Herbs and Flowers for Drying Our Calendula flowers are in full bloom. Time to pick a few, dry them, and add to the previously started batch of infused oil. (Prior to putting the flowers in oil, they need to be dried so as to avoid any mold issues...) Calendula flowers when infused with oil can be used on your skin to heal wounds and bruises. Most people I've seen online use olive oil for infusing - but I had some partial bottles of pumpkin seed oil and some liquid coconut

Raspberry Jam In the Pot and On the Stove We were starting to have frozen raspberries coming out of our ears from this year's harvest to date. When I say raspberries, I mean a combination of our garden variety raspberries (the kind you get in the store) and our wild black cap's. Time to make our annual raspberry jam. And when it comes to raspberry jam, I make my version (seeds and all) and Ed makes his version (seeds strained out). We still have canned raspberry sauce from

Garden Seedlings and Baby Chicks First Year of New Daffodils Planted In Orchard Grass New Mama Chicken Sitting on 2 Just Hatched Baby Chicks It's a time of new life here right now and we're trying to steward this new life as best we can. We ordered a layer mix of 12 new pullets that were picked up 4 days ago. So far, they are doing well in their big tub set-up. We've got to wait about 6 weeks before we can move them into their transition coop outside. In addition, our hen

We took another step in our cheesemaking adventure this weekend, as Maggie's Amish friend gave us another couple of gallons of fresh milk. So far we have made mozzarella and paneer, which are sort of free form, soft cheeses made by adding acid such as vinegar or citric acid to curdle the milk. We bought some starter culture, rennet, and a small cheese press to make a hard cheese that can be grated or sliced. We are starting with a simple farmhouse cheddar. This cheese does no

One of our goals this year is to raise chickens for meat. The chicks will be coming later this season as we first want to raise a new batch of laying hens. This gave me time to build a chicken tractor to house them. Our chicken tractor is modeled after one developed by small farm advocate Joel Saladin. The idea is that every day or two, the unit is moved to give the chickens fresh grass. Our version is a little heavy, but it only needs to move 10 feet at a time. The wood was

It has been a long season, and this weekend we pulled the plug on maple syrup. The weather has been a mix of either continuously warm or continuously cold days and nights, which is not conducive to sap flow or storing collected sap. I ended up boiling three times, and produced a little over 2-1/3 gallons of amber gold. I probably could have gone one more week, but the weather was going to once again be mostly warm days and nights, with only a couple of cold nights to stimulat

Even though we do not have a cow (or sheep, or goats), I have been reading up on cheesemaking lately as something to potentially try. This week while Maggie was taking one of her Amish friends shopping, she mentioned cheesemaking. Her friend's family has cows, and gave Maggie a couple of gallons of milk. This created a little stress, as we don't really have any cheesemaking supplies, and now had perishable milk. Maggie did have some rennet she bought for some past project, an

It has been a relaxing winter season. The beehives are ready for spring, I remodeled my closet, and we have been doing a lot of baking. Although it has been cold, and snowy, we have been able to take projects on at a slower pace. That ends this weekend. With the recent warm spell and the end of February, it is time to tap some trees and kick off maple syrup season. I am washing out jars, ordering new lids, and getting equipment ready. Yesterday, I cleaned our reverse osmosis

This weekend was my first attempt at making a loaf of sourdough bread, using my newly created starter. I do not have a photo of the result, as anyone who has produced a failed loaf of bread would recognize it. It was flat on the outside and gummy on the inside. We still ate it, but I was dogged by the failure. I did learn a few things, such as how to use a dutch oven and how to get a thick, dark crust. Determined to succeed, I decided to try again midweek. Making sourdough br

Winter brings a different style of cooking. We use frozen and preserved fruits and vegetables to make casseroles and pastas, replacing the lighter fare from the summer garden. Because it is cooler, it is also more pleasant to spend time in a warm kitchen. We have been baking a lot of breads and desserts, and today we made fresh pasta. It is a good way to use eggs, and the noodles are tasty. It is a little bit of a process. The first step is making the dough, which then chills

We have a few acres of questionably fenced pasture, that our neighbor had used to run beef cattle on an irregular basis. Because the grass can get quite long if it is not grazed, we occasionally consider additional animals to help manage that pasture. Cows are a little large for us, goats are a challenge to fence, and pigs generally do not graze. That leaves sheep. Last year had a little bit of a sheep theme to it. We traveled to Lafarge to attend the Ewetopia woolen mill's o

We have two large black walnut yard trees, and every year they drop dozens of walnuts onto our lawn. Last year, one broke a windshield on our car. On a bit of a lark, I thought I would try harvesting walnuts this year. They literally fall out of the tree, so how hard can it be? As it turns out, it is a process. The walnut, which is what we are probably all familiar with from holiday nutcrackers, starts out encased in a green sticky hull. This hull turns black over time, creat

Canning on a Rainy Day In our family, Sunday morning is typically reserved for cleaning the house; however, it will have to wait until...

Three And A Half Week Old Chicks in New Outdoor Chicken Coop. The new coop Ed built for giving our new pullets more room, for acclimating...

This week I finished building and painting frames for the windows and doors of the new coop. Some hardware cloth and hinges and the coop...

This weekend I made more progress on the mobile coop. The sides got added and painted. I held off on the roof until the paint dried, and...

One of my goals for this year was to try and raise broiler chickens or ducks. To do that, I needed to build another chicken coop. Many...

Baby Chicks In New Home (Tub) With Heat Plates, Etc. When Ed and I placed our order for egg laying pullets in February at the local feed...

Two 250 Gallon Covered Totes By Barn For Future Animals Two 40 Gallon Barrels Used To Water Chickens While recently on Craigslist, I...

Two Black Cats On White Bedspread I don't know why but when I saw the two sets of eyes coming from the pile of black fur - it just made...