Britesea - Living the good life in rural Oregon

[Britesea]

My egg sales are picking up. I just sold 2 dozen, and 3 dozen more are ordered for Monday. And I got an email from a friend of mine that she has a friend interested in duck eggs too! If all these people become regulars, I've pretty well got my extras taken care of. I had been debating on increasing the flock, but I think I'm going to do it. I don't mind using an incubator, but the only place I have for the babies is in my utility room, and they stink too much for me to put up with that for long. I have a line on some Muscovies later this summer, and they would be able to hatch out eggs and mother them for me, plus I'd love to have them for the meat as well; but if they don't happen, perhaps I can get the DH to build me a duck nursery outside.

My garden is not making very great strides forward this spring. DH's wrist is still not fully healed from the motorcycle accident, but he can't do light duty anymore so he's trying to work through the pain. By the time the weekend rolls around there is no way he can do much of anything with that hand. DS would help, but he is suddenly getting odd jobs in yard work and clean up that he can be paid for, so I am left trying to do the garden on my own. I'm old and fat and out of shape; by the time I've finished doing my every day chores, I don't have much energy left to work out there. This weekend looks good though, sunny and warmer, and DS has promised to help me.

Got Black Bean and Ham Soup in the Crockpot. Cornbread going into the oven soon, with homemade banana pudding for dessert

 

[frustratedearthmother]

I'm having trouble getting my garden going this year too. In years past I've had it in by Spring Break but it was just too wet, and we've got several days of rain in the forecast. UGH!

Congrats on the egg sales! My vote is to get the Muscovies!

 

[Britesea]

We still have time to get the garden in- officially the last frost isn't until May 1st. But I have some new projects I want to get done- Some of the raised beds are only 8" tall and I want to put a second rail up to make them 16"- it will be easier for me to weed and such, and the roots will have that much more good soil to work into. I figure if I staple a 4 inch strip of weed-block fabric along the seam, it will keep the soil from leaking out. I also need to get rid of the weeds in the raspberry border before I put in some bark-mulch. It's also not too early for the peas and fava beans to be planted, and I want to get some flowers in this year- sweet peas, poppies, and bee's friend.

 

[Britesea]

Been a canning and drying fool over the weekend and first part of the week. First I ground and canned 26 lbs of pork- mostly in quarts for the dog's food, but some in pints for us as a substitute for the more expensive ground beef. Then another 15 lbs of ground turkey in quarts for dog food, and finally 8 pints of trout that a friend gave us. We also smoked/dried 4 large trout (3-5 lbs each); it turned out delicious. I still have 10 pounds of oranges to deal with- orange marmalade for about half of them, then I will peel and juice the others, and dehydrate the peels for zest. I should be able to finish that tomorrow and then it's back to working on the garden. I also bought a 2 1/2 pound bag of spinach that I broke up into 2 cup portions and froze to make Green Smoothies. I need to buy or make some more Coconut Milk for that, and I'll probably need more frozen fruit as well; but I love having smoothies for breakfast a couple of times a week.

I pulled out some chicken livers from the freezer- gonna make Dirty Rice for dinner. I'm waffling between some cookies for dessert or pull out the container of Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey. Probably do the ice cream as we are short on freezer space with all that frozen spinach.

 

[Britesea]

Well, the Dirty Rice never happened. I fell asleep in my chair, lol-- I thought that was just my DH's trick! I only woke up when DH called me to say he was on his way home and did I need anything from the store. So the (now thawed) chicken livers went into the fridge for tonight, and I pulled down one of my trusty red lentil-and-rice mixtures; this one was Mexican flavored. They were cooked by the time DH got home. Then I got a sudden rush of brains, and cut up some veggies and shredded cheese and fried some corn tortillas and we made meatless tostadas- spread the lentil mixture on the tortilla, top with shredded cheese, lettuce, cucumber, green onion, and greek yogurt and salsa. They tasted amazingly good. I need to remember this for future hurry-up meals!

The teacher in my water aerobics class has stepped things up. New excercises and new tools. I bought some webbed gloves to increase drag and build up the muscles of my arms. I woke up this morning so sore! But my weight loss plateau has broken! Last week I finally lost 1 1/2 pounds!

Millie, the new pup, is 7 months old now, and I think she may be getting ready to go into heat. It seems like the hormones are starting to kick in, and she's been getting pushier about her place in the pack. She wants to be Alpha; a couple of days ago she tried to challenge me, which got her a rough rolling and lock up in the kennel for half an hour. She is way to big to allow her to think I am anything less than THE BOSS.

Weather here is beautiful, but it means I need to get a watering schedule started. The plum trees look like they weathered the cold snap- they still have flowers, and the bees have been visiting. The apple trees are just getting started blooming. I'm trying to keep an eye on the elders in the neighborhood as I want to gather the flowers and try some elderflower champagne. I also found a recipe for dandelion jelly that looks interesting if I can gather enough. I think the ducks like dandelion flowers- I'm not seeing very many in the yard.

 

[Britesea]

Finally made the Dirty Rice according to the recipe I had found, and it was nasty! There was way too much liver in it and the flavor overpowered everything else. We like liver, but this just wasn't a happy marriage of flavors; so I went online and found a Copy cat recipe for Zatarain's Dirty Rice (which we like), and found it didn't have any liver at all? I'm going to try it next time.

Busy weekend! Saturday, I got the kitchen all cleaned and did some laundry, then worked a bit on earthquake-proofing in the pantry. The tin cans are ok, but I've worried about all those dozens of glass jars. As I get the boxes, I am cutting strips of cardboard about 18-24" long from old boxes and sliding them between the rows of glass jars, then cutting small pieces to separate each jar from the next in the row. I had already cut some thin wood panels for the sides of the shelf units, but I need to cut the longer ones for the back (since there is a small gap between the wall and the unit where the cans could fall and crack) and a lower one for the front. We also need to finish bolting the shelf units to the walls and floor.

It looks like we are going to have a really bad fire season this year also, so I moved the sealed buckets into a mini-storage locker this weekend. I can't protect my entire food stash if a wild fire comes through, but by separating some of the food to another location, I may be able to save some of it.

Started work on the oranges yesterday. I first separated out what I will need for a batch of orange marmalade, then cut the others in half and juiced them. We had the juice for breakfast along with sourdough pancakes with homemade blueberry syrup and fried eggs
Then I started scraping the pulp and white pith out of the peels so they could be dehydrated. DH had made me a 'tool' by beveling the side of a spoon into a scraper; that made the job go faster, but it still took several hours (there were a lot of peels). I got them into the dehydrator and then it was time to work on dinner. I seasoned ground beef to make burgers for DH to grill outside, then made macaroni salad, with peanut butter cookies for dessert. Ended the day by checking my email, Facebook, and Self-Sufficient and went to bed early.

Today, my back, shoulders and wrists, and knees are all telling me they are not happy. I'm glad the VA finally approved my request for chiropractic- I have an appointment today.

 

[Britesea]

Got the marmalade done- it made 6 pints rather than the 9 pints the recipe said it would yield; I have no idea why. But it tasted good- I had a couple of tablespoons left over, just enough for a couple of PBJ's.
The tax refund came (that was really quick, too!) So today I spent some money on a couple of things I had been holding off on. Like a Spaetzle maker, and a rotary cheese grater, and bulk loads of both wide mouth and regular mouth canning lids, and a wind-up alarm clock (for backup if the electricity goes out). I got word that our new grain mill should arrive tomorrow also. Christmas in April!
Tomorrow I have a chiropractic appointment, and then it's home again to can some more ground pork. They had boneless pork butt for $1.39 a pound, which makes it a good buy for dog food.

 

[Britesea]

Wow, haven't posted in here for a while- just throwing my 2 cents at other threads, lol.
I signed up for the Master Food Preserver's class the extension office is offering. Other than the instructor and volunteers, I may have the most experience of everyone in the class; I'm still hoping to learn stuff- things I've learned that were wrong, that sort of thing. We had our orientation class yesterday afternoon. I brought home a 3" thick tome (no exaggeration) of information.
Millie, the LGD, is 89 1/2 lbs this week ( 8 months).
This weekend, three of us are going to can maraschino cherries (found a recipe!). I need to go into town and buy some brandy for that, as well as some bread because we didn't get around to baking this weekend. I'm also going to check out something I read about- every Friday afternoon, they give out bags of produce from the local growers. What's in the bag changes according to what is available (kind of like a CSA). I thought it was only for Food Stamp holders, but I found out it's open to everyone.

So, I need to get going on that...

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Cool on the Preserver class! And, sounds like Millie is growing like a weed!

 

[Britesea]

Whoo! Busy week!
I've been to two of the Master Food Preserver classes so far (another one tomorrow). They run all day, and then you have about 2 hours worth of homework to do as well. Then on alternate days, I'm still going in for Water Aerobics classes- they only last an hour, but I'm usually exhausted by the end of it. A few of us usually end up going to Wendy's for a bite to eat afterwards (talk about an exercise in futility!) and then I come home and scramble to do some dishes and laundry and the preserving class homework. Today I also had a dentist appointment (cleaning only, and everything looked good- Yay!)

The cherries turned out delicious, but I'm going to call them brandied cherries, because they really aren't true maraschinos. (those start out in a brine, which this recipe didn't call for). After they were done, we took the pits and stray bits of juice and syrup and added some water and made spiced cherry juice for jelly- yum!

This weekend has been designated as Plant The Garden Day... raining or not!