes are ripening and the green beans keep coming back after picking. I do have a problem with powdery mildew on my squash plants. I read that a good organic approach was to use a diluted milk spray on all areas of the plants. Although this will not solve the issue, it will keep it at bay. Only time will tell. I also realized Friday that I had an infestation of squash bugs on my zucchini. Between the bugs and the powdery mildew I decided that the plants had played their last tune and pulled them out. I bagged and threw them in the trash to attempt keeping as many bugs out of the garden as possible. Unfortunately, my efforts were not completely successful and some vines on my winter squash are withering. I think I will be needing to harvest those soon before everything dies.
The chickens are laying 3 eggs a day now, just in time for this salmonella scare. I am happy to say that our chickens are happy little girls mucking about in the coop and run, eating fresh scraps from the kitchen and garden along with organic feed and fresh water. It feels really great to be able to make an omelet knowing that my eggs are not infected with a disease likely caused by the conditions under which factory farming takes place. Not only that, but my eggs are a lovely pale blue color thanks to the Aracauna breed. So they are simply more fun to eat anyway ;-)
I also put up some peach butter this weekend. The only peaches I can eat anymore come from a hobby farmer 10 miles away. His peaches are the most flavorful that I have ever had and have quite honestly spoiled me for anything else. Every year I buy as many as I can and either freeze them, eat them, or can them. This weekend I tried a new recipe for spiced peach butter and it turned out fabulously. I plan to make more with the remaining peaches this week. I also made a spicy bloody mary mix with my tomatoes, onions, garlic, and peppers from the garden. It was really great. I just made it to taste by blending everything up and then running it through a food mill to get the seeds and skins out. Super easy and awesome when doctored up with some worchestershire and lime juice.
Its raining outside and it is absolutely perfect. The sound is drifting in while I type on the computer and I can see out into the garden. This really is my favorite time of year.

Spiced Peach Butter
4 lbs peaches (pitted, not skinned, and cut into small chunks)
2 cups water
2-3 cups of sugar
2 t cinnamon

Place peach chunks in a pan with the water and cook until soft, 20-30 min. Run mixture through a food mill to remove skins. Measure the pulp, for every 2/3 cup of pulp add 1 cup of sugar. This will vary from batch to batch. Add cinnamon and place back on the heat for another 30 min, stirring ocasionally. The butter is ready to can when it is thick enough to mound on a spoon. Pour into jars leaving 1/4 inch headspace and process in a boiling water bath for 10 min.

This is great on bagels, toast, and english muffins but is also fantastic on top of ice cream!!

I grew up in the Midwest, Iowa, Nebraska, and Minnesota to be exact. We moved around a lot, I think at last count I lived in 13 different homes before graduating from college. Some houses were in the country but most were in small towns and even a couple intermediate sized "cities." The one thing that I learned from my childhood was that I did not want to be a farmer. I also didn't want to stay in Iowa. I had aspirations of moving out east, living in some dinky apartment in the city, walking to cute little restaurants for dinners, and lugging my groceries home on the subway.
At 27, one would think that is the life I am living now 5 years after college. Well as life sometimes does, it threw me a curve ball in the form of my lovely husband. Although I do live out on the East Coast, I I traded my dreams of an open concept loft for an old defunct blueberry farm of 225 acres. We have been living on the farm for almost 8 months now and I have come to a completely unexpected revelation, I like farming! Well, I certainly like gardening and the solitude of the country. Of course, life isn't always peaceful out here, we have had our fair share of adventures. Dogs running away, snakes by the front doorstep, 3 foot snow storms that forced me to be out plowing our road on the little John Deere lawnmower at 11pm so I could catch my morning flight to Miami. My life is an interesting dichotomy of farm and sophistication, travel and garden, rubber boots and high heels. I certainly never expected this life for myself but I am happy to say that I am really enjoying living it.