NEEDLEPOINT FLOWERS, THRIFT STORE FIND

Vintage needlepoint with flowers

Found this at lunch the other day and one of my favorite thrift stores.  I'm guessing it's a table runner of some sort but it was the beautiful needlepoint work that really caught my eye.  It was only $5.00!

Needlepoint

It's got these beautiful roses mixed with other flowers and greenery.  The colors are vibrant and it's edged in a metallic thread.  The background is a nice yellowish gold color and it's lined on the back with a cream colored fabric.  

I knew immediately what room it would go into at the farm, the guest room (which has a flower theme), but I wasn't sure where.  

Vintage needlepoint table runner with flowers

So when we went out, we had to decide.  We thought about hanging it on the wall but there wasn't a suitable space for that.  We don't have a long dresser that it would go on either.  Then we looked at this yellow cabinet we have in the room and thought that it might look nice hanging on the side.  I put a little hook at the top and here it is!  It looks nice, and is kind of the first thing you see when you look into the room. 

Anyone else love a thrift store/garage sale bargain?

BAY LAUREL TREE

Bay Tree in small container

This is a Bay tree.  Or Bay Laurel as they are called.  It is, of course, one of the trees that the Bay Leaf comes from which is used in culinary creations around the world.  We've been babying this one for about two years now, it started out about 2 inches tall and now is about a foot high.  I was thinking it might be time to transplant it out of its container and into a more permanent home.

That brings me to the question.  

I'm wondering how it should be planted?  Are they better off ground planted or just large container planted?  Seems kind of small to go into the ground and let's face it, our ground is not conducive in some areas and I'd hate to have it die after keeping it this long.  Or do they perhaps grow better in containers?  We have a few empty, very large clay pots in town and we could use one of those.  As it is now, it only gets watered once a week and it's growing well so I'm guessing we'd be OK in a large pot that was watered every weekend.

Bay leaves

I know they are slow growing so we have time to wait.

What about it?  
Anyone ever grown a bay tree?  

ORDERING LADIES ONLINE

BEES!  

We ordered our bees!

What were YOU thinking?

We plopped down the money for two "packages" like this.  They weigh about 3 lbs each and a package contains an already mated queen and upwards of about 10,000 bees...EACH!  That's a lot of bees coming to the farm!  Believe it or not, this is the time of year to order bees.  I learned in the bee school last year that you should always order your bees in the Fall because they are delivered in the early Spring.  Many apiaries are actually already sold out, or have people on a waiting list at this time of year.  For us, this is good for planning because we can spend the next few months getting everything ready.  It's almost like "nesting" when expecting a new arrival.  Hmm, or would that be "hiving"?

We ordered ours from this place, R Weaver Apiaries.  We don't get anything in return from them for this post, this is just our own recommendation.  They actually came highly recommend by a reader of the blog that lives nearby who got their bees at the same place (thank you JM!).  We figured if they have been in business since 1888, they must be doing SOMETHING right.  Their answering of questions and help via phone and email has been wonderful.

Buckfast Bees, image courtesy of Wikimediacommons.com

We ordered BUCKFAST bees.  They are an Italian bee strain that was first developed by Brother Adam who was in charge of beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey in England.  Brother Adam has a fascinating story, if you are interested, click HERE to read his Wiki entry.  Anyway, they were developed for their highly desired qualities.  They are gentle, have a low incidence of swarming, are great honey producers, keep their hives clean, they overwinter well, and of course the queens live a long time.

We are beyond excited.  We're now just a few months away from an exciting new adventure at the farm.  We're learning so much, I've been ordering tools and supplies, those will be coming soon and I'll have some posts about them as well.  

I really always wondered how you actually ordered bees.  Who knew that they were buzzing their way through our postal system, or riding around in FedEx and UPS trucks?  Ordering bees online...now that I think it about, I guess this is the apiary equivalent of mail order brides?  

Let the countdown BEEgin....

*sorry, couldn't resist!

CROP CORPS, VINTAGE POSTER SUNDAY

We really like this poster image.  It is from WWII and is part of the US Crop Corps program.  This program was similar to the Women's Land Army (getting women to help with crops) and the Victory Farm Volunteers (getting boys and girls to help with crops) but geared toward the older crowd.  This one was sponsored by Country Gentlemen magazine. 

In this, they said "Wanted, Town Folks with Farm Experience".  The fine print mentioned that for "health and patriotic reasons, plan to spend every day you can spare working on a farm".  I guess in this one, he is rolling up his sleeves and getting ready to work (it also looks like give blood? LOL, just kidding).

Hope you are having a good weekend!

5 ACRES AND A DREAM THE BOOK, REVIEW

Click here to find the book on Amazon

I had the pleasure of reading a book from a fellow blogger.  Many of you know Leigh Tate from her blog 5 Acres and a Dream where she is chronicling their journey.  If you don't know her, get on over there and check it out. 

She has recently written a book that documents that journey.  Even though I received the book in the Summer, I hadn’t blogged about it yet because I was actually saving it for those cold Winter evenings when I could lay in bed and read.  It has been on my nightstand and for the last week I’ve done just that, reading a chapter or two each evening.  While our own adventure, that I blog about here, bears a few similarities, we are nowhere NEAR being ready to do what she and her husband have done.  Because the book is divided up into different accounts of events and plans, it’s kind of nice to read about it and the next day,  when I find myself daydreaming about something they have done, I Google to find out more info on the topic.  In fact, one of the early things we’re going to do is use their rainwater harvesting technique almost exactly as they have done it on their farmstead.

Click here to visit her blog

The book is chock full of tips and techniques.  In 5 Acres and a Dream, she takes us all on the journey toward creating a homestead, pretty much from scratch, and documents all the highs and, yes, even the occasional lows.  It’s hard work, and she readily mentions that, but still, I swear she makes it look so easy.  Heck, she even has some recipes in it!  This is a book that anyone, novice homesteader wannabe or someone experienced and living off the grid for years, would enjoy and be able to find both knowledge and kinship within its pages.  It’s not always an easy journey but in the end, it’s a worthwhile journey and she has done it all with a grace and fighting spirit that would make those that have come before us (and done it) proud.

So grab a copy of the book, it's both reference manual and personal story in one engaging story and would make a great gift for your own reading list or for someone on your gift list.

Here is the Amazon link:

5 Acres & A Dream The Book: The Challenges of Establishing a Self-Sufficient Homestead

This link to the publishing company has all the online places that it's available:

http://kikobian.com/5acres.html

I know one thing for sure, with this book's help, and our own "Master Plan", I want our farm to be like theirs when it grows up, ha.  

Thanks for sharing your journey with us Leigh!

DEHYDRATING FROZEN PEAS AND CARROTS

Recently, we tried some more dehydrating using frozen vegetables.  It was a great time to do it since (here anyway) the humidity was low and it was cold outside so heating up the kitchen a bit was totally OK.  We ran to the grocery store and grabbed a couple bags of frozen 'peas and carrots'.  

Each bag was 16oz, so two pounds total.

Dehydrating frozen vegetables before

While some of this fell through to the lower level, and a bit more was eaten, you know, for "testing purposes", this is how much moisture is removed:

Dehydrating frozen vegetables after

Amazing how much they change!  These took about 12 hours...we dried several layers of them and as you see, the end result seems like so little, even though it was a pound of frozen peas and carrots on each layer.  The photo below was the last jar of peas and carrots and wasn't quite full but we ended up with two jars.

We also dried some more corn and still have one last, lonely jar of our dehydrated tomatoes left (those are so good in a creamy pasta sauce).

Dehydrated frozen vegetables and fresh tomatoes.

Adventures in dehydrating!

CAT BOWL, FELINE FRIDAY

SO WE GOT THIS GREAT BOWL...isn't it pretty?
Found it at a local grocery store that has a few housewares in it for 70% off.  Can't beat that!  It's a great large shallow pasta bowl and well...

Umm...hello?  

Excuse me?

Sigh...Hobart thinks it was a GREAT deal...a deal for him to have a nice and comfy place to sleep!  Pasta alla Hobart anyone?

More later this afternoon!

MUSCADINE TRELLIS, INSPIRATION THURSDAY

Muscadine Grape Trellis, image courtesy of Southernliving.com

We are in the preliminary stages of finding a location on the farm for the muscadine grapevines that we bought last year and have been babying in containers in the city.  We saw this online a couple years back (even before we had the vines) and like the simplicity of something like this.  

Not sure ours will be this size but what we are sketching up on paper may end up being fairly similar.  So many projects on the list but this one has to be near the top so that we can get the grapevines started on their journey next Spring when it's time to plant them.  

Be inspired!

WEEKEND UPDATE

So this past weekend, if you can believe, I had to mow one more time.  I lowered the mower deck to 1.5" level and made a pass around everything.  It definitely needed a trimming and now, as it goes dormant for Winter, it will at least look uniform.

Mowing the front yard

Above and below are photos of the front yard from two different angles.  Lots to mow here but even though it was a cool and overcast day, it was a good day to get it all done and now the Zen Machine is finally put up for the season.

The front yard

We had never noticed before, but this particular mesquite tree, the one we named "Ginger", turns a beautiful yellow in the Fall (Winter?). 

Mesquite Tree changing in Fall

It's pretty much the only "Fall Foliage" we get around here, so we'll take it.

Bird Nest in Tree

And as I as mowing, I saw this bird nest high up in a tree.  Without all the leaves, it's easier to spot these around the property.  This one I believe was empty, perhaps even long abandoned, but it is still a fun thing to see.

All this reminds me that the season is over and we're just waiting for the long cold days to settle in.  Time to start planning for next year!

DUPLO LEGO BIG FARM

After yesterday's Persimmon Fail post, I thought we should post something fun.  Recently, we needed to get a gift for 2nd Man's Grand Nephew, who is now 3 yrs old.  (Aww, he's just a little guy).  His Mom told us he loves to build things and so we immediately thought of Lego's.  Of course he's too young for regular Lego's but they do make DUPLO for the younger crowd.  

When we went to the store, we saw this and fell in love with it. 

Duplo Big Farm Set

It's the Lego Duplo Big Farm set.  It has a farmhouse and chickens and cows and a horse and a barn and all sorts of farm related things.

While we were standing in the long line (this was a couple of weeks before "Black Friday") we had time to kill and so we made the observations below:  

Duplo Farm set

We could give everything a name based on our own farm, LOL!  (told you we had too much time on our hands).

We got ours at the local Target but of course, it can be purchased at Amazon by clicking on this link: DUPLO LEGO Ville 10525 Big Farm

Hopefully, he'll enjoy it!  And if you have a little one in your family to buy for and you have a farm or rural place, this would be a really cute gift.  

Christmas is coming soon, now time to find something else!

HARVESTING OUR WILD PERSIMMONS

It was time, maybe past time, to harvest our recent discovery of wild persimmons on the property.

Here is the tree...as of a couple of weekends ago.  All of the low hanging fruit (isn't there a saying about that?) was gone, my guess is the local wildlife came for their annual treats.  So I pulled what I could and then shook the tree and gathered up the ones that fell to the ground.  I left plenty behind (I kind of lost track of what had fallen naturally and what I shook off, didn't want ants in the batch we were taking home) but there were lots lying around on the ground.

We ended up with this bucket full, not a 'haul' by any means but it would be fun to try anyway.

No, this isn't a snail, LOL.  Some of them had the leafy stems on them so when I pulled them off, this core came out with them. 

We put them in a colander and washed them off under some running water.

I grabbed our handy dandy food mill.  As a side note, I love using this thing, there is something satisfying about turning the crank around and around.

I did the first batch, got about one cup of pulp.  I was a bit concerned because it had the black bits of skin, wasn't sure if it was supposed to have that but I figured that's normal.  Before I did the next batch though, I sampled it...it was sweet...and then...

...yeah, it was sweet, for a split second, then turned into the most vile thing I've ever eaten.  My tongue got numb, my upper lip went numb as well, and it felt like I had a mouth full of cotton.  I had swallowed a bit of it and it felt like my throat was closing up and I couldn't swallow...

I momentarily thought I might have done something really bad...am I really going out like this?  

"Houston area man dies after eating rare poisonous persimmon"

I tried to get 2nd Man to try some and see if it was just me or if it affected everyone like that but when I said "here, try this", he just looked at me with the glare of...

Needless to say, it was all thrown in the trash.  Not sure what happened.  Overripe?  Under ripe?  I know a lot of you said they are very astringent when not ripe but dang, these were super soft, practically falling apart when you held them, and they were falling off the tree.  Can't get much riper than that.  It's a mystery to us.  We'll just have to see what happens next year when they start to look like they are ripening.

Sigh...for this part of the farm adventure, we have to end with...

CANADA'S EGG OPPORTUNITY, VINTAGE POSTER SUNDAY

Canda's Egg Opportunity, vintage poster image courtesy of Canada Archives Public Domain

Here is a great poster from WWI and Canada.  Food was a huge resource for the troops and allies so production was of the utmost importance.  The Canadian Food Board put out this poster to show that production had gone down over the years and therefore the production of eggs needed to be increased to help with the war effort. 

I love the image of the man standing next to the chicken.  That's a giant chicken, LOL!  I'm sure today there is no problem with egg production anywhere, but of course I'm guessing the quality of eggs then compared to today is vastly different.

Hope you are having a good weekend.  Weather has been kinda blah here, cold, damp, but I still got some things done.  More on that later.  For now we are off to 2nd Man's great nephews third birthday.

RIP PUDDLES

We heard some sad news at the farm today from 2nd Family.  

They have two pet ducks, not counting the group that sort of adopted them.  Well, "J" let us know that Puddles, the sweet white duck in the picture below, died suddenly a few days ago.

Puddles the Duck

She said Puddles was perfectly fine one day, and gone the next.  No signs of injury, no broken limbs, no wounds.  Just happy and seemingly healthy one day and then when they went to feed her, she was gone. They are very sad around their homestead and so is their remaining duck, Ginkgo, who was best friends with Puddles.  They are thinking of getting another so that Ginkgo isn't alone.  

They had Puddles for about 2 years, she was their first ever duck.  She was already grown so there's no way to know how old she was, though she always seemed young and playful.  I remember we went down there recently and were all leaning up against the fence watching the ducks and we realized that we had just let 20 minutes go by without talking, just watching the ducks do their thing.  It was a great moment, I can't imagine a better way to spend an afternoon.  

Goodbye Puddles...you will be missed.  

THE BIRD THIEF

OK...how is this for a "farm moment"...

Recently, I was leaning over in the garden, doing some weeding in one of the raised beds and I had taken my gloves off and put both of them on the gate railing to be "safe".  Suddenly, I heard a noise behind me.  

It was a bird calling loudly.  I turned around and there was a black one (a Grackle I think?), sitting on the gate...

The bird thief

...it then proceeded to poop on the fence, grabbed one of my gloves in its beak and flew away, disappearing down the driveway and off into the trees...

WITH MY GLOVE!

What the Hell?

I suppose it will be funny if someday I'm mowing and glance up into a tree and see the familiar orange incorporated into a birds nest, but for now, I'll need another pair of gloves...and I guess I'll need to put them under a heavy brick when "not in use", LOL.

Anyone ever have something stolen by an animal/bird?

PRAYING CAT, FELINE FRIDAY

Quite often, Brisbane will sleep like this.  He puts his front paws together and leans his head forward and buries it like this.  We always say it looks like he's praying about something, ha.  Cat food, catnip, treats, a sunny spot...

More later this afternoon!

SCARECROW IN THE GARDEN, INSPIRATION THURSDAY

Scarecrow in a field, image courtesy of HGTV.com

I think we've posted about our love of scarecrows before.  Since the garden this past Spring was more of a test run (and successful enough to do it again of course), we felt we didn't need one right away.  I do know that I have been fascinated with them since I was younger and now that we have the ability to have one, I want one in our garden next year.

Do they actually work?  I don't know.  My guess would be probably not, but maybe I'm wrong.  Perhaps building it and putting it up is half the fun anyway.  Heck, we've even saved a few old clothes to use for him!  We're ready!

Anyone out there ever had a scarecrow?  Do you think they work?

Be inspired!

THE WINNERS ARE...

Thanks for everyone for entering... 

The three winners of the Ball jar infuser giveaway are:

CONGRATULATIONS!

JOANI  -  My Southwest Ramblings blog

COLLEEN - I don't believe you have a blog but if you do, please let us know!

AMANDA POPE - Misty Pines Blog

We just need each of you to email us (use the "email me" button on the sidebar) and let us know the address to send it to.

Trust me when I say, we love doing giveaways but we hate when not everyone can win.  Thanks for always leaving such kind comments and there will be another one coming soon!

NOT SO BABY DUCKS

Remember a while back when we posted HERE about some baby ducks that 2nd Family had sort of rescued?

Well here they are about a month ago!  

They were almost grown up now...

...spreading their wings and learning to fly.

Ducks growing up

...and just generally being cute as can be.  They are flying short distances and 2nd Family fears that one morning they will be all be gone.  I guess time will tell, but don't they all fly the nest eventually?  Until then, 2nd Family and of course us (when we are out there), enjoy their company.  They are very personable and will follow you all over the place, quacking and waddling around, but they never stray far from each other.  Even when they are at rest ,they are always huddled together.  They are very attached. 

And so are we...

Giveaway drawing results tonight!

HOW TO OVEN ROAST A TURKEY IN ONE HOUR

Several of you commented, and a few even emailed us directly, and asked:  

"How did you cook a turkey in 1 hour?"  "Was that a typo?"

Nope, we really do cook our turkey in one hour...

We've posted this before but for those new to the blog, we're definitely happy to share it again.  It all starts with this thing here.  It's a "Beer Can Turkey Rack" (they are bigger than the regular beer can chicken holders).  We don't use beer (though I said we should try that sometime), we just use it as the method to hold the bird upright in the oven.  

We take a large sheet pan and cover it with heavy duty foil.  We take the giblets and neck out of the turkey and place it on the beer can rack.  Next, we rub olive oil all over and under and season it with some seasoning we call our farmhouse blend (really just whatever you like, salt, pepper, garlic powder, etc).  Heat the oven to 450 degrees.

Oh, I almost forgot, we do make sure the flap of skin is down over the neck opening so that it holds the moisture in.  This lets the heat go up under and into the turkey but not really escape out of the top.  As you can see, one hour later and it's nice and golden!  Friends have commented that it almost looks like a fried turkey.  

Here is a shot of the bird while it is cooking in the oven.  We take out all the racks except one and put that one on the lowest setting so that the baking sheet is on an oven rack, just at the lowest spot.  We've found that for our oven, a 14 lb bird is just about the biggest we can get.  

One hour roasted turkey

This wouldn't work (and we've tried) if you just put it in a pan, breast side up (or down) and did the same high temperature.  All you would end up with is overdone on the top and underdone on the bottom.  Plus you'd get a turkey that's two toned.

What happens with this method is that the super hot heat is able to reach all around the turkey at the same time so that it sears the skin and seals in the juices.  When we slice it, it's just as moist as can be.  In only one hour!  We start checking it about 40 minutes in.  We like the skin crispy and golden so we get that at about 1 hour, but you might like the results a bit sooner than that.  Just check the temp with a thermometer.  When we put it on a tray to carve it, it just looks beautiful, like a classic roasted turkey.

Hope that helps!