Homestead Pantry

What a day!  I snagged my glasses leash on something, which broke it, but with all I had to do today I didn't want to take time to hunt a replacement loop and then restring all those silver and turquoise beads.  I hadn't lost anything  except the loop, so there was no big rush.  What a mistake!  I kept dropping and losing my glasses.  In the garden bent over double, trying to find a foothold amongst the three foot tall tomatoes and cayennes at least that tall, unbeknownst to me I dropped them again!  That really upset me when I realized what I'd done, since I had lost another perfectly good pair in the other garden three years ago.  I still have not found them even though I knew about where I had to have been when they were lost.  

 I had been out in the garden picking lemon boy tomatoes, both good and hen pecked ones, sorting the hen pecked ones into a bucket which I later tipped over the stockade to those good hens and the Rangers in there, which lever get out and peck my tomatoes!  I just hope it doesn't give them all ideas.  I also picked a cart of cayenne peppers and put them in the dehydrator to dry for making cayenne pepper seasoning, and for using to make tobasco sauce.  The College Boy found four cantaloupes loose from their vines, and I'm planning some chicken noodle soup for the guilty parties.  

I sent the kids back to the garden to hunt them for me, and finally the younger boy came back with them.  I hugged and kissed him good and he didn't even mind! So he saved my day, but I was still grouchy about having lost them.  Not a good frame of mind in which to go work with feral honey bees.

Between those grumpy girls and this grumpy girl we managed to get me stung at least three times tonight.  However, it was worth it, as we snagged a nice full hive full of workers out of that feral hive, and we closed down the openings to a more manageable size.  Tomorrow we're going to hunt down a queen, cage her with a candy plug to eat her way out of, (plain white for her, but something tells me that *this queenbee* sitting here typing this is going to be eating her way through some fudge!), and a super with some drawn out brood comb to provide them all a job so they will stay in the hive.  We took the hive and set it up over in an apple orchard about 8.5 miles away from their former feral colony in the porch roof of an older brick home in McKnightstown. 

It was after 11:00 pm when we arrived home, and we still hadn't had supper.I was happy to see that the "Two Tots" had done the milking, strained, and put away the milk.  I really need to come up with a new nickname for those two.  I guess as of next month when there will be yet another birthday here on the Homestead, I will be able to call them the "Two Terrific Teens"...or if they are in trouble that day I suppose I could call them the "Two Terrible Teens".

Slicing into one of those little cantaloupes, about the size of a softball, the juices ran golden yellow all over everywhere.  Sweet, oh so sweet and delicious, we both have sticky hands and chins.  (Mine is swollen, it seems some little bee noticed my bee bonnet had slid back, pulling the face screen against my chin.  I figure I'll look a little like a close relative of Jay Leno for a few days!) We only planted a few of these, and we're very sorry we didn't go overboard and plant a whole bunch!  I'm worrying now that I won't be able to bring myself to make my Patchwork Relish, which was why I had planted them.  It's too late to make another planting, I'm afraid.  Ok, next year I promise myself I will plant a very large patch of these delectable treats! 

 With the cooler temperatures at night comes a reminder of all those spring fleeces yet to be processed, and the wool comforter that needs washing and drying while we have the sunny weather to dry it right.  So I washed it in the washer, and we set up the wash tubs and began washing and soaking the lanolin rich Icelandic fleeces from the past spring.  Several waters later, we decided it needed to soak overnight!

Back into the kitchen I went, and the College Boy helped me with my big 5 gallon pot of yogurt, lifting it out of it's hot water bath and carrying it over to the island to pour it into it's straining cloth, and hang it from the hooks set up for that purpose.  In the morning we will pack the yogurt in quart sized freezer bags for tiding us over through a two month winter layoff we expect to be giving the milk goats.  Everyone loves yogurt, but the College Boy eats more of it than the rest of us put together, so it's good that he helped hang it!

Well, folks, I'm up too late again, which is way too usual this summer.  I really need to work on tightening up my evening routines.  As soon as I get those four feral honey bee colonies a little more 'domesticated' I guess I will be able to manage.  Tonight while trying to finish things up I had this idea to give every full share subscription during 2010 a copy of the recipe book "From the Heart", so I wanted to come in here and write it down so I don't forget it like so  many other great ideas I have, then forget, because it was so late at night and I didn't write the down.  So, off I go, not early to bed tonight, as I will have to shower all these grumpy honey bee sting pheromes off me before I will be able to put compresses on them, and then get some sleep.  Even with the late hour, I still need to be early to rise to feed our Ranger Chickens a good breakfast before we start our day!

So until next time,...

We had a chance to try out some Freedom Rangers meat chickens.  So this afternoon off we dashed as soon as it cooled a bit, to avoid heat stress since the day was bright and sun shiney.  

 Arriving at the seller's place, we drove right up to the little chicken house to load the chickens.  They are quite large already and will need only two or three weeks to finish them before harvesting.  I have just the grassy plot for them!  They are pretty red mottled, most of them look a lot like a red barred rock.  Most of them are also already big enough to harvest as Cornish 'hens'.

 I was so pleased with them that I also stopped by Lowe's and picked up a couple of Chippewa blue berry bushes in case we needed pollinator varieties for our others.  I couldn't remember what varieties we had already planted, and I know we lost one bush already so I need to check on that variety tomorrow in the daylight. 

 Another item on the schedule for tomorrow is a run for organic raw sugar to make bee feed.  There's a nearby feral colony that is just a true gift!  We moved one colony out of it already this year, and there is another colony worth bearding up on the outside again.  I now have another location far enough away from this house so that they will not try to return like so many did with the last removal.  We will remove a generous number of honey bees to the new location and check on them several times over the next few weeks before moving them to their permanent location in an orchard or garden somewhere.

Also on the schedule for tomorrow is building some raised beds to keep our gardens growing later this fall.  I'm seeing a lot of predictions of a long, cold winter and I've been looking forward to trying out some new structures a la Eliot Coleman's Four Season Harvest.  Last spring our tunnel cover blew away, and then the wind stopped, and allowed a frost to kill my early tomatoes.  I'm planning to ramp that structure up a few notches this year! 

Until next time...

 
I never planned on growing habanero peppers.  They just 
happened.  My kids think they like hot peppers.  They do,...
well two of them really like jalapenos, so this year when I 
happened across some habanero plants somewhere, I included 
two or three in my basket.  I can't remember where they 
were but the kids had three of them. The 'college man' and 
'Little Miss Muffet' are the family hot pepper eaters.  She 
always has to outdo her biggest brother.  Little Miss Muffet
has been tenderly caring for her little habanero plant all 
summer.  For it's own protection from marauding, shape-shifting
goats she kept it inside.  In our garden window.  Finally, 
yesterday morning just after breakfast she picked her first
pepper.  She was so proud.  

She had a right to be very proud of that pepper.  It was a 
lovely thing to look at, I have to admit.  Bright yellow-
orange little ball ...she was so excited to finally have 
her first pepper off her very own plant,...her first hot 
pepper plant.

She prepared to fry it in the skillet.  In slicing and 
removing the seeds, some of the pepper juice got into a 
teensy, tiny, little scratch on her finger.  That burned, 
so she just naturally popped that burning finger into her
mouth. Then naturally, that burned.  She was in agonies.  
Her face was mottled, her lips cherry red. 

I warned her to keep her fingers far away from her eyes. I
then gave her a spoon full of raw sugar.  That didn't help.
So then I gave her a tablespoon full of yellow plum sauce 
(we were having waffles for breakfast).  That didn't help.  
Finally I told her to quick take a sip off my jamocha shake,
(made with our own goat's milk and hazelnut coffee well 
blended with ice) and even that didn't really help much. 
Then I advised her to have a glass of milk.  (goats' milk, 
what else is there??) That and perhaps all of the above be-
gan to help a tiny bit, but not much.  Poor kid. She has 
sworn off habaneros.  She has stated emphatically that she
is never growing those hot things again. 

I sighed and took a sip of my jamocha.
And set my own lips afire.

Lesson #1 from the Homestead:  Never grow habaneros.  Just 
write that at the top of your list of things not to grow on
your homestead.  Do it right now.  Trust me.  

I lived through the experience but my lips burned most of 
the day.  Just now, more than 24 hours later, I absentmindedly
ran my tongue over my back gums, thinking I'd brush my teeth
after just having had lunch.  Pulling my tongue back in it's 
normal place, then again absentmindedly licking my lips,...
my whole mouth burns yet again.  I had brushed my teeth at 
least three times since taking that sip from that silly
habanero-contaminated straw!

Habaneros.  The tiny little hot pepper that just keeps on 
giving with a long-lasting, ever-burning flame. Little Miss
Muffet's pepper plants are loaded with ripe habaneros...
bright yellow ping pong balls of unending, never-dying fire.
She has sworn off habaneros.  Me, too.  She thinks they may 
make a good compress to burn infection out of a small cut or 
scratch.  I don't want to know about it.  I have created a 
CSA page and I can tell you they are the first things going
into our 'CSA shopping baskets' if someone with a death-wish
subscribes to our brand-new CSA these little wonders will 
surely fill the bill.

Habaneros, anyone?  We have a very lovely plant potted up all
ready to go home with you!

Here we are with our first homestead blog on local harvest.  Please bear with us as we learn the ropes here.  

 I would like to start by thanking all those wonderful folks in the Hanover and Gettysburg community who stopped by my oldest son's stand to buy his sweet corn.  I hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did.  Words fail to describe my appreciation for the community support he has had for his educational dreams.

This weekend we will be gathering together fair entries.  I have a couple of unique scarves I have hand knit 'in my spare time' which I hope to get blocked and ready to enter in time.  One is from my own hand spindled yarn, spindled up on my own design hand spindle, the PortaBella!