Stories from a FedEx Driver

Somewhere in the area a FedEx driver is telling about the crazy farm he visited on Tuesday. I was in the barn cutting up the two deer I shot on opening weekend when I heard someone pull in the driveway and honk. I was in the middle of cutting off a front quarter, so I had a huge knife in my hand as I walked out of the barn, dressed in my blood-smeared jeans. The driver looked a little shocked, but the capper was when Cash the Dog then came running around the corner of the woodshed with an entire foreleg in his mouth. He must have stolen it when I wasn't paying attention and I had to fight the urge to laugh out loud.

I'm getting better at butchering, or at least faster. I got both deer finished in about 4 hours, including cutting some meat into cubes for chili and slices for stir-fry. I discovered that you can fold the foodsaver bags in half and put them in the sealer to make handy tubes that are the perfect size for a big slab of tenderloin.

Starting our planning for the farm next year, I'm looking into different assortments of birds. We want to downsize the flock from the last go-round, so I'm looking for 4-5 ducks, 4-5 turkeys, and a handful of egg chickens. Maybe I'll finally order from Tom at the feed mill, except we'd be stuck with plain old dumb white turkeys, we'll see.

Winter is coming

Hardly a leaf to be found on the trees now, must mean winter is close.

Put the plow on the farm truck last weekend when it was in the high 70s, it was a little shocking when I started the truck because one of the exhaust pipes broke since the last time I fired her up, so it was a bit loud!

Did some canning last weekend to help deal with the mega-pile of ground beef we got from our steer. We don't eat that much ground beef so it's hard to come up with uses for it other than your standard taco or spaghetti sauce. I made 8 quarts of a vegetable beef soup that my grandma used to make and I found out later it's actually her mom's recipe, so it's got some family history! We had a couple of the T-Bones and they were HUGE. Talked to Royal on Tuesday and found out that our beef came from his daughters prize steer from 4H, so it's good to know our dinner led a good life.

Today is cold and rainy, so I am avoiding going out and putting the finishing touches on the deer stand I'm building up in our woods, maybe I'll get at it tomorrow if it's nicer.

Okay, an update!

Sorry that it's been so long.

We still haven't bought any pork, just haven't got around to it, but I did pick up 1/4 of a steer yesterday from our neighbor. I can't believe the size of the ribeyes, we might have to buy bigger plates! All told it's just a bit over 200lbs of beef.

The garden is , for the most part, finished. Still have to harvest the last of the carrots and the parsnips, then hopefully I will have time to till everything under before the ground freezes.

Been doing a bit of duck hunting with below average success. It is finally getting chilly enough that I might climb a tree with my bow one of these evenings.

There is a "chili cook-off" later this month at work to raise money fro the United Way, I'm looking forward to winning it!

Not much else new, I'm a year older and somewhat less than a year wiser, enjoying the autumn and dreading the winter.

Cheers!

Digging potatoes

This weekend it wil be time to dig up all of the potatoes and onions. If you recall, we planted red, white, and blue potatoes this year, as is our patriotic duty.

The blue potatoes are visually striking, but somewhat starchy in the flavor department. I will experiment and discover their best use. I have a suspicion that mashed blue potatoes will be delicious, but look very odd. The white fingerling potatoes are already out of the ground and I really need to roast a few of them in a bit of duck fat one of these days.

Also this weekend, I am planning on brewing up my annual batch of Pumpkinhead Ale. This is one of my beers that has a devoted following, so you pumpkin beer fans will be happy to hear that it is on the way.

Lots and lots of rain last weekend has split most of my tomatoes, so into cans they will go. I am still binging on BLTs whenever possible and even found a local stand that still has fresh sweet corn. I am determined to enjoy the fruits of summer as long as they hold out.

Stopped by the local "coffee club" at the Boltonville gas station this morning and Tom from the feed mill had a line on a butcher hog for us. He didn't have the number so I have to stop by there tomorrow for the contact information. It will be good to have a freezer full of pork again, even if it isn't from our farm.

Buy local!
Doug

Canning season has begun

We started preserving some of the harvest last weekend. I am trying something different with the tomatoes this year, I basically made a gigantic pot of chili without the meat and canned it up in quart jars. My idea was that since chili always tastes better the next day, this is like getting a big head start. I should be able to simply brown up some stew meat and pour my premade chili mix over it and be ready to chow down in less than an hour. We'll see how it works.

We also made a big batch of raisins in the dehydrator. They are really good, but it takes a long time, almost 36 hours. Next up is making homemade grape juice and canning it with Grandma Jones' recipe.

Signs of autumn are beginning to appear, a few leaves turning and cool evenings. I'm looking forward to deer hunting in November already, looks like I will get to hunt opening weekend for a change, thanks to not having to butcher turkeys. I'm also planning on bowhunting for deer at our place since it appears we now have enough of a local population to support it. (And because they ate my pea vines!)

Tomatoes!

Tomatoes have been ripening for about a week now, so I have been stuffing myself silly with them.

That is all I can report at this time.

Nothing but trouble

This just hasn't been a good year for the garden.

First we had a non-existent spring, now we are having a cold summer. Rabbits and deer attacked the peas and coles early, now something is killing my squash plants. The one bed I used an organic "weed preventer" in, instantly turned into the most weed-infested bed of plants I have ever seen.

The weather the past few days has just been beautiful, but definitely not normal. Early August should be unbearably hot, with humidity so thick that laundry hung out to dry just gets wetter. I woke up this morning and it was 53°! No wonder my tomatoes are taking so long to ripen.

Even with all the problems, we haven't suffered any significant lack of fresh produce yet, things just might be a bit leaner later in the summer. There's still time to plant many things, I just have to remember to do it!

Gone for a bit...

Sorry about the lack of recent postings, but in my defense I was gone for about a week on a backpacking trip in northern Minnesota on the Superior Hiking Trail.

By request, I will post a few pictures of the trip and a condensed version of my journal.

Day 1: Dropped off by the Superior Shuttle at 9:45am at Caribou River wayside. Stopped at Caribou River to fill my water bottle and my Camelbak. I was oh-so-very-impressed with my new technique of filling the bladder while it was still in the pack, what a timesaver! Put my pack on and instantly felt dampness, the bladder had a crack in the hard plastic by the fill spout and leaked all over the inside of my pack! Luckily I noticed it right away and got everything out of the pack and dried off before things got too wet. Took the spur trail to the bottom of the falls, very impressive! Quite rugged hiking today, a hard introduction to the trail. The trail leading into Crosby-Manitou park is not well blazed, but is still easy to follow. Camped at Aspen Knob campsite, best water on the trail, in my opinion. Rained all night but thoughtfully cleared up before hitting the trail.

Day 2: Left camp about 8am, microfiber towel did a great job of drying off the rainfly. Much easier trail today, but boggier and buggier. And of course I forgot my bugspray back at the campsite! Hit Sonju Lake and walked down the boardwalk to the little island. Absolutely beautiful, and there were a couple of guys leaving the area who offered me bananas, and BUGSPRAY! Awesome timing. Highly recommend camping at Sonju Lake. I pushed on to South Egge Lake, also very cool and scenic. A pair of playful beavers were fun to watch, then it started raining out of a clear blue sky. Ate an early dinner and hid in the tent as the rain turned into dramatic storms. The beavers would slap their tails against the water anytime that the thunder was particularly close, not sure if they were imitating it or trying to scare it away. Woke up to amazing loon calls, walked to the lake and there were seven loons swimming together. I decided to call it an "asylum" of loons.

Day 3: Decided to hike into the town of Finland today to call and reassure my wife that I am alive. Grabbed a bit of food from the grocery store there, and they will let you use the phone in the back for free, just have to use a calling card or call collect. Walked back to the trail, saw two black bears run cross the road about a half-mile up, then put on some serious miles through some of the toughest terrain I've seen, mostly the last 4-5 miles. Being in town softened me so I skipped stopping at the Kennedy Creek campsites and pushed into Tettagouche State Park, where there are showers. Fell asleep to the sounds of couples arguing ("Dammit Cheryl!") and people running generators. Still, it had a shower!

Day 4: One of the most beautiful sections of trail I've seen, especially in the Bear and Bean Lake areas, where you are standing on the edge of 500 foot cliffs on one side of the trail and gazing at Lake Superior to the other. Mt. Trudee is another that is just awe-inspiring. Planned on staying at Penn Creek, but it was still early so I decided to press on another 5.8 miles to the Beaver River campsites. Lots of up and down ridges to get there, and all of it was on ROCK! The feet were getting a bit sore from walking on rock all day, but it was still gorgeous. Beaver River campsites were both full of rotten kids and counselors from some wilderness therapy group, but I was too tired to go any farther, so I camped on the outskirts of N. Beaver River site. Trains and stupid foghorn every 10 minutes helped keep me awake most of the night. Lots of raspberries along train tracks, though. Big day today, a little over 15 miles.

Day 5 : Got up and hiked into Beaver Bay, great little town only about 1.5 miles from Beaver River campsite. Did laundry at laundromat behind Holiday gas station and stocked up on some food. Ate a giant double blue cheese burger at the diner, delicious! Walked back to the trail, hiking to Chapins Ridge campsite. Found a few handfuls of blueberries on Fault Line Ridge. Got to Chapins Ridge and the water there was murky, brown, fetid, and even had a scary oily sheen on top. Decided to walk on to the Split Rock area. Ended up camping at site on north side of the Split Rock canyon, very cool campsite. I was looking forward to the giant heavy can of beef stew that I carreid all day, only to discover my spoon had broken! So I carved a handle for it out of a birch twig. Another 15+ mile day today.

Day 6: Realized that if I do another 15 miles or so,(ended up being 18 miles) I will finish today. Given the scary weather outlook for the next day, I decide to make that my goal. Lots of "green tunnel' hiking early in the day. Trails inside Gooseberry Falls State park are wide and well marked. Amazing views along river and cool falls. Once you leave the park, all bets are off. The trail is slightly better than a game trail, only 4-5 inches wide and mostly following the river. Waist-high weeds and vegetation hide the trail effectively and it was washed out in several areas near the riverbanks. This continued until the Nestor Grade, where conditions improved. It started raining not far past Nestor. At this point I was in a hurry to finish and escape the weather, but Mike's Rock and Wolf Rock were challenging and I'm sure quite beautiful when the weather cooperates. Got back to my car about 6 pm and just sat there for awhile and dried off the best I could.

Time for fencing

It took three years, but it finally happened. The deer and rabbits have found my garden.

I went up to do some weeding on Friday afternoon and found every single one of my pea vines had been neatly chewed off about 6-7" above the ground. The height makes me suspect deer are the culprits. I also had some chewed up leaves on my broccoli and cauliflower plants that appeared to be the work of rabbits. I bought fencing earlier this spring, but never put it up because I haven't needed it in previous years. Guess what I'll be doing this week?

The weather this past week was great for the garden, lots of sun with just enough scattered rain to keep me from having to water. We are pretty much dried out from the deluge earlier this month.

Other than the pea vines, the garden looks pretty good. I am trying to keep my tomato plants under control this year through intensive pruning and training. They look pretty good so far, I'll have too get some pictures posted soon.

Too much rain!

If I had to choose one word to describe the past 7 days it would be "soggy."

The danged driveway washed out again on me (twice) again last weekend, but I guess that's better than having your whole house wash away, as happened over by the Dells.

The garden looks to have survived, the only problem is that it has really beat down the soil. Part of the reason to have raised beds is that you never walk among the plants and the soil stays light and fluffy. Well, throw that idea out the window because the soggy ground has compressed itself down pretty well. I'm thinking it's going to be a challenge to pull carrots and parsnips out of this dirt later in the year.

This afternoon calls for another 2-3 inches of rain that we don't need, I hope it doesn't do too much more damage to the driveway.

I have to admit that it's really weird not having any critters on the farm this year. I find myself checking craigslist to see if anyone is giving away chickens, and then wonder why I do it because I know I won't call or go get them. I've got the disease so badly I have even thought about getting ducks!

The Volunteer Army

I spent a long morning weeding the garden on Saturday and could not believe the number of "volunteers" we had popping up. I told Nikki that in a few years we may not have to plant any seeds in the garden, that it will just self-populate with the remnants of gardens past.

Volunteers, for those unfamiliar, are plants that just appear in the garden because of earlier vegetables that went to seed or that were forgotten underground in previous seasons.Varieties that have shown themselves so far include onions, tomatoes, squash, radishes, beets, and potatoes. For the most part I have just let them grow, the only exception being the tomato seedlings as there were dozens of them.

It's starting to look like we might actally get a couple pints of strawberries this year, after many failed attempts. The plants are vigorous and spreading and have a lot of still-green berries on them. I put up some short wire fencing to try and keep the rabbits out, but the birds still have free access. Someone will get strawberries, anyway, I'm hoping it's me.

I managed to build a field stone border around Nikki's "Cottage Garden" yesterday without destroying my back, so that was good news. It looks nice with the flowers and rocks, much better than the weed patch it was a couple of weeks ago

Not much else going on, we are definitely managing to stay busy even without any farm animals. Nikki got started yesterday on getting the pool ready for summer, maybe we'll be able to use it by July if it ever gets warm around here. Cheers!

Looking good...

The garden is looking good. Almost all of the potatoes are up, everything else is pretty well established.

Here's the 2008 Garden List: (I'm going from memory so I may have to update later)

Radishes
Carrots (3 types)
Mixed salad greens
Head lettuce
Swiss Chard
Red Pontiac potatoes
German Fingerling potatoes
Blue potatoes
Yukon Gold potatoes
Red onion
Yellow onion
Snap peas
Sugar peas
Golden beets
Parsnips
Canteloupe
Winter squash ( 3 types)
Zucchini
Pumpkin
Summer squash (2 types)
"Luigi" tomatoes
Brandywine tomatoes
Roma tomatoes
Green Zebra tomatoes
Celebrity tomatoes
Yellow pear tomatoes
Orange bell peppers
Hungarian hot yellow peppers
Red cabbage
Kohlrabi
Cauliflower
Broccoli


...and I think that's it!

Finally, the garden is started

I worked my tail off on Saturday, since the weather gave me a one day window to get some veggies in the ground.

I planted 25 sq. ft. each of Swiss Chard, head lettuce, mesclun greens, and mixed radishes and carrots. I also put in 225 onion plants and around 120 hills of potatoes. My gardening muscles were definitely out of shape, I was so sore yesterday that I could hardly move.

This weekend also saw the extermination of a family of squirrels that had decided to occupy the attic above our front porch. My rusty, trusty, Daisy BB gun made quick work of them, with the help of a couple of glue traps.

If the weather cooperates I should get more seeds in the ground this week so that I don't fall too far behind last year's pace.

Hope all you moms out there had a great Mother's Day!

The Not-so-grand Canyons

Last Friday, Mother Nature sent us some rain. Okay, a LOT of rain! Maybe the hardest rain I've ever seen. It was a real gully-washing, frog-strangling kind of rain. We didn't float away, but it did manage to carve some really interesting and complex canyons into our gravel driveway, some of them more than a foot deep.

The force of the water was so great that it washed the gravel all the way to the bottom of our hill, about 50 yards or so. I wanted to fill enough of the gouges so that we at least had a car's width to drive on, so I had to bring the gravel up from the bottom of the hill. To my great amusement, the ground was too wet for me to get any traction with my garden tractor and dump cart, so I got out the wheelbarrow. I don't know if I'd describe the repair work as fun, but it certainly did help me to pass the time, and bashing my shin into the undercarriage of the wheelbarrow, when it's forward progress was suddenly halted by an unseen rock, allowed me to expand my vocabulary of synonyms for those of illegitimate birth. We have an excavation contractor coming in later this week to refill the rest of the driveway and grade it smooth.

I still have nothing in the garden, it's been too wet and too cold, but I did get some tomato seeds from my friend Mark in Pittsburgh. They are from a pair of varieties grown by members of his family for decades, you have to love a tomato named 'Luigi'! I hope they grow well here, I started the seeds indoors as soon as they arrived. Just give me a few days of warm, dry weather and I am ready to spring onto action!

Falling behind the pace...

I am well behind last year's schedule for planting, but there has not been much to do about it. I have not been able to get in and attack the garden too much because it has been too wet, and I made the mistake last year of rototilling wet clay soil. I have managed to get all the debris and detritus of last year's garden cleared away, and I just may be able to do some tilling this afternoon, we will see how wet the dirt is.

Jung Seeds has already mailed me my potatoes and onions for the year, I think they sent them too early. They are currently taking up valuable space in the bottom of our refrigerator, waiting for me to get the dirt ready. Every morning I say to them "Soon! Soon you will be secure in the earth!" Hopefully they don't get too depressed.

Nikki and I are observing "Turn Off Your TV Week" this week, so please do not tell us what happens on LOST, we'll have to wait for a rerun, I guess. I am staying busy by taking down 3 or 4 trees that are either dead or annoying, and I have 3 yards of "traffic bond" in a pile at the end of the driveway for repairing all of the scrapes, gouges, and potholes I plowed into the driveway over the winter. Not to mention that I still have school 3 nights/week. Only 4 weeks left to go, though.

Thanks for staying tuned in to the blog, now go turn off your TV!

Everything is muddy and wet, so it must be spring.

Last weekend I ordered the seeds I need for this year, my potatoes, and my onion plants. I did remember to look at my advice to myself from last year and ordered more potatoes.

I decided not to grow white onions this year because they just don't keep, so it will be yellow and red onions only. I don't think there is all that much difference in flavor between yellow and white onions anyway. I just pulled the last red onion from last year's garden out of the cellar last week, so I need to grow just a few more this year.

I have a little more than half of the garden beds planned out for this season, I'll probably finish doing that on Sunday. I'm not trying to jam plants into every square inch like I did last year, just trying to keep things close enough that weeding is reduced. 2007 was a very instructional year, though, because it showed me just how much food you can produce out of 1000 square feet. I'm sure that with practice you could even do a lot more.

Not much else is going on, things are very busy with work and school, but staying busy is good for me.

The 22lb Ham

Once again the farm was the scene of an Easter ham-apaloozza. We had our processor smoke an entire ham from Pepper the 280lb pig last fall, and we pulled it from the freezer last week. We beat last year's 19lb ham by a fair margin, this one was 22lbs. It took 7 hours in the oven, but it was worth the wait. We got lots of compliments on the ham, and we had a great variety of delicious side dishes brought by our guests. It was a fun afternoon.

Getting ready to start putting some seeds into the mini greenhouse this week, and I'll be making my spring seed order soon as well. I have a few new weird vegetables I want to try this year, I'll post a description of them soon.

Winter is still throwing it's last gasps at us, it's been a crazy one. The nearest city to us, West Bend, has now certified this winter as having the most snowfall since they began keeping weather records. I'm glad we spent the money for a new transmission for the plow truck last summer.

Keep checking back,I promise I'll be posting more often again now. Think Spring!

It's March already?

I guess we are starting to see some signs of spring. We've had two days in a row now of temperatures above freezing, so that is a start. We have received over 8 feet of snow on the farm this winter, so spring is being eagerly anticipated.

Pretty soon it will be time to start some seeds inside, I wil have to look back in the archives and check out my garden planner to see exactly when I have started in the past.

Here's to an early spring!

Winter update

Just to add a bit of information to the previous post, we just had one of the more dramatic weather swings that I can remember. We had a nice little break from the weather and it warmed up into the 40s on Monday, continuing into yesterday. Yesterday evening that all changed...

It was 46° at 3pm yesterday, this morning at 7am it was -12°, and the windchill was between -30° and -35°.

The wind was blowing so hard last night that it was just a constant roaring hummm. Luckily for us, the pioneers that built our house put it in a good spot, sheltered from the prevailing winter winds by the hill. Somewhere along the way another owner planted a small windbreak of pine trees, which also helps a lot. I think I'd like to extend that windbreak a bit this summer by planting some more pines. I may not be around to enjoy the benefits of it, but someday a future owner might thank me.

A REAL winter

We are having a real Wisconsin-style winter this year, just like the ones I used to know ( to coin a phrase). The temperature has been pretty consistently below zero every day this week, and on Monday we received a little over 14" of snow in about 10 hours. Other than an early January thaw, we have had cold and snow since right around Thanksgiving.

I think we are going to get out and enjoy some of this snow tomorrow and go skiing at Sunburst, which is a ski hill right down the road from us. It's isn't exactly Summit County Colorado, but it's close and it's better than nothing.

Absolutely nothing is happenning in farm news, other than I might try to get some cleaning and organizing done out in the barn this weekend. My tools seem to be spreading themselves out and I spend more time looking for tools and hardware than I do actually fixing anything. If I get that done, I'll try to get out on Lake Twelve for some "hard-water" fishing on Sunday.

Happy New Year

I realize I have all but abandoned the blog since the last frost, sorry about that!

We are now in the planning stages for next year and there are going to be some dramatic changes in our approach.

Perhaps the most noticeable change will be the lack of livestock. We won't be raising any animals in 2008. As much as we enjoy our farm-raised meat and eggs, we need to take a summer off and take care of some much needed maintenance. It will also be nice to be able to leave the farm for a weekend if we desire and not have to worry about the critters! I wil definitely miss our pasture-raised pork, hopefully we can find a local farmer to buy some from. Grocery store pork just doesn't taste right anymore.

There will also probably be some big changes in the garden. Right now I am thinking about dedicating 6 of the 10 garden beds for Nikki and I, and then growing just 3 varieties of vegetable in the remaining 4. As much as we enjoyed doing the GardenShare program this year, it was occasionally nerve-wracking. I would like to concentrate on just a few vegetables grown for sale to local restaurants and co-ops, much like we did with our grapes back in '05.

Other plans for 2008 include having a couple big parties out at the farm. We hope to have at least 2 shindigs this summer, or perhaps even a hootenanny! We'll keep you informed, so make sure your tent is ready to go!