Category Archives: Nature

Beef broth yield 2012

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This post will be a record of quarts of beef broth canned this year + our recipe.

Since we just took some beef to the butcher shop, we are using up the beef bones in our freezers before we get more from this batch. Been trying to wait for some cooler days for this, but they seem to be few & far between this season…

We usually do 4 roasters full of broth stretched over 2 days. Here’s our recipe per roaster:

12# meaty bones
4 Onions
6 Carrots
12 Celery stalks

We brown the bones by lining the roaster with them, & placing the next 3 items on top. Place lid on roaster & roast for 1 hour at 450 degrees – flipping bones halfway through.

[UPDATED 2-5-19: I NO LONGER FLIP THE BONES…MAINLY BECAUSE IT IS MESSY, AND IT TURNS OUT FINE WITHOUT FLIPPING.😉]

Turn off heat.

Add:
9 unpeeled & crushed garlic cloves
1T coarse sea salt
1T peppercorns
1c raw apple cider vinegar
Cold water to fill roaster to top

Let sit for 30 minutes (no lid).

Add lid and bring to boil on high heat. Once boiling, lower heat to keep it at a low simmer. We let it simmer 18 hours or so. (May need to add more water periodically to keep it full.)

Allow it to cool for a bit. Strain it. What’s left is a beautiful, healthy, broth! 🙂

We place the broth in large bowls with lids & let them sit a day or two in the fridge. By then, the fat has solidified on top, and it’s easy to remove the fat layer & begin pressure canning the broth.

Our yield is about 9 quarts per roaster.

[UPDATED 2-5-19: MY 18Q ROASTER FINALLY DIED THIS YEAR, AND WE UPGRADED TO A 22Q ROASTER. BROTH IS STILL GELATENOUS KEEPING THE RECIPE THE SAME, AND YIELD INCREASED TO 11Q]

6-30-12 canned 41 quarts

Blueberry yield 2012

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Mike’s Mom & I picked 16 pounds of blueberries today. I finally have some to freeze – we ate all of the first round already, lol! 🙂

7-19-12 picked again today with Mom & Paul; picked 20 pounds 🙂

WELCOME – 11th (and final) Calf 2012

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FINALLY – our last bred cow, Suezy, had her calf yesterday…a girl! As we suspected she might, she waited until Mike had moved the herd to one of the furthest field’s from the barn, lol! Her calf was quite the trooper, and walked all the way down with the milking herd. 🙂

We weren’t sure on a name for her, so we deferred that decision to our family in Nebraska. They decided on Fiskars! 🙂 (Her mama’s name category was “school supplies”…)

This is a good feeling to be done with calving now. Our final tally was 3 boys + 8 girls. 🙂

Applesauce yield 2012

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This post will be a tally for applesauce made from the apples of trees here on the farm. Mike’s Dad sprays them with an organic fish spray several times a year. They aren’t the prettiest to look at, but they taste really good! 🙂

One of these days I need to watch Mike’s Mom & note how she makes it. (I do love notetaking, but I also like to SEE how people make things that are new to me.) I know she cooks them down, runs them through a hand crank food mill & adds a bit of evaporated cane juice to sweeten it up… It doesn’t sound difficult, it just seems like when it’s time to make applesauce, I’m doing 500 different things at the same time!

We’re so grateful she makes it & shares with us. 🙂

I make large “applesauce ice cubes” by freezing it in 1 cup containers. Once they are frozen, I pop them out of the containers & place them in labeled ZIPPER bags.

**I learned the hard way to use ZIPPERED bags… A couple years ago, we had an instance where a freezer door was accidentally left ajar for a day. 😦 The applesauce had been on the freezer door in non-zippered sandwich bags – ug, a complete STICKY disaster!**

Next the “cubes” are placed in labeled shoeboxes in the freezer. On the freezer door we chart the date & yield. Then I map it out for one year. Looks like with this current yield, our family can enjoy 1c of applesauce with a meal every 2.5 weeks. 🙂

Yields:
6-23 6c (frozen)
6-25 6c (frozen)
6-27 6c (frozen)

Broccoli yield 2012

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This post will be our record for broccoli this season. Hopefully I can remember to add data to this post as we harvest. 🙂

Yesterday we picked our first bundle of broccoli! I should have weighed it, but I forgot, lol…

Paul & I (Mike & Michael aren’t fans of broccoli…) steamed it & ate it as a side with dinner before baseball practice & again for a snack afterwards! 🙂

It was sooooo good – especially lathered in lots of butter! 🙂

Yields:
6-26 about 4 cups (ate fresh)
7-7 about 13 oz. frozen
7-12 about 14 oz. frozen
7-16 about 22 oz. frozen
7-24 about 20 oz. frozen
8-1 about 18 oz. frozen

Tomato trellising experimentation

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After many years of just using hay-mulch around our tomato plants, we are experimenting with a couple different methods of trellising the plants this season.

One row is using some old cattle panels – angled & attached to metal posts. The idea is for the plants to grow up through the squares so the fruit stays off the ground. Theory sounds good to me! 🙂

We’re trying the “Florida Weave” on another row. It’s just horizontal rows (8 inches apart) of twine woven around plants & posts. Set-up wise, Mike likes this method better – much less labor intensive. 🙂

We’ll see how harvesting works out… I’m prayerful these methods will keep the bulk of the plants supported and less rotten maters hiding under foliage. 🙂

“Gate Guides” for Father’s Day

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my Father’s Day gift to Mike:

Ever since I memorized John 10:9, every time I see this crushed gate sitting by the barn, it makes me think of Jesus in this passage.  I love turning something that seems worthless or is a reminder of a past mistake into a new creation – a “remade remnant”, just like me!:)

The boys helped me move the gate for these pics, I added the words, and a friend printed them for me as 5×7’s.

And to get more of the “depth look” I wanted in this frame, another friend had some dried grass/seeds I glued onto the matting.

This framed project inspired “Part B” of Mike’s gift…Gate Guides.

Just some favorite Scripture and hymn/song refrains I know Mike likes, printed on 11×17 paper, attached to old file folders for a little more stability, covered in contact paper, and tied to gates…  (Note:  I used a better tool to poke holes through on this project – an old gutter nail, lol!)

My original plan was to have one attached to every gate – until the boys and I counted them all… We have 27 gates!!! Wow, doesn’t seem like we have that many – but once you start counting them, they all add up! 🙂

I ran out of contact paper, so I put the 8 up I finished, & will get the rest up as time goes on. The boys kept Mike occupied with a John Wayne western movie Saturday evening so I could get them hung.  It was fun walking with Mike as he saw them afterwards… 🙂

Lord, I pray these gate guides will help Mike stay focused on You while he’s out working in Your Creation.  If he’s having a rough day, may they be an aid to guide him back to You.  Rid his mind of the doubts satan likes to plant, and replace them with Your Words from 2Timothy 1:7 – that God does not give us a spirit of fear, but one of power, of love, and of self-control. If he’s having a good day, may he use them to sing Your Praises as he walks – perhaps guiding him to a familiar tune to hum.  May we always remember to encourage one another and build each other up, as You tell us to in 1Thessalonians 5:11. Amen

Hawk rescue pics

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Hard to believe this happened 13 months ago!  I mentioned I’d try to post these the other day, so here goes…

Mike & Michael had been moving cows up in Gray Heaven, when they noticed a hawk walking around pretty close to them.  They thought perhaps it was a younger one learning to fly, so they watched it and stayed away.  All week Mike kept saying how much he wished he would have caught that hawk…  Well, that wish came true!  The following week, he was in Gondor & saw the SAME HAWK walking in the woodline.  Now he started thinking something might be wrong with it, because as he got closer, it didn’t fly or even try to fly away.  He made some phonecalls, and found a rescue farm not far from us who said they’d take it if he could catch it!  OH WAS HE EXCITED!!! 🙂

I was the willing photographer… Here’s the story in pics:

Look at those talons!

Here is Turtle Spring Farm Wildlife Center, Inc., checking out this Krider’s Red-tailed hawk…

This hawk is a female, and it was determined she had nerve damage in her wing, so she couldn’t be released back into the wild.  Instead, she is an educational bird now!  We went to see her in August of last year at a function in New Philadelphia.  Here are 2 pics from that day.  Isn’t she beautiful??!! 🙂

Saved 2 Indigo Buntings today!

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Mike’s parents just put the nets on their blueberry bushes last evening, and today there were already birds stuck in them. 😦

Fortunately, Mike & the boys love birds & are good rescuers. 🙂 (Notice I didn’t include myself in that – I am afraid of birds…don’t like flapping wings, lol. Though I’m always willing to snap the pics!)

Mike was excited to be able to save not one, but TWO Indigo Buntings today. What a beautiful color they are! 🙂

I’ll try to put a post up soon about the Krider’s Red-tailed Hawk Mike rescued last year. AMAZING! 🙂