gratitude challenge - day 11

It's here! It's HERE!!!!! Finally, our online shopping is open! Check it out at:

http://fromthecountryfarm.com/shop/

It will have new products added when they are ready but for now you can get our soap shipped directly to you or a loved one!

This is what I'm thankful for tonight because a HUGE pressure has been lifted from my shoulders and I am thankful. I am also thankful for the wonderful news a friend shared with me today and I could not be more happy for her.

Ever thought about moving to the country? or a farm? or....

homesteading or things of that nature? Ever thought, "Someday I'll do that, but...." Well, until someday happens for you here's something to tide you over.

It's our "A Year on the Farm" goat milk soap gift set! It's a project I've been working on for a while and was finally able tonight to get it finished for your viewing pleasure. It's a collection of scents that correlate to things that are happening in the farm during that month. The soap dish in the center is designed exclusively and hand crafted for our soap by a local potter, using Maine Marine clay! It holds the bar of oatmeal soap, because a good breakfast for a hard days work is oatmeal! :-) The handcrafted box is made with pine grown in Maine and harvested from my childhood home, which I happen to think is a pretty special place! There are a limited number of these available, so get yours today! We'll be starting to ship these soon!

YUM!!!

See that caramel-like sauce? only better! Yes, I made that! I made it yesterday with fresh creamy goat milk, it's called Cajeta, or Dulce de Leche and WOW I see a bit more of this in my future and on some French toast.....

Now that I've made your mouth water, have a great day y'all!

Just moments after birth...

Meet the Cast - From the Country Farm Celeste

From the Country Farm is pleased to introduce  From the Country Farm Celeste, born on June 29, 2012. She and Momma Venus are both doing great!

Hey! Whatcha doin?

So I've been busy working on getting the remainder of the yarn skeined and working on the displays for some upcoming events and George wandered over to the window to see what I was up to. It made me giggle and think, 'I wonder what he's thinking looking at all that yarn - some of it being his...' lol!

hot off my needles!

I have no idea why the quality of this photo is so grainy but who cares about that when the excitement is this high!!! WOOHOO!!! This lovely headband was grown by Jonathan and Ramsey and handmade by me! I'm so excited about this, in case you couldn't tell. ;-)

What do y'all think?!

Have we any wool? Indeed! Several cones full!

 These three top cones are what has come in today and the middle one is all Monkey's fiber, once this is gone it's gone - we lost him this past spring. I kept telling him that I couldn't wait to wear him and I'm pretty excited about now being able to!

So what do you think? This a huge step for the farm and I've just giving you a heads up - I've got a couple announcements to make when all the details have been worked out! woohoo!

Warm Winter Woolies!

So here it is folks! Just back from the mill and ready for some creativity, all that's needed is YOU! This is our llama/wool blend.

 

100% Maine grown alpaca! Exclusive From the Country Farm blend we call Johnsey! Makes me think of a sinfully rich mug of hot cocoa. Silky. Soft. Warm. What more could you ask for?

 

 

 Miss Audrey's favorite "Deorgepaca!" Again 100% Maine grown alpaca! Similar to Johnsey only a white chocolate version!

All our fiber is processed and spun into this wonderful yarn within 10 miles of our farm, when I say I like supporting local businesses I mean local! :-) When the rest of the yarn is finished and back I'll post some pictures of that as well, it'll be after the start of the new year, I think I'll have all this yarn in hanks by then! Have I mentioned I'm just giddy about this?!

is it tomorrow yet?!

After months of waiting I just got a call from the spinning mill and MOST of my fiber is ready! I'm going to go pick up what's ready tomorrow and I'm giddy about this, it's been a long time coming and a huge step for the farm! I'll post pics when I get it - after I'm done swooning over it!

ours vs. theirs

I've wanted to make this post for a long time, and I'm thrilled to be about to do it now! This is why organic free range eggs from a local farmer are more costly than a dime a dozen....they're worth more! This is a side by side comparison of our eggs and one that isn't. Our yolk stood up higher on the plate, was firmer, and the white stayed around the yolk while the 'other' egg's white was almost water-like and ran all over the plate, as you can see in the photo. The color speaks for itself and the nutritional value of our eggs will beat out any 'other' egg hands down! So if you want to know what all the rage is over these eggs go to a local farmers market and pick up a dozen and test them for yourself. If you need to "justify" why you're spending 5 dollars or more on a dozen eggs, think of it as an investment. An investment in your health!

Do you see my pot of gold?

Can't beat 'em? Eat 'em!

We have been blessed with an abundance of dandelions this year! A bumper crop! We decided that picking all of them, pulling them all up, spraying with an harmful chemical ::shudder::, or closing our eyes and hoping they'll go away were not viable options we decided to eat them. A couple years ago I stumbled upon a blogger that had made some, so I thought hey, why not? I fired off an email asking how and this is what I did.
The kids and I picked a whole mess of these little beauties.

Then took some time to "run through the wishers" as Andrew calls them.

So after the running was done, I brought them inside and started making jelly. All you use is the blossom (yellow) part so just cut that off. And place those in the bowl.
Discard or rather compost these, you don't need them, they've done their job, they no longer serve a purpose.
Continue cutting the blossoms off until you have the correct amount.
place them in your pot, add water and boil.

Then you get this really beautiful, sunny, yellow liquid to which you add sugar and pectin.

And you end up with a product like this! Now you may be asking what does it taste like?! Well, it's actually very good! Light, crisp and slightly honey like. Try it sometime you'll like it!
We also have a bumper crop of these and I actually love these, so does Andrew - to eat! Sometime ago he and I were discussing why the animals think grass tastes good and I mentioned to him that there were lots of things that were good to eat in the wild (and lots that are poisonous so it's better the check it out first...) and mentioned for example violets. He picked some, tried them and loves eating them in the spring "as a snack." So when I stumbled across a way to make jelly out of those as well I knew I'd have to at least try it! So we did! (Ron's now thinking "Why are you encouraging the weirdness?!!") Here's what we did!
While finishing up the dandelion jelly I sent the kids out to pick a whole pile of violets. Washed them off, drained them and set them in a stainless steel bowl and poured boiling water on them and set them aside for a couple hours and stirred them occasionally.

Can you see the emerald green water? Don't worry, this is normal. Carry on!
After a few hours of steeping drain the violets obviously reserving the water and put it in the pot to cook. Add lemon juice and watch what happens....
Viola'!!! Violet (colored) violet jelly!
Then you add your sugar and pectin, cook it, jar it, seal it and then you have violet jelly!
I used evaporated cane juice, not the refined white sugar the recipe called for so it's a slightly darker color than if I'd used that, but Andrew is thrilled.

made fresh!

Chive and garlic chevre, all made here fresh on the farm! Making more today! Yum!

for the guinea pigs - here's a look!

While on a popular 'social network site' I spotted a new idea, though the idea is not mine, the product in this picture is. It's a simple lotion bar that when comes into contact with warm hands melts off just enough of the bar to rub into your skin. Feels great and is not greasy at all! I'm sending out a few of these to guinea pigs, I mean friends, to see what they think. I'm anxious to hear back from them as to what they think, because we love it here!

oven roasted bbq pork ribs

Last night I made ribs for Ron, I'll admit, I was nervous about it as I'm not all that great a cook, I've only ever made pork ribs one other time and Ron grilled them and I really didn't want to screw this up. This recipe was an oven baked recipe with a homemade BBQ sauce. I think I'm going to tweak the recipe for BBQ sauce, more like the one my mom used to make when I was a kid, I could have eaten that with a spoon! I did in fact if I recall correctly. But anyway, this particular recipe was rubbed down with a mixture of spices and love, set on a rack on pan and placed in the oven to cook, I think next time I'll just place them on the pan because the pork is really lean and what little fat there was dripped out and may have caused them to be dryer than they could have been. They didn't appear to be shoe leather tough, and Ron enjoyed them. Now it's hard for me to say, as I don't eat it and I'm no Ree Drummond, so maybe I should stick to the recipe and leave the tweaking to the pros.

Sam I am!

How cool is this? I'm a Dr. Seuss character! Green eggs and ham produced here on the farm! This is actually a smoked and nitrate free ham steak, but it is ham just the same. When cooking meat that I've raised I feel like I need to be more careful with is and make sure it all gets used/eaten, especially the pork. I know that sounds crazy, but I don't like to think that these girls died only to be overcooked, cooked badly, or tossed out with the garbage because the meat wasn't all consumed. Raising my own meat has certainly made me think differently about cooking it for sure!

Soap of the Month Club - enrollment now open!

I've finally got the details worked out for the soap of the month club, so if you're interested please email me at:

fromthecountryfarm@gmail.com

Space is limited!

Soap of the Month Club - coming soon!

Stay tuned as we here at From the Country Farm will be starting a soap of the Month Club in January 2011. I am very excited about the positive response to this, details coming soon!

* If you know you are already interested in this contact me at fromthecountryfarm@gmail.com or leave me a comment here and I'll put you on the list!

it's not going to be a good day tomorrow

On this snowy night as dark settles in on our farm it is with a very heavy heart that I write tonight. I've had a horrible pit in my stomach since the flipped the calendar to December. (Hence the lack of posts.) Tomorrow I'm taking our girls; the pigs to be harvested. The tears are really flowing now. I knew it would hurt when we got them and I knew this would not be easy. One person said to me the other day, "It'll get easier." Well, I don't want it to get easier, I don't want the fact that I am responsible for their lives and deaths to be easier, to feel painless, like it means nothing. I've been entrusted to care for these creatures, their well being depended on me. It was suggested that we get two so they could keep each other company and so I wouldn't get so attached to them. I'm glad we did get two, one would be so lonely as they really are such smart and social creatures but as far as to prevent me not getting attached to them that was unlikely to begin with, I love animals. I know why I'm raising meat, despite the fact that I'm a vegetarian and I'm ok with the end result; it's like ripping off a band-aid after the wound has healed, but tonight the wound is fresh and very raw. I hope I gave them a good life, they seem happy and in the end when it's all said and done I hope while on this earth it was just one bad day they had.

Tomorrow will be a very long day and the kids and I will hurt. Ron is working from home tomorrow to be here so the kids don't have to go with me to drop them off and I'm so thankful for that. So tonight I ask those of you who are of The Faith, if you're so inclined, I'd really be grateful if you'd send up a prayer for us tonight. We are really going to miss our girls.

They've grown a bit...

...and enjoyed a "mar sarge" or two...

...and been 'loved on' a little...

.. and will sincerely be missed...