A Home Grown Meal

Mmmmm! I love mid to late summer when pretty much everything I eat can be home grown!

On the menu tonight:

Lamb tenderloin grown by Grampa Tom, breading by Grama Sue.
We had a little lamb that was injured and wasn't going to make it, so we butchered it. Not much meat, but WOW is it good! I could do the no pork thing if I had to! I like lamb better! I also used my own whole wheat breading for this dish made with whole wheat flour, natural sea salt, my own dried onions, garlic, some chili powder and paprika.

Cucumber and onions from our garden in apple cider vinegar made with last year's apples.

Mashed kohlrabi with onion and cheese.

What a feast! I did cheat a little. Our little store in town gets day-old bread from Pepperidge Farms for $1.49. I buy a whole bunch at a time and put it in my freezer. And the ketchup, cheese and the spices came from the store. As long as I can get this cheap all natural bread, I probably won't make my own, but someday I hope to make my own ketchup, cheese and spices (other than salt)!




GOD BLESS YOU ALL!

Grant Crock

WARNING! RANT!

We really need more land, a certified kitchen, some equipment, more chickens and at least a couple more buildings for them. We really can't afford any more loans at this point so I thought I'd check out Willie Nelson's Farm Aid Grant program. What a crock! From their site:

The following types of projects are not eligible for Farm Aid funding:

• grants or loans to individuals
• grants or loans to support commercial operation of a farming enterprise
• production of book, film, television, radio projects
• projects outside the United States
• projects directed or substantially funded by government bodies (federal, state, local)
• legal defense funds
• capital campaigns, equipment purchases, endowments or deficit financing
• historic preservation of farmland or buildings
• lobbying to influence elections or legislation
• conferences, publications, or research projects unless they are directly connected to ongoing program activities

What do they fund??????????? The only other things I found were a low interest loan for beginning farmers and a couple of government grant programs, one of which I got an e-mail about the other day saying it had lost funding. Who's got time to figure out how to write a grant anyhow?

Want to help a farmer? Skip the red tape and send a donation to my PayPal account at gramasues@hughes.net

Rant over ...

God Bless You All!

Nauvoo Markets & Misc

Started at a new market in Nauvoo today. Did fairly well for a first day in a brand new market. I was the only vendor, but I will be able to tell other vendors there is potential there. John Kraft said he would come, but he hasn't been to any markets this week because he's been sick. We now have 2 markets in our tiny little town. You might think that's to many, but the people were all different except for the one friend I called to let her know I had beets. I think it can work!


Paul, a traveling minstrel, stopped by to play his mandalin for us. He was wonderful. He may be back. The market manager, Gwen Hummel, is sitting behind Paul. Give her a call if you'd like to be a vendor. 217-453-6161.

Next week Mark Wheeler will be there to play for us and on the 14th, my brother-in-love, Scott Whitson will be preform.


This is the Winery Farmer's Market on Friday from 3:30 - 5:30 in Nauvoo. The other regular vendor there is John Kraft. He always has lots of fresh veggies! His 94 y/o mom is one of the ladies I buy the black walnuts I use in my muffins from. You can also go into the Winery, tour the mini-museum, buy some of Carol's Pies, some Nauvoo wine and an array of other cool stuff!

Random Pictures:



I'm not sure I've ever seen an albino wooly bear. Dark wolly bears are suppose to herald a cold, snowy winter. Hope this white one is common. We could use a mild winter for a change!



Grampa called me outside the other day to enjoy the antics of the new kittens. Little ones are always such a joy! Life is good!



God Bless You All!

Our New Hired Hand

I got home tonight and found a new farm hand working in the garden.




This guy looks strangely familiar. OH WAIT A MINUTE! IT'S GRAMPA TOM!!!!!!!!!


Last sheering: April 2009


God Bless You All!

Quick Post

Quick post. Had to go to a class for the assessing job last week and it has put me way behind.

Thought I had enough noodles made up for last week. Got home on Thursday. Grampa Tom had sold almost all the noodles I had. Made some more Friday morning and sold out again on Saturday. Made a batch of noodles yesterday and two batches today. Hopefully that will be enough to get us through the next couple of days. There's Avon that needs to be delivered and herb gardens that need weeded again (I don't trust Grampa with these. He thinks all my herbs are weeds. Pant ... pant ... pant ...

Will have to wade in the mud tomorrow morning to harvest some veggies. Rice would have been a good thing to plant this year! Grampa did manage to run the tiller today in the big garden before it dumped on us.

Thought for the day:

We were seriously financially challenged when the kids were growing up. I learned to do a lot of things because I had no money to go buy stuff, things like making noodles and growing my own food. Now those skills developed out of poverty are becoming a source of riches! Cool huh? Reminds me of the scripture that says "He turns my mourning into dancing!"



God Bless You All!

Noodle Making

Lots of people have been asking me about how I make my noodles so I thought I'd blog about it.

One young man picked up my noodles and exclaimed, "Oh these are just like the Amish women make them!" I hope I didn't roll my eyes too much when I replied, " Well, there are still some of us old country women that know how to do this stuff." Don't get me wrong, I think it's wonderful that the Amish have preserved the old country ways and that people are rediscovering these riches through their knowledge, but they aren't the only ones!

Since I am a city transplant, my MIL taught me to make noodles. She learned to make noodles from her mother, who learned to make noodles from her mother, who learned to make noodles from her mother ... who knows how many generations. The one thing I do different, is I use a pizza cutter to cut the noodles while the dough is on the rolling board instead of rolling them up, using a knife to cut them and then unrolling each noodle. This is something I learned from my good friend Gwen, another old non-Amish country woman.

When I first married a farmer, I was given a couple of awesome non-Amish books to help me learn country ways. One was the Farm Journal's Freezing and Canning Cookbook and the other was Carla Emery's Encyclopedia of Country Living. Both were very helpful, but Carla's book is the one I refer to most. Carla learned most of what she shares in this book from her family and the older women in her area, many of them Mormons not Amish.

I get such a kick out of my friend Becky! She's been exploring ways to store food on the Internet and a lot of what she comes up with is attributed to the Amish. Becky will share her delight in some new treasure of knowledge she has discovered with me and I will smile and nod my head ... and then suddenly she realizes, "Oh, you already know about this don't you?" There have been a few things she has shared with me that I didn't know about, like canning butter, but not to many.

Anyway ... on to the noodles ...

My first step in making noodles is to make the dough and then refrigerate it for a while.

Free-Ranged Eggs
Flour
Natural Sea Salt
Olive Oil

Add 1/4 tsp natural sea salt for every egg used. Mix in about 1/4 tsp olive oil for each egg. Slowly add flour until the dough is soft and pliable. Put in a plastic bag and refrigerate for at least 1/2 hr.

The oil and the refrigeration make rolling the dough easier.

If I'm not already there, the next step is to get properly dressed. No, I don't put on a cute little Amish dress complete with bonnet. I don't know how they do that without perspiring into the noodles. I know it can be done. They do it, and my MIL usually wears panty hose, a pair of slacks and a short sleeved shirt while rolling her noodles, but not me. The body tends to acclimate to what you grew up with. My summers were spent in bikinis, short shorts and halter tops as a youth. It doesn't make a pretty picture ... a fat old grama stuffed in short shorts and a cami .... so be warned! But, it works for me!




OK, so now I'm dressed and in position at my kitchen table armed with my rolling board (an old piece of shelving covered with contact paper), a rolling pin, my pizza cutter, a large spatula and my flour sifter full of flour. I take a small piece of cold dough, roll it into a ball and roll it in the flour.



Then through a process of flattening, flouring, turning, and rolling, I take this small piece and roll it out into a very thin sheet.



Next, I use a pizza cutter to cut the thin sheets into strips which I lay out on screens, racks, pans and cookie sheets to dry.



I find this faster and less messy than hanging them on the backs of chairs or on rods. They then go in my warm oven or over a fan to dry.


I let them dry at least overnight and then package them in zippies with my cute little labels!


All together, it takes about 2 hours to roll out and package 6 of my small packages. At $2.25 and $2.50, that's not quite minimum wage ... and then you figure in the cost of materials ... but if they keep selling like they have been, I might be able to work the price up to a respectable wage! I just have to have something to do with the weak shelled and odd shaped eggs that we can't sell. I also make banana and other egg rich breads that freeze well with them.

Well, that's about it! Now that you've seen much more than you wanted to -

GOD BLESS YOU ALL!

Red Neck Success

My friends Tom and Barb sent me this picture from the day Shorty and I went visiting. Thought you might enjoy it. Shorty really loved Barb!


We practice intensive rotational grazing for our sheep. We usually have 3 or 4 areas that we fence off and let grow for awhile. This allows us to run a lot of sheep on our tiny farm. BTW, we are taking orders for 1/2 or whole lambs at $4.00/lb. They should be ready in the next month or 2. A dressed lamb usually yields around 60 lbs of meat. We will have it processed and packaged at Webber meats, but you must come to the farm to pick it up.




They tell me you might be a red neck if you have ever used your front yard to graze livestock. We are getting ready to do that now. In the next day or two we will turn the sheep out in our front yard. After a week or two it will be nicely mowed like this:



We were concerned about the economy over the winter. Will people still pay a premium price for our produce and eggs? We just weren't sure there would still be a market. So far this year, we have doubled our egg production and raised the price, but we are still selling out and our income from the farmer's markets has more than doubled! Thank you to all of you who support us local farmers!


It looks like the guineas might stay. The guinea eggs I blew for crafts aren't selling, but I'm hearing enough interest in them that I think I'll try selling a few fresh ones as a novelty egg. They have a very dark yoke so they should be very good. I'm going to have Grampa Tom (the picky eater and egg lover of the family) do a taste test in the next couple of days.

Here's a picture of the eggs for those of you who haven't seen them before. I threw a couple of normal sized chicken eggs in just for comparison. They are a small speckled egg with a very hard shell. Grampa says if I can make money with them, he'll put up with listening to them :)


Jesus was very fond of using common every day things to explain spiritual concepts. This week, I believe He shared 2 of these with me. They blessed me. Perhaps they will bless you too!

1. As I was harvesting lettuce on Thursday, I was finding myself breaking off and throwing away quite a bit of "stemmy" growth. I thought to myself, "There sure is a lot of waste in gardening." Then I realized it wasn't really wasted because I was going to feed it to the chickens, who in turn would make it into eggs and manure for next year's crop. "Waste" is really a poverty mindset born out of fear. "Waste", whether it's a thing, an event or even a seemingly wasted life can be redeemed! In God's economy there is no waste. He takes those things we see as "waste" and uses them for another harvest. Instead of bemoaning the "waste" we see, we should be asking God how He wants to use it.

2. A couple of weeks ago, the rugs at my back door were getting really nasty. I didn't have the time to deal with them, so I threw them out on the garden fence. Today, after they've gone through a couple of rain storms, quite a bit of wind and some beautiful sunshiny days, they were actually clean enough that I thought I could bring them back in. So ... if you're going through some storms and don't feel like you are where you ought to be, thank God! You may just be out on the fence getting the dirt knocked off of you.



God Bless You All!