Winter Rut

From the country...

I am guessing this winter rut has frozen us all to the point of submission. Cold, Cold, nights and stir crazy days. On top of all that WAITING and WAITING (for this darn baby to finish cooking and get the heck outta dodge (dodge meaning my womb).

I clean. Rest. Clean. Plan for next season in terms of farm budget,research etc. Clean. Sneer at the boys for making more mess. Clean up after them. Get crampy and hope it is labour. Go to bed toss and turn all night. Wake up cranky as hell. Start all over.

My hips ache, my boulder belly is gigantic, my face is in a permanent scowl (I have tried smiling it just doesn't happen), I waddle, and urinate every 4 minutes. Such a beautiful time. Stop complaining right?

We are headed for the home birth train though (for the first time in my 3 pregnancies). We blew up the birthing pool yesterday and I have all the supplies. The midwives come this week for the home visit and all is set to go. It won't be long now, I hope....


I guess I will go eat something...

Waiting on Spring...

From the country...

...with the few more precious minutes of light we have been having lately, the tom turkeys have taking it upon themselves to start off the official War of the Toms. As a result, lots of scrapping has ensued, waterers overturned, snood pinching, carnucle chewing, and necks in twined in fits of dominance. I guess it is time to separate them into pens, give them a bunch of ladies and hope for the best. Maybe they will turn their aggression into passion and just get it on. Maybe I should play them some Marvin Gaye.....

Cold Weather Chickens and Turkeys....

From the country...

The chickens in the barn seem to be fairing this cold snap pretty well. Our barn is unheated so it is up to the critters to generate their own heat along with some extra bedding. I do feel bad though when the temps dip into those frigid temps like last night (a whopping -25!). The hens seem to bear the cold better then the roosters and some breeds of roosters do better than others in terms of their combs getting frostbitten. A neat tidbit of information I have recently learned is that birds puff their feathers out in the cold which traps in warm air around their bodies, which in tern keeps them from freezing. The comb and waddle is another issue, the bigger they are the harder they get hit with frost bite. The best thing to do when sourcing your breeds is to find a more hardy breed of chicken with smaller combs and waddles.

The odd ball in this photo is a turkey that I saved from the turkey pen in the fall. For some reason the other male turkeys didn't like the look of him. They beat him up so badly, I thought he was a goner but he rose from the grave (I babied him along for a while...) and now he has his home, lodging with the chickens where he seems to be enjoying himself. Lets not get ahead of ourselves here, this gobbler is not a pet but an Easter treat. I kept him because he was too badly beaten to sell and wanted to plump him up for the spring.... a nice Easter turkey for the table. My breeding stock of turkeys (all 17 of them) are in another part of the barn and seem to be overwintering even better then the chickens. They are such hardy birds, conserving all their energy for the spring and hopefully getting ready for some spring hanky panky.

Right now we are feeding the chickens and turkeys a mixture of their daily grain blend with non GMO whole grain corn. The corn helps them to generate more heat and add some fat to their bones. We also found a score from a local brewery who is setting us up with free fermented brewery grains from the beer making process. This is a great relationship where we get some free fodder for the livestock and the brewery doesn't have to pay to take it to the landfill. It gives the poultry something to play with and a nice supplement to our daily feeding regime that hopefully cuts down on our feed costs. On top of all that, the poultry enjoys our table compost scraps.

The winter is a trying time for all outdoor animals, they just set thier dials to survival mode and wait for warmer days...

New Dinner Bell!

From the country...

I guess it is called a triangle. Regardless it is our new and definitely improved musical instrument that will call the crew in for some chow! No more hollering or sending the kids out to find us. Thanks to Amy and Simon for this Christmas score!

Thrifty Living

From the City...

So this week we hit a little patch of bad luck. Ruby, our beloved, got into something she shouldn't have and ended up in the emergency dog hospital for two nights. There was vomiting and diarrhea, IV's and pills and one of the saddest longest dog faces we've ever seen. Needless to say, we told the vet to do what needed to be done and we dipped our ladle deep, and I mean deep, into our savings account.

For the record, this dog is so worth it. She is the sweetest, most loving little being I've ever met. Of course I'm biased but even the vet didn't want to see her leave yesterday. She really is a little gem.

So anywho, we were able to bring her home yesterday and she has been chipper and happy ever since. She's taking more pills than an 85 year old but I definitely think we're on the road to recovery.

So long story short, because of our little financial hitch two days ago, we are on the budget of the century. This really is a great time and an easy time to budget though. You don't really want to go out cause it's so bloody cold and it gives you an excuse to go through your freezer and pantry and start cooking.

Yesterday I made creamy polenta with spinach and bacon. The bacon was a christmas pressie from Mark and Laura and was so good in the polenta, it was downright ridiculous.

Polenta is literally poor man's food. It can cost you next to nothing to prepare. All you really need is cornmeal and water, everything else is just gravy.

Here's the recipe:

Bacon (I used about 4 slices)
2 onions
2 cloves garlic
half of a bunch of spinach, washed and roughly chopped
1 cup cornmeal
4 cups water
1 cup cheddar cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Cook bacon in a large pot. When crisp take out and set aside , leaving grease to bubble (oh ya, you gotta keep that good bacon grease, don't judge, I'm pregnant, I'm eating for two).

Toss in onions and garlic and saute until onions appear translucent and soft. Don't burn your garlic!!! Nothing is worse than burnt garlic.

Add water and spinach and bring pot to a boil. Slowly add cornmeal, stirring the ENTIRE time! If you don't you will get gross clumps that are impossible to get rid of.

Now add your cheese and bacon. Mix well until cheese is melted. Serve hot.

If you are making this for later, pour the mixture into a dish and allow to set in the fridge. When ready to eat, flip dish over and the polenta should come out like a molded pie. Slice into sections and bake on a greased baking sheet for 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees, flipping once at the half way point. Cooking this way will give you a nice crunchy edge.

Muffins and Meetings

From the country....



This is the time of year when folks alike gather round the table and talk farming. We chat about new ideas for the upcoming year or what worked well for farmers last year that they would like to pursue this upcoming year. We also snort about what crop was a bust (damn Thai eggplants...), converse about who is growing what this year and plan seed ordering. This is useful when you are part of a co op of farms so that not everyone is growing the same thing.

You have to keep ahead of the curve and be ever evolving when you are a small scale farmer (I am not an expert on this.. but am constantly learning). I flounder all. the. time. I want to be more with it though, so I guess this is my new years resolution, to be more of a business women when it comes to making a profit on the farm. That means budgeting, researching and not spreading myself to thin. With two children and one fast approaching, I have to be more organized! I have to be MORE ORGANIZED! (enter mantra here).

So if you are attending any potlucks or meetings and need something tasty, and simple to prepare here is my fool proof muffin recipe that I took from the cork board of a restaurant I used to work for. It makes a nice moist, cakey muffin and the fruit variations are endless. Here I added elderberries, blueberries and sour cherries from the freezer. I was a pack rat with the fruit this last season, so I consider us quite fruit rich at the moment. Hey, you gotta be rich with something right? Might as well be fruit.

12 muffins

1 cup sugar (I often use less)
3/4 cup oil (I often use unsalted melted butter or half and half)

- whisk for 1 minute

Add
2 eggs
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda

Add
2 cups flour (I mix all purpose with whole wheat, red fife etc)
3/4 cups milk

Mix until it just comes together. Then add your fruit (about 2 cups or so). A trick is to add a bit of flour to the fruit before adding it to the batter so that it doesn't sink to the bottom of the muffin when baking. I also add pure vanilla extract (1 tsp) or almond extract when I am feeling particularly frisky. Remember to butter and flour the muffin tin because those suckers ain't coming out without it. Enjoy!

A Recap of Seven Months plus a Recipe...

From the City,

Shesh, it's been a busy seven months! Thanks to my sister for picking up the slack while I've been absent. It really is good to be back though. The last seven months have been spent growing a baby, getting married, working, moving and being showered (see previous post).

I've started my version of nesting here in Toronto by stocking my freezer for when the baby decides to come along (early march). Today I made a spinach cannelloni, one for dinner and one for the freezer. Hopefully I can keep this up for the next 7 Sunday's so that our freezer feeds us well when our life of being first time parents sets in.

Here's the goods:

Spinach
Ricotta Cheese
Garlic
Diced tomatoes
Fresh pasta sheets
Mozzarella Cheese
2 onions

I first processed garlic, spinach and ricotta cheese. I'm sure this is far from what you're supposed to do with traditional cannelloni but this is just how I like to make it. I then did the same with tomato, spinach and onions.


So then to assemble the cannelloni, I take a piece of pasta and put a scoop of ricotta cheese inside, roll it up and place it in the bottom of a dish that has a scoop of tomato sauce in the bottom. Continue this until you've lined the bottom, top with sauce and a good sprinkling of mozzarella cheese.







Bake for 40 min @ 350 degrees.

Looking forward to being back!

A showering of babies!

Two harvest kitchen sisters and a Mom in the middle

Amazing decorations....

tasty treats....

Photo credit: Megan Ward

From the country..

Last Sunday we celebrated Amelia's baby shower with a whack of great ladies and a few men. We ate till our sides burst, laugh, chatted, played some games and admired Amelia's beautiful baby bump. The food was amazing, and the theme was bright white and gender neutral. All that is left to do next is wait for the little one.

Oh my goodness I am to be an Aunt!

Countdown to baby...

From the country....

So Christmas was a bit of a bust this year. Mark and I came down with the flu to end all flu's on Christmas eve and were dead to the world until after boxing day. The beautiful turkey, fresh out of the brine was eaten on boxing day(my goodness was it tasty!), the fresh seafood was frozen for another day (when we could stomach it), and X mas was pretty much cancelled.

Shortly after X mas we celebrated Nate's birthday with kids, cake, music and games. We had 9 boys here in attendance and one girl. She sat on the couch while the boys wrestled on the floor. It was a fine day. My oldest gaffer is 6 years old and boy does he make a Momma proud. His ability to love everyone in the room makes my eyes water.

So now we are in baby countdown. I have been pretty hush hush on the arrival of our 3rd farm hand but now I feel the whole nesting urge bearing down. I am folding gently used baby clothes and gingerly putting them in clean drawers, buying last minute supplies, spending time sourcing a used car seat, baby swing, and other baby amenities. I am in my 35 week of pregnancy and had both boys at 37 weeks. It won't be too long now before another beautiful being will grace us with it's presence.

Now I have a minute to really focus my thoughts on having a newborn in the house again. I started having cramping and have been told to take it easy so that I don't go into preterm labour. I haven't even been to the barn in what feels like weeks. Mark has been doing the chores while I leaf through seed catalogues, tea in hand and start planning the next years harvest. He also has started me on doing a proper budget for all my farm plans (which could quite possibly be the most frustrating thing about farming- but a proper budget is a must!)

I have begun to wrap my head around going through labour for the 3rd time and hope that this birth happens in the comfort of my living room here on the farm.