Home Grown Kidney Beans

When shopping for seeds at the feed store this past spring, I saw a package of kidney bean seeds.  I've never grown them before and thought it might be a fun experiment.

Marc planted three rows of kidney beans, next to the regular bush beans.  The bean pods took a bit longer to flower and set than other varieties but otherwise, they looked very similar.

I had the idea that I would pick them as they matured and can them without having to dry, soak, cook, etc. As I said, I'd never done it before, but had this bright idea.  Turns out, that's not how it works at all.

There's really not a lot of info out there on raising these types of beans.  I'm guessing that's because not many people do it nowadays.  Everything I read said to leave the pods on the plant until dry, shell and store.  That was about it.

As a couple of beans matured, I picked them and ate them raw.  Nothing to write home about.  As I did a little more googling I learned that eating raw kidney beans will make you sick! Supposedly even a few will produce vomiting, diarrhea, etc.  I literally learned that right after I'd eaten those few raw ones.  I waited for the violet illness to set in but it didn't happen thankfully.  I'm pretty sure I'd have thrown them all out. Anyway, they must be well cooked before eating.

For the most part, all the beans were ready at once and before I knew it they were all dry on the plants.  It was a very simple harvest job - just grab the dry bean pods and dump them in a bucket for later shelling. Unlike the fresh eating beans, the dry pods are brown and stand out against the green bush, making them easy to spot.  There were a few green ones still not dry when I harvested them, so I popped out those beans and put them in the dehydrator for a bit to get good and dry before storing.

We had 3 rows about 25 feet long total, and harvested 5 pounds of beans.  That may not sound like much but again this was only 3 small rows.  The beauty of the whole thing is you drop in the seed and walk away until they're dry on the bush.  So little effort, unlike the fresh green beans, which have to be picked as they mature and canned, these can sit around until it's convenient to deal with them.  At the height of harvest and canning season, it was nice to have something that I didn't have to worry about going bad before I could deal with it.

I made a pot of chili with some the other night and they were quite good.  Maybe it's my imagination but I think they were better than store-bought.  ; )

Totes Ma Goats

New Kids on the Block er... Rock

I've wanted goats for as long as I can remember.  I've never actually had any so it has been a learning curve.  I wanted a doe (female) for milk and two males to train to pull a cart (more about this strange obsession below).  Dana and Mike gave me the little doeling for a birthday present!  She got some from the same place on the same day - we had like six goats on the backseat on the way home.

I got the two little boys so I would have matching working goats.  Well, one of the little boys was never quite "right" and he died.  It was pitiful knowing there was nothing I could do for him.  Just about the time I was going to put him down, he died.

I got them on March 20th.  They were born around a week before that.  So as of this writing they are still on the bottle... twice a day.  We are working to wean them off the bottle.  While Dana and Mike had milk cows producing it wasn't a problem, but they had to dry up the cows and that left me in the lurch.  I bought four gallons of goat milk from the same lady I got the goats from and decided it was time to wean them.  Because they're bottle fed, they treat me and Marc like their parents.  If anything startles them they run straight for us for protection.  It's completely adorable.

They wear collars with little bells and when they're out "playing" they prance and jump and the bell jingles.

In this pic of Snowflake below, you can see where she was "disbudded" - a nice word for having her horns seared to the point they won't grow.  I had the breeder take care of this unpleasant matter before getting any of them.  I certainly didn't want a horned goat and yet I knew I could never dehorn one.  As of today, the horn area is completely healed and the hair has grown over so you wouldn't know it was ever there.

Snowflake

I am not good at coming up with names.  Rylan named Snowflake.  The jury's still out on the boy, whom I call Boy.  I am leaning towards Casper the Friendly Goat. 

They have really grown. The pic below is Boy, quite soon after I got him.  He's just chillaxin.

 

And here he is trying to get in Marc's lap in that same chair.  He's just a BIT bigger now as you can see. He will get quite large - as tall as my waist. He'll be strong enough to pull a cart with a heavy load in it.

 

He kept leaning against Marc - it was so cute.   He definitely has a sweet personality. He has been "wethered" (neutered) so he is going to stay mild mannered.

 

Back to the goat cart obsession.  I remember my Dad had a do-it-yourself book called Children's Play Structures or some such.  He once set out to make a playhouse/fort, but it never got off the ground so to speak.  Anyway, in this book there were plans to make a Goat Cart and it showed a goat pulling kids (human ones) in a cart.  I was fascinated and still am.  I have visions of Boy pulling my grandkids in a cart in a parade.  He is becoming leash trained, so we're on the way. 

Getting Ready for Spring Gardening

We started our first seedlings in early January.  It didn't take long to run out of space.  I had tried to economize by buying the smaller seed trays (from Johnny's) but it became evident fairly quickly that I would have to repot them in peat pots as they outgrew the seed trays.  Annoying. 

Anyway, we have hundreds of seedlings growing nicely.  Keep your fingers crossed that they'll all grow in the garden!  Marc already tilled two of the three gardens so they're ready to hill up and plant. 

We can't wait to get started and get some fresh vegetables growing.  But wait we must.  We are used to a USDA zone 8-9 in Texas, in which gardening could be done year round.  It's a bit different here.  We're in zone 6B.  Without a good greenhouse, nothing can be grown outside in winter.  In Texas, potatoes were traditionally planted on Valentine's Day but here it's St. Patrick's Day - a full month later!

What I am Reading Today

Back in the very early 80's I bought a book called "Carla Emery's Old Fashioned Recipe Book" (now it is called The Encyclopedia of Country Living).  I've read and re-read this book so many times that the front and back covers, as well as the first six pages of the book are long gone. 

The author writes about all manner of old fashioned farming and housekeeping topics.  She kind of rambles in the book so by the time you're done you know all about her personal life as well.  She said that the book idea started back in the 70's when she put an ad in the classified section of The Mother Earth News.  She didn't think she would get much response and hadn't started the book yet.

She was bombarded with orders, and checks in payment.  She hadn't even started the book yet, but she cashed the checks and started typing.  This was back before personal computers so she actually typed everything up on a typewriter and mimeographed (no home copiers either...) copies.  She realized it was more work than she thought and she got a few chapters done and sent them with a promise of more to come.  She eventually finished the book and sold it to a publisher.  My copy has 520 pages of tiny type.  That must have been a lot of work.  I can barely manage a blog entry per week.

A few years back Carla Emery was on a speaking tour, and she was slated to speak at a farm close to where we lived.  I was thinking I would go and have her autograph my old copy and buy a new version (she's updated it through the years).  She died of a heart attack right before that speaking engagement.

I'm reading it again for inspiration as we have a contract on our "city" house and we'll be moving to the "sticks" soon.  We have a contract to purchase a 32 acre farm in the Ozarks (we're buying part of a larger tract) from a young Mennonite farming family.  This property is about half pasture and half woods.  We are looking forward to having the woods to explore.  The current owners grow all of their own food in the large gardens and raise meat goats.  They asked to stay on the place until they harvest the corn.  While none of the buildings are what I would call picturesque, they have most of the outbuildings that we will need, including a well house, a goat barn (possibly to become a poultry house), a shop, a small multi-purpose barn, and others.  The house is what they call on HGTV a "fixer".  Livable as it is, but definitely in need of updating.  We have scheduled inspections on the farm and hope that we don't find anything that will be a deal breaker.  I can already see myself living there and don't want to have to start the house hunting process again!

Grape Stompin'

After working at a winery for almost 10 years, Marc's not too keen on picking or pressing any more grapes. He has a few wine grape plants scattered around and they're ready to pick. He initially planted 60 when we first bought the property, but wild hogs rooted most of them up before we moved out here. We have a bumper crop of wild Muscadine grapes this year too. They're not planted in civilized rows with manicured aisles between, they grow on trees, fence lines, etc. You have to watch for spiders, wasps, snakes etc., when picking them, and I don't like wild critters at all.

I remember when I was a teenager, Dana made some homemade wine. All I remember is that she put it in a crock in the pantry and must have used a lot of sugar, cause it was sweet. (I dipped a few sips out of the crock).

I would like to try making some home made wine, but don't really have all the equipment yet, so I guess I'll have to wait till next summer. Meanwhile, I'm juicing grapes for jelly, syrup and maybe even just to drink.

I pulled out my trusty Roma Food Mill and inserted the grape spiral and started cranking. It was incredibly easy (Sidebar: I am not getting paid by Lehman's to advertise, but I have to say, this is well worth the price. You can get the basic food mill and all extras for about $75. It saves unbelieveable amounts of time and work) The skins and seeds went out one side and the juice and pulp the other. I ran the skins through again just to be sure I got all the juice. So far I have 1-1/2 gallons of juice in the freezer.

Farmers Market

Here's a pic of Marc helping customers at the Urban Harvest Farmers Market in Houston. We go every other weekend to sell extra veggies and eggs. We had watermelon, cantaloupe, squash zucchini, tomatoes (3 varieties), bell peppers, seedless cucumbers and duck and chicken eggs. The crowd wasn't quite as large as other weekends so we ended up taking home a lot of tomatoes, which is ok, cause I need to can more!

Babies on the Farm!

On February 18th our chickens and ducks turned one year old. On the same day they turned one they became parents. Marc got an inexpensive incubator (at Tractor Supply of course) and after reading and researching all we could, he placed 14 eggs in it.

He also got an automatic turner so he wouldn't have to mark and turn the eggs daily. The turner holds about 40 eggs, but he only put 14 in for the first experiment (now we wonder why we didn't fill it up...). Basically you plug it in and adjust the heat until you have it at 99.5 degrees and place the eggs in, small side down (the head develops in the big end). You keep water in the incubator so the air is humid. You make sure the water level stays constant and that's pretty much all there is to it for the first 19 days.

You're supposed to "candle" the eggs to see if an embryo is forming, but since we have dark brown eggs, we really didn't have much success with that. Thankfully we didn't have an exploding (rotten) eggs. As it turns out, we had two eggs that didn't develop. Next time we will try harder to candle them to make sure we don't have any accidents.

I marked the calendar on the day we put the eggs in the incubator and counted 21 days (or so I thought). Actually I miscounted. Thursday night we heard a strange - chirping - sound and ran to the incubator and saw this:

I looked at the calendar and realized I had miscounted.... Three days before the eggs hatch you're supposed to take out the turner so the chicks can position themselves for hatching. I hoped I hadn't screwed it all up! We quickly moved the eggs onto the wire (after placing muslin on the wire to catch any nastyness) and waited. The first chick came out about 1-2 hours after we first heard the chirping. I could hardly go to sleep that night, it was so exciting.

We figured we'd get about 1-2 chicks out of the deal, but we have 10 chicks. We would have had 12 but we learned, too late, that you're not supposed to open the lid until all the chicks hatch because the humidity drops. But even so, 10 out of 14 is great. Now if only all of them would be hens!!

We have a huge brooder cage in the shed, but it seems like a lot of work to set that all up for 10 chicks, so Marc put a plastic tote in the clawfoot tub and clipped a heat lamp on and that's where they'll stay for a week or so. Aren't they cute?

This is exciting because we can now add to our flock without having to order (and pay for) chicks. Marc is now collecting duck eggs. It will be interesting to see if we have a similar success rate with the ducks. I am envisioning an Easter picture of Journey with ducklings all around....

Sausage Making

We FINALLY had the pig "processed". Josh came with a trailer to load him one freezing morning. We lost track of how long we had him. Savanah got him to show in a fair, but he developed a limp early on which made him unacceptable as a show prospect so that's how we got him. We think we had him about 7 or so months. He got a large amount of cracked corn each day but he preferred table scraps. His favorite food of all was home-grown ripe cantaloupe.

Josh estimated his weight to be around 350. His hanging weight was 250 pounds. I could write an entire post about raising animals for slaughter, processing, humane treatment, etc., but I'll save that for another time.

We're not sure exactly how much meat we ended up with, but it was a lot! We didn't have room in the chest freezer for all of it - some had to go in the fridge freezer and some (the head and the fat) in the fridge in the shed. We gave the head to some people who make tamales. We're going to render the lard (more on that exciting project in another post....)

Since we weren't sure how much sausage we wanted to have, we just had the trimmings ground and put all the roasts in the freezer. In the future we can always grind up some roasts if necessary to make more sausage. We had 25 pounds of trimmings, which is a good bit to work with when you're making the sausage yourself. It was really nice having the meat ground by the butcher. What a timesaver! All we had to do was season, stuff if desired, and smoke (which comes a little later).

I researched home sausage making on the internet and found recipes using 45 and 90 pounds of meat!! I finally found recipes that used 5 or 10 pounds, which is just about right for us. The recipes can be found at www.dakotahsausagestuffer.com/makesausage.htm

The first batch of sausage we made was breakfast sausage. This was very easy. It's basically ground pork, salt and spices. A note on the spice jars shown in the picture - I wanted a spice rack and looked all over the internet but couldn't find one I liked for less than $50. I happened upon one at a yard sale for $2. It included a wooden rack and about 20 or so jars. I cleaned it up, wiped a little stain on the rack to shine it up, and made labels on my ink jet printer. What a good deal!

Ok, so back to the sausage. We made some links and some bulk. The links are somewhat difficult and practice makes perfect. After making all the links I realized you can make one long tube THEN twist the individual links. You want to try to get the links all a uniform size and it's pretty tricky trying to make sure the meat is pushed down into the grinder, you support the casings as the meat is filling it and so on. Of course just about the time you start to get the hang of it you're done. Marc had to handle feeding the grinder while I was in charge of the casings. After a while we got tired of doing that so we finished with bulk sausage. I got supplies from Eldon's Jerky and Sausage Supply. I bought casings and poly storage bags which I used for the breakfast sausage. We packaged the sausage in Foodsaver bags and vacuum sealed them.

For the breakfast sauage, I carefully measured the salt and spices according to the recipe and made a small tester patty, which tasted really good. However, the finished sausage tastes a little salty. Again in hindsight I realize I didn't follow the directions exactly - you're supposed to mix all the salt and spices in the water before you add to the meat. I initially sprinkled the first tablespoon of salt over the meat before I remembered! For 10 pounds of ground trimmings, I added 2 Tbsp. table salt, 1-1/2 Tbsp. sage, 1-1/2 tsp. thyme, 1/2 tsp. ginger, 3/4 tsp. nutmeg, 1/2 tsp. pepper, 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper and 1/2 cup water. Caroline and Stephanie said it needed more sage.

Since the meat was already ground all I had to do was stuff the casings using the food grinder attachment to my Kitchen Aid mixer. I use it quite often to grind roasts I find on sale into hamburger. I bought the sausage stuffer attachment set (the tube thing that comes out the front) on Ebay for about $8 including postage. The grey plastic bin in the photo is a food grade storage tote that I got from the restaurant supply store. It really came in handy for mixing the 10 pounds of pork that we used for the breakfast sausage recipe.

After making the breakfast sausage we made a batch of Beer Brats. I substituted beer for the water in the Bratwurst recipe. Don't they look good?! Marc likes to grill brats but I've never really liked them. I'm hoping that homemade sausages will taste better than store-bought.

Next, we made bulk Italian Sausage. I used our home raised dried cayenne peppers in this to add a little kick. We packaged this in 1 pound packages. I plan to use this for lasagna, spaghetti, pizza, etc. The ground pork is fairly lean - it has less fat than ground chuck.

Next weekend we plan to make Polska Kilebasa, which will be smoked.

We have 12 pounds of bacon curing right now. This weekend when it's done we'll smoke it and I'll post some pics of that process!

Which came first - the chicken or the egg?? The chickens, by about 4-1/2 months

Exciting things going on here at the farm - we had our first eggs today!!! And what did I do with the first one?? Throw it at the rooster who tried to charge me of course.

I have been saying for days that surely we'd find an egg any day now and we should get the nests up. If you know anything about me/us, then you know that hasn't been done. I do tend to procrastinate....

The ducks are scared of everything, including the chickens so they tend to steer clear of them, never going near the chicken hut until most have gone in to roost. The last couple of days we've noticed the ducks going into the chicken hut. This evening I saw a duck sitting down in the dirt near the door, not near any other ducks and wondered what in the world it was doing there. Later I got my rubber boots on and went to investigate. Lo and behold - an egg. My first thought was that it was a chicken egg but this one was white and it should have been brown - what's that all about??? Dumb me - it took me a while to put two and two together and figure out that the duck I'd seen squatting there had laid the egg. I've never had a duck egg before so I was looking for something huge. It's a little longer than a chicken egg, but otherwise looks the same and the innards look the same too. I'm sure they'll get way bigger over time.

We found one tee-tiny pullet egg, nice and brown with a dark orange yolk. I swear it was like 1-1/2 inches! We had four duck eggs, one of which was a double-yolk. Pig-pig got them all because they were all laid in the mud & muck and not in nice clean nests.....

So guess who's putting in nests this weekend?