Cockeyed Weather Again and Other Updates

I'm honestly glad 2020 is almost over!  This entire year has been one upset or another. It seemed the whole world including the weather went cockeyed. We should be used to it with a name like Cockeyed Homestead, right? Well, sort of. Even for us, it was bad. Just like for everyone else.

The summer drought for us lasted about week tops. Never again will I let Mel have total control over the garden again like 2019. The lesson was learned the hard way and this year was spent fighting weeds again! It stayed cool until June 23nd. That's unheard of in Georgia! Then within days the temperatures shot through the roof with highs into the 90s. And, the rain and wind we got has been almost nonstop. We were hit from the south and east with remnants of hurricanes one after another.  Even the hurricanes went through the alphabet ending (I think) with Zeta although the season is over, I still remember a Thanksgiving week more than a decade ago when a hurricane made landfall on the east coast. The week before Thanksgiving, the Weather Channel was tracking four tropical depressions and saying hurricane season wasn't over yet. 

Our property has mostly been mud. At times, mud over ankle deep. It didn't do the garden any good with so much rain. No flooding because of the slope we live on though. We had flash flood warnings after warning come across our cell phones all spring, summer, and fall so far. The garden for vegetables was a bust with stunted growth, drown plants, withered plants, or weeds smothering the life out of them. The only saving grace was the abundance of fruit available for the picking.

We are still $300 short of buying 100 lbs of propane to cook with. Sigh! Any extra monies we saved was ate by car repairs. We did manage to build a new coop and run for Mel's Chicken Farm operation.

COVID-19 hit us quite literally. We've spent months trying to regain our stamina. Issues with my brace, not with standing, caused quite a few more days cramping my usual spring into summer and now into fall routine. In other health related news or more of the same, it seems that the virus not just affected Mel's lungs and stamina, but also her heart. She's been trying to throw herself into Congestive heart failure. She's on a constant supply of Lasix now to prevent her from going into full blown heart failure. It seems I'm rubbing off on her and actually living together we are now sharing ailments too. 

Mel's budding egg sales operation dwindled and died before her eyes as mandatory shut downs across the state dragged on. Facebook marketplace, where  Mel got most of her new clients (because the farmers market closed also and Craig's list is a joke to sell anything local), deleted her advertisement stating she was selling animals which is against their rules. Unfertilized eggs are live animals!? Go figure. To complicate matters further, there isn't a live person to contact about it. So her customers to date only buy about 11 dozen eggs a month. Our hens produce 22 dozen a month. There's only so many eggs I can store in long term stores, feed to the critters, and use each month.

The "community" dogs have suddenly decided that it's great fun to chase and kill our free ranging hens. We've lost four in the past month. Now that Kassity is busy with her puppies, it's up to Nnyus to lead these four dogs off the property away from our chickens. She's done a decent job because we've only lost four. But still, we can't afford losses like this. They might have only been $3 chicks, but they are now layers and worth a lot more.

Kassity's puppies are three weeks old today. Their eyes and ears are open. They are still trying to get around their fat bellies to walk on all fours.  It's like watching your own children take their first steps. The pups have learned to growl at each other and a low bark so they aren't so whinny. Right now it's cute, but that will soon wear off. It's like when you teach your babies how to talk, but you don't have a mute button for them later on.

We are concerned about Kassity. She is literally skin and bones now. I got her on the scale this week and she's lost twenty pounds of her pre-pregnancy weight. We are feeding her four times a day and twice the normal amount of the recommended but still her ribs and spine are showing. Every bit of that food is going towards milk production for her babies. We had tried to feed her more but she refuses to eat it. We've supplemented her feed with protein rich foods stuff (human) like yogurt, eggs, leftovers, cheese, and extra raw meat to her food to no avail. Her skin just hangs on her bones. She no longer lays with the pups because if she's in there with them, they'll suckle at will. She put her pups on a feed every 3-4 hours schedule out of necessity. Her poor nipples are raw. I started rubbing A&D ointment on them. God help her, the pups are beginning to teethe now too. Any nursing mother (past or present)can empathize her pain. 

With all this other stuff going on, we got a round of hay delivered. Yes, it cost me more, but it was worth it not to have to figure out how to get it to the house. I do miss Mel's Chevy Silverado. I'm still looking for a truck. Mel's Blazer is being eaten away by rust and age. Almost every month something breaks or has to be replaced, but at least it's a running vehicle. For the past week, we've been steadily pulling the  round of hay apart and carting down 24' to the third tier down from where the hay bale is. 

"Dear Santa, we need a free ('cause we're broke),small, running truck and tractor for Christmas! It doesn't have to be new just in good shape. I've been very good(said with fingers crossed behind my back). Honest."

In between times, I'm picking up twigs and sticks from the piles I've stacked all year for kindling for the wood stove. All six piles are roughly12' in diameter and about 5' high. They are roughly within east reach of the house (10'-20' from either door. I filled two 55-gallon, black trash cans to overflowing (I made a trail of 2' broken branches and twigs in my wake) and  them up the ramps into the screened back porch. I barely made a dent in the pile. This is a good thing because there'll be many more trips like this before spring thaw and the nighttime temps are over 60. 

We finally managed to replace (read purchase) our 6" chimney pipe assembly for the wood stove, get it painted, and installed this week. The one we replaced was rusted through in places. We have to replace it every three or four years because of rusting. We'll sand off the rust spots at the end of each winter and respray it with high heat spray paint before we store it away until we need it again. This time Mel screwed all the pieces together. The first time in seven years!!! Before, at least twice a season it has fallen into pieces and had to be put back up. I think she's finally learning. We were thinking about building an actual chimney covering, but it won't do any good because in three years this trailer will be gone and a brand new garden space will be in its place. In other words, it would be a waste of money.

We've broken out our needlework. Mel crochets and I knit. She's working on new bath mats for her bathroom and I'm working on an afghan for my bed. It's now cold enough that we don't mind the extra warmth the yarn provides. When I get bored with knitting, I'll switch to the spinning wheel and make more yarn or plarn to work with. I actually had to buy an additional merino fleece this year for the first time in about five years to have enough fiber to blend our remaining stockpile of angora and have soft enough to be next to your skin yarn. It'll only be a 20% blend unlike the 50% to 100%  angora I'm used to spinning. I'm gearing up for the next year's farmers market for selling new and upcycled goods, and Mel's eggs. I imagine by next spring the market will be open

I only water bath canned fruits, jams, jellies as they came into season on my propane turkey fryer base semi outdoors in our screened in back porch this year so far. All the veggies, that I bought in bulk, I blanched and froze them. This all was preplanned to take advantage of the cooler months before the snows. It warms our screened in back porch wonderfully.   We've only dropped down two of the three plastic sheeting enclosures for now. In about a month, we'll drop the third side to protect our citrus trees in pots, overwintering my pepper and tomato plants, and for seed starting next year. 

Soon there'll be  room in the freezer for my half hog I helped butcher last week with a new to homesteading family. I took my knives, designated hammer, and designated bone saw, but he had a band saw which made things much quicker. I also kept the intestines for sausage casings. I actually kept quite a bit of what they would have discarded. I offered to show Mrs. Wannabe Homesteader how to do anything with the off cuts, but she wasn't that into homesteading that far yet. Their refusal is my gain. It reminds me, I still got to strip and clean the intestines again before I make sausage with them. They'll be packed in salt in the refrigerator until I'm ready to make the sausages. By February, the hams, link sausages, and bacon will be ready for the smoker. Yum! February is going to be a busy, short month. It always is because of my systematic way of growing and purchasing meat. You see there is a strategic method to my madness. 

What do I mean by systematically buying meat. Well, I only have one freezer for meat and one for vegetables supposedly. There's overflow that happens that may delay certain purchases. This year I bought produce in bulk rather than harvesting it over weeks so I chose to blanch and freeze it. There was room in my vegetable freezer for six bushels of tomatoes, 1/4 bushel of yellow squash, 1/4 bushel of zucchini, 1/4 bushel of sliced and diced onions. Nut a cubic inch was left so everything else went into meat freezer. The corn kernels, spinach, green and black eyed peas, green and small lima beans because the half lamb I bought was halfway depleted and the pork was depleted except for the five packages of pork chop which were moved to the inside the house refrigerator/freezer. 

As fall hit with the cooler temperatures and all the fruit was canned, it was time to start on the vegetables. The spinach, greens, yellow squash, onions, zucchini, and whatever else I wanted to put in there like bags of ice would stay in the vegetable freezer as I processed the tomatoes into dices and sauce because that alone more than 3/4s  emptied the vegetable freezer. Next was all the rest of the vegetable I didn't mind eating canned.. This emptied up space in my meat freezer for deer and pork. This always happens late fall. In the spring, It's time for lamb. In the late winter around February it's beef. Twice a year (maybe) it's chicken. The reason this is a maybe is now we have quail to supplement our poultry wants. Not all meat will stay in the freezer. Some will be canned and some will be freeze dried for "extreme long term" storage. Remember, I only use my freezer for short term storage which for me is 3-12 months max. I can for a period of 3-36 months. I dehydrate for 5-72 months. I freeze dry for shelf life up to 30 years not that I'll have it that long. There's my food stores mentality. There's no separate extended "If the SHTF" stores. It all gets put in rotation. It's all my working food stores and my SHTF prep also. It's only common sense, right? If there is no more stores we'll get by and that all anybody can expect or do. No hysterical panic buying here. < getting off my soapbox now>

The covered screened porch will also be warmer in there when I can up my orange marmalade, citrus and salad in late December or January. Why wait so long to can these? This past week I bought a three pound bag of navel oranges thinking there had been enough time for last year's harvest to be depleted. I was wrong. From that bag of oranges, I ate one that was not dried or drying up. I was so disappointed. 

Still, the year as a whole been all that bad considering. Unlike city folk, we haven't had to learn to be self sufficient and economize resources. We know how to forage and preserve food for the long and short term. We know how to recycle/upcycle, and make it or make do. Raise/hunt for and butcher our own meat. We don't lack of things to do or go still crazy at home. We're homesteaders already. In spite of it all, we've gotten things done. The new chicken coop and run are ready for when the coyotes become more active when the daytime temperatures fall more. The hens and Big Red will have their safe winter enclosure in style. Even though they'll be 360 degrees enclosed, it's not such a bad prison for only four months out of twelve. 

Meanwhile, the young chicken roosters are awaiting their date with the ax as soon as they start to crow. They'll make a wonderful addition to my food storage building. So what if they are not fryers (10-14 weeks old), they will be pressure canned and come out just as tender. Just as Big Red, our 3 year- old RIR rooster, would be if he ever attacks me again as bad as last time. I was lame, more lame than usual, for almost a month from the puncture wounds.

Well, that's enough updates of what we've been up to? How's your week been?

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo

Canning with Chef: Frozen Vegetables

 Monday, I learned a dear friend of ours lost his battle with cancer. You may remember me talking about our youtube subscriber I stay with when I make the trip to NC Amish country each year. It was her husband. He'll be sorely missed. He was 82 years young, left a wife, five sons, 12 grandchildren, and six great grands.  He wore many hats over the years, but the main one was a follower of Jesus. He will be missed but we rejoice in knowing he's in heaven waiting on us.

Now, on to the post...

I really never saw the need to can or dehydrate frozen vegetables before. I mean why double my work load, right? But the last two years without much of a garden producing and purchasing case or bushel lots of vegetables from the wholesale place or other organic farms, I can see the beauty of doing so. Especially the past two years with abundant medical issues that I've been plagued with. It's so much fun getting older and having a broken body.

Before you can, dehydrate, or freeze your own produce you blanch it first, right? Buying frozen packaged vegetables this step is done already for you. So it saves you a step. If you have multiple times constraints, like I've had it isn't always easy to process vegetables at the peak of freshness. 

So blanching and freezing the bulk produce is the next best option. So why can it into jars at all? I don't know about y'all, but I don't have limitless freezer space. Freezers take electricity or propane to operate. We found out almost two years ago how fragile this is when we went without power for a couple weeks. We lost a couple hundred dollars worth of food stuff by not having a generator or solar powered freezers. I just couldn't can it fast enough even with three pressure canners going almost 24 hours a day. Our freezers held a lot of food stuff.

Sure, I'll hold tomatoes in my freezer for 12 hours to 4 months to make processing easier. But greens like spinach, mustards, turnips, and squashes (except for pumpkins) I do not can. It's a personal preference and a mouth feel thing, even though I know you can can them. Having vegetables and premade meals canned is convenient and shelf stable for months if not years. When I mentioned storing tomatoes in my freezer, someone said I must have had a huge freezer, but honestly I don't. I just use my freezers for short term storage. My meat freezer had only 1/2 a lamb, a couple pork butts destined for sausage making, 2 lbs of bacon, 1/2 a deer haunch, a couple of whole chickens, and some frozen veggies. The freezer was half empty so extra tomatoes could go in there also. I purposely keep this freezer stocked low at this time of year for this purpose. You see there is a method to my madness.

Other than dehydrating or freeze drying, it the next best way of preserving shelf stable food. It doesn't depend on electricity or propane to keep or even to prepare. I can opt for a wood or charcoal fire to can or prepare my food like I do in the winter. And really, when it comes to storing food, freezing is only an option for 3- 12 months tops. Canning and dehydrating is good for about 1-5 years and freeze drying takes the prize at 25-30 years in long term storage. 

I catch sales on commercially frozen food stuffs all the time, rarely do I pay full price for any of it. Sales combined with smart coupon use saves the budget even on non GMO/organics. I don't save as much as growing it myself but it's a savings over full priced commercially canned goods plus I know what's in it. No rat hairs nor bug bits and pieces are in my canned goods. I know who processed my food (except for prior to freezing and bagging it.

When canning already frozen foods I do take the following steps:

• Always rinse the frozen produce thoroughly. 
• I pack my jars to 1" headspace.
• I'll fill the jars with my hot stock or boiled water for liquid.
• For pressure canning, I always use clean, new flats.
• I follow published guideline for canning food stuff.

So even without a garden, I can process my own food stores. This year was the first year I've had to do this. So there is an alternative to growing your own. It pays to develop relationships with other homesteaders and farmers. That's how we supply our homestead with mutton, pork, lamb, and beef each year. Our homestead isn't big enough to grow our own. A half of each supplies all the meat we consume for a year. Sometimes it's a barter deal with vegetables, eggs, chicken, and quail, and other times (like now) it's just straight cash deal. Either way, I know how the meat we eat was raised, and processed. In today's environment, it's just smart, healthy eating.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Chef Jo

 

More on Implementing the Ruth Stout Method Comes to Screeching Stop and Alternative

The first order of business is to weed whack the garden down to the ground.

Then, we replaced the fence around the garden. Can you imagine the mess our free ranging chickens could do over time to our neatly partitioned rows?!!

We measured and mark the rows with stakes and string per market garden set-up guidelines, but expanded the walkways to 24" instead of 12" to allow for my converted toy box garden cart. Did I tell y'all about that? I found a plastic toy box at a thrift store that I paid $3 for. I added wheels from two upcycled tricycles, and a pull string (leftover clothes line).  On the back end, I fashioned a rack out of scrap 2x6s which holds my long handle tools like a hoe or shovels so I don't have to kneel. It holds all my hand tools a water jug, and a tray of plant starts to plant. I can sit on it to care and harvest my plants. The harvest can be piled inside for easy carrying. So I can go out for my mornings in the garden and work without traipsing back and forth for odds and ends. There's even a pocket slots inside to holds a glass of iced tea, and a bag with ice and a washcloth in it so when I take a break and cool down, I can just sit and take one. The slot pockets inside are held in place by loops screwed into the 2x6 board at the top and bottom so it doesn't move.

The next step (not Ruth Stout, but it can't hurt) is a layer of wet cardboard. It will feed the worms all winter too. We'll be doing the orchard area again too. All the rain we've had since last winter has eroded the tiers, somewhat. 

Think multitudes upon multitudes of hay bales gotten in eight bale lots. Why eight bales? That's all the will fit inside and on top of the Blazer. We'd attach a trailer, if we had one, the top of the access road was fixed by the owner. Luckily where we are getting the hay is only eight miles away round trip. One bale will cover a 3'x2' section of a 32' gardening row. Sixteen bales for one row times nine. That's just in the vegetable patch closest to the house. That's a lot of hay! Yes, the big rolls would be cheaper but the last time we did that, it almost killed us 60-ish old widows. 

That's as far as we got. Everything came to a screeching halt when Mel reminded me that we had other plans for this area. Now we have to undo all that we had done so far to relocate it all to a section of the orchard we had grown orchard grass in. Sigh! One step forward two back. We're still stuck on an area of the orchard to use that is accessible for me to use daily for the garden that already doesn't have a use. 

For now, I've done three rows behind the planned construction area and the house. The space measures 12'x 45' so it's not huge. For that we can use the square bales foe. This may be just a fresh eating patch until we make an area in the orchard accessible for me down on the third tier without using the tractor. To make it accessible for me will take steps and hand rails midway in the tiers. A winter project, if ever there was one. For that we'd need a roll of hay to produce enough vegetables in the orchard garden. Two would be better, but one will work. They'll be pulled apart cart load by cart load and placed where we need them. That's the plan for now anyhow.

We might be slower, but we're gittin'- r- done with age but, if CRAFT would stop occurring it would be faster. But at least the old garden area looks nice. Maybe, we'll plant some actual grass where to garden was in the spring? The soil is rich enough. It'll be nice to mow grass instead of just weeds until the buildings go up. 

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo

 

Cooking with Chef Jo: Grandma's Infamous Cherry Topped Lemon Pound Cake

In a couple of days it will be my grandmother's birthday, if she were still with us. But it's still a red letter day because it's my niece's birthday, and my sister and her husband's wedding anniversary also. Talk about everything piling up on one day! It's funny how a date can have so many different meaning to so many people. But, with a family the size of mine, it's bound to happen.

My grandma was infamous for her angel food and pound cakes. In the tiny Nebraska town which she lived in, she was the go-to for these cakes. So I thought I would share her pound cake recipe with y'all.  Let's face it angel food cakes coming out perfect depends a lot on the humidity in the air. I live in northeast corner of the Georgia. Rarely does the humidity get below 75% except with the wood stove blaring. It's chilly here but not near cold enough to burn off our high humidity.

I might have mentioned a time or two that my grandfather planted a cherry tree on their property for each one of his twelve children. There was a huge harvest of cherries each year by the time I came around. My grandmother did everything cherry, rhubarb, or apple. The family also had a forty-acre apple orchard, and my grandmother loved rhubarb. (Rhubarb, yuck! 😖) So needless to say most of her recipes requiring fruit had one of these fruits in it.

Do you know why it's named pound cake? It takes a pound by weight of the main ingredients: a pound each of butter, flour, sugar, and eggs. I later found out that grandma's infamous pound cake was a slight variation (with what she had available) of the Ritz-Carlton Lemon Pound Cake recipe published in 1920 that's why I call it infamous. To be fancy, I made them in mini Bunt pans because a whole cake would mold before the two of us could eat it all. So I make it, and freeze the extra cakes until I need them.

My Grandmother's Lemon Pound Cake with Cherries

Serves 8-12

What you'll need

3 1/2 cups flour

1 TBS baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

3 cups sugar

2 cups or 4 sticks butter, softened

6 eggs

                                                          1 cup buttermilk

                                                          1 tsp vanilla extract

                                                          1/2 cup lemon juice, freshly squeezed

                                                          Zest of two large lemon

                                                         1 lb cherries, pitted*

                                                         1 cup powdered sugar

                                                         1 cup water*

Note- *You can use fresh, frozen or canned cherries. Since I can mu home grown cherries, just like grandma did, I grab two pint jars from the pantry. I use the liquid in the jars to replace the water in the glaze.

Putting it all together

• Cream butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl.*
• Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together.
• Add eggs one at a time, incorporating each addition before adding the next.
• Mix lemon juice, vanilla, and lemon zest into the milk. This will result into a clambered buttermilk almost like thin yogurt.*
• In alternating fashion, add 1/3 flour mixture and milk. 
• Mix until well combined.
• Pour batter into well buttered and floured Bundt pan(s) or angel food cake pan.
• Thump bottom of the pan to release any air bubbles from the bottom.
• Bake 350 degree oven for 50- 70 minutes (depends on your oven)
• When done, toothpick comes out clean, sit on the counter for an hour, and then invert to release cake from pan. Let cake cool completely.
• To make cherry sauce, place cherries and water in a saucepan. 
• Bring to a boil.
• Add powdered sugar. To prevent lumps, sift the powdered sugar into the cherries while stirring.
• Simmer uncovered for 10 minutes, or until you reach the desired thickness.
• Let cool to room temperature. Pour over pound cake for service.

Notes- * You often see the term "cream" butter or shortening with sugar together in recipes.

You ever wonder what it meant? It means to whip the fat and sugar together until you no longer feel the sugar crystals. The consistency is light, pale and airy.

*My grandmother always used buttermilk when baking except for angel food cake. It gave all her baked goods extra rise and by using the thicker consistency milk, it turned out moister.

There you have it, my grandma's infamous Cherry topped lemon pound cake. I hope you enjoy her recipe for as many years  as I have.

Around the homestead- I'm watching Mel sorting out the workshop. When she ventures out, walking towards the house... Her feet are surrounded by chickens all saying, "Whatcha got for me? Huh, huh?" as she trots towards the house making footsteps precarious. Her cat, Whirling Dervish, chases her on her short legs meowing all the way. She is chased by the dogs with their tongues hanging out.  They do this each and every time she steps out of the shop. " The "Farmer in the Dell" plays loudly in my head as I watch this scenario play out. Such is homesteading.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Chef Jo

The Chickie Babies Get a New Home

 Yesterday was moving day for the first set of five hatched out chickie babies between three mama hens. They moved  out of the brooder box permanently to their new home. We still have two hatched out by Little Blackie, Australorpe, in the brooder box. Now they have the entire brooder box to themselves. Her third chick piped the shell until it was almost free, and then died.

But this post isn't about Little Blackie's babies (just 2 weeks old), it's the first hatched fivers. Why fivers they were five that survived and they were five weeks old when we first put them outside during the day to socialize with the older birds. Don't worry, the babies are in two dog crates. At eight weeks old, they were more than ready to move out of their 2/3rds of a brooder box.  They complained loudly when put in their brooder at night after the first three days.

The bigger, and much older chickens looked at them with curiosity. Meanwhile, the chicks looked out through the bars, "Are you my Mother?" Even the mother hens did not lay claim to them and went about their business of clearing the weeds out of the new chicken run. They take their housekeeping duties very seriously even though it's open for them to free range again. The best part is I'm now able to find their eggs again.

The chick spend their days napping in the sunlight, scratching for wayward bugs and seeds, and dust bathing all in the comfort of their protected environment. The chicken tractor is now finished. It has all the bells and whistles like a small 5-gallon rain catchment system for water and an automatic feeder that holds 10 lbs of chick starter feed per fill up. I simply reconnect the water tube to the bucket and carry it separately when I move it..

I still don't know which are hens and rooster, but I'm watching their wing and tail feathers. But unfortunately/fortunately, I'm beginning to think I have 3 roos (they have saddle feathers)  and only 1 hen of the older chickie babies. Unfortunate because I wanted the opposite. Fortunate because it means more meat in the freezer for us. I noticed two of them flying at each other so I'm thinking these two are roosters, but I could be wrong because hens do this too. I'll know for sure if they start crowing by sixteen weeks old. Then it's butchering day and freezer camp for all but one lucky one. I'm still hoping for four hens and one rooster for homestead production needs. I could still get that because I believe the two in the brooder box are hens.

I was looking into the cross breeding genetics. With a RIR as a sire he could contribute not only coloring, but in egg production and size by as much as half. This surprised me. If a Easter egger lays on average 240 medium eggs the cross with Rhode Island Red, the offspring could lay up to 300 eggs per year or more with a possible egg size jump to a large. I know two of the chicks are EE/RIR cross. One is definitely RIR/Australorpe cross. Both hens lay, on average, 309.5 large eggs per year. Would that mean a possibility of 365 large to extra large eggs from this hen? 

I can see tons of angel food cakes and lemon egg yolk cookies in our future. There won't be an event, meeting, or get-together that I'm not giving them away at by the dozens. Every pot luck I go to I'll have to bring an egg heavy casserole. And, that's only with four laying, household hens. Just the two of us don't eat that many eggs.😎It's not counting my chickens before they hatch. They've already hatched! I may be left with two or three hens out of the hatchlings which would put us about break even in eggs laid/eggs needed.

Of each of the five, I can tell who the mommas were that laid the egg that they hatched from within one or two choices. When we got the chicks we had two of each kind of certain breeds like Bared Plymouth Rocks and Dominiques, and the others were later identified by their coloring. plus one mystery chick that died in the original fifteen we ordered. One of the black chicks is definitely a black Australorpe cross, one black chick with a brown chest is the Blue Birchen Maran's egg who we lost last week to a stray dog.  One was from a Steele Egger cross because I call their mama Polka Dot. And, the last chick came from one of the Dominiques.

The Dominique cross managed to get out of the outdoor cage last week. Not quite sure how she managed that feat. Two days passed and I figured it was gone for sure. It was the biggest of the bunch. While I was doing the final fiddling with the chicken tractor, I see this little head pop out from under the food stores building. I was hope against hope tossing out chick starter crumbles along one edge of the building in case it was still alive since it went missing. After all, didn't Hoo-de-hoo, aka Houdini, our two-week old Buff Orpington rooster, survive for two weeks in the open with the odds against him surviving. We just have too many predators around that would love to eat a tender morsel little chicks provide: dogs, cats, hawks, owls, snakes, the adult chickens, and even rats. So when I saw it, I was relieved. I got some extra chick starter and put little piles along the food stores building and a small container of water. Since it wouldn't let me catch it, it had to stay where it was. Meanwhile, I'm hooked the butterfly net on my pants pocket while I'm out and about...just in case.

I made an A-frame design chicken tractor. Except for placing the laying boxes in it, the chicken tractor is done finally! I had thought to use chicken wire but decided to to use the heavier cage wire and 1" hardware cloth for the exposed areas. It has a roosting bar in the little coop. The coop has no floor save the coated, wire shelves inside. This way the chickie babies' poop can drop to the ground. So there will be no straw nor hay to clean out until they start laying eggs. When one area gets too thick in droppings or the grass is almost gone, I'll simply move it to a new area. I figure I'll be moving it every couple of days.

I saw on YouTube where somebody used 5-gallon buckets for nesting boxes. I decided to do the same, but flipped it. The opening end with the lid faces the outside of the tractor so I can get the eggs. All I have to do is snap off the lid. It's not one of those rubberized thick lids. I built the supports inside under the coop area. So when they start laying in a few months, I'll just snip the cage wire for the buckets to slide in. It's pretty ingenious if I do say so myself. I even put small drain holes in the bottom of the nest boxes for ventilation and to drain any moisture that gets in there. With the whole back snapping off, removing and replacing the straw will be a breeze unlike conventional nest boxes.

With no wood to speak of in this build, this coop is ultra light weighing in at less than 35 lbs. I mean, it's only plastic. I used "J" clips, zip ties, strapping tape, glue, and wire to build it. It's not huge. It's only 3'x6'.  Unlike the coops and runs down in the orchard. It'll never be more than a couple hundred feet from the house. An easy jaunt from wherever we are, or our dogs. If I need to, I drilled four holes, 5/8th", at the corners so I can stake it to the ground with 12" spikes for added protection. I tried to think of everything that could happen short of a tree falling on it. Don't laugh! It has happened here to Mel's first chicken coop.

Well, enough rambling. It's moving day for the chickie babies. Time for me to get off my hinny and get busy!

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo

Cooking with Chef Jo: Dry Bean Soup with Polenta Cakes

 Yes, I'm still canning tomato sauce! There's times I don't think I'll ever be done. Why? Because after I completed the bushels of tomatoes I had in my freezer, I didn't have my goal of sauce on my shelves. I really wanted 184 jars of diced tomatoes and sauce on my shelves. The year before I put up 104 jars of just sauce, and ran out six months before I could get anymore. I didn't want this to happen again. Maybe it's just me, but after eating homegrown/home canned tomatoes, the  tomato products I bought at the store had a slight metallic flavor that carried through whatever I made with them.

I was saved from paying higher wholesale house prices by a friend who grew certified organic tomatoes. He was doing what I did the previous week, clearing his fields before the heavy frost set in. The only thing keeping the temperatures from a hard freeze is all the hurricane activity this year. Can you believe we've made it through the alphabet this year? Cockeyed weather! Anyhow, he sold me his tomato harvest for $0.25 a lb. I snapped up all he had. It was close to 65 lbs and it put me at my goal of jars. Plus, I dehydrated all those tomato skins for 3 qt jars of tomato powder.  The chickens loved the cores too. Waste not want not. 

Usually when I'm in heavy duty canning mode, dinners are simple quick, heat-n-eat fare. So coming up with a recipe for y'all was tougher than usual for y'all this week.  In the grocery stores, citrus fruits are starting to go on sale. But it's only mid November, so my mind reasons this is the sell-off of last year's harvest. I mean it could be the beginnings of this year's, but I doubt it. So I'll be canning some citrus next month including my favorite preserves...orange marmalade. I'm going off on this tangent so I can think of a yummy recipe for y'all. 

Er, Um, Got it! Bean and Ham Soup! I've been shelling my drying beans that grew up and around my stunted corn and the peas I used as ground cover for the past two years. Other than the 15 or 16 bean soup y'all are used to, this is made with whatever dried beans I have handy so the number of beans/peas changes with each pot I make. (rummaging around my dried beans and pea stores) I got enough for a pot without going to the store. Do I have a ham bone in my freezer? (rummaging through the freezer.) Nope! But, I did find smoked chicken and turkey neck bones, feet, and wing tips. yes, we had smoked the feet and neck bones when we smoked the chickens and turkeys. Don't you? Score! My stove top and wood stove burners are full so I'll cook this in the crockpot.

Dry Bean Soup with Smoked Poultry and Polenta Cakes

Serves 6 hearty portion

What you'll need

3lbs assorted turkey and chicken boney pieces, smoked

Enough water to cover the bones by 3"

1 onion, rough chop

4 ribs celery, rough chop

1 carrot, washed and rough chop

6 peppercorns

2 tsp salt

4 sage leaves

                                                   2 bay leaves

4 cups assorted dry beans and peas*

1 tsp baking soda

1 onion, medium dice*

3 ribs celery, medium dice*

1 carrot, grated

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 jalapenos, fine dice*

1/2 tsp Liquid Smoke™

2 tsp salt & more salt to taste

1 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp cayenne

Enough water to fill crock pot

1 TBS Masa or corn starch

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup sharp grated cheddar cheese or Swiss cheese

1/2 cup grits/polenta

2 cups water

1 TBS butter

1/2 tsp salt

Notes- *Tonight, I'm using the combination of baby limas, kidney, small red, garbanzo, black eyed, cannellini, acre, and pinto beans/peas. So it's only a eight bean soup, but still tasty.

*My small and medium dice is made by my Vidalia Onion Chopper but feel free to use a knife.😉

Putting it all together

• The night before, place first nine (9) ingredients in the slow cooker. Turn heat to high 1 hour, and then turn to low.   
• In a large bowl, place dried beans to soak with 1 tsp of baking soda.
• In a saucepan, place 2 cups water, 1/2 tsp salt. and butter, and bring to a boil. Stir in grits/polenta. Continue stirring until it comes back to a boil for an additional 1 minute. Turn heat to low and cover. Continue cooking for 5 minutes. When the grits/polenta are the consistency of thin oatmeal, turn off the heat and let stand for 5 minutes. Pour onto a buttered, parchment lined baking sheet. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
• The next morning, strain the broth from meat from the slow cooker. Pull meat from the bones and reserve. Strain and rinse the beans/peas.
• In the slow cooker, add medium and fine diced vegetables and the beans/peas.
• Pour in broth. Add enough water to 3/4s fill the container. Turn to high.
• When mixture comes to a boil (about an hour),  add meat and turn heat to low. Continue cooking until beans/peas are tender (about 4 hours)
• Mix masa and water to formed a slurry. Pour into slow cooker stirring well to mix. Soup should thicken slightly.
• Now for the cakes. Take cold grits/polenta from the refrigerator. It should be firm. Cut into square pieces or get fancy and use a cookie cutter. You want two for each bowl of soup served.
• Heat a small pat of butter to grease a frying pan. Turn heat to medium.
• Fry each shape about 2 minutes each side. They should be slightly golden and warmed through. Place on layers of paper towels to drain and hold for service.

For service- Divide soup equally between bowls. Sprinkle grated cheese and place two shapes of polenta on top.

It's a hearty, stick to your ribs dinner. Fancy enough to get in a restaurant, but simply enough to make for a weeknight dinner. The beautiful thing about it is at a mostly hands off meal that tastes like you've spent all day in the kitchen. If you desire as a variation to this recipe, you can add a jar of diced tomatoes when you add the other vegetables into the pot like I did in the picture. So I can can vegetables all day and still have a fantastic meal ready when I want it.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Chef Jo

Adventures with Kassity

 We didn't get Kassity to the vet to have her spayed. She went into heat and two of the male dogs in the "community" dogs got her. We figured pups would help settle her down and make it easier to train her. She's got a bad case of ADHD. She's got the attention span of a gnat (about 3 seconds even when eating). She just feels that she has to be in the middle of anything going on. We figured being her first litter it would be small. They usually are with most dogs. Boy, were we ever wrong!

About dinner time last Sunday, I was playing with Kass on the sofa. Not as rough as I usually do because of her condition. It's what we usually do. Suddenly, she stopped. We saw the contraction ripple across her flank and belly. She was on her back at the time. Mel put our sandwiches down and ran to her bathroom for a handful of towels. We managed to get her off the sofa and onto the several layers of towel before the first came out with a soft plop. Mel encouraged her to lie down and clean the puppy. Kassity was unsure what to do. 

We always said Kassity lived up to her name meaning (full of love), but she was stupid as a bag of rocks. This dog had to be standing behind the door when God passed out instincts because she had none. Mel had to coach her while she grabbed a towel and help clear the pup's airway. I think the whole birthing process was new to her so we cut her some slack as she ate the placenta. The second pup was born, and then a third. All three were born within fifteen minutes.

She was so busy cleaning the first two that she didn't even notice the third one was born. Mel rescued the pup and cleaned it up. It wasn't breathing. Mel tried to clear his airway, and even went so far as to do a puppy style CPR to no avail. Upon closer inspection, we noticed deformities in this puppy. His legs were backwards and one side of his head was crushed. He probably wouldn't have survived long anyhow.

Just then, Nnyus (our other pit/ridgedback mix dog) started barking at the back of the property.  She'd found something threatening near or on our property. We've learned the sounds/meanings of her types of barking over the years. Kassity was up and out the door before we could stop her. Did I say she was stupid? Yes, I thought so.  She made it out the front door, off the porch before puppy number 4 made her stop in the monkey grass lined front walkway. Followed quickly by puppy number 5. Before Mel got outside, she was gone. She left the puppies in the monkey grass before she tore down the sloped ravine towards Nnyus.

Mel rescued the puppies and cleaned them off. I was tasked with keeping the puppies warm. All four were girls. The ones that were born outside were cold to the touch. These two I placed inside my flannel shirt to warm them up, and thinking skin to skin contact would help them get over being dumped by their mother. It soothed my babies, why not these too? The fact that I'd just pulled my extra large towel from the dryer before they arrived would help too. It was still warm inside the folds.

It was about an hour before the next batch of four were born. Kassity must have thought that monkey grass was the perfect spot in 40 degree weather to whelp her pups because we couldn't coax her inside where it was warm. Every thirty minutes, Mel would grab the flashlight and search for puppies in the monkey grass. At least Kass had learned how to clean them properly before the fifth one was born. We finally managed to bring her inside for some food. She hadn't eaten all day. She's a 120 lb dog and if she didn't want to go somewhere, she'd dig in her heels and there'd be no budging her unless we bodily picked her up. We tried this a few times with her fighting us with every step. We pick our battles with this dog.

We taught her how to lay so the puppies could nurse. At least her puppies had that instinct. It looked like they dislocated their jaws to fit their tiny mouths on her huge teats, but they managed well. At first, she wanted nothing to do with the pups suckling on her nipples. Finally, she got the idea and laid down exhausted. Mel pulled her teats forward and left the pups to do what came natural to them. At this time, with eight pups (counting the one that died) we thought she was done. It had been two hours since the birth of the last pup. We were wrong again.

Nnyus started barking again and I heard coyotes yipping in the distance. Kassity was up and heading for the door. She might be a coward at heart, but she wasn't opposed to yelling at them at a distance to stay away. I walked over to where Mel was to help with the babies after Kassity unceremoniously dumped them again. I noticed a bloody blob on the floor by the door. Sure enough it was a pup still in its sack. She must have had it as she went through the dog door. I ripped the sack by its nose and mouth. I inverted it to allow fluids to clear the nose and mouth of the puppy. It was alive! I yelled for Mel, her computer was set up behind the room divider. "She had another one!"

Mel quickly grabbed a towel from the pile, and snatched the pup. She separated the umbilical cord from the afterbirth. The pup dripped blood from the cord, and I told her to squeeze it until it sealed. It was only a few seconds. I picked up the afterbirth and tossed it in the garbage. I wasn't going out to the compost pile after midnight in the dark.

Kassity was back within ten minutes and she plopped herself by her puppies. Mel positioned her so the puppies had free access to her nipples and her warmth. She put the newest member within easy reach of her momma. But Kassity wasn't interested. She was sound asleep and snoring within a couple of minutes. She didn't budge when her tenth puppy was born. We picked him up and tried to get him to breathe, but he did not. After we placed both dead babies in a sack to be buried on the property in the morning.

We were both exhausted. In total, Kassity's labor and birthing pups took eight hours. Of the eight living pups, there's only one male and all the rest are females. I finally remembered to take a picture of them when the pups were 4 days old. After her rough start, she is a very good mother to all her babies. Happy 1 week birthday little pups. Many adventures are still to come.

Her seventh and eighth pups are under her hind leg in the foreground left.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo

Canning with Chef Jo: Coleslaw?

 I harvested my cabbages, daikon, and carrots before the big freeze. Read more on this in last Sunday's post. I promised for today I'd bring a post today on my harvest and what I was going to do with it. I recently saw a video on canning coleslaw. I never heard of such a thing. I love coleslaw, but Mel detests cabbage except in eggrolls. So, the coleslaw would just be for me. 😊

I've put by a lot this year just for me that I love compared to previous years. I simply cook another side dish for Mel. For the most part, I've denied myself and just cooked and put by what she liked. No more. I want my veggies! Normally, my plate for dinner is less than 1/4 meat and three-quarters vegetables (usually double serving size) with two servings of fruit a day. Yes, I eat junk food like chips and calorie laden sweets too. I had denied them for too long with my diabetes. I'm just as happy with organically grown tofu or rice and legumes as a substitute for red meats. I was a vegetarian for about two years before I married my beloved. But as usual, I digress...sigh!

I already knew I'd tweak the given recipe to my tastes. I've been cooking and canning now for over four decades. I'm talking about me, alone, doing the canning for my family. If I count canning with someone else (grandma, mother, aunts etc.) it's more like 55 years. Eek! That's over half a century. Geez, I truly am an old fart. Needless to say, I know about a thing or two about canning, seasonings, time, and what it does to flavors and textures of what I can.

As to giving credit to the recipe, I dunno who came up with the idea for this. I read about 15 variations of this recipe going back 30 years. Everybody had a tweak to add and change the recipe...just like I'm doing. With every two or three changes to a recipe, you make to a recipe makes it yours. You can put your name to it as a new recipe, bet you didn't know that.

Canned Coleslaw

7-8 pints, 3 quarts

What you'll need

1 green cabbage, short shredded,* approximately 5-6 lbs

2 TBSP pickling salt

3 carrots, short shredded*

1 cup Daikon radishes, short shredded*

1/2 cup pickling salt

2 cups of water

                              2 1/2 cups of vinegar*

                              1 1/2 cups sugar*

                              1 TBS celery seed

                              1 TBS black Pepper

                              1 TBS mustard seeds

Notes-* Only use green cabbage for this recipe. Colored cabbage results in all the other vegetables are dyed the color of the cabbage.

* Short shredded is vegetables shredded (large hole on a box grater or 1/8" to 1/4" knife shred) and no longer than 2" long.

* For the vinegar in this recipe, I used 1-1/2cups of white vinegar and 1 cup apple cider vinegar.

*If you like a sweeter version of coleslaw (think KFC), increase sugar to two cups. If doubling or tripling this recipe use the 1 1/2 cups of sugar measurement after the initial 2 cups.

Putting it all together

• The night before, shred all the vegetables.
• Add ingredients to a large bowl and sprinkle with salt. Mix well, cover and place in refrigerator overnight (6-8 hours)
• The next morning, strain and rinse the salt from the vegetables.
• Prepare vinegar liquid in a large pot big enough to hold the liquid and all the vegetables. 
• Bring to a vinegar mixture to a boil. Boil one minute.
• Turn off the heat.
• Add the vegetables to the vinegar mixture.
• Mix well to distribute the spices.
• Ladle into sterilized jars, wipe rims, lid and ring the jars.
• Place jars into a simmering water bath canner- temp above 180 degrees
• Process 15 minutes for pints, 20 minutes for quarts.

I actually made this last Sunday and tried it this week. I made Brats on the grill and served it

with the coleslaw, and baked beans.. It turned out delicious! It's definitely a keeper. It's another way to preserve my cabbage, carrot, and daikon harvest. 

This is a vinegar based coleslaw. If you prefer a mayonnaise based recipe the conversion is simply strain off the vinegar and add mayonnaise. The vegetable remain fairly crisp even with the canning. The addition of Daikon radishes helps with this. In other variations of this recipe included the addition of onions, peppers, horseradish, and other vegetables and spices. Take this recipe and make it your own. Add or take away what your family likes and dislikes. But most of all, Enjoy!

Y'all have a blessed day!

Chef Jo

Cold Storage in My Garden for Late Crops

Credit

I planted very little of a fall garden. I pulled 40 lbs of sweet and russet potatoes about two weeks early. The five heads of cabbages were cut also with a lot of extra leaves still attached. They were all smaller than I liked and the size they should be, but I had to pull them. I pulled about a dozen Danver half longs. That's all that were left in the garden.

I put three 2 lb heads of cabbage in my harvest basket with the carrots to rinse them outside and bring them inside. Wednesday's "Canning with Chef Jo" will tell the preserving of these. The rest of the hurry-up-before-the-big-freeze-hits harvesting lay in milk crates near the house in the garden. I'm cold cellaring them in place.

To cold cellar in place you need some items like styrofoam coolers. You know the kind you can pick up at any store. The cheap ones that keep drinks cool and hold your fish in. Yep, those are the ones. I'll stack the harvest in them. For this harvest, I'll only need about ten of them. 

I'll dig a trench about three feet deep and and three feet wide, and then line it with straw about a foot thick. Place the coolers about a foot apart in this trench. The tops of the coolers are even with the top edge of the trench. Back fill with a mixture of straw and dirt around the coolers until just the lid will be visible.

In the lids of each cooler, I'll stick in one- 1/2" x 3' PVC pipe and one 1/2"x 5' PVC pipe. One (5' length)will be placed at one side of the lid and go down in the cooler within 3" from the bottom. Fill the cooler with produce. The second piece (3' length)of PVC pipe will go on the opposite end of the lid just through the lid. This will create a fresh air intake and an out gassing pipe. Put lid on the coolers.

Cover the whole area with 1-1/2 feet of straw. Top with remaining soil. That's it. You've just created a cold cellar in place. Now if you get several feet of snow during the winter, you'll need to adjust the pipe lengths and the depth of straw covering. You do not want melted snow or ice getting into these pipes. It will rot your produce. I have done this method with an old, broken chest freezer to with some modifications.

During the winter months, you'll need to withdraw and check your stored produce weekly. You are watching for rot and mold. But only do this weekly or every two weeks for the cold storage to hold your produce for months. You may have noticed, I didn't wash my veggies before placing them in the coolers. I just brushed the excess dirt off them but left it alone. Washing the vegetables will promote decay. 

Just to prove how well this system works, my cousin lives in northern Nebraska. She told me about this method she garnered from our grandmother's journals. She has 8-9 months of cold weather. One year it started snowing on Halloween and it didn't get warm again (over 50 degrees) until the 4th of July! (They all went swimming on that 4th too! Brrr!) I can remember winters like that too, except I got smart and moved south. These older bones can't take that much cold. Here in the northeast GA mountains, it's six months tops and that's not very often. 

Y'all have a blessed day! 

Cockeyed Jo