The Peace that Autumn Brings

Things have gone from madhouse-busy to relative quietude here almost overnight. The pigs have gone to slaughter, the goats are being dried off and tucked in for the Fall and Winter, the garden is all but put to bed, and the chickens have all very suddenly begun their molt.

The lack of Summer's endless chores is a refreshing change.

The flipside of that, of course, is that we are soon to have no more goat milk, eggs or fresh produce until early Spring. All of which I'm ok with - for now. The predictable cycle of antsy anticipation (Hurry up and grow!) eventually fading into frustration and fatigue (Por favor, no mas, zucchini. I surrender!) has nearly come full circle. I'm not itching to plant anything yet, but I have already started mulling over which fruit and veg will make the cut for next Spring's garden and which won't. My thoughts, so far -

The Keepers:
*Cocozelle zucchini (though maybe half as many plants)
*Cylindra beets (again, half as many)
*Early Bush Scallop squash (Pattypan)
*Russian red kale
*German chamomile
*Calendula
*Toma Verde tomatillos
*Sweet basil
*Scarlet Runner beans
*Hungarian Blue bread poppies
*Roma/Paste tomatoes (Probably a different variety, though. The Roman Speckled Paste never ripened at all.)
*Borage (We didn't really use any ourselves, but Billy's honeybees were NUTS for the stuff.)
*Sugar Pie and Cinderella pumpkins
*Scarlet Nantes and Little Fingers carrots (Maybe 2 beds worth next time?)
*French Breakfast and Cherry Belle radishes

Hmmm, maybe:
*Yukon Chief sweet corn (many ears came out stunted, loses it's sweetness and becomes starchy very soon after picking.)
*Golden beets (For whatever reason, these were slug magnets and had to be pulled rather early, lest we lose the whole beet bed to the slugs.)
*William Naked Seed pumpkins (The jury is still out on these, as they haven't been harvested yet)
*Onions (Our success with the onion family has been very limited. Billy is super keen to figure them out though, so...)
*Sunflowers for seed (These seem to be taking forever to ripen. I think it's about even odds now that they'll mold/rot on the vine before ever becoming fully ripe.)
*Lettuces (Apparently, we don't eat enough salad to justify growing more than a few cut-and-come-again plants.)
*Sugar beets (These all went to the pigs. Since we don't know yet if we're doing pigs next year, these are a maybe.)

Nope:
*Minnesota Midget Melon cantaloupe (Never fully ripened on the vine, attracted mice in droves, even the ripe fruit wasn't terribly flavorful.)
*Mammoth Melting peas (They don't transplant well for me, and take forever to get their feet under them, whether transplanted or direct-sown.)
*Yellow squash (Between the zukes and the pattypan, we had more than enough Summer squash.)

Haven't Yet, but Wanna:
*Florence fennel
*Potatoes (Haven't decided on a variety yet)
*Cannellini beans?
*Pickling cucumbers
*Cilantro (It was a huge oversight on our part that we didn't get it in the garden this year.)

And that's as far as I've come with all that. My brain is about to go on a mini-vacation before the Winter/holiday season crafting/knitting/soap making freak-out begins. Bon voyage, mes amis.

The view from my studio of our little garden and Goatlandia in late Summer, September 2013.

Fall Done Fell

In the space of a week we've gone from humidity, thunderstorms and 80 degree temps to falling leaves and pea soup fog in the mornings. Fall has arrived in Boggy Hollow, and with it, as ever, a nearly-endless list of stuff that needs doing, yesterday.

As a bit of strategery, I am posting my to-do list here in the hope that the threat of an on-the-record public shaming will serve as motivation for me to get my crap together and not, say, take a nap with my puppy.

Hope springs eternal.

Chelle's end of Summer/Fall To-Do list:

*Finish harvesting the garden - tomatoes, tomatillos, basil, lemon balm, garlic chives, runner beans, pumpkins, cylindrical beets, sunflowers, chamomile, calendula, breadseed poppies, Fall raspberries

*Forage - apples, crab apples, pears, walnuts, hazelnuts, hawthorn berries, rose hips, dandelion roots, mushrooms?

*Can/Freeze/Dehydrate - Spaghetti sauce, tomato paste, tomatillo salsa, pumpkin puree, hard cider (apple, pear, hawthorn, etc.), wine (rose hip, hawthorn, raspberry), egg noodles (using beets, basil, etc.), pumpkin ravioli, chamomile, lemon balm and calendula for tea and soapmaking, dandelion roots (for bitters), pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, beet chips, beet greens, compound herb butters (basil, lemon balm, garlic chive), Scarlet Runner beans, 3 "surplus" roosters, 2 tom turkeys.

*Ferment - Cider (for ACV), wine, sauerkraut

*Make - At least 2 more batches of soap - one with goat milk and one vegan, re-batch soap trimmings, knit at least 2 dozen more dishcloths and 6 pair of bike helmet earmuffs

*Set up/Organize - The new pantry/storage room shelving - oy. This will probably involve a trip to IKEA, better known in our family as the Yuppie Modular Cattle Chute from Hell. Uff da.

As if that weren't enough, in addition to my regular Mom duties, a friend and I are in the process of starting a new business that entails real estate deals, meetings with bankers, tons of market research, paperwork and spreadsheets out the wazoo and a big, fat, healthy dose of sheer panic. Good times!

So, there you have it. My next 12 weeks, chock-full of farm housewifferey (did I just invent that word?), lava-hot mason jars and self-imposed stress and deadlines. Hold my feet to the fire to get this stuff done, guys and gals, because that nap is looking better with each passing minute.

Coming Soon...

...after the last wheelbarrow full of tomatoes is canned, the last of our three-roosters-too-many are culled and sent to the stock pot, and I've had a day or two to straight-up veg out on the couch, I'll be posting a long overdue giveaway!

Because I'm still presently freaking out all a-tither over getting a ton of produce picked and put up, I don't yet have my lineup of goodies selected, but don't be surprised to see some jam, salsa, sauce and maybe a knit or two in there. More details and the pics of the goods are forthcoming... soon (I hope.)

This represents a wee sampling of what I'm working on these days. Mercy!

Putting Up

Our predictably unpredictable end-of-Summer weather here in Western Washington is wigging me out.

One day it's 80's and deep-south humid, the next it's 60 degrees and straight downpour. It's Summer, it's Fall - no wait - it's still Summer. Hows about some hot rain to go with that 90% humidity? My brain has slipped into Fall mode - sleep in, bake bread, wear pjs all day, read, read, read. Meanwhile the copious sweating and 5 pound zucchinis snap me back to my reality - it's the end of Summer push.

I have already put up 50ish pounds of our squash, dozens of pounds of beets, assorted flavors/colors of homemade egg noodles and my puercos will soon be in the freezer as well; we're in no danger of starving. And yet, as tired as I am of picking and processing our produce incessantly, I can't stop. There is a MST of stuff still be done before I can laze about with a clear conscience.

This coming weekend is the 4th (5th?) annual Jam-o-Rama with my homegirl, Jen. Next weekend will be apple juicin' fest, and the week after that, probably tomato sauce and salsa time. I'm kinda tired just thinking about it...

Even if I don't make epic strides each day, as long as I can/dehydrate/freeze something, I feel like I'm making at least a little dent.

"Italian veg" going in the freezer - yellow squash, zucchini, scarlet runner beans and basil.

Bacon Time is Nigh

Our trio of piglets, Baykin, Proscuitto and Porkchop (aka Chopz), are rapidly approaching their date with the abattoir. I find myself eager, relieved and a little sad too, but mostly, relieved.

Back when they were still cuteish.

These three little piggies joined the Boggy Hollow crew back in mid-March, just eight weeks old and weighing in at about 30 pounds each. Ever since that moment, it seems to have been their primary mission in life to eat us out of house and home. We have no real way of knowing what they weigh now until the deed is done and their hanging weight is pronounced, but if they're not at least 200-pounds each, I'm a monkey's uncle. Specifically, a sad, angry, idiot-who-spent-her-last-dime-on-pig-food, variety of monkey's uncle.

The ideal weight and age for harvesting a hog is 225-270 pounds, more or less, and at around 6 months of age. These three are nearly 8 months old, and hopefully 225 or better each, so the time has most definitely arrived for them to move on.

Even if they're short on weight, there are others issues in play that make this the right time to harvest. At the top of our list is that Winter is coming.

Can I get a what-what for my Game of Thrones peeps?

More specifically, mud season is on it's way back, and slogging 40+ pounds of feed per day through shin-deep liquid clay mud has limited appeal.

Secondly, the pigs are eating an outrageous amount of food these days. Their rations have been increased to one 40# bag of rolled barley per day, all of our (and our friends') windfall apples (5ish pounds more or less per day?) and anything coming out of the garden that is past it's prime/less than perfect, such as blimp-sized zucchini, mouse-nibbled cantaloupe, corn stovers and aphid-ravaged kale, plus their daily ration of our fresh, raw, goats milk. In the past, we've supplemented their rations with bakery outlet bread products, but the failure of many grain crops this year and last has made laying hands on previously unwanted leftovers nearly impossible most months. 

I'm competing with cattle ranchers, chicken farmers and food banks for the day-old and otherwise not-fit-for-sale (often utterly perfect), increasingly scarce calories, and so, with "terminal" stock that is near harvest anyway, I gladly bow out of the fray. 

Lastly - flavorful, clean, humanely raised pork (and all meat for that matter) is expensive. Our family of four eats about one pound of meat/protein per evening meal, at an average cost of $8 per pound. That figure factors in that we've been eating a fair amount of grass-finished ground beef (at around 5.99/lb) and occasionally a nicer cut of beef, lamb or pork (up to 10.99/lb or so) with our own wild-caught seafood (salmon, crab) sprinkled in the mix to spread things out. Conservatively, that puts our monthly meat budget at around $240 per month, for just a single 4-ounce serving per person, per day. The pigs are presently eating one $13 bag of barley per day. Alas, the time to pay the piper has arrived.

At 7 1/2 months old, they still look kinda cute, right? After you nearly lose a few fingers to their eager maws, maybe not so much. Their charm fades pretty quickly after that...

The bottom line is, it's time for us to stop feeding the pigs, and time for them to start feeding us.

With any luck, our 1 piggy (the other 2 are going to our Mamas) will yield us enough pork to put beautiful, high quality meat on our table until this time next year. Whether or not we'll find ourselves raising and harvesting our own pigs at this time next year depends completely on how this pork tastes, and how the numbers shake out when all is said and done.

I do offer my thanks to these odd little (huge) critters for the nutrition and sustenance that they will provide for my family, and for the experience that we've had with them this Spring and Summer. Our critters help us grow as farmers and as people. They teach us so much. 

Many thanks, mis puercos.

Update 9/21/13 - The butcher shop called, the piggies' hanging weights were 170, 170 & 207 pounds. Using my marginal math skills, at a total cost of about $1300 (initial purchase price, feed, kill fee), divided by the estimated final "wrapped" weight (70% of hanging weight - 547 x .7= 383lbs) equals roughly 3.39/pound. Not a huge win, financially, but when compared to the average cost of the cheapest cut per pound of organic/non-CAFO pork that is commercially available, (which is usually the ground, unseasoned pork), we'll enjoy a savings of about $3.40 per pound. On the "nicer" cuts, the savings go up.

Speaking strictly financially, this was a worthwhile endeavor for us. We'll be keeping just one of the pigs for ourselves, the 207-pounder. The other two are destined for the freezers of our parental units.

So, based upon my voodoo math - 207lbs x .7 = 144.9 (the "wrapped weight"), times our cost of $3.39/lb = $491.21. Our year's supply of pork will have cost us $491 instead of $983 - a $492 savings. :)

To Market, to Market

I've been running around today trying to put the finishing touches on my crafts, produce and what-not before getting up bright and early tomorrow to sell my wares at the annual Love our Local Fest here in Olympia.

I somehow got the bright idea to make a bunch of my homemade egg noodles, using our eggs and our produce, as if I wasn't busy enough. Now I'm looking at pulling late-nighter/all-nighter #3 in order to get all of this pasta rolled, cut, dried and packaged. Oof! But on the up side, isn't it pretty?

Egg noodles made with our Cylindra beets

As much as I look forward to going to and spending the day at the market, I gotta admit, I'll be a little relieved (and probably sleep for 24 hours straight) once it's done. August is already so busy around here, it'll be nice to get in quick breather before the school year starts up again.

Come and see me tomorrow if you're a local-yokel. ;) Olympia's Love our Local Fest

August Exhaustion

This morning I woke up to a fiery-hot pain in my shoulder. In fact, my entire right arm feels fit to fall right off. I think I've managed to figure out why...

...I've been knitting. A LOT.

...picking, washing chopping, slicing and grating dozens of pounds of squash.

...cutting and trimming up fifty-bajillion bars of soap.

...hand wrapping and labeling those same fifty-bajillion bars of soap.

Yes, my house is in ruins right now, but aren't my knits and soaps purty?! That 40ish pounds of squash that I put into the freezer last night is a different kind of purty. I feel very pleased with my level of productivity, but madre, my arm! :\