Wishing you and yours a very wonderful holiday season!

My little sister came for a visit over Thanksgiving, and after we had all finished our meal, we cleared off the dining room table and started sewing.  I cut out squares from the brown fabrics and then started ripping strips from the other fabrics to go around them in a wonky-log cabin style.  My mom pressed the seams and even Miss C got in on the action.  The only fabrics that were used in the quilt that I didn’t get from the studio sale were from two old work shirts belonging to Mike.  They both had stains and since he no longer wore them, into the quilt they went!  I know it is kind of a formality, but I try to incorporate a small piece of clothing into most of the quilts I make.  It doesn’t always work, but when it does, I think it adds an extra bit of “home” to the piece.

We continued working the next morning, you can see my sister sewing strips around the squares while my boys made ornaments for our Christmas tree, lego candy-canes!

By the end of the morning, we had completed nine squares with two rounds each.  This is a picture we took trying to work out the layout.  And yes, that is Baby M’s little booty sitting right on one of the squares (it was clean, I promise!).  Because this is how things get done in our house.  Just out of frame is Miss M, I think the two of them were playing with wooden blocks and gingerbread men while we worked.  And yes, my dining room table is a sheet of finished plywood on top of four legs from Ikea.  We also use it as our craft table.  Once a table cloth is thrown on top, you would never know it is covered in paint, glue, and glitter!

I had a bit of a dilemma when trying to figure out how big to make my squares.  I knew I wanted to FMQ this piece, and I couldn’t make it too big because I use my little Brother sewing machine.  So, I decided to add a thin strip of cream fabric around each block and then add in this nice tan fabric for some negative space.  I think ideally, I would have added one more wide row of fabric around each square, just like in the DS version, but it just would have made the quilt too big.  I am very pleased with how it came out.  I used a blocky stippling pattern (I am sure this has a name, but instead of making smooth curves, I used straight lines so it looked like one gigantic maze).  I only did this in the tan fabric, and then I had quilted the inside of each square.  I really like the way the quilting turned out.

For the backing, I used a woven fabric that I got at the sample sale.  It was the fabulous orange, brown, and red plaid.  It is really soft.  And I swear my brother has slippers that look exactly like this fabric, so I thought it would be perfect.  You can see the contrast in the quilting here, as well as two puckers right in the middle.  I am trying to remind my myself that the quilt will be just as warm, but you know how it is, I HATE getting puckers, even relatively small ones.  The binding was a nice brick-red fabric and I think it gives the quilt a little bit of pop.

When I was thinking about this quilt, I knew I wanted to use colors that would represent our farm.  I wanted them to be warm colors that would be soothing.  I wanted this to be a quilt all for my brother.  I think I nailed it.  Here is a picture of me holding the quilt in our pasture, you can see our barn in the distance and the pond on the right, complete with geese and ducks.

I really like the way the quilt looked after it was washed, and I am definitely going to use the style of quilting again.  It made the quilt super soft and nubbly.

The sheep just couldn’t keep away from the photos!  Here is our ewe Clementine right in the shot.  She is a sweet girl and produces amazing lambs, so all is certainly forgiven

I love that this quilt was made using fabrics from the studio of the amazingly creative Denyse Schmidt and the closet of my incredibly talented and hard working husband.  I love that this was a collaborative effort between my mother, sister, and myself.  I love having made something very far outside of my personal aesthetic color-wise.  I really think my brother will love this and I can’t wait to see him this week and give it to him!

We planted three types of berries during our first growing season in 2009.  That year, the cows broke into the garden and ate most of the plants.  Last year, our baby was born in late April, and the berry patch was completely neglected, mostly because we didn’t think anything would grow back.  To our surprise, we did get some berries; enough to snack on whenever we wanted, but not enough to preserve.

This year has been a good year, although I do think there are more things we could do to our patch to make it more productive, like weeding and mulching  I am a LAZY gardener, I tend to over plant and hope that whatever makes it to harvest time will be enough for out family, and it usually it.

So far, we have harvested over 30lbs of berries.  We have made several shortcakes, pies, and 15 pints of jam (FYI, our own taste test showed the jam we made with Pomonas Universal Pectin was superior to Sure Jell).  I have several quarts in the freezer, have given as much away to friends, and we have eaten fresh berries every day.  I hate to be greedy, but I would have loved to have a bit more, but overall I am so pleased with what we did get.  I will probably be harvesting for another week or so, but I think we have passed the peak.

Tomorrow I will be making crepes for Mike for Father’s Day.  We will start with some savory ones with ham and cheese, and for “desert” will have crepes with strawberries and cream.  For dinner desert, a strawberry-rhubarb cobbler.  Just love this time of year!!!

If they are still in season, try to get your hands on some freshly picked berries, they will be well worth it!!

We had a great response to our little studio sale.  We still have a few odds and ends bumping around if anyone is interested, but overall, we had a very successful sale and were able to move almost all of last year’s inventory out.  I promised to post some instructions and links on what to do with your lovely goodies.  Here you go:

Soap

If you got both bars of soap and wool, you can make these.  Felted wool soap, it is like soap and a wash cloth in one!  Also, because the wool is naturally anti-microbial, you don’t have to worry about germs!

If you got chips , here is how to re-make them into soap bars:

Re-Batching Soap

This soap is easy and fun to make!  It is made from soap bars that have already saponified (the chemical process between the lye and the oils that makes soap) so there are no harsh chemicals and you can make this with your children using standard kitchen equipment.

Supplies

Soap shavings(8 oz or 16 oz bag)

6 oz ( for 8 oz soap) or 12 oz (for 16 oz soap) warm (about 100F) distilled or spring water

Molds (plastic, glass, stainless steel), sprayed with cooking spray (get creative, you can use anything you want)

Extras (3-6 drops of essential oil,  fragrance, or coloring, and/or 1/4 cup of add-ins (flower petals, herbs, plastic toys), etc)

Instructions

Place soap and (4 oz or 8 oz) of water in a double boiler on medium heat and stir until soap is wet through.

Add the rest of the water and stir again.

Cover the pot with a lid or foil and leave to simmer on medium heat until the soap is smooth and there are no lumps.  This can take up to an hour, with occasional stirring.

Once it is completely smooth, remove from heat and add extras if desired.

Pour into desired molds, if it is too thick, add water, a little bit at a time.

Allow to set for 24 hours until solid, then remove, and if needed, cut into bars.

You can also use the soap shavings to make these two products.  Some of you received these as well in your bundle.  It was the first time making either for me and I am really happy with the results.  This year I will be making a bar of soap specifically to use for laundry and household cleaning.

Wool Wash

• 2 cups grated castile (or homemade) soap
• 6 cups boiling water
• 1 teaspoon white cedar oil (or you could use lavender or eucalyptus)
• 1 teaspoon lanolin

Put grated soap into a wide mouth 1/2 gallon jug (glass or heavy plastic). Add the boiling water and let the mixture sit for half an hour, then stir in other ingredients. Store in a capped jar.

Use approximately 1/4 cup per sink load of woolens or 1 cup per automatic load.

Laundry Soap

• 1 Cup Grated Soap
• 1/2 Cup Washing Soda
• 1/2 Cup Borax
• 2 Tablespoons Glycerin (or KY Jelly)
• 2 Gallons Water

Mix soap in a saucepan with 3 pints of water, and heat on low until dissolved. Stir in Washing Soda and Borax. Stir until thickened, and remove from heat. Add 1 Quart Hot Water to 2 Gallon Bucket. Add soap mixture and glycerin, and mix well. Fill bucket with hot water, and mix well. Set aside for 24 hours, or until mixture thickens. Use 1/2 cup of mixture per load. Best when used with cold or warm water.

Fur

The pelts are great on nature tables.  The fur scraps can be used to make doll clothes or blankets.  They could also be used to sew up little cat toys.

Feathers

The turkey wing feathers can be used to make quills.  Here is a great website with thorough instructions that we have used when making quills ourselves.

You can use feathers in numerous craft projects.  They can be used to make wreaths, in hats, as general decoration, in costumes and jewelry.  I always find doing a search on Etsy to be quite inspirational.

Fiber

If you got yarn, you can obviously knit or crochet with it.  If you got roving, or even just locks, you can pick and card it and then use the fiber for felting (either needle, or wet felting).  You could also spin it, either with a spinning wheel, or a drop spindle.  Here is one of my favorite websites and a great tutorial or “sushi mat” felting that is great and easy to do with children.  Also, if you don’t have proper wool hand carders, just use a cat brush to tease open the wool.  The dyed locks can also be used as hair or beards on homemade dolls or gnomes or fairies.

I hope this gives you some good ideas of what to do with your items, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact us!

Our Thanksgiving meal was lovely, very quiet and relaxing with just my parents and us.  Here is what we ate:

• Roast Turkey and Gravy*
• Mashed Potatoes*
• Braised Carrots*
• Stuffing
• Baked Butternut Squash
• Green Bean Casserole
• Roasted Garlic Soup
• Brioche
• Veggies and dip
• Cheese and crackers
• Deviled Eggs*
• Pumpkin Pie

All of the food with stars were grown on the farm.  Many of the other foods were bought locally.  I have to say the turkey was the best I have ever had.  Due to its large size, we cooked it overnight.  We started it at 500F for 15 minutes and then let it cook at 225F until an internal temp of 165F.  It took over seven hours.  We let it rest for a while and when we cut into it, the juices just poured out.  I have never had a moister bird.  Everything we ate we so great, but the surprise hit to me was the Roasted Garlic soup.  I used a combo of a few recipes, and it was heavenly and sweet.  The only disappointment (and just barely) was the pumpkin pie.  We roasted pumpkins from a local farm but used a (gasp!) store bought roll out crust.  The pie part was perfect, but the crust not so much.  It is worth the time to do it right and I have a few simple pie crust recipes that I will always use in the future.

For the leftovers, we make our traditional “snacker bowl”.  I think this started with Mike and my brother, as a play on the KFC snacker bowl.  You take a little of all the leftovers and layer them in a bowl.  You cover it with gravy and cheese and microwave it until hot.  It is really yummy and very filling. With the bulk of the turkey leftovers I made more stock and four turkey pot pies with my favorite recipe from the Joy of Cooking.  Once you have eaten homemade pot pie, you can never eat any other pot pie ever again.  It will be so nice to go to the freezer and pull one out over the next few months.  When you put so much time, effort, and money into raising your own food, not only do you want to make sure you utilize every bit of it, you also want it to taste amazing.  It is not just food as fuel, but food as pleasure, culture, art.  The kids helped me here and there and it was really enjoyable, despite taking a long time.  Very worth it.  Plus, I know it is a meal that everyone in my family absolutely loves and will eat tons of.

Tomorrow we butcher ten chickens and two ducks.  I went out to the coop today and picked the ones that will go leaving about 30-35 chickens, 11 ducks, and 4 geese to over winter.  That should give us enough so that next year we can raise babies from all of them and only need to buy turkeys from the hatchery.  Next Sunday we will butcher the latest litter of rabbits who will be twelve weeks old.  We will then move our breeding trio to their new indoor hutch that Mike made in our chicken coop.  We think it will give them a little more protection from the elements, plus it will make giving them food and water a little easier for us.  The three hutch components will then be used as private nesting areas for our chickens and ducks come springtime when the rabbits will be moved back out.  That leaves us with only the black lamb to process and he will go to the butcher right after the new year.  Then I will begin my big push to transform all of the wonderful meats and vegetables we have in storage in the basement into ready to heat meals for when the new baby comes.  I find that quadrupling recipes works very well, it gives us a meal to eat right away, plus three for the freezer.  If I do this every week for a few months I will easily have a month or two worth of meals stored up for when we have more important things to do than cook.

Enjoy the season.

Over the last week week we have been very busy with lots of little tasks. Here is a rundown:

Turkeys:
Jackson and I finally moved our two mother turkeys to find that the ten eggs they were brooding a few weeks ago were down to only two; one that was clearly spoiled and one with a partially hatched chick. We don’t know what happened to the other eggs, our best guess is that maybe the baby pigs ate them during one of their breakouts or some sort of predator got to them. We cleaned up the turkeys nest and dismantled it and the tom got busy right away mating with the hens, so we will try again to raise turkey poults. This time we will probably take half the eggs and put them under one of our broody hens to hatch in the coop. The turkeys stay in the barn which is less of a controlled space.

On that note, I think we will feel like we have moved up a level as farmers once we have seen an animal through its entire process, from mating, through gestation, to birth, and then to either butchering or mating again. We have mated the rabbits again, so they might be our first fruitful attempt. It is hard enough keeping baby animals alive, but breeding them as well adds another layer of difficulty. I sometimes think about if we had to not only raise our own meat, but also were completely reliant on breeding and not able to go online an order whatever we want from the hatchery or get an animal from craigslist what we would do.

Meat chicks:

Speaking of difficult to raise baby animals, our meat chicks and turkeys are on a bit of a suicide run. We have moved all of the latest set of turkeys, chicks, ducks, and geese out to the coops. The ducks and geese are in our old chicken coop, and the meat birds and male RI Reds are in one half of the brooder while the pullets are in the other. The meat chicks have been piling up on each other, every few days I got out in the morning to find one dead on the bottom of the pile. I have checked their heat lamp, and it is warm enough, plus they always have access to food and water. They seem emotionally disturbed. The pullets (which are all heritage breeds, not the genetic cross breeds that the meat chicks are) all behave like nice normal baby chicks. One explanation could be in their odd breeding, our favorite author, High Fearnley-Whittingstall has a new book that we just got called The Meat Book, which is wonderful and talks a lot about meat production in the UK and US. Apparently, these suicide piles are fairly common with the commercial breeds of chicken as they are completely and utterly stupid. Needless to say, as nice as it is to get a 4-5lb chicken in just 6-8 weeks, we will not be getting this type of bird again, but will stick to the tried and true heritage breeds. What do we care if it takes 12-16 weeks to get the chicken to its proper weight?

We also butchered the last seven meat chicks from our previous set.  I boned them, froze the breasts, and made an Italian sausage with smoked paprika that was very tasty.  I promise to do a blog post on the cost of raising chickens very soon.

Cows:

Our two cows are still pregnant. Their sisters had their calves last week, so it really could be any day now. They are first-time mothers, so like with humans, it typically takes a little longer. Every morning I run out to the barn to see if we have any additions, but nothing yet. Dexters are the best birthing cows, sometimes having a human around actually makes things worse, so we are trying to just let the heiffers do their thing. If we don’t have calves in a week, we may call a vet around for an ultrasound.

Mother’s Day:

We had a lovely Mother’s day. The kids and Mike made me breakfast, and then we went and completely mucked out the cows stall. It was my present to them, if they do decide to birth in there, I want it to be completely clean and tidy. We also did some general organizing in the barn. Mike and Jackson helped me plant a nice big herb bed out front and we used some of our rocks to make a stone wall. We also went to Manchester and had pizza dinner with my parents at our favorite pizza place.

Plants and Garden:

The garden is really coming along. The kids and I planted 50 ft rows of greens (lettuce, chard, spinach, etc), root crops (carrots, beets, turnips, etc), peas, onions and shallots, and an additional three 50 ft rows of potatoes. The strawberries and asparagus we planted last month are all doing well and getting big. We also have been fertilizing and mulching all of our fruit trees and berry bushes, we are almost done with that task. They all look good, only a handful of things aren’t leafing out or blooming and considering we have well on one hundred plants that we put in, I think that is pretty good. We expect some losses, but right now it doesn’t look like we have many.

One funny story is about the garlic we planted lat fall. I had ordered garlic to put in, not knowing if we would be moving or not. We moved it with us from Manchester to here and it sat in the garage for a while. One day I finally decided to plant it and dug a bed out of the way of where we wanted to put other things. This was last November, a little late to be putting in garlic. The ground was IMPOSSIBLE to dig, like digging through gravel. I know we had rocky soil, but this was crazy. I planted the garlic and then covered it with a wheel barrel full of rabbit manure and hay. Well, this spring, amazingly, everything sprouted. I was telling my neighbor about it, and she said that I had planted my garlic bed square in the middle of the old farm cart path!!! I really was digging through gravel. The rest of our soil is rocky, but more like great big granite boulders than little pea gravel. The garlic looks great, so hopefully we will get a good crop. We have about 100 plants, so it should be plenty for us to eat and save some for next year.

We have had a massive failure in our attempt to grow seedlings this year.  We had put our newly spouted seeds out on the porch for some good sun and they got blown over by the wind.  I think the universe is trying to send me a sign.  We will hopefully be putting up our grow tunnel in the next few weeks, I plan to start some herb seeds and maybe get in a fall crop of veggies.  I went to a few local nurseries to buy tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, etc to plant.  I am happy to support these small family owned ventures and also, the plants looked great.  Hopefully by this weekend they will all be in the ground.

Cooking:

We have been eating more wild food, this week it was nettles.  We made nettle soup and then creamed settles that we turned into a cheesy nettle dip.  We have tons of nettles growing along the edge of our barn, they will sting pretty badly, but if you wear gloves when you cut them you are fine.  Then, wash them well and boil them and the sting goes away.  You can treat them just like you would spinach in a recipe and they are very good for you and very delicious.  We also got asparagus from this local grower, it will be a few years before we can harvest the asparagus we planted as it needs to establish itself first.  I will be making roasted asparagus and and asparagus frittata.

Upcoming:

This weekend we will be getting two packages of bees for our two hives (delayed from last week due to the slow hatching of the bees).  We will also take our two pigs to the butcher and bring home to angora goats, Flora and her neutered brother Clem.  Hopefully they will make short work of all of the prickers in the fields and around the edges of the property.  Plus, we will get two lovely fleeces from each goat/year.  We will be watching our seedlings emerge and starting to check out some of the local farmers markets which will be starting up in the next few weeks.  We got another set of chicks as well, our last set of chicks for this year.  I am getting some Dark Cornish that I plan to cross with our other breeds for meat as well as some Leghorns for the superior egg production and Blue Cochins for their wonderful mothering instincts.

Yesterday when I went down to check on all of the chicks, I noticed the ducks and geese were filthy.  They are “fowl” after all, but they were really gross.  We took them all upstairs for a spa treatment, we washed them off and the Jackson and I used the hair dryer to dry them before bringing them back down.  Mike made a rally nice wire mesh floor so that they are not sitting in their bedding which they instantly soak the second it is put down.  They are much nicer once they are out on the grass and pond, we may do one last set of ducks and geese so I can get a few more breeds but then hopefully they will raise their own young and our basement will be a peep and quack free zone.

I also butchered six chickens today.  Last night Jackson and I weighted a few to see how they were doing, and man oh man are they big.  They are ready to butcher as “fryers” when they reach 4 pounds, ours were already 6!  We have 7 left (after selling some to a friends) and we will do those next week.  Tomorrow I will piece them out, not sure what I want to do with them, I really hate plucking, so these will definitely be skinless, but I may grind them up to make chicken sausage and chicken patties using some of the pork fat from the freezer for added moisture. 

Tomorrow will be a catch up day and then we hope to till and do some planting over the weekend.  Our fruit trees and bushes are looking good and our new grass seed has sprouted.  Things are starting to get very green around here which is good.

Enjoy!

Izzy enjoys her pancake breakfast, note the tail wagging with typical greyhound exuberance.

The next morning she followed us downstairs and wolfed down not only her breakfast but Zsaka’s as well.  I made her pancakes with bacon and sausage and an egg and she had a lovely time eating all of those special treats, wagging her tail the whole time.  It was so hard to imagine the devastation going on in her body, to see her acting like her normal self was such a contradiction, but that is greyhounds in a nutshell.  After breakfast, she curled up in her favorite spot on the couch and we all hung out together.  Her breathing was becoming increasingly labored and you could see the redness spreading from her leg up through her body.  The vet called to say he was on his way and we felt overwhelming sadness and relief.

I went outside with the kids and Mike got Izzy to lay down in our front room.  The picture of her and Zsaka was taken a few minutes before the vet came.  She was resting peacefully.  At the end, we put Zsaka outside and Jackson sat in Mike’s lap while Charlotte sat in mine.  We all sat around Izzy and said goodbye to her.  Her passing was so fast and so gentle.  She simply closed her eyes and layed down as though asleep.  The vet was so gentle and respectful, he is new to us, but we think we will stay with him for our other animals.  We took a few minutes to be with Izzy then he took her away to be cremated.  We plan to spread her ashes throughout the farm in all of her favorite places.

The last week has been so surreal.  We are having such a hard time with the speed of things and also dealing with not only our grief, but that of Jackson.  Talking to a five year old about the death of a beloved pet is not easy, but he is so thoughtful and curious.  It is simultaneously touching and heart breaking.

Izzy had a wonderful four years with us.  We rescued her when a local greyhound track closed down and around 1000 dogs needed homes.  She immediately fit in to our lives and was the perfect dog.  We are so sad to be without her but we know that her life, and especially the last few months were so full and wonderful.  She left us with grace and dignity and we are happy that she will never again feel pain.  We know that right now she is at the Rainbow Bridge, running in the field and meadows and then sleeping peacefully in the sunshine.

But, what we are really and truly beyond upset about is our greyhound, Izzy.  We adopted her four years ago when a track in the town we now live next to closed.  She has been the best dog, so sweet, so loving.  On Saturday, I noticed she was favoring her back right paw.  She tends to do this each spring, gets a little stiff from winter and then seems sore for a while.  I assumed that was the problem, but this time, there was also a little redness around her hock.  On Sunday, she looked a little better and was eating and drinking fine, just staying off that leg.  We tried to keep her inside and resting, just like in the past when this has happened.  Izzy is eight years old, for a greyhound that is considered old age.  Monday morning, I woke up early and went to feed and water the livestock.  I came back in and noticed she was still upstairs.  I went to see her and was shocked to see her leg had swollen about three times the size it normally was.  I called the closest vet and took her right there.  They ran blood tests and everything came back normal.  They kept her to do some x-rays and additional tests.  That afternoon they called to say they thought it might be an unusual greyhound-specific disorder and recommended us to a specialist vet hospital in Rhode Island.  I took her there last night and they put her on IV fluids, pain meds, and ran more tests.  After talking to the vet this evening, they are pretty sure she has angiosarcoma, an aggressive form of cancer.  They will be running more tests tomorrow and then it will be decision time.  This is so hard, Jackson keeps asking me about her, and I have told him that she is very sick and the doctors might not be able to fix her.  Our other dog Zsaka seems lost without her.  She was the boss and he has been exceptionally clingy and anxious all day.  Izzy has had a fabulous life and has been a wonderful part of our family for four years.  We hope there is an easy, straightforward treatment for her ailments, but in all honesty, that is probably not the case.  If we are able to, we will bring Izzy home and make sure she is as comfortable and happy as possible before we send her over the Rainbow Bridge.  We have no intention or having her undergo numerous invasive procedures that may or may not improve her health.  Please send us your thoughts and well wishes, our hearts are very heavy tonight.