A New (for us) Recipe: Blackberry Blueberry Jam

Happy 4th of July everyone! Americans anyway. I guess to anyone else, Happy Monday that happens to be the 4th of July!

So, the fruit started rolling in back in June with the strawberries. With the wet, soggy, grey spring that we had, our strawberry crop was just enough for my breakfast and lunches. I can go through a pound of strawberries a day by myself when they are fresh-from-our-bushes-picked berries. Mmmm, Vitamin C! Sadly, cherry season was super short due to the spring that we had, and we missed out on going to our local orchard to pick those (super bummed, as those are my all-time favorite fruit, but I am working on getting my husband to plant us our own cherry trees. We'll see if I get those or the dishwasher first...)

So now we are on to blueberries and blackberries. Our blueberries are a later variety, so it will be a few more weeks until they are ripe, but Colleen and I did go up the road this weekend and pick their early variety. Our blackberries are doing really well this year! We've been getting a 2-4 pints a day. And they are super, super sweet!

Blueberries that we picked locally, and our blackberries.

It was a rainy day, so a good one to be in the kitchen making jam. We made a batch of just blackberry jam, and I had to adjust the next recipe and cut waaaay down on the sugar, because the first jam was so sweet. (Those berries are sweet!) Ice cream topping anyone?

Several years ago, my mom bought me the "Farm Journal's Freezing and Canning Cookbook." I LOVE this book! It has so many recipes, and combinations that I would never think of, such as blackberry and blueberry jam (other people may think of these things, which I am sure you can look up on the internet now, but when you are busy picking and picking and weeding and feeding animals and also have a fractured foot, it is easier sometimes to just be able to flip through a book and have a the recipes right at your fingertips). It also has recipes for green tomatoes, pickled everything (even fruit!) and meats. The other thing that I really like about this book is that the recipes are for large quantities of fruit, such as pounds and bushels (which is what we tend to have around here) rather than cups and pints (which is generally what I find when I look online, although not always). So, if you are going to seriously get into canning, I would recommend that you look for a copy of this book.

Blackberry-bluberry jam - final product!

Some Pretty Pictures

Yeah, it's been awhile. 2016 has been a difficult year, starting off with mono, which I somehow managed to escape during college only to have once I have a kid who is a tween. What?! And then a whole bunch of other medical things!

But let's move on. I promised pictures! So here they are, in whatever order I feel like putting them in.

This is my front walkway. This is what happens when I don't weed it. Personally, I think it's much prettier this way.

Our dogwood tree in bloom. Yes, I like to take pictures of flowers.

This is Moonpie, one of my favorite goats born this year. Because she's adorable!

And some violets. Because not only do I like taking flower pictures, I also don't like weeding.

I Could Have Been A Storm-Chaser

I could have been a storm chaser. I love watching storms come in. I will stay there until they are on top of me. And then some. Also, I am awesome with directions. I don't even own a GPS, and until this year I didn't even own a smartphone (and even that one doesn't have access to internet unless I'm at home, so I have to do maps old school, or use my actual sense of direction, which rocks). I don't even know how many times my daughter has said to me, "Mommy, do you know where we are?" and the answer is, "No, but I still know I can get where we are going." And I do.

A few weeks back I was driving home from work when I heard the emergency alert system come on the radio.  Thinking it was "only a test," I didn't pay it much attention, until I realized it wasn't only a test.  Apparently there was a massive storm system moving through the area with winds 60-70 mph and rain and hail and fun kinds of things.  Which normally wouldn't be too much of an issue.  Except that we'd had almost two weeks with no rain and had put our yearlings in a pen with no run-in.  So.  Rapid acceleration home.  Based on the track of the storm, I had about 30 minutes to get them in.  And of course, the goats never make things easy.  And neither does my husband.

I got home, and started moving goats around.  Because I couldn't simply just open some gates and have that be the end of it.  I had to play musical goat pastures, and move the angoras in order to move the yearlings, and then move the angoras back.  Yeah.  And the yearling's gate was tied with bailing twine. (WHY WHY WHY???!!!). Even though I bought all these nice goat-proof metal clips.  I HATE when things are tied with bailing twine.  Because I do NOT carry a knife on me at all times, because I CAN'T due to work reasons.  Of course there was no knife to be found in the barn.  I briefly considered using my teeth.  Then I thought about just using brute force.  Eventually I got the gate open.  And three of the four yearlings pranced through.  The fourth one, of course, got her head stuck in the fence.  And refused to be helped.  In order to get un-stuck she had to go backwards, and all her pals were in front of her.  Meanwhile, the stormclouds had started rolling in and it was getting kinda dark.  And dogs were barking and leaves were starting to spin. Ok, so to be honest, that is when I started yelling at the goat.  Eventually I got her out.  Meanwhile, her buddies had disappeared into the barn and were scattered around to see what trouble they could get into while unsupervised.  And this is when I started to question my own sanity in even having goats.  I think it took another 15 minutes, but eventually I got everyone where they were supposed to be.  They were not at all thankful, but wanted to know where their grain was. Of course they did. I fed everyone super quick, and then locked up and left them to their own devices.  Somehow I managed to get it all done and the storm was still not yet here.

So I took some pictures.  Let me also just take a minute to mention here that one of our neighbors was actually outside raking leaves while the storm was rolling in. Not bagging them or anything, simply raking them into a pile. I have no idea why. It was a little strange.

Clouds moving in.

More clouds.

Right after I finished taking pictures (I only went inside when the rain started coming down), there was a loud explosion in our front yard.  Like fireworks. And more dog barking, only this time it was coming from my dogs. I thought our transformer was blown, until I realized that we still had power.  Our internet was dead though.  My husband didn't believe me about the explosion.  He kept telling me that I must have been seeing and hearing things (riiiight).  Until he went to the barn the next day and saw our electric fence charger blown into little tiny pieces in the barn.  The one that we just paid to have re-built. But at least nothing caught fire, right?

Storm rolling in

The ungrateful goats

Toby Gets His Christmas Request In

And it's finally October! I cannot say that I am sad to see September go. There were several good and great things that happened in the month of September this year, including our wedding anniversary, a wedding in our family, and a much-needed trip for me to visit friends in California.  But there were also several very horrible and stressful things happening that rather over-shadowed the good.

The main horrific thing had to do with Toby, who is like my second child.  For those people who understand, I do not need to explain.  For those of you who don't, no explanation is going to suffice. 

In case you don't remember Toby, he is my older, diabetic corgi:

Toby

At the end of August, I found an ulceratic lump growing underneath one of his paw pads.  This is a fancy way of saying it was bleeding ALL over the place. Strangely, for a dog who tries to bite anyone who messes with his feet (even me, if I am just trying to trim  his nails), this did not seem to put him in any abnormal amounts of pain.  And it certainly didn't affect his appetite.  For reasons to be explained below, my carpets may now be permanently stained, as I did not have time to pre-treat all of them.  Also, because of his treatment, I have not be able to to steam clean yet.  If you cannot deal with blood and gore, you should probably skip this post.  If you decide to read on, you have been warned.

So we wrapped the foot as best we could and took him to the vet.  We had to wrap it about 5 times in the course of an hour to get the wrap to stay on before we even got him to the vet. He kept getting it off.  Toby seemed to think it was some kind of game: "Hey! These people put this thing on my foot, I unwrap it with my teeth, and they wrap it again! Fun times!" Did I mention this happened on a Wednesday, when my husband and I both had to work, so Toby had all day to unwrap it and bleed everywhere before we got home? I think he definitely had home field advantage here. 

So, vet visit #1: they diagnosed it as potentially a very deep bacterial infection (given that we have the goats and all, this was a high probability), gave him lots of antibiotic, re-wrapped it, put a head cone on him, and sent us all on our merry way.  Toby was to come back every three days to get his bandaged re-wrapped.  Toby had the bandage off within 24-hours, even with the cone on.  Here is where it can be bad to have a smart dog.  He figured out that the friction of the carpet, combined with the wood strips where the rooms meet, make perfect places to rub the wraps against to get them off.  When I told this to the vet, her response was, "Well, you need to leave the cone on him all the time." Well, duh. I did. All all of your dogs stupid?  (I didn't actually say that last part).  So we tried putting a layer of duct tape over the last layer of wrap to cut down on the friction, which helped a little (it gave us an extra 24 hours). 

Then I had to go to California and leave Toby in the care of my husband for a week and a half.  Neither of them was particularly happy with this arrangement.  Toby, who previously had to be dragged (or carried) into the vet office because he was so unwilling to go in there, actually went in there on his own four feet the first time I took him when I got back.  I guess he figured that me taking him was a better deal than Chad taking him.  Chad had a vet visit while I was away, where they just put him on more antibiotics, still thinking it was an infection.  The first visit I had when I got back, it was at least twice the original size, definitely protruding above the paw pad (at first, you had to actually dig a little to find it), and gross.  I was determined that there would be no more antibiotics. Clearly, the antibiotic approach was not working. The vet agreed with me, and we scheduled surgery for within a few days, to include a biopsy of the lump.

Toby did well with the surgery.  Throughout the whole thing, with the wrap and the stitches, he adapted to life with a cone relatively well.  At first, he had his sonar bark, when he would need to find me.  That drove my husband a little nuts. But as soon as I called out to him so he could find me, he would stop barking.  

The other thing was needing to keep it dry and clean.  Whenever we took Toby outside, we had to put a plastic bag on his injured paw.  For the most part we had a dry week.  But we leave for work early in the morning when the dew is still on the grass.  So on went the bag.  And Toby is a water wuss anyway.  It didn't take him long to figure out that three of his paws were getting wet, while one of them was staying dry.  I will never forget the look he gave me one morning.  It clearly said, "Hey, Mommy, you have been holding out on me here. Why aren't all my paws covered! They could all be dry!"  I guess Toby wants dog booties for Christmas.  They actually make them. There are tons on Amazon. Here is just one pair that I found.

After about a week, we received the results of the biopsy, and found out how lucky Toby was. He had cutaneous extramedullary plasmacytoma.  Which, in this case, was a benign tumor.  It is not usually found under the pad of the feet.  They are part of a larger class (if that is right term) of plasma cell neoplasms; the majority of plasma cell neoplasms (97%) are malignant (source; National Canine Cancer Foundation).  So Toby got the "good" kind I guess. There is a small chance it could grow back and have to be surgically removed again, but if it does, it should be the same kind.  

So, September was quite the roller coaster ride, emotionally.  Given everything that was going on, and what Toby went through, how well he went through it, how cheap the dog booties are (and that Toby is likely to actually wear them), I may just cave and get him his booties for Christmas. 

Sauteed Ginger Green Bean Recipe

Green beans are one of those vegetables that we grow, but they never make it to the canning or freezing stage in our house.  If my husband had his way, he would just boil the snot out of them and eat them that way.  It is a gross comparison, but that is about how I feel eating them that way.  So I have found a few other ways to cook them to make them more appetizing.  It must work, because the pounds and pounds of green beans that we grow never make it past the dinner table.

One of the easiest things to do is to make "Green Bean Fries."  Clean the beans, snap off the ends, and put them on a cookie sheet lightly coated with olive oil.  Bake at 400 degrees until they are all nice and crispy (the time it takes will depend on the size of your beans).  They won't taste like french fries, but they will be tasty and have a nice satisfying crunch.  These are a favorite of both myself and my daughter. She likes the crunchiness.  I like the easy preparation, and being able to leave them in the oven to cook while I prepare the rest of dinner.  You can add some salt if that is your thing.

Another recipe that I frequently use is Ginger Green Beans.  It doesn't seem to matter how much I make of this recipe, there are never any leftovers, even when I want there to be!

Ginger Green Beans:

Ingredients:

• 2 TBSP olive oil
• 2 tsp minced ginger
• 1 lb green beans (washed, with ends snapped)
• 2-3 TBSP soy sauce (we used reduced sodium)
• Sesame seeds as desired

Directions:

• Heat oil in the skillet over medium-high heat and saute green beans until they begin to lightly brown.
• Add ginger and sesame seeds.
• When all ingredients start to brown, turn heat down to medium-low.  Add soy sauce and stir until just cooked.
• Serve.

Garden Harvest Begins

The rain has finally let up a bit.  Our zucchini, tomatoes, squash, potatoes, green beans and other veggies have been keeping us busy and well-fed.  The raspberries have also been coming in well.  My daughter and I made a very good raspberry-zucchini bread.  I tried a new recipe, courtesy of Fern Creek Farm.  The bread was delicious.  Sadly there are no pictures, because any loaves that didn't make to the freezer were eaten within 3 days.  They sure were tasty.

Zucchini and raspberries.

One of our zucchini plants.

A zucchini peeping out from among the leaves.

Our acorn squash have been taking over.  They have busted out of their fence and are moving into the goat pen.  Luckily for us, the goats don't find the plants tasty.

The acorn squash that have demolished the bunny fence.

Acorn squash, moving into the goat pen.

Chad has also been having some trouble with his tomato plants.  One in particular refuses to be contained, busting out of every kind of tie-up.  It has almost turned into a shrub it is so large.  I have put a picture of Chad next to the plant for some perspective.

Chad and his tomato shrub.

Mason Dixon Fair 2015

We survived another fair, although the weather was once again uncooperative.  This year we had lots and lots of rain, which led to some serious flooding in our animal pens, as well as super muddy conditions around the fairgrounds.  We had to move all our animals to one pen at one point because the other pen was so full of water.  They weren't particularly keen on that, but settled in better once there was lots of hay for everyone.

Monday was the breeding goat show.  Colleen's friend Alli came to help her show this year.  They both did well.  There was a hilarious moment, which I unfortunately did not capture on camera.  As the goats and handlers were lined up for the judge, Colleen and Alli were placed next to each other.  Copine, who was being showed by Alli, apparently felt that Colleen was giving too much attention to Butterscotch (her sister), and jumped up to put her front feet on Colleen's back in the middle of the show ring.

Alli (in blue) is showing Copine.  Colleen (in orange) is showing Butterscotch.

Butterscotch is not cooperating for Colleen.

The girls and goats are both paying attention to the judge.

The girls, goats, and their ribbons.

Butterscotch and Copine snuggling after their showing is finished.

Tuesday Colleen showed the angora goats; Alli again came to help.  This time the goats were pretty well behaved (Sassafrass sat down in the middle of the ring at one point, but it was really hot out).  However, while the show was going on, a pig escaped and was running around outside the ring.  Overall, the goats were relatively chill about it.

That pig in the background is NOT supposed to be there. Sassafrass is not too pleased about it and is trying to get away from it.

Colleen with Sassafrass; Alli with Nikki.

Alli with Nikki.

Colleen and Leah.

Sassafrass claiming the water bucket.

A few other interesting moments:

The cow barn was located behind our tent.  At one point, I turned around to see a cow helping herself to one of the water spigots.  I thought someone had left it on, and was commenting on it with someone.  One of the cow 4Hers walked by and told me that the cow had learned to turn the water on whenever she wanted a drink and help herself.  I did not realize cows could be that smart.  Here's a photo of the cow getting a drink:

Wednesday, the last night we were there, they held the tractor pulls; at least until the thunderstorms of mud and doom rolled in.  Colleen loves tractor pulls for some reason, so she and Chad went to watch them.  They tried to continue them once the rain started, and all the fans ran to the barns and tents to watch.  After awhile the mud got too bad and they had to stop.  Also, they eventually used some of the tractors to help pull cars and trucks out of the mud when they got stuck as people were trying to leave.

Chad and Colleen enjoying the tractor pulls while staying dry.