Wild Things Farm

I've never quite had this problem before, but since I've moved into the house I've been working on for 4 years, each winter I'm accompanied by lots of ladybugs.  I mean LOTS of ladybugs.  I don't have aphids in the house, so the ladybugs aren't welcome, and they bite, too!  I believe they are coming in around the area that's been left "sideless" for a chimney.  The insulation showing is shiny foil (hey, it's still a construction project, you know).  Anyway, the bugs are attracted to shiny, light surfaces so I have a major ladybug magnet out there.  Hopefully the chimney will get built this summer :)

Back to the ladybugs........

This past winter I rigged up a long extension for  my shop vac with a piece of conduit.  It was heavy and awkward, but I could reach the two windows in the gable end of the living room (cathedral ceiling) where the bugs like to gather. 

During a brainstorming session of the problem with my boyfriend, we decided to try one of his bug zappers in the living room (although I personally detest bug zappers).  After I jumped a few times as one was being fried, I kinda got used to the noise and it's much easier to vacuum them off the floor underneath than chase them around a window with a really awkward piece of pipe.  I call

it my "redneck ladybug killer".  Thank goodness they only invade during the winter--I'm having trouble working it into the decor of the house!

This past January I introduced 15 eight-week old girls to the Happy Hens.  The introduction was kind of a smuggling operation though--during darkness.  The older hens are supposed to wake up and think "oh, you've always been here".  Well, seems that is what happened because I've not witnessed any adverse pecking or gang-related activities so all is well in the Happy Hen house.

Today, I went to freshen water, top off the feeder, throw in a few tidbits and munchies, then gather eggs.  Look what I found.......

The CUTEST teeny tiny little perfect egg!  Awwwww, my babies are growing up :)

There are a few words in the English language that are, well, fun to say.  Repeat after me....rutabaga, rutabaga, rutabaga.  I think that's a cool word for a very cool veggie.  Combine a white potato, a sweet potato, and put a smidgen of turnip in there and you've got rutabaga. 

Being a root veggie, rutabagas store through the fall and winter right alongside potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and onions.  The nutritional claim to fame of this veggie is the amount of vitamin c that it packs in one cup cubed---that would be 32 mg or 53% of the recommended daily allowance.  WOW!  That's impressive.  Along with the punch of vitamin c, 1 cup of rutabaga has 3% of the MDR of Vitamin E, 1% Vitamin K, 9% Thiamin, 4% Riboflavin, 6% Niacin, 9% Vitamin B6, and 6% Folate.  Gee, we need to be eating more rutabaga.

A wonderfully simple and tasty way to prepare rutabaga is to wash and peel (if necessary) carrots, potatoes, rutabaga, sweet potato, onion, and garlic, then cube into 1 to 1-1/2 inch cubes and place on a baking sheet.  Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper to taste, then roast at 350 for about 45 minutes or so.  Stir them around about half way through and stick a fork in them occasionally to test for doneness.  It's good to make extra because they are wonderful as leftovers.

Let's hear it for rutabaga, another veggie winner!

The nutrition data was obtained from Nutritiondata.self.com; a wonderful resource for nutritional data for the veggies we eat.

Each year I like to try new varieties of the crop menagerie at the farm, and this year is no exception.  It is so hard to resist buying one of everything in the seed catalogs when it is stark, naked, winter, but better judgement must take over because there are only so many garden beds to be filled (although there are quite a few).  New varieties that will hopefully find their way into the members' boxes this year include:

• Cauliflower, variety 'Amazing' from Johnny's Selected Seeds
• Several new varieties of beans, including 'Christmas' heirloom seed passed along from a couple who have been long-time members of the farm; 'Dragon Langerie' from Pinetree; 'Provider', from Johnny's; 'Royal Burgundy' from Pinetree
• 'Red Ace' Beets from Johnny's
• 'Nelson' Carrots from Johnny's
• Eggplant, varieties 'Fairy Tale', 'Orient Express' from Johnny's
• Melons 'Tasty Bites' and 'Sun Jewel' from Johnny's
• Snow peas, 'Oregon Giant' from Johnny's
• Peppers 'Lipstick', 'Sahuaro', 'Aconcagua', 'Marconi Red' from Pinetree and Johnny's
• Squash 'Ambassador', 'Metro Butternut', 'Kabocha', 'Horn of Plenty', 'Cashflow'
• Tomatoes 'Yellow Pear mini', 'Matt's Wild Cherry', 'New Girl', 'Black Cherry'
• Rutabaga

Last year I attempted to grow Artichokes but our winter was just too cold and wet; it was one of those experiments anyway. 

The tried and true varieties are the staples of the gardens on the farm but it's always fun to try new things each year. 

Late this afternoon--make that "greatly sunny" afternoon I took a break in a porch swing on the west side of the house.  The 4 resident dogs decided to join me.  Me, Hattie and Reuben (the Catahoulas), Angus (the Boxer) and Cooper (the Bad-Haired Terrier) were soaking up some rays when Angus noticed a ball of stuffing (from a comforter someone shredded earlier this winter) about 3 feet from the edge of the porch.  There was a dead leaf barely caught in it so the leaf was waving back and forth in the breeze.  Angus stared at it, cocking his head from side to side when he suddenly decided to attack it. 

His jump sent the whole pack into "attack mode" and everyone jumped up and over the porch rail (it's only about a foot off the ground) and tumbled over each other because Angus was right there tending to the polyester invader.  I had to chuckle. 

Little episodes like this around the farm are better than buying tickets to a movie :)

Here in Tennessee this winter has become one of the nastiest and coldest that I remember and much of the winter has been spent working inside.   Several projects have been completed inside the house, namely flooring and stair railing.

Yesterday was a late winter "blues gift" of blue skies and a beautiful day where one could get outside and do a few cleanup chores.

Protecting the chickens' domain are two huge sycamore trees.  Anyone who has had the opportunity of sharing the same piece of ground with a sycamore tree knows how messy they are.  I renamed them "Stick-a-more" trees because I picked up a pile of sticks that was about 4 feet wide and 6 feet tall in no time at all.  I burned them on top of a stump I'm trying to get rid of that is in an area where I want to plant basil this season. 

I spent a while in the high tunnel cleaning out crops that just didn't enjoy being in there over the winter.  Broccoli didn't appreciate the cold temperatures so I put them out of their misery and into the chicken pen.  There was also one last bed of spinach in one of the outside gardens that the chickens enjoyed immensely.  I folded endless numbers of frost blanket and stacked them to be ready for unexpected frosts and finished pulling all the wire hoops, posts, and stakes out of the gardens in preparation for that day when suddenly the ground is dry enough to till.  That day seems like an eternity away right now because if you step off the pathways you just might lose your shoe!

The greenhouse is also getting busy.  Seeds have been started on propagation mats for a mesclun mix, lettuce, lots of onions, swiss chard, kale, and arugula.  I've also started seeds for an early tomato to be planted in the high tunnel just to see how early one can get a tomato here in this area.

Yesterday's case of the "wintertime blues" was much welcome--I hope everyone else within shot of it got to enjoy the day as much as I did. 

Any farmer knows that to make ends meet, you've got to get creative!  I'd like to share with you some of the ways items find new uses around this farm. 

The chicken coop is framed out of pallets that metal roofing is shipped on.  They are 9 feet long x 3-1/2 feet wide, they are very sturdy, and a few straight ones and a little imagination go a long way.  The house is now covered with board and batten siding salvaged from a dead tree.   Inside the chicken coop are a kitchen cabinet with 4 nest boxes in it and a chest of drawers with 6 boxes in it.  You could say the Happy Hens have a "furnished house", complete with floor covering made of rubber roofing salvaged from a roofing job. 

The shop attached to the greenhouse is also framed from pallets and the windows are from an old house.   The greenhouse was salvaged for the price of hauling it off on a trailer behind a pickup truck, but the real cost was in figuring out just how all the buckets of gasket materials, different size glass panes and different channels would all work out to make a greenhouse to attach to the shop (without instructions).  It leaks here and there but it's great!

An old laundry tub serves as a washing station down at the gardens.

The 3/4" solid oak paneling in the farmhouse was salvaged from a local restaurant being demolished.  The oak covers the bottom half of all the walls in the house, plus made some very usable kitchen cabinets.  The glass doors on the upper cabinets were salvaged from a bookcase that had been discarded.

The floor in the foyer is made of rosewood, salvaged from---you'll never guess---pallets made to ship copper coils.  It hasn't been sanded and finished yet, but it's really unique. 

One of the bathroom doors came from the same restaurant

and the other one came from an old house in town.  The kitchen sink (temporary) is an old service bar.  It has a really nice big tub and two side drain boards, but the hole is rather small for a kitchen sink.  I've got my eyes open........

The door under the stairs is a door from one of the Homestead Houses built about 75 years ago.  The backside is a "z" bar.  The wooden latch is handmade and the knob was found at an old house site in nearby Knoxville.   The hinges have been in a box for years and the entire ensemble was provided and orchestrated by my awesome significant other :)

Feed bags are utilized for trash, and mountains of leaves from a nearby community are recycled on the gardens each season. 

The chickens are the major recyclers of kitchen scraps and garden waste. 

It takes lots of imagination, storage space, and treasure piles here and there to hang on to items that "I'll use that someday".  You never know, that day just might be today!

One of the highlights of Wild Things Farm are the Happy Hens.  They scratch and jabber and do chickeny things all day, every day.  Last week there was a breech in security....aka the fence came loose from the chicken house....so about 9 chickens decided to go for it.  I've actually let all the hens out this time of year to scratch around and "fly the coop" so to speak, just to break the winter boredom.  Well, this day a hawk decided he would also check out the chickens.    I arrived at the pen just in time to persuade the hawk to fly back up into the tree where he came from, but the chickens were all spooked and one buff orpington was "hiding" somewhat under the edge of the coop, but I picked her up and put her back in the house. 

The next day was "wing clipping" day.  One of my jobs as a chicken momma is to keep them safe and you know, EVERYTHING likes chicken.  So, early in the morning, just at daybreak (brrrrr) each chicken was caught and one wing clipped then moved to the pen outside.  When all were done I left the door open and no one offered to come back in---imagine that!

Now, every time I get near the pen to feed, water, collect eggs, or just say "hi" they all run like haints to the other side of the pen.  Maybe they'll get over it soon.

On Monday another group of lucky girls was brought to the farm to be part of the Happy Hens at Wild Things Farm.  They are called Production Reds and they are 8 weeks old.  They spent the first night in a big cardboard box in the shop, the second night in their box in the henhouse, and last night they stayed in the chicken house with the big girls and Mr. Rooster sir.

The coop was originally constructed to house more birds than were occupying it, so now we're up to capacity----except a few more nest boxes need to be built--that's a project for a warmer day.

Here we are, "knee deep" into winter.  December around here was as cold as I remember it being for such an extended spell.  At least the temperature has gotten into the double digits now, although still quite cold. 

Back in the fall someone from the NOAA contacted the farm to see if being a daily "weather observer" was something of interest.  The duties include reading and reporting the temperature maximum and minimums and temperature at observation time,  every day, which is all done with this handy-dandy inside unit:

The temperatures are detected by this strange-looking thermometer on a stick in the back yard:  (the blocks are part of the future fireplace/chimney project)

 and when it rains or snows, the rain gauge, a fiberglass snow board, and a measuring stick come into play.

The rain gauge is pretty cool though, because you can measure down to the hundredths-of-an-inch of rain.  A plexiglass "cutting board" is utilized to measure the snowfall depth.

The weather service utilizes observers to more completely get a picture of weather and climate in an area.  It's also interesting to see how many degrees difference there are between Wild Things Farm and the local airport.  Airport you say?  Why certainly---the Crossville International Airport-----just kidding.

Two posts in one day?  Well, it's COLD outside and a friend just asked me to send her this recipe I prepared a couple of years ago for a Thanksgiving appetizer, so I decided to "blog" it to share with others, because it's a really good recipe.  It came from FoodNetwork.com, and contrary to what I usually do, I followed this recipe to the letter.

1/2 (17.3 ounce) package frozen puff pastry, thawed
flour, for dusting work surface
1-8 ounce package round brie cheese, halved crosswise
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup chopped toasted walnuts
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water
Pear slices, for serving
assorted crackers, for serving

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Unfold the puff pastry onto a lightly floured surface.  Using a lightly floured rolling pin, roll the dough out slightly to smooth out any folds.

Place the bottom half of the brie round, cut side up in the center of the pastry.  Gently pack the sugar on top of the brie and arrange walnuts on top of the sugar.  Top with the remaining brie half, (cut side down).  Trim the puff pastry so that there is only a 2 inch border around the brie.  Place the brie, seam side down, onto the prepared baking sheet.  Use desired shape cookie cutter to cut designs from the excess pastry, if desired.  Place on top of the brie and brush again with the egg wash.

Bake for 20 minutes, or until the pastry is golden.  Allow brie to stand for 3 minutes before serving with pear slices and assorted crackers.

The only recommendation I would make is to double the recipe because it disappears fast!

Okay, so the holidays aren't approaching, we're surrounded!  One of my favorites during the holidays is ham.  Happy hoer LOVES ham, especially country ham.  This recipe doesn't use country ham though, it's a great way to use up leftover spiral sliced ham.  As with every recipe, you can tweek it however you wish.  It's definitely not a vegetarian dish, but delicious. 

Ham Tetrazinni

2 T chopped onion
1 T butter
2 cloves chopped garlic
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/2 c water
1/2 c shredded cheddar
1 cup diced ham
6 oz spaghetti
2 T chopped fresh parsley
2 T chopped pimento peppers

Cook pasta.  Saute onion in butter in a large skillet. Add garlic when onion is soft.  Stir in soup, water, and cheese.  Heat and stir until the cheese is melted.  Add the ham, parsley and peppers.  Stir until heated through.  Serve sauce over spaghetti.  Add a side salad of fresh greens from the high tunnel.  YUM!

The summer season is way too busy to work on house-building projects, so each winter there's a list of things to do during the funky weather.  One of the projects is flooring. 

A friend of a friend had oak tongue and groove flooring left over from a project and he wanted it out of his storage so I was so kind to take it off his hands :)  I measured and calculated and "oh my goodness" it was enough to do the bedroom and maybe the closet.  He even loaned me the nailer and gave me nails. 

I've helped on two hardwood flooring projects, did the upstairs floor out of 2x6 pine on my own, but never have I had to actually hit that monster nailer thingee by myself.  I got the first two rows down by drilling and nailing with finish nails and then it was time to drag out the yellow monster (nailer thingee that is). 

After about 15 rows of boards I've gotten just a teeny bit better.  I'm still having to pull nails out that didn't go in far enough and drive others in all the way with a hammer and a nail set.  I hate to admit it, but these manual floor nailers are a guy tool.  I'll get through the floor but I'm not calling for an inspector!

After the nailer from you-know-where comes the floor sanders from you-know-where.  I think I'll ask for help with them.  Stay warm!

Since I'm the one in the family that has chickens, one of the dishes I was to take to the family Thanksgiving dinner was deviled eggs.  Anyone who has tried to boil and peel a fresh egg knows that it's nearly impossible to cleanly peel them.  So, in anticipation of being the designated deviled egg maker, I held 2 dozen eggs in my fridge for 6 months...no, just kidding!  2 weeks is more like it.  They peeled pretty good--I put them in a pot of cold water, brought it to a slow boil and set the timer for 10 minutes.  I put ice cubes in a big bowl with water and when the timer went off I put the eggs into the ice water for a few minutes, then peeled them.  The shells came off pretty easily.  A couple were a little testy, but not too bad. 

I wanted to use some olives stuffed with peppers as a garnish on some of the eggs, just for something a little different.  I took 2 capers and placed on each deviled egg (eyes) and sliced the olives to make a mouth that was open like it was hot.  I scattered the peppers around the plate to let everyone know they were hot so I wouldn't scorch the family members who don't appreciate hot!

 Remember Mr. Bill?  These reminded me of Mr. Bill---"Oh Noooooo!"

See, it's okay to play with your food!  These were a hit at the table :)

Part of eating in season includes coming up with new ways to prepare the bounty of the season.  There were several small squashes in the harvest this year that were kept for myself.  Yesterday I made butternut squash soup and this particular blend of ingredients was quite tasty.  I used sour cream because I didn't have any regular cream or half and half; it worked great.  A great way to keep chipotle peppers around is to buy them in the can, transfer them to a glass jar, and they'll keep in the fridge for a really long time.  Just take one out when you need it and put the rest back in the fridge.  If you're not into spicy, then just forget the pepper.

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 onion, chopped

1 small carrot, chopped into 1/2" pieces

2 cloves minced garlic

2 small butternut squash peeled, seeded and chopped  (about 2-3 cups chopped)

1 can chicken stock

1/2 tsp sage

pinch of pumpkin pie seasoning

salt and pepper

about 1/2 cup sour cream (or regular cream or half and half)

1 chipotle pepper, chopped

Put squash in a pot with the chicken stock and start simmering.  Melt butter in a frying pan and saute' onion and carrots till tender then add garlic.

Pour onion and carrots into the squash and continue cooking until all veggies are soft.  Add chipotle pepper, sage, and salt and pepper.  Set pot off the heat and use an immersion blender to puree all the ingredients.  When the veggies are all creamed, add the cream and finish blending.   If you don't have an immersion blender you can put the soup in small batches into a blender or food processor to puree. 

I made some garlic cheese biscuits to go with the soup.  Yum!

Cooler temperatures and shorter days are here, meaning to eat seasonally we need to adapt to what's growing locally.  The new high tunnel has a bumper crop of arugula, just waiting to spice up many salads this fall. 

Arugula has no fat or cholesterol, and it is also a good source of protein, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Vitamin B6, Pantothenic Acid, Zinc and Copper, and a very good source of dietary fiber, Vitamin A (5% RDA), Vitamin C (2%), Vitamin K, Folate, Calcium (2%), Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium and Manganese.

A great recipe for Arugula calls for washed and dried arugula leaves, toss them with a Walnut Vinagarette, crumble goat cheese and walnuts on top, then throw on a few dried cranberries--it's a very tasty salad. 

Arugula--even if you don't like it, the word is fun to say!