Overdue Update

So it's now the middle of July and we've been slacking on updates.

Strawberries were a good harvest back in early June. Small amount of Raspberries and a few blueberries followed.   After we planted the rest of the vegetable garden, we recently harvested the garlic and onions that were planted during the cold season.

With a record amount of rain in June, it appears that it was too humid for our pepper plants, as they are undersized and not great looking.   Potatoes and tomatoes are doing better recently.  Our bush beans are doing good, but the runner beans never got very far before the heat was too much.   Cucumbers are looking good so far, (knock on wood) we don't have the same cucumber beetle problem as the last two years.

Hops went strong from the get go, and topped out the trellis in late June, and are covered in maturing hop cones.

The new chicken enclosure is complete, the new coop inside is yet to be started.

Spring is here

Technically it's here, but the weather doesn't seem to make up it's mind.  Two weekends ago it was 60 degrees, but then we've had two minor snow storms since then, luckily the snow didn't last more than a day each time.   But around the yard we are seeing the signs of Spring!

 The buds on the cherry tree are ready to pop 

 The tulips are up

 Same with the daffodils

 The elderberry bushes are sprouting new branches

And the crocus are up and blooming

We were able to let the chickens enjoy some time out of the pen to find some bugs and worms

Chick Days Are Here!

I'm so excited for Spring!

We have decided we need to expand the flock. Sweetums, Shelly, Rizzo, and Dr. Teeth have been keeping us in eggs for two years now, but they are definitely starting to slow down. That's actually OK. When they were just starting to lay - we were overwhelmed with eggs!!

So, we are going to slowly expand the flock. I'm going to the feed store today to place an order for 2 chicks. We are going to get an Araucana (Easter Egger)



and a Barred Rock


We are debating the names. They will either be Statler and Waldorf or Camilla and Gonzo (both pairs keeping in our Muppets theme)

I can't wait to pick up the peeps in a few weeks!!!

2012 Harvest & Production Summary

2012 - Harvest

• Hops (dried) -6 oz
• Dried Beans - 1.5 lb
• Gourds - 20 assorted
• Sweet Potatoes - 7 lb
• Watermelon - 40 lb
• Hops - 13 oz (wet)
• Eggs - 28 dozen
• Soy beans - 9 lb 10 oz
• Zucchini - 17 lb 8 oz
• Carrots - 6lb 3 oz
• Green Beans - 2 lb 7 oz
• Peppers (mixed) - 29 lb
• Tomatoes - 108 lb
• Squash - 10 oz
• Onions (mixed) - 1 lb 4 oz
• Strawberries - 23 lb 8 oz
• Cucumbers - 10 lb 4 oz
• Sugar Snap Peas - 4 lb 13 oz
• Raspberries (mixed) - 9 oz
• Blueberries - 3 oz
• Garlic - 3 lb (dried)

2012 - Production

• Canned Hot Pepper Jelly - 6 pints
• Canned Salsa (Mild) - 7 pints
• Canned Pickled Peppers - 13 pints
• Canned Pickles - 32 pints
• Canned Tomato Sauce- 7 pints
• Canned Ketchup - 4.5 pints
• Canned Salsa (Hot) - 6.5 pints
• Canned Strawberry Preserves - 6 half pints
• Canned Strawberry Jam - 7 half pints
• Butter - 6 oz
• Honey Butter - 6 oz
• Berry Orange Mead - 1 gallon
• Spiced Orange Mead - 1 gallon
• Hard Cider - 3 gallons
• Black IPA - 5 gallons
• Russian Imperial Stout - 3 gallons
• Amber Ale - 5 gallons
• Porter - 5 gallons
• English IPA - 5 gallons
• Farmhouse Cheddar - 2 lb
• Gouda Cheese - 2 lb
• Queso Fresco - 2 lbs
• Mozzarella - 2 lbs
• Ricotta - 1 lb
• Buttermilk Biscuits - 34
• Zucchini Bread - 2 loaves
• Italian Whey Bread - 2 Loaves
• Sweet French Bread - 1 Loaf
• Whole Wheat Bread - 4 Loaves

2012 Analysis

So, this time last year I listed my New Year's Resolution. Let's see how well I did:

1) Don't work as many hours - make it home for dinner with my husband most nights a week.
Score 1 point! I will admit there were times I worked many late nights, but I did make it home in time for dinner MOST nights a week. YAY!
2) Major promotion at work.
Score 1 point! By June I was promoted to Preconstruction Manager and currently manage all the estimating, budgeting, and purchasing functions of our company and have 4 direct reports! Awesome!
3) Cook all week meals at home.
Score 1/2 a point. We did OK at this - but we have some room for improvement.
4) Buy less prepared food.
Score 1 point! We did pretty well at this! And we are going to take it one step further in 2013!
5) Take back the chickens.
Score 0 points. I failed at this resolution. Luckily - my husband is still the best and loves those little chickens and makes sure they don't starve! In my defense, I decided to go back to school to get my Master's degree, which was definitely more time consuming than anticipated!
6) Clean up, clean out, and get rid of the JUNK in our house.
Score 1 point! We had a yard sale this spring and then immediately called a donation service and had them come pick up everything that was left. Of course, as the year went on we have identified more things that we never use and are planning on getting rid of those in 2013!
7) Not bring more JUNK into the house.
Score 1 point! I did really well at this. Don't get me wrong, I spent more money in 2012 than I should have, but it was on things like - a new fence, soil and stone, plants, canning supplies (amazing how many jars we went through!), homebrew supplies, etc. All that work definitely relieved the stress way better than retail therapy anyway!!

So, final score: 5.5/7 = 78.5%  Hmm... C+   I can definitely do better than that in 2013.

Merry Christmas 2012!

Hot Sauce Completed

So after letting the pepper mash ferment for about two months, I decided to bottle it up.  Back when it started fermenting, some small spots of white mold started to form on the surface of the pepper mash that was above the brine.  So I topped off the jug with more water so that it was completely filled with pepper mash and brine.  The first 2 weeks of fermentation was fairly aggressive, as it forced all the pepper mash to the top of the jug, and pushed some up through the airlock, which made a mess.

You can see the pepper mash changed from a greenish color to more brownish, and even after the fermentation slowed down, all the mash was still forced up against the top of the jug:

It definitely had a sourish strong aroma, a little funky.  Upon tasting the mash, two things were clear.  One, that I used way too much salt (6 oz).  Two, that either the Tabasco peppers or Fish peppers were VERY hot.  I hoped that most of the salt was in the brine, so I strained the liquid from the mash.

That definitely helped.  But the pepper mash was much too hot (and too thick) to use as straight hot sauce for "everyday" uses like on eggs or tacos.  So I thawed a container of tomato puree that we had frozen from the garden.  Since the tomato puree was just blended whole tomatoes that were cooked down, it was very thin and could thin out the pepper mash and cut some of the heat. I made three variations, X, XX, and XXX, increasing in heat.  Most of the sauce was made as the milder X recipe which has a nice balance of flavor and slow burn heat, with just few bottles of the others.  The variations:

X - 1 part pepper mash to 4 parts tomato puree, with rice vinegar and brown sugar to taste

XX- Equal parts pepper mash and tomato puree, again with rice vinegar and brown sugar

XXX- Pepper mash, with some rice vinegar and water to thin it out a bit. 

For reference, the mix of varieties of peppers was:

1/2 lb Red Zavory

1/2 lb Fish 

1/2 lb Tabasco

1/2 lb Jalapeno

2 lb Salsa

2 lb Poblano

1.5 lb Sweet Bell