Productive Day, Inside and Out

Today was a productive day.

I started out by canning some ginger honey applesauce, got some pumpkin butter going in the slow cooker and roasted some pumpkin seeds. It was nice to spend the morning in the kitchen, but the sun was actually shining so I was anxious to get outside.

I decided to work on our future garden spot, shown above on September 2nd. It's not as green, all of the weeds are brown, but they are nearly as tall as I am. I had every intention of working on it sooner, tilling the ground and prepping it for spring, but time got away from me and other projects took priority.

Before I could get working I had to go out to the shop and collect supplies; weed whacker, rake, wheel barrow, etc. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal but when I stepped into the shop I heard a "Tink, Tink, Tink". "Oh great, a mouse" I thought. I slowly walked around listening to the "Tink, Tink, Tink" as it lead me to the big oil drum stove we have in the back. One of my cats had beaten me to it and was anxious for me to open the door so she could get inside.

By this time I had realized that the noise was much to loud to be a small mouse. A rat perhaps? Maybe a squirrel? That happened once when I was in high school; a squirrel fell down our chimney and left sooty paw prints all over our house. Today I braced myself as I opened the stove door and jumped back just in case. A flicker (the bird pictured in my last post) flew out and up to the ceiling looking for a way out. I rushed over to the "hanger door" and opened it as wide as I could. This bird wasn't very smart, it took it several minutes to head towards the sunlight. When all was said and done I looked out the shop door at the yard to see the dogs, cowering in the distance. They were not at all thrilled by this crazy bird.

Once that was settled I was able to get out and do a few hours of work in the sunshine. Brian picked up some free tarps from a local beehive maker and I'm hoping they will help kill the weeds. They are brown paper on one side and a white tyvek like material on the other. I know that people use either black tarps or newspaper to kill weeds, and I feel like this is somewhere in between. I'm hoping that the brown paper will decompose and the plastic topped with snow this winter will help smother the weeds. I'm not sure if it will work, but it's worth a shot. I know they will let water through, and sunlight when it's not covered in snow- both of which are undesirable for weed killing, so I guess we'll see. I'll be sure to post whether or not it works.

Day to Day Life on the Farm

So..... the to do list didn't really go as planned. Brian went hunting and I just didn't feel like tackling it myself. Brian is now on a work trip and the list has been left nearly untouched.

I've been chipping away at our box of apples, slowly but surely. Lately I've had a couple of batches of jelly that didn't gel, so I read an article on Fixing Canning Mistakes and I'm trying them again.

The other night I made Roasted Garlic and Butternut Squash Cassoulet and it was really incredible. The leftovers are lasting us quite a while too. I used the whole head of roasted garlic instead of half. You can never have to much garlic, right?

The other day this large bird flew into our window (the sun catchers don't seem to be working). I've seen them around the farm before but they never stop long enough for me to get a picture. Does anyone know what it is? When it flew away it caught Bomber's attention. He kept running around looking for it- is that a good sign of his future bird hunting abilities?

The List

Lately my motivation to get things done hasn't really been high. I'm not sure if it's the dreary weather or the fact that my knitting projects seem much more appealing than chores but I really need to light a fire under my ass and get things done. I feel so much better once things are done, it's just a matter of getting my butt off the couch and doing them.

Brian has 3 days off this weekend and I'm sure he'd appreciate a motivated and productive wife while he's around. The best way I know how to overwhelm myself with the To Dos is by writing them down. That way I can't ignore them. Here is this weekends To Do list. I think I'll need to make a lot of coffee this weekend...

I really need to get going today on some of those things, namely the canning, since I know Brian is going to want to work outside this weekend. I've made 2 batches of apple butter this week but we still have at least 30 pounds of apples that need to be dealt with. My goal is 2 batches of red onion marmalade, 2 batches of Green Apple Pectin Stock for Champagne and Rose/Lavender jellies, apple sauce, and mint jelly.

To the left is how I'm hoping my afternoon will go, although now that it's getting later in the day I'm not sure I'll have the time for applesauce.



The kitchen is all prepped for a Rainy Day Canning Day

Changing of the Seasons

It's amazing how it seems as through we've been through a year's worth of seasons in just a few short months here on the farm. We try to walk up to what we now call "The Veranda", the two adirondack chairs that we put at the top of the property, every so often and if I bring my camera I snap a picture. It's so neat to watch things change.

June 9, 2012

September 4, 2012

October 1, 2012

October 24, 2012

Those Darn Birds

We have several big windows that look out over our backyard and on most days I love them. Yesterday was not one of those days.

As I mentioned a little while ago, the birds have found our bird feeders. They are right by one of the big windows and I love sitting and watching all the birds chirping and eating and flying around.

There must have been something in the air yesterday because the birds and the window kept having issues. A lovely large black bird flew into the window early in the morning. I was so sad for it. it seemed ok, but I remembered something that my Uncle recently told me- Most birds that are alive after hitting the window are just stunned and if you pick them up and keep them warm they will be fine. Getting cold makes them more likely to die. Whether or not this is true I have no idea, but it stuck with the animal loving side of me and seeing that black bird stunned on the snow made it impossible for me to leave it alone. It was only 36 degrees outside.

I got a towel, wrapped up the bird, and propped him up on the picnic table. I looked out the window at him periodically and after about 10 minutes he flew away, good as new. I was so happy.

I was still beaming with pride at helping save this bird when lunch time rolled around. The large flock of birds, that we now think are purple finches, were still happily eating as the snow was melting and sun was shining when something spooked the flock. All of a sudden I heard a BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!!!! against the window. "What the hell just happened!" I yelled to the dogs. At least 10 birds must have hit the window at once. Nothing like this has EVER happened before.

I rushed over to the window to see a few stunned birds flying away, but 3 birds looked really hurt. One was flapping around on it's back, one looked like it hurt it's wing, and another wasn't moving at all. The towel just wasn't going to do it. I needed a box now.

So I went out to the shop and got a box, lined it with a towel, and went back to the house to collect the birds. I picked them up one by one and put them in the box and covered half the box with a towel since it was now starting to snow. Within a few minutes one of the birds flew away. I was worried about the other two so I went and filled 2 sandwich bags with warm water (this is the part of the story where Brian started to roll his eyes at me when I told him about it later) and put a warm bag of water next to each bird. Within 10 more minutes one of the other birds flew away.

I waited, and waited, and waited for the third bird to fly away but he just wouldn't. He was sitting up, looking around and seemed ok but he just wouldn't fly. I put some seed in the box with him just in case he was going to be around for a while, made sure the towel wasn't preventing him from flying away and I left him alone. I checked on him every few minutes and finally, after an hour, he had flown away.

It felt good to save the birds, but it felt bad to not have done anything to prevent this from happening in the first place. So many things used to prevent birds from flying into windows are so ugly- and I really like looking out the window.

Then I remembered that my friend Ashley makes beautiful suncatchers out of Angelina and wool (I get my Angelina from GrittyKnits). I haven't made mine yet, but here is Ashley's tutorial. If you don't want to make your own, sometimes she has some in her shop too, so be sure to check out her website. Wish me luck!

Hello Winter!

The past two weeks have been so busy! We've been fence building, canning, entertaining the most wonderful house guests, and have gone on a few mini road trips.

I've made 2 different kinds of pear jam, applesauce, Rosemary/Sage "Jelly" that didn't gel (so we call is glaze) and I still have about 60 pounds of apples to can. I have so much to tell you (next time)!

The most notable development is that winter seems to be here! I came home from a weekend away to find that our maples had turned yellow and dropped their leaves. It was so gorgeous that the dogs and I had to romp around for a bit. No sooner had I taken pictures of Bomber that it started to snow. The pictures below were taken on October 22nd, 2012. The ground is still white today and it doesn't look like it will melt for at least a few more days.

Bird Feeders

3 months after moving in and putting out bird feeders the birds finally found my feeders! I'm so happy. They are so pretty and fun to watch. They are around our crabapple tree almost all day now, going through a lot of seed. Anyone know what these are? Click the picture to make it bigger.