zucchini

 The kiddos are happily painting and coloring at the table so I figured I'd sit and show you the pictures of the dessert I made last night. I have a picture of what it's supposed to look like and what mine actually looked like. Funny how they NEVER look like the picture! Well at least mine never do, but they taste good. Usually. I've had a couple whoppers in the kitchen though!Yikes. Like my first time I made fried zucchini. Oh was that bad! Makes me laugh when I think about the look on Matthew's face when he ate it. I'll share my horrible/funny tale. When we were first married I was not a very experienced cook, to say the least. I put my energy into barn chores! I was given some zucchini and I loved my Moms fried zucchini, and I called her and got the recipe. So like a happy newly wed wanting to show off her wonderful cooking skills, to her poor unsuspecting husband, got things ready. Key word being fry. I put the battered zucchini in the hot oil, and it started to fry, all hot and bubbly. Oh good I thought. Smells great! Well, then I had to flip it over. Oops, now what do I do? I grabbed the closest thing I could find, not wanting it to burn! Well it was, can you see it coming??!! a plastic flipper! Yup PLASTIC! Silly newly wed, plastic and hot oil do NOT mix! Well it melted, and I wondered about that. Oh well so I lost the plastic flipper. I'll use a fork instead, not plastic this time mind you, and continued to fry the zucchini in the same oil I accidentally melted the flipper in. Not my best move. When Matthew came in and we started eating he wanted to know what it was so I said fried zucchini.( I don't remember what else we had that night). Well he took a bite and as politely as he could he choked it down, and guzzled down a large glass of water, and coughing he asked what I had done to it. It tasted like plastic! Gross! I grinned and told him what I had done, thinking I should have changed the oil. He agreed. I felt bad, him eating plastic flavored zucchini. He wouldn't eat fried zucchini for years after that. It made him shudder just to think of it. Poor guy. I wasn't in a hurry to fry anything for a long time after that incident. Wonder why?! I do now,  with stainless steel, not plastic. We laugh at that now, well at least I do. To this day Matthew doesn't like fried zucchini! So chalk it up to a lesson learned in the kitchen, and a jumpy husband when he would smell grease. He'd tease and ask if it was zucchini?!
So now if you dare enter my kitchen I'll share the dessert!! hahaha...

OK, this is what it's supposed to look like!

This is what mine looked like!

 OK, some of the difference is because I don't really like white chocolate, so I used regular semi sweet chocolate on the berries. And I forgot the cool whip, I actually make it with homemade whipped topping. No HFCS in that. I know, I know I have a cow and all the cream I could want, but for some reason fresh cream doesn't whip, or at least when I tried it, it didn't. I was tempted to put cornstarch in it, but didn't. Maybe I'll whip it longer next time, we'll see. I asked my man how he liked it and he said "excellent!" Not in season or anything locally grow, but so very worth it on a deary Maine day!
Until next time, happy cooking!

check this out...

So we got lots of snow yesterday! Today was the clean up! I took a couple pictures of the drifts we got. We get some serious snow drifts too. Literally thigh high. I'm not the tallest gal around but let me tell you schlepping myself out to the barn to do chores last night with drifts to my thighs is NOT easy! Add water on top of that... Matthew was over at the mill and was going to be late getting home, due to the roads. We live in the country, need I say more? I told him the road was plowed, but the driveway was one huge drift. Last night was my MIL birthday, so in the storm we went over with supper along with other brothers. Nice evening with the in laws.Was nice to come home to a warm house though!
Don't believe me about the snow drifts? I can now prove it!

Yup, that is my leg in a snow drift to my thigh. I couldn't find my Carharts and had to go without them. Not happy. My boots are calf high, still got a boot full of snow.

Another shot. Yup just a point and shoot picture, but I think you get the picture. I had to traipse through that almost all the way to the horse barn to feed them last night! See what farmers do for their animals? It is a labor of love sometimes I swear. 

I took a picture of out back, and it was about 3:30 pm. This was what it looked like at my house.

Poor lonely clothes line. Can't see the driving wind and snow whirling around my body as I took this picture. 

All work and no play? Not on this farm!

That's me milking this morning! Yup we hand milk into a pail. We wear gloves when we milk too. Once we get three milk cows we'll get the milking machines... yummy milk!!

Emma. The sled got ahead of her! Looks like fun!

Our baby and the sheep.

Truth be told, I'd rather...

Someday I will do this!!

a sure sign of spring

After a fast morning of breakfast, getting the kids ready to go to their grandmothers, chores, clean up and rushing out the door (OK so it was 9:15 by the time we got out the door) so I could go grocery shopping, yuck, and my man could get to the mill to work on an order at the mill, we stopped at the post office to get a weeks worth of mail. DaLaney asked for the magazine on the bottom of the pile and I offhandedly passed it back to her and we were off again. I am not a real big fan of grocery shopping, but I like to eat on a daily basis, as does my family. Living in Maine its hard in the winter to get local things, and even harder to strive to eat "seasonally", as you look at all the produce your surrounded by when you walk through the door! You know, no strawberries in February are growing here! Not to mention January. But somehow a pint wound up in my cart. I didn't even have my fruit girl with me! I've got a summer dessert that has been requested by several members of my family to make. So in they go, along with some blueberries. I'll snap a picture of it and show it to you. Oh man is it good! It's called Red, White and Blueberry Dessert. Yummy. Anyways... after reading the book my wonderful husband secretly bought via one of my sisters for Christmas a year or 2 ago, called Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, highly recommend it, we try to eat more locally and seasonally. Then the first time you bite into a sweet, fresh, juicy strawberry and the juice runs down your face you almost squeal with delight and think "it's been so long!!" Yeah I love strawberries! It's not always easy to be what is considered a localvore, in Maine, but we try. Yet another reason we farm, to raise our own. Although there are times it would be a whole lot easier to just grab something prepared off the shelf on one of those nights I think, "not another meal?!" groan... But then I stop and think about what is IN that food?! I don't really consider that stuff food. Shivers. And I just can't do it. Nope, it doesn't go in my cart and I move on and think alright, I'll make cookies from scratch and my own pie crust and my own home grown chicken and veggies for that chicken pot pie... But there are times I'm tempted. But it quickly passes. Thankfully. Oh just on another "bunny trail" here, my husband and one of his many brothers went to a meeting the other day and they stopped at a fast food joint, will not name it, and Matthew got a cheeseburger, and fries. He proceeded to take it apart to put it back together, guess that is why they call it fast food, and his brother laughed and said, "don't do it man, just put it together and cram it down your throat!"  He finished the meal and was sick to his stomach afterward. He couldn't believe he used to like that stuff. I guess we have "crossed over" when it comes to food, and knowing what real food tastes like. Sorry for all the bunny trails, I'm kinda all over the place today. Anyways my point with all this is to show that you can train your taste buds to like things like egg plant, mushrooms which I'm still working on, and the taste and texture of fresh eggs and chicken. The kids can too. I grew up not raising my own food and thinking that my food comes from the grocery store. I knew that hamburg came from a cow and yada yada, but it was nameless. I really was disconnected from my food. We did have a garden and Mom canned, which I'm thankful she taught me to can after I got married.  Matthew grew up in the country and his family raised some of their own food. I liked to tease him when we were first married that when we wanted pork chops for supper we went to the store and bought them, we didn't go out back and kill the pig for it! Now I laugh, because we have raised a few pigs! Funny how far you can come in 11 years!
Now what does all this ranting have to do with spring you wonder??  Well you remember that magazine I offhandedly handed to DaLaney? Well it was our  Seed Saver Exchange catalog!!! I love that catalog. I drool every time I look at it and all the wonderful colors and all the heirloom vegetables! I always make out my wish list in that catalog and it's always about 300$! I do want to save seed from our own crops, but haven't yet been up to that challenge. You have to be so careful with the cross pollination and non heirloom seeds contaminating your seeds. And covering them when they are in bloom and so on. So I have not done it , yet. I do need to learn and I think the sooner I do it the better! I love all the weird names of the different breeds of tomatoes and such, like Wapsipinicon Peach, Tommy Toe, Dragon! Purple Top White Globe! Love it! Can't wait for my purple carrots! The cover alone of the catalog it ripe with color! Can't wait to get my hands back in the dirt!
Alas, I have to go and finish taking care of my groceries and start making out my Seed Saver list and there is always another meal looming in my near future!
Happy planting!!

A sure sign spring is coming right around the corner when you get this in the mail!! The colors jump right off the page!!

I couldn't resist this wonderful clump of tomatoes! 

stone

Alright, just a quick update on Maggie. We missed her last heat last month, or rather we didn't really miss it, the AI tech never got back to us and well, there goes that. So we have been watching her like a hawk this month, and really wanted to hit the mark. Well she was showing signs of being in heat the past day and a half, different then the last time, not so much of the tail, and flirting, but hanging around the chicken tractor and mooing a lot yesterday and today, and other visual signs I won't write, but were there. YES! we thought, and we put in a call to the AI tech. He came this afternoon, and after checking her out, he said yup to breeding her. That she was ready!  We wanted to re-breed to Denali , but no such luck, not that I believe in luck, he (the AI tech) had sold out of him earlier today. Bummer. What are the chances of that, not that I believe in chances either. So after chatting with him and looking at the bulls all over again we decided to go with a bull named Stone. He's on the tall side, and Maggie is on the short side, so maybe a baby in between. He has a high cheese merit, high fat, and produces "exceptional udders," and for a dairy cow that is what you want, and he settles his cows well. I guess this post would not be for the faint of heart, but then neither is farming! The cheese merit is good, because I want to make cheese, and the fat is good for butter! And come to find out Maggie may have never settled last time, because cows don't usually abort that early in their pregnancy, but rather absorb it. I'm learning so much, and have so much more to learn! The kids had a few questions, and we answered them too. I think it's best to be honest with them, and answer their questions. They are trying to put it together, and they don't want Maggie to get hurt. We assured them she was not hurt. Tonight Rachel asked with a big semi toothless smile if Maggie was going to have a baby, and we told her that we hoped so. She informed us she did too, and wanted a girl! I asked Little Matt what he wanted to name the calf, and he grinned showing off that cute dimple in his left cheek "Dandy," (Dandelion) was his reply. Now we are looking at an October calf. So now we wait... again.


**Just a side note, I'm still trying to remember my other posts and what I labeled them, so if they don't make since, bare with me. I'm not the most computer savvy woman! It's OK, I can handle that!

some things I've learned...

OK, so as I was doing the dishes this evening my mind was wondering to the cow, big surprise right?! and what I have learned since having her. So it may be a bit random or "flying by  the seat of my pants" in thoughts, but that is how I roll!
I told Matthew the other day, that Maggie is a great first cow for a number of reasons, and two being that she is  head strong enough to keep me on my toes, and docile enough to give me, a first time hand milker/cow owner the confidence to milk/handle her. I've figured out just how much fun, and well, stressful it can be to literally chase a cow all over your neighborhood the day after you get her! Yup, we did that! As well as putting fence back together as your cow runs wildly through the neighbors fences for his cows! Not to mention how many people say, after you say the cow jumped over the fence to get out, literally jumped the fence and cleared it! that "the cow did jump over the moon!" that is not so much funny to me, anymore. I think from the cows perspective she must have been scared too, not knowing where she was, who was chasing her, and wondering where her buddies were. She had been born and raised on the farm we bought her from. I would like to learn how to rope, while riding a galloping horse, because you just never know when that skill might come in handy!  Just how sore my hands can be after milking 23 pounds of milk from your cow. How many gallons of milk I need to get 2 gallons of cream to make about 4 pounds of butter! How to make good yogurt. How long it takes me to make and process 4 pounds of butter. How much I hate, loathe, despise,  hot dogs, don't even get me started on hot dogs! Amazing where your mind can go while you milk. How much I actually enjoy milking, and the noises I've discovered about my life while miking. Looking, or rather stumbling around, for a cow at 2:30 am in the pouring rain is not that much fun, but would probably do it again! When you wean a calf from it's mother, they really are sad. When you loose your first calf it's sad. Although we had a crash course in homeopathic medicine for calves, and learned a lot, and hopefully better success next time around. How to AI your cow and the questions that come up from the children from that. How much more time I spend at the sink washing all the milk stuff! That a cow has a very long tongue, and can lick your face without a moments notice and almost french kiss you! Yikes! Cows like to lick, at least my Jersey does! How funny it is to squirt your unsuspecting kid in the face with the star on the end of the cows teat, and listen to them squeal as it hits them!!  I'd like to try my hand at making cheese too, and cow's milk soap (sounds weird to say that, cow's milk soap, as opposed to goats milk? And I do like goats milk soap)! That is in my near future and a goal for myself this year. I think I'll start with mozzarella cheese, and soft cheese for the "expensive crackers" (LOL)!! I'll let you know about that...
It's only been about six months since we got Maggie and that is just a handful of things that I've learned, and I look forward to more time with her and any other cows that come our way...
I also know how much I enjoy sitting down on my comfy couch, with my man, and enjoy a large piece of  homemade wacky cake and a tall glass of fresh, cold, raw, organic, milk, from my cow!

Check out my glasses! I love these, the way they tilt, can you see the tilt? I do love 'em!!! (TY  SIL) 

need I say more?

Rachel 

DaLaney

Emma

Little Matt

cow, meet horse. horse meet cow...

Happy New Year all! Welcome 2011!!! We are excited about what this new year will bring to us and the farm!

That said yesterday Matthew and I worked with Time Out and she did so super well that we decided to put her out with the cow!! They have only ever seen each other, never touched, but we figured why not. The cow needs a buddy and Time Out needs to get away from Abby. So...

You have got to be kidding ME!!

I am so not impressed with this creature in MY pasture! I think I might jump the fence! I did it once before!

Yeah, OK, I'll eat her hay. No problem!

Ring around the rosie...

pocket full of posies!

OK, so maybe we can get along and eat hay together, but I have my eye on you!

Thankfully Maggie did not jump the fence, but we thought she was going to for a few minutes after putting Time Out in her pasture! We stood by and watched them, and Maggie was not too sure what we were up to, and she didn't really like Time Out, and Time Out was wondering what her problem was. She made herself right at home, eating Maggie's hay! No one got hurt, although they both kicked up their heels a bit, and walked circles around each other. We threw Maggie some of her own hay after Time Out decided to eat what was out, and Maggie ate some, then the pest came over and Maggie hurried off,  and she ate that hay too! They did touch noses once!  (Got it on the cell, but can't get it on the computer, yet)! They settled down and ate, and were together for about 30-40 minutes and then Abby decided she needed the pest back, and the pest happily went back with her Mommy! Now we will try it again, and see if they can build a friendship, and Time Out will get some cow sense!!!