Fugee...it's about time!

I realized today that there are no prominent pictures of Fugee, our 16 month old Beagle from Bogota, Colombia.  Fugee has been a huge part of this household since January 2010.  She is Head of Security at Ladeau on Avery and is a constant source of entertainment for us both.  She also has the most expressive and beautiful face in the world.  Welcome to the blogosphere Fugee.  The internet is a much better place now that you are on it.

-BC

End of the season note

Garlic is in! We planted 60 cloves ! We used mulch hay to cover the row for the winter and planted them in rows of 5 cloves spaced every 6 inches and the rows spaced every foot.  We cleaned around the garden, took all the old tomato plants out and their cages, pepper plants and turned the rye grass in some of the beds. Also, we used the ashes from the wood stove in the beds.  Also, we picked our carrots for storage, we cut the greens and will store them in the root cellar. 

We still have chard and kale to eat for now until the snow comes, and some beets that will can soon!

See you in the Spring 2011!

Pumpkins in the water

The rains of the last weekend of September 

flooded fields of pumpkins in Northern VT and NH

sending pumpkins down the Connecticut River !

Apple sauce day

Made 18 quarts of apple sauce !

Yummy !

we paid 15 dollars for a bushel and a half

the apple varieties 

were Macoun and Cortland 

We just cut the apples in quarters with seeds and skins 

then cook them with a little of water

then run everything thru a food mill 

and pour it in jars and canned them for 20 minutes

in hot water!

Welcome Home

Our Nigerian Dwarf goats are in!

They love fallen leaves and running around after us !

They are registered 

and we soon hope to breed them 

for milk!

Canning tomato sauce

21 pounds of tomatoes from our backyard have turned into tomato sauce after several hours!

Preparing the garlic bed

Last weekend, we picked the suckers of a bed of strawberries and moved them to the old garlic bed.  It is recommended that the strawberry bed is moved to a different location every 3 years.  After removing the old strawberry plants from their original bed, we sowed rye seeds and plan to till them in the soil prior to planting the garlic there. I suggest that when you sow rye seeds you cover them with straw.

Canning beets

Last weekend we harvested 8 pounds of beets

 we took the tops off and left the roots tips and washed them

 then we boiled them until the beets were soft 

 the recipe that we were following required onions and we had our own !
After taking the beets out of the boiling water, then we took the skins off and quartered them.  We then poured vinegar and spices over the beets and brought to a boil.  Finally, we canned the beets and ...
we canned a total of 4 quarts + 1 pint

Asa and Cheche

Our newest family members- Nigerian Dwarf goats
Nigerian Dwarf goats were introduced to the US in the early 1980s
They can average a quart of milk a day and have a long lactation period of 305 days 
Three Nigerian goats can occupy the same space of one standard goat
Does can be 17-19 inches tall and bucks can be 19-20 inches tall 

We are now building a goat house and clearing land for their arrival

Edamame

Today I picked the soybeans we planted this summer

I pulled the whole plant and removed the pods 

I think we are going to steam these and eat them with sea salt 

Also, from the garden we have 

acorn squash

cherry tomatoes

fingerling potatoes

Long weekend ahead

Projects for this weekend include :
1. dispersing the wood chips on the paths of the garden 
2. building a shed for the goats 
3. prepare the bed for garlic 
4. do something with all the tomatoes !

So far, we have been busy doing all sorts of makeovers to the garden/yard of our cabin.  We have been clearing the yard with a weed waker and chain saw, since we have a lot of raspberries and young trees and overall we would like it to be more of an open area.  It will help with the circulation of air, since we are in the middle of the forest. 
Now we can see the paths in the garden! the wood chips will help with the unwanted weeds in the garden. You can also use straw hay and newspaper block to prevent the light from getting to the paths and therefore the growing weeds. 

Tomatoes cooked = ketchup

Wow for our tomatoes! This has been a good year even though we had the blight.  I must say that trellising tomatoes has been a challenge this year.  I did not pick the suckers off of the plant and so, there were shots all over each plant that didn't get support.  Next year, I will give each plant more space for appropriate air circulation and better support system.

Now to make ketchup or not ! that is the question 

Farewell Vinnie

Vinnie was my beloved Bunny rabbit. He was a rescue from a nature center in VT. He lived with us for three years and now he has gone to pet heaven (I guess). HE had complications with his digestive system and died with me.  I made him a flower garden in the garden and buried him there. That and the fact that I am busy at work have kept me for posting more info about the garden.
Nevertheless the garden is doing well. We just got wood chips to do the paths in the garden and we have been also clearing some of the trash and raspberry canes that lived around the perimeter of the garden. It looks and feels way better !

Beans of all types and colors!

Soybeans 

Black turtle beans 

Royal burgundy bush beans

Yellow and green bush beans 




















This year we are growing soybeans, green beans and storage beans. 
The chipmunks ate some of the soybeans soon after I planted them, however, some of the soybeans sprouted and now they have pods on them.  I have to wait until the pods swell up a bit more before I can pick them.
The black turtle beans are for storage.  It is best to let the plant flower, set pods, fill up and die.  Then I will thresh the collection of plants and collect the seeds, that is before the chipmunks get to them first.
The other type of beans, you want to eat them before the pods fill up. You can dehydrate them or can them for storage.  We are eating them fresh now. 

Pecueca

Pecueca is our chicken that has gone to a better location with 

other chickens and a place to stay warm in the winter 

Chao pecueca!

On the other hand, we had the best pizza of the season so far,

Thin crust 

olive oil, garlic and basil as a "sauce"

fingerling potatoes, onions, tomatoes and buttercup squash

yummy

cooked at 500 F for 15 minutes 

Early harvest

Garlic drying inside our cabin underneath the 

stairs 

Tomatoes, eggplant and husk cherries 

New potatoes !

Fingerlings, red potatoes and blue potatoes

Food outside of the garden

I love the fact that we are living off the land in so many ways.  We have been growing our food and harvesting our wood for the winter, and now comes the best harvesting time of the year for me.  Wild mushrooms, more specifically, chanterelles. These are my favorite mushrooms to gather in the late summer.

I found quite a few around our cabin. They like to grow near water and in a mixture of evergreens and deciduous trees.

I collected them and the best way to keep them is to dehydrate them for 3 - 7 hours at 125 Fahrenheit 

Planting and saving seeds

This week was exciting because we picked our first garlic ever! it is so big and beautiful...it is seating on top of our wood shed ready to be dried and stored for the winter. I also dried the kale that went to seed this year and I threshed the seeds on top of a tarp. Here is the picture of the seeds and seed pods.  Now we don't have to buy kale seeds for a while!

Also, we have so much kale and chard and no space in our little freezer.  So, the best way to keep the greens is by dehydration!
If you would like to do that, you have to cut the ribs out of each leaf, lay them in a single layer in the dehydrator at 125 F and for 4 hours minimum.  They have to be brittle once they are done and trust me, they are tasty and will be awesome to have in soups in the winter !

Drying flowers

Chamomile, Borage and Yarrow flowers!

I am drying them in a cookie rack outside and inside also.

Then, I would use them in teas or poultices or creams !

Not just fruits and veggies

What about wood?  Yes, we do harvest wood from our land.  This weekend we harvested two trees.  A maple and a birch, both of which were dying anyways and are part of the hardwood family.  Hardwood is the kind of wood that is used to burn longer and it works very well with our soapstone stove. We rented a splitter to make smaller pieces of wood and then our plans are to "season" the wood, which means leave it in a sunny spot for at least 8 months, so that is ready to use after that.