Final preparations for winter.

Is anyone else surprised when they find themselves ahead of the game?

 This year we seem to be so organised we keep checking to see if there is something we have forgotten! The garden is finished except for the brussels sprouts, the first freeze brought an end to the tomatoes and, although it was a strange year for tomatoes, we are satisfied. Several dozen jars of pasta sauce, salsa and tomato paste will see us through to next season as well as some jars to share at Christmas. The last of the beans have been dried and stored, with just a few, that were still green, being canned. The basement shelves have been filled with canned goods, the potato bin, while not full, has more than enough to allow us to indulge until next season. The freezers are almost full, yet we have room for the goat we plan to butcher when he is a little bigger. We have dried onions, pickled onions, pickled cucumbers, frozen beets as well as pickled beets. We have enough produce to last us till next year and beyond and we will only have to buy the extras that we do not grow or raise ourselves. We are still milking Daisy and are using it to make cheese and ice cream, we will stockpile the latter for our winter indulgence.

The wood pile is looking healthy and we have time to cut and split more within the next month. The first of our hay supply has been delivered and floats have been removed from the water tanks. The list seemed endless as autumn began, yet we have more items on the 'to do' list ticked off than waiting to be done.

We always plan to put the bucks in with the ewes at the beginning of November as we do not have ideal facilities for lambing or kidding in the middle of winter. Yet we had our first lambs on Christmas Day one year, so our plans are not necessarily agreed upon with the males on the place. When all goes to plan we give the ewes extra feed 2 weeks before introducing them to the bucks, also known as flushing them. All summer the ewes share a pasture with the horses so we needed to seperate them or we would have fat(ter) horses. We needed to build fence.

I have always believed that the best cure for aching muscles is to repeat the exercise that made them ache in the first place. Unfortunately as the years pile up, aching joints accompany the aching muscles and excessive aches may need some rest. Fencing is one of those exercises that does NOT require 'more of the same' treatment!

We needed a new section of fence to keep the ewes seperated from the horses but still keep them away from the bucks. It didn't seem like much, a dozen wooden posts and 5 strands of barbed wire. If you have a post hole digger attached to a tractor, it really is a quick job. Our tools are a little more basic!

The tool to the right is our post hole digger and it works like a corkscrew going into the ground. A dozen posts is a good workout! We got it done, though, stretched the wire and even though the ewes have been leaning against gates and posts, resenting their confinement, it has stood strong! They are not complaining about the extra feed they receive and the corn is their favourite. That evening there were a few groans as we climbed the stairs to the bathroom, or got up off the couch where we had collapsed.

There are some things we didn't get done this year, we didn't get the downstairs windows replaced, but we did get one side of the house painted and a quarter of the roof re-shingled. We didn't get the new cupboards for the kitchen but we did mend and extend the chimney. We have enjoyed our garden and our outdoor shower and our animals. We have enjoyed our visitors and sharing our lives with them. We understand why they choose not to visit in winter! We still have to repair one side of the barn and hang tarps over the doors, which we will do next week. Then we will start to slow down for winter. A new season with its own set of challenges and activities.

All in all this has been a good year so far! Life is good!

Traditional British pickled onions

We have no intention of making this blog all about recipes but when the harvest is coming in it is always handy to find recipes that actually work. When harvesting onions, there are always those small ones, the ones that you work around because they are such a pain to peel when you are cooking dinner. This is the perfect recipe for those small onions as they are also the ones that are hard to keep and threaten to spoil the rest. What's more the recipe is easy!

Ingredients:

2lbs small onions (roughly the size of a walnut)
4ozs salt
1 1/2 pints of malt vinegar
2 Tablespoons of pickling spices (ready made or your own mix of red, white, black pepper and coriander seeds)

Directions:

You need to start 2 days ahead by placing the onions in a large non-metallic bowl. Mix 2 pints of water and 4 ozs of salt together, pour over the onions and leave covered with a cloth for two days

1. Drain and dry the onions well.
2. Peel the onions and pack one third of them into a large preserve jar
3. Scatter one third of the pickling spices over the first layer of onions. Continue packing the onions into the jar - adding two more layers of pickling spices as you go.
4. Pour the malt vinegar into the jar, making sure that all the onions are covered. (add some more malt vinegar if there is not enough)
5. Seal the jar and store in a dark, cool place for at least 6 weeks.

The recipe doubles well and if kept in a cool dark place the pickled onions will keep 2+ years ... though ours will never keep that long!

"Autumn", aka "Fall", etc., etc.  The word generally implies luxurious foliage, crisp air, crunching leaves...all the cliches.  Some find it an envigorating time.  I have never felt this way, not even as a child.  Back in those days when summer went on forever, a child could be blessed with the freedom to think, to lay out in an evening and wish to know the stars, to look up from the same spot after a summer shower, knowing that those clouds truly had been those snow drifts that were finally gone. Then fall came.  School started again.  Once more, I would be struggling day to day hoping that my efforts would be tested and found worthy.  Freedom gone for another season. Not nice.  Not nice at all.
I still find autumn to be a stressful time.  Some of the reasons for this are similar to those I had as a child.  This is the time where we are faced with deadlines.  The most obvious deadline is signaled by the "killing frost".  The most accepted definition for this phrase seems to be "The temperature has to get down to 28F for a complete kill on corn and soybean plants. "  I never have raised corn or soybeans, but I do recognize that horrid dark green (turning to hideous yellow) that signals that one's tomatoes have been frost-bitten.  I have learned that there is no coming back from that condition.  No more harvesting, processing, or canning once that 'killing frost' has occurred.  Sometimes reaching this point in one's gardening efforts signals rest and relief. Sometimes this point serves to teach yet more lessons. My mind argues between the gut-deep need to avoid wasting anything and the gratitude for an acceptable excuse for just letting the rest of it all go to its natural end.
Have I been found worthy?  When we finally come to the point where we are harvesting, we look behind us and see the gaping holes where the earth has given up the final result of our spring's planting, our summer's weeding and watering.  Thankfully, we haul the potato crop to the bin in the cellar.  No, it may not have been as abundant as other years, but....there were none lost to slugs, and there will be more than enough for the winter.  There will probably even be enough remaining so that we have seed for next year's crop.  The handful of carrots is enough for a couple more meals of fresh carrots...and, even better, it allows us to take the anomalies, the carrots that invite creative naming, to the friend whose children will very probably shock and delight their parents with their choices.  It is exactly what we had planned:  we had the carrots we wanted for fresh use, we don't have to can or freeze more as we are still enjoying what we preserved last year.  The green beans were the climbing type.  They are very slow when compared to the bush variety.  We had given up on their even sprouting when they suddenly draped the stockade panel with vines.  Lovely.  Lovely blossoms, too.  OK...where are the beans? Eventually, there were beans, but, since we had only planted them because 'they were there', we had the few fresh ones that we seem to crave each year and then we were satisfied.  Lesson learned:  no more climbing beans, we are sticking to the bush type.
All told, though, we will eat this winter and we will be fed well. 
Each year, we are challenged to be ready for winter, ready for the time when the killing frost has become the ice and brutal cold of a prairie winter.  Ready?  What on earth does that mean, anyway?  I have reached a point where I can accept that one can never really be 'ready'.  One can only hope to have accomplished some of those tasks that will assure some safety and some peaceful security as the winter drops on us like a stone.  Each time we stand back and realize that another project has been completed toward this goal, I feel a sense of ....yes, a sense of being found worthy.  This assurance makes it easier to fall asleep at night without feeling yet another twinge of fear regarding unfinished tasks....what about hay?  How can we make sure that our livestock is well-fed and safe through the winter months?  How? How much?
 Dad used to say "If you can't do something about the situation TODAY, for heaven's sake don't WORRY about it today because the worry in itself doesn't solve anything and is a waste of energy."
My dad also used to tell me that I was always my own most demanding critic, that I was harder to please than anyone else who may be judging me.  When we reach the end of a day, I find that I need to be able to live up to a goal that my dad once set for himself.  I need be able to look back over my day and find that the world is indeed better (in  however small a way, ) for my having been in it.

October already!

We had to go to a funeral last Thursday, we were gone all day and got home to milk a little later than usual. I took the shopping into the house while Anita went to the barn. I heard her raising her voice at something, or someone, and instinctively knew that Randy had taken advantage of our absence and broken in to be with the girls. He had! Hard to tell how long he had been in there or whether the girls had responded to his 'aftershave', so we left him in there and accepted the fact that we will be kidding in March. Comforted ourselves with the thought that we would rather have 4 kids in March than 70 lambs in March and that the buck lambs do not seem as persistent as Randy..... yet!

This has been the driest September on record since 1900 and temperatures have been high, too. We had to stop cutting wood one day last week, feeling light-headed, we came home to discover the temperature was 90F in the shade.... at the end of September! In fact, at the start of October, we are still wearing shorts. The leaves are changing colour, the race to get ready for winter is on, yet we still have days where the heat of the day forces us to stop certain tasks. The wood pile is looking very good, though, and we will be snug all winter. The chimney is swept and we added extra height to it to try and eliminate the downdraught that we usually get with a NNE wind. The old chimney was just under the height of the rooftop and we think that was the main cause of the problem. It has withstood the power of the wind this weekend but we will add one more brace.... better to be over the top than wish we had when it succumbs to a South Dakota wind.

Just look at that sky! While autumn may not be my favourite season, it sure is pretty, so I have to share some photos taken from just outside the door. I feel so very privileged to live with these views on a daily basis and I still feel the same way as that first morning I woke up to this view. It is a lot of sky and I love it!